Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin weighs Vikings, Bears futures (and attempts a pie chart)

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by ESPN's Courtney Cronin to discuss the futures of the Vikings and Bears. Which NFC North has the best chances long term? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and look who is in studio! ESPN's Courtney Cronin has made her way to Minneapolis. How are you? Great to see you! This is wild. This is such a throwback to our days recording inside of TCOs, sequestering whatever room we could get into. And it's wild to be here. I love your setup though. This is nice. We have like real functional mics instead of me holding onto the ones that

were connected into the Zoom and clicking them all around. But this is awesome. I'm proud of you. You've leveled up with all of this and this is an awesome setup. Yeah. Those who have watched the YouTube channel for a long time know the progress of this and how janky it has been at times but now we're here we've got it all figured out and uh it's great so you've got video games over there you can't see this on camera right now but his nintendo super nintendo's over there i see all the cartridges where's your n64 uh the n64 is over there is it golden eye in the cartridge uh that is ken griffey jr slugfest and then there's a PS2, a couple of TVs over here. So yeah, we've made it into the I am still kind of a child type of studio.

But you don't have much time because you've got to catch a flight back to Chicago. So I want to dive into what the Vikings are doing with you. Because I've gotten your takes on the Chicago Bears throughout the offseason, what they're doing. Now we all know exactly what they're doing in drafting Caleb Williams, but I haven't really asked you your opinion on what the Vikings are going to do on draft night. And even just seeing this come together from afar with Kevin O'Connell, Kweisi Daffo-Mensa, this is the completion of the plan for wrestling fans. The Cody Rhodes,

it was finished the story. Did you follow that at all? I'm not a WrestleMania person, but I tried. Okay. People would know what I meant. If you like wrestling, it was finished the story for Cody Rhodes. It is finished the story for the Vikings on, on draft night. But do you believe in it? Do you believe in what Kweisi D'Affomenza and Kevin O'Connell have done here to get to this point. I think it's the right approach given everything that's transpired the first two years of this regime. So remember, it's competitive rebuild. And you and I were both skeptical. I think a lot of people were about how that was going to manifest itself.

Could you actually be rebuilding behind the scenes and still field a competitive team? It worked for one year. It, for a number of different reasons, did not seem to work, at least in terms of wins for more than a 7-10 team last season. But for as aggressive as they've been this offseason, to go get Houston's first-round pick so now that they have two and to be in position to trade up, which I know that teams are going to make that difficult because it's so obvious that they have two and to be in position to trade up which I know that teams are going to make that difficult because it's so obvious what they need to do and what

they are positioning themselves to do it's just where do you get in that top six of the draft order because you certainly can't go any you need to leapfrog the New York Giants in my humblest of opinions but it's it's the right approach and if they can just get their guy by packaging what they have right now, just get a quarterback for this year. So it, you've solved one of the hardest things to do because this seems never, they've never been aggressive in doing that in all the years that we covered the team and certainly history before that, like if they didn't have a first round pick that put them in an earshot of what they wanted at that position they weren't gonna try to go give up the farm to go get their guy and I and I don't view this as having to do that so I think this is right along where they

expected to be in terms of completing that mission of saying goodbye to Kirk Cousins a month ago of finding a way to bridge the gap at least for now with Sam Darnold, and then being aggressive and being calculated to go get the draft capital they need to ultimately move up. Because, I mean, we go back to the combine. You and I were talking about that throughout the week. Like that's what we had been hearing

that Kwesi was going to have to do and was positioning himself wisely to do, dating back to the time before they let go of Kirk Cousins in free agency. And Kwesi even really said that today, that this was the plan all along to the time before they let go of Kirk Cousins in free agency. And Kweisi even really said that today, that this was the plan all along from the time that they first got here, which I believe because everything lines up that way, including their first offer to Kirk Cousins,

which was not that good for an extension. When they got here, they gave him a short-term extension. They tried to do it again. He said, no, they tried to do it again he said no they tried to do it again he said no and became a falcon all of that points to they've had their eyes on these quarterbacks for this quarterback class not will levis in the last class not was it the malik willis and kenny pickett they didn't want those guys so they didn't make that move the last two years but now they believe in this draft class if you were ryan poles what outcome for the vikings would you be like dang didn't want him to do that and which outcome would you be like

we'll be fine we're good oh they drafted him with that no we're good well what does it take to win this division or just baseline borderline like be competitive in this division you need a quarterback so any of the quarterbacks that they take and we know that the bears are also like where they're taking caleb williams that's happening but they like jj mccarthy and they like him a lot think about how many people they sent to his pro day alone even though you can't that's not like the end-all be-all but i think they sent carrie joseph and like a national scout and maybe an area scout to Drake may like after sending everybody works in Hallis Hall more or less to, to USC is pro day to watch Caleb Williams. Like they like,

they like JJ McCarthy. They think something's there, but if he ends up a Viking a, that's not going to shock anybody. And B I do think that that's going to be something where like, Hmm, might this be the guy who we didn't want to see go anywhere within the division? So that one would probably be one they're like, darn, or however you did that the first time.

I don't remember. But the one where they'd be like, eh, whatever. I guess it would have to be a situation where teams are really trying to rake them over the coals. And it'd be too much for them to move up and get a quarterback where they effectively during the draft have to alter their plan i mean i still think they would take a quarterback but god what this is like nuclear like worst case scenario like what if it's spencer rattler at in the second round i still think it'd be mike i think it'd be michael pennix jr before then which maybe that maybe they'd look at that and say hmm that's you

know that's still a very competitive that makes you a competitive team better than having a you know more of a project at quarterback but they'd be like everybody else in the division would be happier if other teams were calling the vikings bluff as like oh no like maybe we don't want to move up and really trying to you know rake them over the coals with that my answer would be if they were to land drake may i think if you're ryan poles you're probably a little nervous because even though drake may has his flaws he also has his upside and the upside along with justin jefferson of a giant playmaking dude with a huge arm could be really good and that could compete with jordan love and compete with caleb williams if it's Nix, you're probably less intimidated.

That doesn't mean that Bo Nix can't win. It's just the ceiling, the upside, the, hey, is this guy, right, the age, is this guy going to take over games against Eberfluss' defense? Like, probably not. And with Drake May, I think if you're Matt matt eberflus you're probably also feeling like what i want the vikings to have is somebody that i can scheme against and if i win we're going to be fine not someone who's going to make me wrong and that's what i like the most about drake may in particular is that there were lots of times with north carolina where people broke through

immediately or where receivers looked like they ran the wrong route or something. And he just found a way to make plays. That's something you and I did not see a lot of from Kirk cousins with McCarthy. I think it might be there, but not quite to the level. And that's, I don't know. It makes him such an intriguing prospect. And I will laugh at all of us, myself included. If all of the smoke that's come out the last four or five weeks, him climbing up most mock drafts into being you know this guy was a second round pick in like mock draft 1.0 from mel kuyper or whoever it was jordan reed a couple months ago late january right around the

time of the senior bowl and then all of a sudden this guy might be the third or fourth quarterback taken like where what so where do we come like how did we get there but it it's because we just don't know yet what his arms like and what his arms going to be like on a consistent basis when he's consistently tasked with picking a defense apart like can he do it is that there is there a reason that they didn't put him in that position to do it at michigan like that's the unknown and if you have all of these teams evaluating the quarterback prospects the way that clearly the quarterback needy teams are maybe they know something that we don't and what for the I don't know for the Vikings if they're

able to like if it's Drake I just Drake Mays probably the third quarterback off the board if not the second like the I just can they actually get there do we do we really think the patriots are trading out of that pick i'm not convinced on that i don't think so either unless it's some sort of crazy deal unless we're talking about four first what's the legal limit on firsts i think it's three is it not i you can do more than three right if you had two for this year okay sorry yeah in terms of the years you can't go beyond three years in the draft but so you'd say like but like let's let's use logic here you don't think you think the vikings would give up four first round picks no for drake may no i don't that might be like the worst trade of all time or he could be really good or he could be really good

but i just does he there's nowhere out there that has a projection that says sign off on this trade, Mark and Ziggy. This is a great one. This is going to help usher this team into the post Kirk Cousins era. I just don't see that. Well, let me try to justify it. I don't believe in it, but let me try. If you think that if he fails, you're getting fired anyway, then screw the next guy. He either succeeds and is amazing with Justin Jefferson and you win and spend all the additional money to fix the defense from free agency, or he's bad. And that is someone else's problem in the future. Sorry, you don't have those draft picks. Kevin O'Connell does come from the Rams bleep them picks. I'm just saying the hardest question to answer is Mel Kuyper's scenario,

which is, do you give up 11, 23 and the next year to move up for McCarthy? And I'll tell you, my take is kind of similar to what you're talking about, where I'm wondering if McCarthy's a tad overrated by the mock drafters and the Vikings might be able to sit and potentially pick him. And I mean, overrated by a few spots, but it's almost been an absolute guarantee that you have to move up and get him. And I don't know that that's true. I just know that people who do draft reporting that are maybe a coin flip for

right or wrong. Think that you do. And that's, it's not a complete apples to apples comparison, but were we not talking about this last year with one, two, three, four off the board? Where did Will Levis go? We had to wait a whole nother day till he went off the board to the Titans in the early part of the second round. I don't, again, it's not a complete, you know, scenario. Like it's not completely the same, but would I be surprised if he fell there to 11? No. Would I be surprised if Michael Penix Jr. ended up being a first round pick in the top half of the draft?

No, I wouldn't be surprised about that either. I keep trying to think back to the last time there were five quarterbacks of this notoriety that got this much attention. And you go back to the 2021 draft. That's the last example we had of that you know how that draft order fell by 15 they were all gone so do teams panic do you if you're a team that's outside of the top 10 if you're like basically if you're denver if you're the minnesota vikings and if you're the las vegas raiders teams that need a quarterback now but also down the line like what's going to be the trigger for them to get panic if you see offense go one through eight and then the bears are there again at nine and they're like, all right, wide receiver. Like, do you start, like,

if you, if you haven't moved up, do you try to get there at 10 to where the jets are? If you're panicking, if you think that like, if four quarterbacks are already gone, then you think, okay, well, I've got to go get Bo Nix now, or I've got to go get Michael Pennix jr. Before, you know, before they're gone by the end of the, by the middle of the first round. So the thought of it taking three first round picks to

this year, one next year to go get a JJ McCarthy, that feels farfetched. But if it is Drake May and where Drake May's been in the whole mock draft world, the last couple of months, whether it's the second overall pick or the third overall pick, might be the cost and i just i would love to be in the draft room to hear what the wilfs would say because your scenario of what if this group is gone and i don't know if that would mean o'connell but like we had you know heard just like all right what about quacey's job security we believe it's a four-year contract when he when he signed it is this going to be something long term do they give him an extension this offseason who knows i don't know if they'd be willing to We believe it's a four-year contract when he signed it. Is this going to be something long-term? Do they give him an extension this offseason?

Who knows? I don't know if they'd be willing to let those things happen in order to screw over the next group. If they might be thinking, hey, we might not be completely sold on who's running our football operation. No, you're right. There's a lot of dynamics at play, including how much Kevin O'Connell likes

one guy over the next. I mean, Kwesi Dafa Mensah has to say, we love lots of quarterbacks. We don't know if that's true. And there's also another scenario where McCarthy is hype is even more than we thought. And he ends up going number two or number three. And we all go, wait a minute. What we thought that was Jaden Daniels. And then it's four and five and either May or Daniels is on the board. That's something that we have not really discussed a lot is the possibility of either one of them falling. And then do the Vikings have to give up everything to move up and get a better prospect, in my opinion, because someone fell in love with JJ McCarthy.

There's a, there's a lot of moving parts here. I think everybody's hoping if you're the Vikings or any of these other teams further down in the, you know, out, you know, back end of the top 10 outside of the top 10, that it's like receiver, receiver, receiver, like that, that the Cardinals don't trade that pick, that the chargers end up taking a receiver that the giants are like, no, we're cool with Daniel Jones. We just paid him a ton of money. We might as well get him a weapon to throw to.

Then like if it's three and then there's three straight receivers taken, might you be in a better position or are you freaking out thinking that JJ McCarthy could be the next guy, even though, you know, teams like Tennessee don't need a quarterback. They need Joe walls, teams like Atlanta probably need a defensive end teams like the bears. They probably need a receiver unless there's a defensive end that they really like.

And then could you maybe hold onto some of that extra draft capitals? Cause you're not moving heaven and earth to get up to 10. Like it's a, I'm fascinated by that. And a lot of people have asked me just about the Caleb Williams situation or like, well, where's the drama now? We know it's a lock, like more or less. Does that make it less exciting for you covering the draft or more exciting? I'm like, I think it's more because now you're like, all right,

can we just start to draft it too? Like, can we just like, I mean, in reality, they could sign him right now if they wanted to. I think they would end up irritating a lot of people on Park Avenue if they just decided to, you know, circumvent the draft process and take away the allure of having the number one pick and making that pick for the commissioner. But the draft starts at two when we find out who does Washington really love?

If it's JJ McCarthy, then like the draft gets flipped upside down and it'll be a wild 90 minute stretch till we get to where the Vikings at least are on the clock at that point if they don't move up. Folks, we all have smartphones and we know that they are pretty amazing, but they can also be amazingly distracting, especially when we're around other people. So, U.S. Cellular wants us to reset our relationship with our phones by putting down our phones for five. That's right. A company that sells phones wants us to put down our phones and see what we can find. Learn more at uscellular.com slash built for us. That's uscellular.com slash built for us.

And Washington is a wild card because that's a whole new ownership. It's a whole new management and we don't really have a sample at all to go back and say, well, this is kind of how they operate. Now I can't have you in this studio and not do a pie chart. So you're going to have to do it. I do. There is a pen and pad there.

If you want it, if you want to borrow that. Yeah. Cause obviously, you know, I'm terrible at math. Like I was not prepared for this. Just so you guys know,

this isn't, this isn't a stunt. stunt i now have i guess this and where's the pencil yeah that'll work that's a pen all right here here's the challenge now you guys actually get to see me go through the process in real time with him like stressing me out this is not that hard although maybe i'll just add a little that that. It's not that difficult. All I want to ask is since we have four clubs that are in different spots, but all of them have a case for being pretty good. So you've got the Vikings set to draft their quarterback. You have Caleb Williams coming to the bears, Jared Goff, leading a really good Detroit lions team and Jordan love and green Bay with a

young roster to build on percentages for each team to win the NFC North 2025, not next year, 2025. So that means Caleb Williams year two Drake may or quarterback X year two Jordan love will be maybe a little more expensive and Jared Goff could potentially be more expensive. And so could that team. So 2025, these teams to win the division. Because right now, if you were doing it, it's a race between the Packers and the Lions. And then who knows how good is Caleb Williams right away? We're not sure.

Do the Vikings even play Caleb Williams right away? We're not sure. Do the Vikings even play their quarterback right away? I would have the Vikings fourth at this moment because my expectation is that they would play Sam Darnold until they went four and seven, and then they would play JJ McCarthy or whoever, and they end up with seven or eight wins. That's why it's dangerous to give up the 2025 first for the Vikings. Because if you do end up with six wins and Sam Darnold starts most of the season that you're giving up a pretty high draft pick. This is the calculator is out here.

It only goes to a hundred because this is really hard for me. I'm not going to get this wrong and have be embarrassed. Like I have been countless times in my math skills. That's actually what makes it great. No, it's not because then you're going to yell at me. I'm just wait. All right. and be embarrassed like I have been countless times in my math skills. That's actually what makes it great. No, it's not, because then you're going to yell at me. Just wait. All right.

That's also true. All right, let's see. Some of these percentages might be the same. I just have to add them up and make sure that they don't cheat. All right. All right, I'm ready. Okay, all right. All right, so the best chance I have right now, and this isn't home cooking,

but I have the Bears with a 30% chance to win the division in 2025. For obvious reasons, Caleb Williams coming into this team is the missing link at this point because they've never been able to draft and develop a quarterback in the modern era of the NFL. They haven't had the right infrastructure. And even he realized it, that this is not a normal situation for a number one pick coming in. He's coming into a team that was finished with a seven and 10 record last year, which yeah, that's not great. That was the bottom of the NFC North bottom of the NFC, uh, or in the middle of the middle of the bottom of the NFC. They weren't as bad as the Panthers,

but typically when you have the number one overall pick, that guy's going to a team like Carolina. Right. There's like a two win team that doesn't have montez sweat exactly and i i i'm a firm believer that they will get something done with keenan allen like he's not going to be there forever but it was a smart pick for year one of a new quarterback surround him with weapons that make him better dj moore made justin fields better for as shoddy as that looked at times last year and Roma Dunzay is the pick yeah that's I think at number nine although like you could I've talked whoever they're picking though that's another top 10 player or it could be a defensive end yeah like to start opposite Montez Sweat although there are some veteran options that might make sense I still think they go offense I think

honestly I go back to the Khalil Mack trade in 2022 which i know it's like ancient history at this point to me that was a day that everything started to skew offense in chicago for the long term um so i've got the bears with a 30 chance in 2025 to win the nfc north my next best odds are tied is this a cop-out this is a cop it's not a cop-out it's because you put me under pressure to do math in a very short amount of time when I was not prepared for that. You're saying it's not really, you're not really ranking them if you're giving even odds, but okay, I'll let you do it. Well, it's the Vikings and the Packers. I have them each at 25% because if I'm looking at Green Bay and the situation they're in right now with Jordan Love. He'll be in year six at that point. He's already like at the top

of the NFC North in terms of the quarterbacks that you don't want to face. They clearly found a formula there to make that work. My question mark with Green Bay would just be defensively. And I mean, Joe Barry gone, who knows what this unit's going to be like this year. You'd like to think it's, they're not going to be um like this year you'd like to think it's they're not going to be playing that soft zone nonsense in like critical situations like i don't know two minute drill um anyways but it's is there a regression there or does that defense get back to where it was a couple years ago when they were like just dominating even like during the rogers era so i i think that you, there are a couple there,

there are a team that has shown you given their draft strategy, the last couple of years of finding, you know, some higher end talent at the end of the first round in the second round, in the third round, they can get it done. Like I remember it's not like, the Bears defense was a good defense at the end of the year. They're a top five unit, but I didn't know who half the guys were that were catching passes from Jordan love in week 18.

I really don't. So the fact that they got it done there, I think that this team with the quarterback, that's probably a 10, 15 year thing. They solved their franchise issue with the quarterback spot. Maybe not 15, but okay.

Yeah. I mean, a 10, Jordan, maybe it's 2020. I guess if he's like 40. No, he's possible. I'm saying like from the time he got there, 2020 till, I mean, realistically that the

end of his career could be like 15 years. Okay. We'll see if he could do it for two years in a row. Yeah. Let's try that. Let's get there first. So then I've got the Vikings with 25% too. So, and the reason I have this here is because I think a lot of the hard things that

they had to do with this roster and, you know, they didn't rip the bandaid off. Like they did this kind of piece by piece. So first it was, you know, saying goodbye to Dalvin or first it was, you know, parting ways with some pieces on the defense. Then it was saying goodbye to Dalvin cook. Then it was saying goodbye to Alexander Madison, Daniil Hunter, you know, Eric Kendricks was in that mix as well. Uh, like they're gonna have pieces there's still some older pieces on this team like harrison smith eventually will have to retire they may have to like you know yank him out of the out of the locker room he might he might be 40 or something still playing safety but i i do think this is the year that they figure out the quarterback

given what they're armed with in the draft. They're in a good spot to go figure out their quarterback situation. They've got an all-star at wide receiver. Just get the deal done whenever they're going to do it. I think that when they get in the spot to compete with the other teams in the division, they will probably be like, I guess this would be like two and three in 2025. And then I have the lions at 20. And the reason I,

outside of the math and like trying to figure out, well, somebody's got to be at the bottom of this. What happens when Ben Johnson inevitably leaves next year? Cause like he didn't want to go to Washington. We know that much, but does the offense change? How does,

can Jared golf? I mean, it's been two years now where we've seen him really excel within this team and get to the nfc championship i think they have another year of that in in the midst i think that what they do with their running with their running game and how active both of those guys were with a multitude of roles that they were served in with david montgomery and jameer gib. And then the offensive line, that's the best offensive line in the NFC North defensively.

I have questions. I have questions about Aaron Glenn's unit. Like, I mean, we've had questions since we watched them, you know, lose their, like, lose, like lose their mind in that Thanksgiving game. Is that defensively, are they going to end up being what like versions of the bears and Vikings were like in our years where the defense kind of was their Achilles heel? Can they get away from that? Is this the year where like they're able to, you know, write some of their wrongs from

what we saw in 2023. So then in 2025, maybe I'm changing my pick. I don't know, but like, I'll go through it again. 30% bears to win the division in 2025 which is a lot of pressure i mean four years into a rebuild to go from like zero to a hundred that's probably a standard amount of time but 30 for them 25 25 for the vikings and packers and 20 for the lions and the math adds up to 100 that's like the biggest accomplishment that i've got not with a calculator you get no points for that yes i do stop like trying to like beat me down uh well i mean i don't think that if you

use the calculator you can really like pimp the home run right if you're hitting off a batting machine not a pitcher then you can't pimp the home run uh anyway I like your list though. I like your pie chart because A, I think that all four teams fan bases could put together an entire presentation of why they will be the best in 2025. Will the Lions have added more beef to this or will they have gotten a little more expensive and had some guys get hurt or whatever happens to teams?

It's hard to compete year after year after year you're gonna have to pay a lot of guys like starting this year with Amon Ross so right and then Jared Goff needs an extension and as you mentioned Ben Johnson probably gets a job after next season assuming they don't hold that Washington thing against him and you we saw this we saw a team rise and then plateau with the Vikings. I feel like Caleb Williams, because his ceiling is the best quarterback in the NFC, that's his ceiling. That doesn't mean he'll get there,

but that is his ceiling. That's what puts them in position to be number one. That as much as Jordan Love showed last year, Caleb Williams at his absolute best could possibly be even better than Jordan Love. And with the Vikings, we don't know which guy they're going to pick. So that's harder. That makes it really difficult.

But you can believe in what they have offensively surrounding this quarterback for the next many years to come. And there's no shortchanging Brian Flores in this too because they have his evaluation abilities and his abilities to coach X's and O's. And I just don't think he's going anywhere. I don't think Brian Flores is going to get a head coaching job probably ever again, or at least not for a long time.

And that would mean you can continue to build that defense. So the Vikings in two years might have not only this great offensive unit with young players, but an elite defense by them that's been built over a number of years. I think everybody's got a number of years. I think everybody's got a good argument. And I mean, you kind of squeeze them together in the right way, as much as I do think it's a slight cop-out to have the Vikings and Packers, uh, the same. I should probably do like ones like 27%, ones that, Oh my gosh, this would have imploded. I have to say, do you realize we would still be doing the math on that? Or I would be,

you have about 10 minutes before you have to go for flight. So let's spend those minutes talking about you and I covering drafts from 2018 would have been your first until 2022, right? Yeah. You covered the disaster trade down in 2022. No, I covered. Or we were in Chicago. I was in Chicago at that that point so i actually pulled them up because i was trying to remember like all of the drafts and because you did the combine

covering the vikings right no i actually switched is that when you switch my last story was on a friday covering the vikings um and it was about i remember it was like all of the traits of a kevin o'connell offense um and then like by Monday, I was talking about Matt. How do you pronounce it? Iberfish. Yeah. I probably said it like that the first time, but no, my first draft was Mike Hughes, the 2018 draft.

And then my last one was 2021, the Kellen Mond draft, which will always be remembered as the Kellen Mond draft. Yes, because folks on the internet called you foolish for suggesting the vikings would draft calum on and then they did and then it didn't work out uh so 2018 what i remember from 2018 is this was the only time i was ever surprised by rick spielman in all the drafts that i covered we always knew by the time we got there they're gonna draft for need here's what they need and then spielman would well, you guys don't know what we're going to do. And then all of our mock drafts would be essentially right. And at least by the position, oftentimes even by the player, but 2018,

I never expected a corner in Mike Hughes. And then after he added pick six in the first game, Mike Zimmer mocked all of us for questioning the pick because we thought, don't you need some other positions more? And the wrongest I've been about any draft pick for the Vikings was Brian O'Neill. When they picked Brian O'Neill and he showed up to rookie minicamp, I was like, no, that's a tight end. That's not a tackle. This guy can't play. And he's obviously great. Do you remember seeing seeing him i remember writing a story about how much weight he had to put on when he ate like 3 000 plus calories a day he was like chugging whole milk and eating peanut butter and jelly it's something he did when he was a converted tight end at pit um and i remember the welcome to the nfl moment when they were practicing inside

the stadium at tCO and Brian Robinson, Robinson, just like he's O'Neill's in his past that at right tackle. And Robinson just takes his hands and swats them down. Yes. I remember that really well. Move on him. And I was like, Oh my God,

this is going to be a long project, but God, what a, what a steal, like in the second round to land him there at, what was he 70? No, he's at 62 and for him as quickly as he

was able to cement himself at right tackle and become one of the best right tackles in the NFL like I remember that press conference when he signed his extension ahead of the 2021 season like it was only a matter of time and for as much criticism as we've given them for how they've addressed the offensive line i go back to 2018 thinking okay draft for need well you could have used frank ragnar there that was my pick in our espn mock draft my first year that i did that and like you know the board didn't fall that way he went to detroit before the vikings were on the clock at 18 it was um that was a wild time thinking like how that whole thing played out and how you know how that whole draft class excuse me when they were on the clock at 30

um especially given like you know I look at some of these players that are on here like Tyler Conklin like isn't that wild like how much he's resurrected his career like how how infrequent his role was in Minnesota. And now with the Jets, basically that's where he kind of blossomed into a really good offensive player. And I'm like, why couldn't the Vikings have done that? It was sort of ish when he got a chance to play winner of Smith Got Hurt because Chris Herndon was not worth trading a

fourth round pick for and so he kind of got the momentum going there and has turned into a pretty good player i remember him being asked by a media member uh what do your tattoos mean when he gave his press conference and he his entire body is covered with his whole i think it's his whole left side which one it's like a sleeve and a leg yeah and which one what do your tattoos mean all of them every single one yeah wrong with this person asking me this uh speaking of strange questions 2000 i believe it's 19 was when i think that there's like what is it when you commit a crime, but it's been long enough? It's like statute of limitations. There's statute of limitations on this.

We dared you to ask a prospect about his off-field interests. Because let's back up here. So we had a game going because, you know, the draft's a long grind. Day three. Day three. But I mean, well, the whole thing's a long, long stretch. You start Thursday, you get out of TCO more or less at like five o'clock on Saturday night. So to keep us interested,

even though to keep the intrigue going. So it wasn't just like, all right, they drafted this player. Here's a conference call. This was at the time before zoom's pre COVID. So we had like this, this phone that was like a giant X.

Like it just had like these speakers. So they all stood around it with our recorders and they'd be like, hey, so-and-so's on the phone. It's time to ask them a question. We had a game going and it was how can you fit certain like football scouting terminology into a question to ask these prospects?

We wanted to see what their answers would be. It wasn't me, but somebody asked who, who I got asked if he was a glassy, that was me. Uh, I think with the same player. So all it was, so we're asking questions that we would normally ask. We're just working in some phrases that are extreme football, like extreme scouting phrases. Like, do you have oily hips meaning like can you flip your hips like do you have good like you know are you are you are you versatile in your movement that's usually something that we ask who do we ask that to well hips came up everything the the integrity of the question was still intact it was just the phrasing it was meant to include some words so i had to work in glass eater which I did asking about leadership to a linebacker.

So a legitimate question, but no, that's not what a glass eater is. Glass eater is supposed to be like the hard ass guy in the trenches. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of, he totally got it though.

And actually gave a good answer. What we found out was that the more we use these cliches, the more they seem to relate to them because that's how they talk. So yours was to ask off field interests. Yeah. Like what do you do outside of football more or less? Rather than work into it carefully, you just walked up to the phone and yelled, what are your off field interests? And the guy gave one of the best answers I've ever heard in a press conference. He went on about his love for wine and wine making it turned into a future story for you it was like we need to do this every year that was cam smith the usc linebacker

who never played a down for the vikings right yeah he had a congenital heart defect that i believe they found during his covid year um or maybe i think he got COVID and went to the doctor. And that's when they found it. So he was a rookie in 2019. So he played a little bit then. He was a special team. Oh, right. Yeah.

But then like 2020, it was in August when we were like waiting for training camp to start, I want to say. And they found out from a doctor's appointment that he had like some pretty serious heart defect that ended his football career right then and there. But before that, he and I had a long conversation about his apprenticeship. I don't know what it's called, an internship. More like an apprenticeship at this winery called Melville Winery in California. And he talked to me about the science of winemaking, of how you ferment the grapes and all of this stuff. And I ended up talking to the winemaker who I became friendly enough with. Like whenever I'd be out, I'd be like,

hey, like Belleville's on. I would send him a picture of the bottle of wine if we ordered it. And it was a neat story. I really enjoyed that. Did you know that Cam Smith has taken up photography? And he was at training camp last year, like doing photography.

Oh, that's awesome. I think he was at training camp last year like doing photography that's awesome for him i think he was doing it for the vikings as just some sort of like thing that he's trying to do so a guy whose life was saved by having getting covet and then getting checked out and then try to come back didn't work out and then you know so a fascinating story from the draft. Anyway, before we wrap up one more, one more. COVID year. Yes, COVID year. And it was just so unprecedented.

Like, I remember I went to Chicago for the pandemic. I stayed at my mom's house and I sat in the same spot day three on the couch in the family room covering how many draft picks that day? Oh, that's right. A hundred. Four fourth round, three fourth rounders, two fifth rounders, two sixth rounders, and four seventh rounders. So Rick Spielman's logic on this was that you don't want to,

basically you don't want to bid for guys in college free agency, especially this year when we didn't know what the roster limits were going to be, how, you know, the expansion of the practice squad, if we were going to even have a season, this was April of 2020. So two days after they draft Justin Jefferson, they draft Jeff Gladney. And the Jefferson story is still one of my absolute like all-time favorites.

It's like zero star guy going to, you know, Vikings laughing their heads off when Philly ends up uh taking a wide receiver one pick before that clearly did not pan out the way that justin jefferson had but then day three there is like they kept trading back and kept trading back and at this point like we're all like in a group chat and just being like are we serious this draft's gonna be 90 hours long and at some point my colleagues at espn like my editor's like i see that you have all of these picks i'm gonna ask jameson hensley who covers the ravens who had like five picks that year he's gonna help you write some of these blurbs on guys that i like dad no brian cole remember that he

didn't even play in the nfl he was cut before the end of camp yeah like and it was a shortened camp but i don't know what went wrong there that maybe that's an investigatory story but I do remember that like that year specifically like Brian Cole for example I can still remember the draft story his father was a policeman I think he played in the police athletic league because we were on this zoom we were all still learning how zoom worked that year and getting to ask these guys questions was you know it wasn't nearly as fun as the are you a glass eater are you you know tell me your off-field fun as the, are you a glass eater? Are you, you know, tell me your off field interest, but we got a lot of good stuff out of that drive. And I also want to say, wasn't that, no, that was the next year, my last year when, um,

Cam Bynum from when he was out in Lake Tahoe and he did a jump, he ran off the dock of his Airbnb that he was renting and did a backflip. Oh yes. To a not like to celebrate him being drafted. I thought it was kind of cool. Most awkward question for me was Jalen Twyman. Now, if you remember Jalen Twyman did not play in 2020, thought he was going to be a first round draft pick goes in the sixth round the next year.

And we were asking him about taking the year off and not playing college football. And I asked him if he had any odd jobs or anything. And he's just like, no. And I'm like, okay. Your logic was that I think, no, I know exactly what this was. You asked him, give me a minute. Like, I can't even keep a straight face in this. The way that you phrase the question of like, did you do anything like have any odd jobs? I worked at McDonald's. Yes. And he was like, well, what are you talking about, dude? I was training for the NFL. My agents drew Rosenhaus. And then, yeah, he shot that one down very quickly. Yes. I said, you know, I worked at McDonald's when I was in high school. Did you have any odd jobs? Well, the way that you're delivery, I think I had to go camera off for a while because I was laughing so hard at that.

And the hype around Jalen Twyman, a person who never stepped on the field for the Vikings and also got shot, which probably hurt his chances at that. But the late round hype was really something. One of our former beat partners was all in on the Jalen Twyman hype train. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. As many were. As many were. Well, anyway, you now are late for this fight.

Am I late for this fight? We got to go. Okay. We got to go. But thank you for stopping by. Thanks for having me. Back to Chicago. And I hope that you have more fun draft stories beyond just Caleb Williams,

but number nine could be very interesting. And we're going to be updating that pie chart all the time. He's going to frame this. Yes. It's going to go in the middle of the wall right back there. Yep. For the next time you stop by. So thanks everybody for listening slash watching and thank you for stopping

by. Appreciate it. Tell them the story about the memoir shot. you