Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Kevin Seifert breaks down Vikings draft, GM search

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

ESPN's Kevin Seifert joins Matthew Coller to talk about the Minnesota Vikings' draft and whether it was a "coach-driven" as ESPN's Jeremy Fowler reported. Plus the Vikings started their general manager search after the draft. Is Rob Brzezinski the best candidate? Could they blow it all up? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here. And on the show today, ESPN's Kevin Seafurt. Let's go. All right, Kevin Seafurt, we have a draft in the books. We have free agent-wide receivers visiting. And oh, yeah, the Minnesota Vikings are also doing this little GM search in May, which I can't remember another time that we've seen that. So a lot going on with Minnesota Viking land. I want to start with this, Kevin.

saw that your colleague Jeremy Fowler reported from chatting with people around the league that they viewed this as a coach-driven draft. What do you think of that framing of what the Vikings did in the draft? I mean, I think it's completely fair externally for people to look at what they did. You know, filling needs is generally considered a priority of the coaching staff and maybe sometimes the personnel staff, but not always. So when a team aggressively works to fill its needs in the draft, then clearly I think it's fair to assume coaches are responsible for it.

And I don't think that's wrong. I had sort of the same impression internally. I think that we can talk more about it, I'm sure, but the overall horizon of the offseason, I wouldn't necessarily say was all coach-centric. when it came to the draft, when it came to who were, who were we ultimately going to choose, it was very clear that the coaches played as significant of a role in it as any coaches on any staff in the NFL typically doing the draft.

Well, and I don't know why you would do it differently in the case that they were in. You have an acting general manager. And so you have your scouting department working throughout the year to gather all the information, your personnel people are bringing it in and then your coaches are deciding which players are the best fit under these circumstances that make sense. I mean, when Rick Spielman was the general manager, there were famously a few tussles between he and Mike Zimmer over who was being drafted, but that was Rick's area. Rick had come up as a scout. He had run that side forever. So of course, he was going to be the guy that was making the selections. So I guess it would almost be a little

surprising if the longtime cap expert sort of said, sorry, Kevin O'Connell, why don't you go wait in the other room? Rob's got this. I mean, I think that was what the Wilf said. They wanted Rob's job to be, right? Form consensus within those rooms. And then ultimately, if he needed to say no on a certain decision, then he would. But otherwise, I think that you would acquiesce to Brian Flores, who is historically quite good at this and Kevin O'Connell. And when, you know, I said, because I saw this criticism, a little bit of like, it seems like Flores picked the players. Is that a bad thing? A guy who came up in the scouting world and has been famously really good at picking out

the prospects or the players around the league that makes sense for him. So I don't see that as being controversial in any way considering the circumstances. Yeah. And people hear coach-centric and they think the coaches ran the whole draft. And in reality, we know that the personnel staff, the scouts and the other executives, all the way up to Rob Brzezinski, did the work from the start of the college season, all the way through the bowl season,

all the way through the combine. And then once they kind of get the whole group of draft eligible players organized in an order and judged, then the coaches would come in and add their two cents in terms of which of these players that have already been elevated by our personnel staff would be the best fits, which ones do we as coaches like? And then they, but the one thing that they did probably more, I think,

we've heard anecdotally from the draft picks themselves is coaches themselves got on the road in the March time frame and maybe April as well to get personal eyes on a lot of these guys have meetings with them in the case of Caleb Banks for sure with Ryan Nielsen, the defensive line coach. And so it's not to say that they didn't do, you know, extra work or exhaust themselves in the draft process as well. But I don't want people to hear coach-centric and think that we're saying that the coaches are running the draft. They're being allowed to give their input and their input is being respected and in many cases, but not all times heated on. You know, with the Caleb Banks pick specifically, it does sort of shout out to,

a coach would believe in this. Because if you were doing it, and I know we don't have medicals and everything else. And I did look, by the way, where his draft stock was before the combine when he had that extra injury, it was much closer to where he was drafted

than after the second injury. So we do have to give the Vikings credit for having much more medical information than the consensus outside of the building. And that is one of the holes in using consensus, mock draft board. and things like that. But still, a coach will look at the raw tools of Caleb Banks and say,

oh, yeah, if I get my hands on that, if I have the right coaching and we do the right drills and everything else, then this kid's going to get it. They sent their coach down to talk with him, to spend time with him, to watch film with him, to understand how coachable he is and things like that. But I don't know that a pure personnel person who is trying to run the economic of the draft board and get maybe the safer pick to try to get a hit or whatever it might be, would be as willing to take that risk normally. Like I would be very curious to know around the league where would Caleb Banks have gone

if the Vikings did not select him? Does he go like a couple picks later to Philadelphia or does he slide all the way into the second round because too many teams that their drafts are being run by general managers who are trying to manage the board and maybe would try to avoid that risk? risk, like how much different would it have been? I don't think we'll ever really know that, but that certainly came to my mind that a coach is going to believe in. I see what I can make out of this if we do it correctly.

Yeah, and it's interesting because, you know, I think the term that I use for what Rob Brzeinsky's job was as the interim GM was to sort of be the guardrail and to keep things on the track throughout the offseason, not allow the worst impulses of any particular one coach or a coaching staff to overtake common sense. But it wasn't to put them in their place or wasn't to reestablish, you know, organizational dominance or anything.

And so when you look at what Rob Brzezinski would have to be dealing with, he has two very successful coaches telling him, because I think O'Connell was, I mean, people were saying Brian Flores, you know, made this pick. Like Kevin O'Connell's been talking about defensive tackles and interior disruptors since his first season here.

And he has a very global view on football. He coaches and calls the plays on the offense, but he has a very global view on defense because he's game planning against him. This was as much him as it was Brian Forres, I think, in terms of drafting him. So Brzynski has two well-established, you know, good coaches telling him that this, you know,

we can make this guy great. And he has a medical, department that, you know, I'm not, I guess, you know, Brazinski called them some of the best in the world, but like, ultimately, these are the people that you've trusted to give you, the same way you're trusting Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores to give you the football insight in terms of, in terms of integrating him, him onto the field. You're trusting the people you've assembled in the medical staff to tell you how much of a risk this is and what the likely outcome is going to be. going to be of multiple broken feet and how it would look moving forward. And if the information you

get from those people is encouraging and by all sense and all indications it was, then where is the information that Brzezinski is pulling from to say this is not a good idea and that he should pull it off the idea, the idea tree, so to speak. And so I, and so if he really, really, really wanted to play it safe, he could have just called it and said, nope, any player who has two injuries, you know, back to back or whatever, like, I'm just not taking that risk. But the information that was flowing to him was much more encouraging than I think maybe people would look at it from the outside. And so I think it's a long way of saying, I think he probably performed his role as a guardrail there. It just, even though people may be interpreting it as,

from externally as him getting railroaded as opposed to being the guardrail. I think he just took the information, which is what you're supposed to do in that role, that he was being given and evaluated it for its reliability and credibility and credibility and made the decision there. And so if he had just signed a five-year contract to be the GM, I think he would have been even more likely to make that choice because he would have been even more secure in his job. But to me, that showed that while he has since expressed interest in the permanent job, he

certainly wasn't like trying out for it. It's not the kind of decision you make when you're trying just to not screw up in anticipation of a job interview. Right. Because Dylan Thineman would have been such an incredibly acceptable pick to absolutely everyone. Every draft grader would have given it an A. They would have said, ah, yes, I mocked Theteman to the Vikings, so they get an A,

which always kind of tweed a. twist me in a pretzel about draft grades because if, you know, not to use specific names, but Mel, say, for example, has a guy 150th on his board and he's drafted 110th. He's going to give that a lower grade because on his board, like, okay, well, according to your opinion, you know, you didn't like the draft pick as much, but who's going to be right about this? We really don't know. So I think a lot of people who didn't have banks that high, who didn't mock him ever

to the Minnesota Vikings were like, oh, well, that's a bad pick because I never saw it coming, which I don't think is exactly how we do it. However, in the Caleb Banks decision, there are some very clear red flag things about him. And that even goes beyond just the fact that he had these injuries. Even if I say, okay, I fully accept that his foot's going to be fine and a 330 pound man who's had multiple foot injuries will never have one again, okay, you can get me there. but when it comes to the lack of production in college and the lack of snaps in college, those two things send up flares for me because just typically over a long period of time,

players who did not grade particularly well by PFF or put up huge pass rush win rates or have incredible numbers of run stops, they don't quickly translate over to the NFL and then suddenly become a different player. If they do hit, usually it takes a couple of years to get. there. So I think that's almost the most unusual thing about it is that they would take a player that the historical data says this might take a while for all of that coaching to come together. And by the way, he can't walk out on the field in mini camp. He can't walk out of the field in OTAs. So now it begins a process where he's already behind the eight ball and hasn't

even reached a thousand snaps in college yet. So I guess what I would say is like there is a significant amount of risk here, but also drafting a guy for multi years out who in a year or two could elevate to being a serious impact player on your defense was for Rob Brzezinski, I'm sure what you'd love to see is your draft pick right away, become a star and everyone said you were a genius. But his entire, it seems, ethos of running this job was, I am protecting the sanctity of the franchise long term rather than just trying to solve immediate issues. Yeah. And it wasn't as if he took risks at every spot.

Like I've kind of viewed this whole draft as, you know, the big, the big boom or bust at the top. And then a lot of swinging in for the double, you know, the rest of the way, which is perfectly acceptable. And so the draft class will ultimately be judged as a whole as well. You know, Caleb Banks' name will be front and center. And we always will look at the players that are taken like after him to see who they, you know, had they made a different decision if it would have worked out any different. But, you know, I, I, I mean, and I just, I just think that that's, I, the part of the discussion of Caleb Banks that hasn't really, it's been overshadowed by the injury is what would the evaluation of been if he was healthy?

The Vikings point overwhelmingly was like this, we never would have gotten him. It's top, he's a top 10 pick and just based on his physical traits, not based on the fact that, as you said, like there's definitely questions about what was happening on all the other plays and why there wasn't the amount of production. You know, there's definitely been some anonymous evaluations in terms of his effort level and disappearing for portions of games. And so is he, was he 100% a top 10 player, you know, absent of the injury? And if, and, and And if he is, then I think that that's one level of risk. And but if he was a risky bet even without the injury, that's where you listen to the other,

you know, you listen to O'Connell and you listen to Brian Forrest. And frankly, you let them take the public credit for it because, and I'm not saying that Rob is in this, or anybody is doing this Machiavellian like, blame, pre-blame game, I guess. But look, Flores and O'Connell own that pick. you know, that, like, it's all been established. They went to the mat for, in terms of what he could be if he's healthy. And the doctors, you know, are on the board for having supported clearly the idea that this is not going to be a chronic injury that that routinely keeps him off the field. And so, you know, everybody's in their corner now and we know exactly who decided what and who pushed for what.

And ultimately when the judgment comes, I think that it'll be fair to remember that. Yeah. When it comes to him being a top 10 talent, I think that that might be a little bit reachy. But when he was done with the 2024 season and all the pre-college season, you know, whatever, big boards and mock drafts were coming out and so forth. This comes from grinding the mocks. It had him as like about the 16th best player in the draft. So it's a little maybe not quite that level. of talent before the injury, but truly before the injury, the expectation was that there would be

another step for Caleb Banks and that he would be heading into this draft as you got to get this giant beast who has crazy acceleration that we just don't see from guys that are this big. And when you even try to go historically through, find guys who are six foot six or even go six foot five or taller and go 325 pounds or taller and find if they ran under a five 1.40, there's not many guys who you can find who do this. So I understand very much understand that element of it. And you get to that point in the draft and make a decision, do you want to get somebody who might be able to help you quickly, like a Mackay Lemon, who could be the wide receiver three or

like Dylan Thineman? Or do you want to take a swing at trying to get a true difference maker in that spot? The other thing I've thought of Kevin, too, is that we've only talked about Caleb Banks in these two terms. Either he never, ever plays and is horrendous and we laugh at the bust forever, or he's Albert Hainsworth. And those are the only two outcomes that are forever boss.

I hope he's not Albert Hainsworth. Right? Like, but that's it, right? Those are the only two things to be. And so I came up with the example of DeQuan Jones, who is about the same size and has been in the league a long time and is a good player, is not a superstar, but is really darn helpful for your interior defensive line,

can get pressure, can be a nightmare for mismatches with offensive guards who are smaller. And I also think that they will have a plan for him to not be in a situation where he's getting a bunch of double teams. That's where I saw his biggest losses when I was watching back games of Caleb Banks. I think they're going to move him out a little bit. And it will matter how Brian Flores deploys him right away, which I guess is my other Caleb Banks question for you is, what do we think the plan here is for Caleb, to slowly build him up into the Albert Hainsworth everyone wants him to be.

Yeah, I think, I mean, after they drafted Dominique Orange, like to me, you know, who's kind of a natural nose tackle. To me, I see them using Caleb Banks as much as they can at the other defensive end spot, or so to speak. And when they go to a four or five-man line, they move into more of a classic three technique. The interesting thing, another interesting thing about it, in terms of how we judge him and how he gets judged and how this draft gets judged is the context of what defensive tackles have typically done in the Brian Flores scheme and what he

asks of them. You know, we, and when we got Brian Flores the day after they drafted him, I asked him about, like, you know, why does, why do we have this, like, relatively long list of defensive tackles who have played here have sort of said publicly one way or the other that if they were doing the job that they were assigned to do, they weren't necessarily getting upfield and making the kind of plays that fans notice, media, people notice. It doesn't mean you're not doing your job and it doesn't mean you're not doing it well. But sometimes your job is, or often your job is to open up a hole for a blitzing lineback or a blitzing safety or to do these other kind of combination rushes that help out somebody else. And so if we could get, you know, we could

So that to me opens up the possibility that we're in one of those situations where we get to the end of the year and you're looking at the numbers. And like there's a couple sacks and a couple, you know, tackles for losses, you know, a fair number of snaps. And you're like, what, you know, what's he actually doing? How is he making a difference? And then the coaches say, well, he's doing exactly what we want. He's had a great year. And that could be true. And so we will be in that gray zone where it's not like quarterbacks.

It's not like running backs where we can just judge how good. They've been based on some level of data, whether it's counting numbers or more analytical type things. And so you would really be in one of those spots where you have to look at the film yourself or ask a bunch of people not affiliated with the team. You know, is this good? Did he do the things that they wanted to do? Like, are they being ambitious enough with him? Could they be getting more if they were trying different stuff? or did he just have the type of season or type of career where he just didn't make a lot of impact? And so I wonder about that scenario too.

And that's probably more of a media and public thing than anything. You know, like if the Vikings are satisfied with what he does based on what they ask of him, then that's great. But I wonder whether we'll be able to get to any kind of point in his, especially early in his career where we can say, well, I mean, Kevin Williams had 10, you know, a long time ago, but Kevin Williams, I think he had 10 sacks as a rookie year. And so if you get 10 sacks as a defensive tackle, we know you're pretty capable of doing a lot of stuff. And so would, is Caleb Banks even going to have the, if he plays a full year, would he even have the opportunity to have 10 sacks, you know, or have the kind of, you know, Albert Hainsworth, Aaron Donald type of impact, even if he's capable of that, even if all the physical traits

mean that he could just be unblockable and dominate and be upfield every time, are they, is he in a system where that's going to be a way to judge him? And I'm trying to talk around the idea that you're a good player if you get 10 sacks and you're a bad player if you get two sacks because that is absolutely not true. But I also think that it's going to be part of the public discussion, unless he's just such a monster that even though he's spending a fair amount of time doing things to help other people as part of a team defense, he still makes a ton of plays on his own.

If that's not the case, though, if he's kind of just doing the things that they ask him to do and occasionally when he gets the opportunity making a play for himself, how do we judge that, what do we think about that, and how does that affect the evaluation of their decision to take him in the first round or take that position in the first round? I was thinking about like a Derek Brown that gets 40 to 50 pressures a year and two sacks. And like that's really insanely good. But if you only look at the sack metric, then you probably wouldn't understand why he gets paid as much as he does and gets hyped as much as he does.

I do want to give like all of us and football fans credit for understanding defensive tackles that don't get sacks can be super effective. Like Linvald Joseph, for example, was not ever going to come close to 10 sacks, but the pushing the pocket, the tape taking up multiple blockers. Pat Williams was not a big sack guy, but same sort of thing. And I know that's not the prototype of Caleb Banks, even though there's. similar in size, but although Pat, you know, may have had 40 or 50 pounds on him eventually, but Pat was a little stouter than Caleb. Yeah, right. He wasn't quite tall. But you understand what I'm getting at is that I think we know that that is an element of it. And maybe it helps to have a younger player who is going to be more interested in pleasing his coaches and pulling the right

assignments and whatever it is rather than say a 30-something year old Javon Hargrave who wanted to rush the passer. And the other thing about, you know, Brian Flores is the last three years, they've cobbled together fourth, fourth, and eighth in yards per rush attempt to loud, despite the fact that it was Javon Bullard, who is just a journeyman guy or Jonathan Bullard, sorry, it was a journeyman guy. Harrison Phillips was a 500 snap run snuffer who they made play 800 snaps every single year. And there was a lot that they were able to squeeze out of that. So he's not doing it wrong. The amount of pressures where you can have an Eric Wilson get 30 something pressures in a year. Blake Cashman incredibly effective there. Ivan Pace when he was playing,

was getting after the passer. It's working. You just need the buy-in. But I also think part of this is that if you have Dominique Orange, who is going to be totally fine with just moving bodies and taking up blockers, like that's the nose tackles job, that maybe some of the idea is that Caleb Banks can just go upfield and do his thing at times. And I know Brian Flores loves a good blitz and so does everybody else. But I'm sure that it wouldn't hurt his feelings to occasionally rush for and have everybody else drop back and just say, Caleb Banks, we're going to design for you a one-on-one with this guard and we need you to demolish that guard or, you know, in between the tackle and

guard or whatever else. Yeah. And that very possibly what could happen that we've never really seen a Brian Flores scheme here where he hasn't had to scheme pressure, you know, at least consistently to scheme pressure. And Kevin O'Connell has talked about that in the past week or so is that they did a good job of that, but there was certainly times when, you know, it would have been nice to mix it up and to, and they needed to have more people in coverage or they, or it would help to not, you know, to line up as if you're blitzing and then not blitz more often than they did.

I know they try in his first year. They did a fair number of drop eight, but I don't know. And it worked mostly by surprise, but they didn't, you know, they could, they could certainly do that even more now if that was the case. And so there's no doubt that he, that we haven't really seen that portion of the, of the scheme or seen what he would do if he becomes, you know, he trusts the people, those top four people or top three people that are on the defensive line to do that. And so we'll see. Yeah. And I think the adjustment last year, too, with Flores, that's the one other thing is that even if something is not working at the beginning, he has shown very much the capability to adapt it and coming out of the buy last year. They were a completely different team against the run.

And at the end of the day, even though those signings didn't work in any sort of long term way, they racked up 60 something pressures combined between Allen and Hargrave and were top five in points and yards allowed per drive. It's hard to say that it was a total failure. So I think that there is with a lot of these draft picks, including Caleb Banks, you just have to put some trust in the idea that this man knows what he's doing and has a very large sample size of showing that he knows how to do this. In terms of the rest of the draft, I think that most of the picks are pretty easy to understand what they say. When you take Max Bredison, that is a C.J. Ham replacement plus maybe with a little more alignment

versatility. And some of us were watching Alec Ingold tape yesterday. I don't know what you were doing. I watched your video that you posted. That's as far as I got. Okay. Well, then that's a good way to it. Very creative in that Miami run game.

But was there a draft pick that you said, I'm a little surprised by this. I mean, not even in a what the heck are they doing, but more of a, well, I didn't really expect them to go in this direction with any of the. draft picks. Maybe the Jake Golda won, and I know that you had him, and a lot of people, you know, I think kind of connected him with it as a Brian Forrest type prospect. And maybe like if you're making the argument that this is a coach-centric draft, like maybe that's the guy that you really, I mean, because he's kind of like a, you know, if you, if you don't have to squint too hard and you probably have to make a few assumptions that are not sometimes frowned upon from a sociological

standpoint, but there's a lot of Andrew Van Ginkle there. And so, and Andrew Van Ginkle is like the most unique player, the defensive player that I've ever seen. And so, are you, is there another one out there? And is that what they, why they, why they would go draft a, what seemed like an offball linebacker when, you know, there's receivers, there's lots of other positions that you could potentially go for. And that to me, like, that one was the one where like you're saying, you know, and it's not that he was not a good prospect, but you're saying like, that's where Brian Flores might literally have been on the phone with the NFL, you know, putting that down because otherwise you're not sure like what the, if that's the direction

to go in at that point. Because it's so, like, I think what their plan for him is is so specific to what they do with the most unique player. in football that you wonder, like, is that really, like, is it reasonable to think that you're going to just mold a clone of Andrew Van Ginkle? And I don't think that they necessarily think of him as a clone, but they think of him as being able to do a lot of things that people, a combination of a lot of things that most people don't have that combination for. And so that was one where I just said, that, you know, that I personally, you know, that,

to me, when you talk about guard railing and all, like that maybe is the point. where you say, are we sure here, like this is, like this is good in the long term to be drafting a player with the idea of, you know, cloning in with somebody that we, that really isn't another version of in the entire league. Because if you were to redo it, there are a few players that you might look at and say the two best center prospects that maybe you could have taken there. The Emmanuel McNeil Warren, I think was still on the board at that time. Yeah.

So maybe you're looking at that rangey safety. who could come up in the box if you need him or cover a lot of ground to be a playmaker on the back end. They waited on safety. Maybe they didn't think there was that big of a gap between the top players and guys in the middle round. But wide receiver is certainly another spot that you could have circled and said there's some wide receivers that are still on the board that have dropped to this point. Should you just grab them right now and have your wide receiver three settled and long term, you know, maybe a partner for Jefferson if things don't go right for Madison and worst case, it's really good at that position.

So I can see that being like not the obvious way to go with a linebacker. I think what they see in Golda is someone who under the best case scenario can be Andrew Van Ginkle's successor and he can be his understudy and he can train to play everywhere. Maybe the worst case scenario is that he plays Blake Hashman's role and is just a linebacker, which is really important in this defense to have a multifaceted linebacker. we saw Eric Wilson last year line up on the edge. And I remember the first time I saw that, I was like, wait, who's over there?

Like, what number is that? Why is Eric Wilson an outside linebacker? But that's what's required in this defense. So they really were drafting for guys that were specifically identified as this is what we want in a prospect. And Gold Day fit that. So I guess I wasn't surprised because I thought the same thing. As soon as I saw his profile and then watched him play, I was like, okay, this is, This is almost weird.

When you look at his height, weight, whatever it is, 40 time, broad jump, everything. It was almost exactly the same. So maybe they're trying a little too hard there. But I think that he can become a middle linebacker at some point. So I like that pick overall. I think the one for me that raised the most eyebrows. And I think it's a good decision is Caleb Tiernan. That's the one that I would have said at this position, give me,

give me Brandon Thompson, give me Skylar Bell, give me one of these wide receivers who are there. They go with a, for now, a backup right tackle. Do you think that it's too much of a stretch to say that that suggests something about how they feel on the right side of that offensive line for the future? Or is this just like they got a guy that they liked? Both. Like, I mean, if you're just looking at the roster and you know Brian O'Neill is getting older and, you know, the contract is coming to an end soon.

And there's no reason to think that his performance. performance level has gone down significantly. He has gotten hurt a few times in the past three years or so, which is not unusual. I think sometimes you see, especially when coaches are involved, you see, I wouldn't say overreaction, but you see an aggressive reaction to what happened the previous year. And like when Christian Derisal wasn't playing, it was tough. You know, they thought they could get Justin's school to occasionally come in and play. and they could survive, but he had to play way too much.

I think we can all agree. And, you know, Blake Brandel used to be somewhat reliable as a right tackle, left tackle, but now they were using them at center last year. And so, you know, between going out and spending $4 million on Ryan Van Damark and now drafting in the third round, another huge outside, you know, whether it's left or right tackle, like I think part of it is just like it's almost like the same way they looked at the quarterback position is like we will if we're going to err it's going to be on the side of too many people and then we'll figure it out from there we are not going to after seeing what we saw

last year at quarterback after seeing what we saw last year at left tackle and and right tackle and Brian O'Neill couldn't play like we are not going to go through that again I guarantee you that and so I took it that way and then like if he if Tirenin develops and and they get into a point where they are moving on from Brian O'Neill in a couple years, then like maybe that is a possibility. But I personally took it as much as like whether it's starting, backup, whatever, like we're not putting our, you know, we're not going to, we're going to do everything we can to avoid the shortage that we had last year

that we saw play out on the field. And other positions probably had that too. But on every NFL team they have it, but it just the injuries don't happen so you never see it. And they, but they saw it last year. And if injuries happen again or if Dar esau can't play in all the games or whatever, that they were determined to have better options than what they had last year. You can actually look and see the things that bothered the coaching staff in the drafts, like not having dominant presence in the middle for defensive tackle and then getting that in Caleb Banks and Dominique Orange.

And then not actually they didn't even have a backup for Andrew Van Ginkle when he went down because you're asking Dallas Turner to do that clear. that is such a unique job and Dallas Turner was better as a pass rusher. And then as you mentioned, you can see the offensive line depth, which I think is worth its weight in gold personally because offensive lines don't stay together. They get guys banged up. And then if your drop off is massive at left or right tackle, you are in a lot of trouble trying to cover that up because as Kevin O'Connell's explained to us over the years, it's not just that it's a backup tackle.

it's that you have to help a backup tackle. Yeah. And if you have someone you could still trust in there, then maybe you have to do that a little less. And you could also see too in Demand Claiborne, the lack of jolt, the lack of, you know, game changing type speed. Yeah.

Let's go get that. And I don't think overall I have any real problem with that idea of fits, guys that coaches wanted. It's not hacking the draft. It's not playing three-dimensional chess. It was actually kind of a straightforward thing. if you've been paying a lot of attention. And if you cover all 32 teams and you just looked at the group of players, you might go,

I'm not sure exactly what they were doing with some of this stuff. So I think that it is a little bit like you have to, I kind of joke that you have to get out a telescope and an abacus and some other things to understand what happened here, which also brings me to the Jonathan Grenard trade. I think if Rob Brasinski really showed his strength here, it was making that trade and getting that done. Because if you start to add up side one and side two, keep Jonathan Granard and pay him versus trade them away, get a ton of cap space, multiple draft picks, a lane for Dallas Turner to play every snap. I think that there's a lot that they got in return

for Jonathan Grenard that isn't as obvious as player four picks. But as an interim GM, it might not be the easiest thing in the world because you could say, that's the next GM's problem. If they don't hire me, then whoever can deal with that down the road for Rob to say, this is the right thing to do and we're doing it, I thought showed his strengths as someone who is, you know, so deeply rooted in the salary cap and kind of the numbers element of this thing. Yeah, and that's why why we might call it a coach-centric draft, we can't, you know, again, call their off-season a coach-driven off-season by any stretch. Like, and O'Connell hasn't said this, and Brian Forrest hasn't said this, but like, what coach would want to trade Jonathan Grenard for something that, you know, is a little bit, the return is at least more esoteric than a coach would want.

They didn't get a player back. They didn't get a first round pick back. You know, he's in his prime right now. Like, you would, there's, they're a better defense with him than, then they'll be without him at least for one year because unless, was it, was it Jacoby Thomas that they used the dress? Unless Jacoby Thomas is like an immediate impact guy at safety. And that's almost not even fair for him to put him in that spot. But, but they won't be as, they would be better if they had Grinard. And so I can't imagine that, I mean, that was a strong bit of guard railing, I think, by, by Rob Brasinski. Because I can't,

I don't know how hard the coaches were pushing for it, but you, like, you don't have to be, like, really sitting in the draft room or sitting in meeting rooms to know that coaches don't like to make those kind of moves or see those kind of moves made. And so, and, and the return is not just, you know, two third round picks. It's the absence of another 50 million and guarantees, which I think is what it ended up being and whatever his cap, you know, they, they, they, there'll be some dead money, but, you know, the net cap return that they get by not having him on the roster, especially knowing that they might have to sign Dallas Turner a year from now. So then what are you doing? Are you going to have Van Ginkle, Grenard, and Dallas Turner

altogether? Like, that's exactly what you would want from somebody who's planning long, thinking long range. That's why you have a general manager and a coach. And that's why you don't necessarily discourage differences of opinions. You know, I know this collaboration and all that is the key word, but it's healthy to have people pulling on different ends of the road, you know, sometimes in NFL teams to make sure that nobody is, you know, flooding the zone with their particular priorities. And so, and it really, to me, was a capstone of the entire offseason, which, again, like, I don't think many coaches would have wanted to go through the offseason with signing a third, a number three cornerback.

And they did, you know, make a huge move in getting a potentially new starting quarterback, but they wouldn't have done that if they had to spend 37 million on it, I don't think. And so Calais gets 1.3 million and the Cardinals pay the rest. And so they were able to do that largely because it didn't really cost them anything. And so to me, it was largely a, you know, a right-sizing off-season. and then when it came time to the draft, the coaches were able to influence the particular play.

You've got to take somebody. And so ultimately, I mean, you can't sit out the draft like you can sit out free agency as they largely chose to. And so when it came down to picking the particular players, whether it's Kyle Murray or James Pierre in free agency, potentially Juan Jennings and free agency at receiver, and then the entire draft, the coaches were able to influence who the particular choices were. Right. Yeah. No. And as this kind of leads to the next conversation,

right? Like, I don't mind this dynamic at all of having a general manager who puts on the, what do they call them in NASCAR? Or the restrictor plates puts on the restrictor plates. So the- I'm glad you knew that because I would not have been able to answer that question. Yeah, they, because otherwise the cars would go like 260 miles an hour or something. I think that that's how that works. A NASCAR expert could help me on that. But it kind of holds. holds everybody back when they want to go, go, go. And I'm sure in free agency, as the New York Jets and the Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans were spending all the money that they would have loved to have jumped into that fray

and grabbed a defensive tackle or grabbed an extra corner, wide receiver, whatever, but the prices were crazy high and it's not a bad thing for somebody to say, I don't want to restructure or give out a contract extension just to make space now, which was kind of a classic Rick Spielman move when they got desperate to win. It was, well, why don't we just restructure one more deal and move one more guy in here and make one more move? And that will be the difference that keeps our jobs. And most often, the hay is in the barn by the time you reach this point, right?

So it's that one extra player is probably not the difference between you and a championship. And if there is that player out there, you can acquire them in the middle of the season when you know actually what you look like. So I like that about it. But now they're on to general manager search. It has been reported that Rob Brzezinski is in the conversation or wants to be in the conversation for general manager. And there's a little bit of, I think I have a really good sense for how Rob would do this. And I think a lot of people would like that.

I think O'Connell, I think Flores, I think the front office, just the small sense that we got was that the front office really enjoyed the way that Rob went about the process. I think the Wilfs would like it because they have so much trust for Rob Brzezinski, and he's going to manage the money properly and think long term. So all those would be boxes to check. But then there's the mystery box, Kevin. And then there's the GM who has all the secret answers that get the Vikings not just to the playoffs and in contention, but gets you in that Eagles and Rams and 49ers conversation of the teams that seem to be in the NFC, one step ahead of everybody else all the time.

So how do you think that they are approaching this? Clearly, they're keeping it close to the vest. They're not going to announce the candidates. We couldn't get a whole lot out of Mark Wilf when we were prodding him for what kind of GM that he wants to look at. So what's your sense of like how this is going to go? I think they're kind of in like it feels to me that they're in sort of a ownership crossroads.

I mean, they've been owners for 20 years. And I think it was. the second year they were the owner of the team is when they hired Rick Spielman to be the, it was the time, the VP of personnel, but he was basically in charge of the personnel department, eventually becomes the general manager. And a lot of the people that he hired are still in the building. And they're good people. Like they wouldn't be there if they weren't good scouts and good executives. Rob Rosenzinski was actually there before him. And so you have Rob Resensky has been there 27 years. you have largely a personnel group,

Mike Schulton, the director of college scouting, has been there 22 years, not all as the director of college scouting, but he's been with the organization for a long time. And the question is, do they view that as like a real asset? And are they looking to preserve that? I mean, Cuiy hired Ryan Grigsin and Demetri's Washington,

and they became assistant general managers, but he basically took the rest of the front office intact, including Rob in his position with the salary cap and contract negotiations. Do they view that as enough of an asset that they're going to make clear to the next general manager, whoever it is, that they won't have the authority to change that out? If Rob became the GM, you would assume that many of those people would keep their jobs. And I think we would only be naive to think that their interest in Rob getting that job is at least partially related to that. And that's fair because that's everybody, nobody wants to lose their jobs in any industry.

And we certainly don't advocate for that. But will there be a point where the owners are like, well, we've been at this 20 years, we've done things a certain way for most of that time. Do we need to blow it up? You know, not necessarily blow up the organization. But do we need like something like fundamentally different out of the way we scout players, the way we build teams and all that sort of thing. And if that's the case, then they're certainly leaving open that possibility

by having this type of search and hiring a search firm to come up with candidates. There are no mystery superstar candidates out there. But would any of those people get the impression through the interview process that they would have the, authority to completely overhaul the entire front office? Is that what the Wills are looking for? Or are they just looking for someone to lead the existing group and add and sort of do what Quasi did, but maybe better in terms of add a few people here and there, but largely take this, you know, infrastructure and take it to another level. And so you have that to think about. And then you also

have to think that, you know, whoever they hire is going to be matched with Kevin O'Connell and Brian floors and the rest of the coaching staff, they won't be connected and come in together. And so, and they would be walking into a situation where at least for one year that a lot of the personnel decisions were influenced heavily by coaching. And so is that going to be something that the, the wills are going to want to continue or are they going to authorize the next guy to sort of take over the reins of that and will that be good? So these are all the things that, in my mind, are questions that have to be thought through. And I think the will, or at least put themselves in position to think through those things and to hear from different

people. And, you know, every interview is like, you know, it's basically what would you do if you were in this job? And some people might say, you know, continue steering the ship the way it's going. Some people might say we need to, I would make a left turn. And ultimately, they'll have to choose that. And so we're kind of at a crossroads where they've at least put themselves in position to make the most fundamental changes to the front office. that they've ever made, I don't sense that they're unhappy with that infrastructure, but if there's somebody that they really are impressed with and they want to hire, and that's contingent on, you know, that person says that I'm not going to take the job if I can't put

my own people in and can't, you know, revamp things the way I want, then maybe it comes to that. So I think what the impression that I've gotten both on the record and on background discussions is that they want to be, they want that decision to be available to them if they want to come to it, if that makes sense. They have not decided to do that and they haven't decided to, you know, or they don't have a preference for keeping the status quo either. And that's why I've said that Rob's not, you know, Rob Brzezinski is involved in this because he wants to be, but I do not consider him like the favorite going in. I don't think that they have one. And I think they want to take this opportunity. There's no rush per se because nobody else is trying to hire a GM. There's

no competitive rush. The longer it goes, the less time that person has to sort of scale up before training camp starts and that sort of thing, or at least before the, you know, you want to have at least enough time to get yourself in order for the start of the college scouting season, if nothing else. But, and so I, so I, that's how I'm thinking about it. Like I think all those options, They want all the options to be available to them. And then once they go through the process, they'll decide which one that they do. And it won't be one where they're going into it thinking one way or the other. I like two different options.

I like keeping Rob Brasinski status quo and Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores drive this thing from the player evaluation side and the roster build side. And Rob Brasinski manages the money side and the assets side. and he's the one that's going to say, you know what? It would be wonderful to throw $50 million at Travis ETN or something, but maybe we shouldn't because that would hurt us in the long term. And then he has the, I think, credibility for them to respect that. As we saw from this offseason, that it's going to be a longer term thing and that's your play.

And I think that that can work. If the quarterback situation is right, and I would just like to remind everyone that had J.J. McCarthy worked out, everything would feel a lot different from the way that it went last season with the rest of the roster build, the coaching, the play calling, everything else had maybe some of those open wide receivers found the football. But so I don't think in any way this is a disaster. It's a mess. They need to clear out everyone. So that, that I think can work. The other thing I think can work is if you hire someone else and you say you are here to evaluate Kevin O'Connell and the job that he's doing, you are here to be the guy who calls the shots on the roster. Of course you're going

work with the coaches, but the buck stops with you. You're the guy. And you have carte blanche to build your own front office. You can clear out whoever you want. You can keep whoever you want. You are now the Minnesota Vikings dude. You are the Howie Roseman, the less need, the whatever, these GMs that we all know so well, you're that guy. And there's risk with that for sure that that guy might not be good at the job and his new front office people might not be a whole heck of a lot different or better than the other ones. But I do think there is from a perspective of Vikings fans and it's hard not to think this from our seats either where you kind of are stuck in the same patterns. And do you want to keep the same people or does that keep you in the same patterns of like we

can see it coming right now? This is 2019 to 2020 again. An older roster runs out and now you're going to have to scramble the competitive rebuild on the fly and do you want a general manager who's going to say actually after this year I'd like to take apart this thing and build it in my vision now that's not going to go over too good with the coaches because that takes a lot of the owners right or or the owners right but is this the moment because I think if there's ever going to be a time to do this it's right now you have no quarterback locked in you have a whole bunch of contracts that are coming up for older players from the previous build but you still have some foundational players, especially Justin Jefferson, this is the time to be able

to let a new GM clear out everything and build from the quarterback up in his vision, working with Kevin O'Connell. But if he doesn't feel like O'Connell's the guy who can get there, then he can hire his own guy. It's very aggressive. It's not so Minnesota. It's not so Wilfs. But it's, it's an idea. And when you're going out with every idea, what I don't like is the let's hire another Rick Spielman to just come in and manage everybody who's already here, that, that feels like, why not just keep Rob then? Because Rob already has the trust in the belief, right? So either go Rob or go extreme or I don't know. Give it to, give it to Purple Insider and I'll run the team. That we should, everybody should do that for a day. Every, like, I've always said that if fans could

stand on the sidelines of games, they would have a much different way of talking about players in terms of their toughness and all that. And so if everybody got one, one day in a general manager seat, they might think differently about all the decisions. Yeah. So you get into like what would be the reasons for them not to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the leadership part would be an issue. I don't think the communications part would be an issue. I don't think that his love for the organization would be an issue. It would, it would just be his willingness to, uh, or the extent of his willingness to do, you know, to upend the, the organization.

if that's what they think is needed. And so that would probably be the reason that he didn't, he doesn't get the job if he doesn't, is that they decided that they need a fresh look on it. And if the fresh look is somebody to come in and be just a different person running the same, with the same approach, and like you mentioned,

uh, the idea of blowing up the roster, like I could see the Wilf's authorizing the next general manager to overhaul, the front office, you know, trim down, you know, all the people who are in positions like director of this or executive of that or, you know, the scouts themselves, they often come and go in the NFL anyway, and but like, and they don't necessarily live and work in the building each day, but like there's a good layer of management in the front office that's been there for a while. And I could see them authorizing that. I would be,

blown away if Ziggy or Mark Wilf ever was willing to tell somebody, yeah, if you want to blow up the roster, you know, start trading people, go right ahead. You know, we're up for that now. I mean, Ziggy Will's 75 years old. Mark Wilf is in the 60s now and we see their kids around the organization a lot more. So like, and they're all in great health and I'm not in suggesting anything. I'm just saying like I don't see they've been so vigilant about that throughout the 20 years. I don't see that ever happening, period. And so like any, any GM candidate would almost certainly have been advised of that before they come in. And they might still be honest and say, like, this is really what you need to do.

And because they want to be true to themselves and like not get a job on false pretenses or anything. but if a person comes in and says you really need to tear it down to the studs and rebuild the roster, like I don't think that person's getting the job. I tend to agree with you, but you know, I was looking at the odds on Fanduil, and the Vikings odds to win the NFC are the ninth best. And they in terms of the division have the fourth best odds at plus 600 to win the division on Fandul. And it feels like to me, Kevin, that they have perpetually been the ninth best team going in. I would love to know, I guess I have to do some research.

When was the last time the Vikings entered a season where their fan duel odds to win the division were the favorite or even just to win the conference were the favorite? 2018 is probably the last time after they go to the NFC championship and then sign Kirk. And obviously you would seem like you were a team that was going to seriously compete. but I'm not sure any other time that I've covered the team that they've entered a season where they didn't have the ninth best odds to win the NFC. And I just wonder if this would be the point. It's the right point to break the mold. I don't know if that they'll view it that way. And that's also not to say you can't break the mold with O'Connell and Flores, you know, driving the bus more now that it seems like they might be unshackled by certain people or whatever to do what they want to do.

but it just feels like there's an anxiousness, especially from the fan base, to get something totally different that gives you a swing at that rather than kind of living in the same type of place. Let me ask you one more question before we wrap up, Kevin. I want your full film breakdown of Juan Jennings. No, I'm just kidding.

Here's what I want. I want to know the rightest and the wrongest you've ever been about draft picks. I'll give you a second to think, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you mine. The rightest I've ever been is Justin Jefferson. It's not, I'm not a genius. I watched to play college football, went, what?

This guy is not what? And Brian O'Neill is the wrongest. I was like, why did they draft a tight end to play tackle? What are we doing? He weighed like 275 when he got here. I was like, this guy's not going to play for years. I have no idea what they're thinking. And of course, he's been a multi-time pro bowler.

So those are the two that are the most. stream for me. How about you? So the rightest, and I guess, I mean, it goes back far enough that I'm not sure what I thought ahead of time, but when Percy Harvin, Percy Harvin was pretty well connected with the Vikings. And I always go back to when most of your audience was probably in diapers. But Percy Harvin was connected with the Vikings a lot pre-draft. And Brad Shilderis himself went down to have a pre-draft meeting with him because there had been some. drug. He had tested positive at the combine. And it was one of those where it was a lot like

Caleb Banks for different reasons. Like people were like, if it wasn't for this, like this guy would have, you know, he'd be a, like he's one of the best players. And like I had seen him play a little bit in college. And I'm like, man, if they could get that guy. And then the very first, well, he didn't come to rookie minicamp because he had an airplane or airport snafoo or whatever. but the first OTA that I saw him at, he, like, caught a little, like, pass in the flat and just outran everybody. And this was when OTA practices were closer to 100% in terms of, like, speed. And, like, you could, like, even somebody dumb like me could look at him and say, like,

that guy is different. Like, he, like, there's really only been a couple of players where I looked at in the first day of practice then said, like, they moved different. It was him and Adrian Peterson were, like, two of them. And so, but I remember thinking, like, all along, like, they had, like, they really should draft Percy Harvin. They really, like, you know, like, what player, like, especially now, like, I would be thinking, like, it's, it's, it's not a good thing to when you know you're going to be drug tested and, and, um, and test positive for marijuana. But like in terms, like, they've

changed the marijuana policy enough that who knows if he had even, would even have qualified for the, for what is considered a positive test now. And so like that, you know, that was like he, that was, I felt, pretty gratified, at least on the X's and O's of it. The wrongest I've ever been, might have been, we've already mentioned him once today, is Kevin Williams. And, you know, I got caught up in the, and people talk about like they missed the pick and all that. But the real controversy then was not that they had, just that they had missed the pick. But, you know, they were supposed to be at seven and they ended up taking Kevin Williams at nine.

And they sit all along, that's who they wanted. well, Terrell Suggs was a pass rusher, I think Arizona State. And, like, he was considered, like, the best pass rusher in that draft. And he was an outside linebacker. And people were like, I don't know if he likes a 4-3 defense event or an outside linebacker. And so I remember, like, thinking, like, they just passed on Suggs, who turned out to be a Hall of Famer. But for some guy, I'd never heard of. Like, Oklahoma State, like, had not, they had, like, kept it really quiet.

I heard of him. But, like, I had no reason to think that he was anything other than just, like, of run-stuffing nose tackle. And I'm like, why would they, you know, skip Suggs and take this guy? And he turned out to be, you know, he's a borderline Hall of Fame player himself, certainly one of the best players in Viking's history. And I remember thinking, like, not only did they miss their pick, not only did they not draft Suggs, but they ended up with a complete stiff.

And I was very wrong about him. Yes. only six all pros. So, and really should be in the Hall of Fame. But the Hall of Fame is decided it doesn't want anybody in there anymore, except for Dion Sanders and Lawrence Taylor and that's it. Yeah. But that's a whole different conversation.

Well, one thing that I know is 100% clear is that we never know what's going to happen with any of these draft picks until they put on purple uniforms, which will be covering from rookie minicamp on throughout their careers. So Kevin, I appreciate your time. always this was a really fun and interesting discussion and yeah well i'll see you soon out there we'll get our first look at all these young fellers sounds good thanks matthew thanks keb football