Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Ezra Cleveland is playing guard -- what does that mean for the Vikings' offensive line?

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

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

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

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

Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizway or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hi, Blue Wire listeners. I'm Greg Olson. I'm excited to partner with Blue Wire to bring you TE1, a podcast where I interview the tight ends who have revolutionized the position. Listen in as I have raw, in-depth conversations with the all-time greats

like Shannon Sharp, Tony Gonzalez, Travis Kelsey, and George Kittle. We'll explore how the tight end position has changed over the last 60 years and what it takes to be the very best. Subscribe to TE1 from Blue Wire Studios today so you're ready for the August premiere. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar and Judd Zolgad here. And Judd, I want to start right out with Gary Kubiak and his press conference with the Twin Cities Media. And he mentioned, broke some news, Gary. This is a thing that offensive coordinators have not done for us at the podium in recent years but giving out some information that we would be interested in that Ezra Cleveland liking second round draft pick starting out the walkthroughs at guard now

normally we would have just been there on the field to see it and report it this time Gary was nice enough to tell us about it and he also mentioned that there is a wide open competition at right guard and every other spot is filled which means Judd Pat Elfline at this moment is starting at left guard at this moment heading into padded practices and so I wrote a big piece earlier this offseason with all these different offensive line combinations. I was moving this guy over there and this guy over here. Riley Reif's going to guard. Rashad Hill's playing and Ole Udo's doing something. It looks like, at least for right now, we are beginning with mostly status quo. Zolgad, your reaction to that and Ezra Cleveland at guard?

My reaction to Cleveland at guard is intriguing based upon time to coach him up there. So if they had had all of their OTAs, mini camps, training camp starts on time, right? Him at guard, I think Cleveland playing that position, almost expected, because I don't think you're going to shift Reif inside for a year and give Cleveland the tackle. And, again, to go back to our longstanding conversation on Reif, Reif as a left tackle is not a disaster. He's not great, but he can play the position. And we have all seen, T.J. Clemmings,

what happens when a guy can't play that position. It's a disaster. So the only thing that surprised me about Cleveland playing guard now is the fact that there is very, very limited time to actually coach a guy who's a tackle to play guard. Now, if the plan is to cross-train him at both positions in 2020 and not count on him starting, that's fine. The other portion of what you said does not surprise me based on exactly what I just said to you. And Matthew, it's very simple. The math equation of time before start of a season that's going to be wild, wacky, goofy,

and maybe not completed, I don't think it leaves a lot of time for experimentation and getting cute and moving guys around to different jobs that they don't think it leaves a lot of time for experimentation and getting cute and moving guys around to different jobs that they don't know I mean these guys and I get it they're having virtual meetings all right but these guys you know as we've seen before ordinarily meet all day they've had tons of practices by now they don have those. And so I think on offense and defense, the smart coaching staffs are going to ask, unless their athletes are incredibly smart guys, they're going to ask their athletes to do as little as possible to step outside their comfort zone. Because I think if you put a guy outside his comfort zone and you get to week one, or let's say

the season starts in week four, and you say right boys let's go to it it is a recipe for disaster that smart people like us are going to come back to the coaching staff and be like this is on you not the player and for everybody freaking out that Pat Elfline is at left guard at the moment that doesn't mean Pat Elfline has to stay at left guard for the rest of eternity I think I mean it means that to start you want him as your starting left guard for the rest of eternity, I think. I mean, it means that to start, you want him as your starting left guard because he was your starting left guard last year, and he knows your entire system. And then if something plays out through these couple of weeks

of padded practices where Ezra Cleveland tries out at left guard and is terrific, or if we see someone else step in there and play better in these practices, then they can make a change. But what good would it do Gary Kubiak to come out and not have him be the starter after next year because he wants to experiment with something else? Then you're just potentially manipulating Elfline, who may be the best option at guard. Now, I don't look at Elfline through any sort of purple colored glasses at this point, Judd. I mean, I think we talked ourselves into it before. Well, maybe he'll be

better at guard than he was at center. There were the injury issues and so forth. Last year, he's one of the poorest pass blocking guards in the entire NFL. And I do not expect that to make a whole heck of a lot of change. And I think that they do need to focus on who can be the best pass blocker there. But he is still an above-average run blocker, which we know is going to matter more to this offense than any other offense, maybe in the entire NFL, and it's going to mean a lot to Gary Kubiak. So even if he can make an incremental improvement after a year of playing guard, he might still be better than Dakota Dozier.

He might still be better than whoever else, Aviant Collins, who is still on the team and is 27 years old and is essentially never played. But these are the guys competing. Like, there aren't really great options here. And the only thing I would say is Michael Pierce got you $5 million in cap space. It might be worth making a couple of phone calls to see what type of shape certain guys are in that are still on the free agent market. The one that comes to mind is Ron Leary, who played in Denver

and did not play great in Denver, but was a starting caliber player. Maybe see where he's at. Brian Winters got scooped up pretty quickly. I thought he might be someone that they would call because of the Rick Dennison connection but this is where it is on day I don't know three of their walkthroughs so yeah what is this I don't know we used that was always a thing we'd be like it's day 11 of training yes now I have no idea what this technically is everybody's here or two guys are missing. Where are they? But this is, I look at it as this is how it makes sense because everyone's

going to know at least what to do with the play calls and how to work with Kirk Cousins on his, you know, changing calls and protections at the line of scrimmage and so forth. And then if you want to make a change, you still have enough time in the lead-up to the season to do that. I got a question about the offensive line collar and the offense as a whole off of that. What is the pressure on Kubiak going into this year? And I mean this as a compliment from Zimmer to Kubiak, but what's the pressure on Gary? Because the philosophy seems to me, because you flat out did not address your guards. Like, you did not address it. Klein got let go, and then you basically said, hey, we're fine, guys. What's the pressure

on Gary from Mike, and to a certain degree, probably Spielman, saying Gary can fix this? Gary can make this work? I also think thatman saying, Gary can fix this. Gary can make this work. I also think that Gary thinks that Gary can fix this, and he and Rick Dennison can make this work. And there's a lot of evidence in the past that suggests that that's actually true. I mean, you go back through his offensive lines and where they've graded out, how they've ranked. Of course, it's not always at the very top of the league because talent means more than scheme.

But this guy does more to help his offensive linemen than any other coach, I think, in the entire NFL. I mean, even someone like Kyle Shanahan probably is up in that range too, and Tennessee does the same sort of thing. But when you're using the zone system, the play actions, those are helpful. And he even acknowledged when talking about Riley Reif that he thinks he can help Riley Reif even more. And Reif was average at the position, like you said, but the bootlegs and the play actions and moving the launch points, if you want to get super

football-y of the quarterback and where he's going to be throwing from, all these things are a big help. I don't think that we thought that the offensive line couldn't run block last year. They only could run block against San Francisco in the playoff game because San Francisco's defensive line was unbelievable. But for the rest of the time, they did well with that. So if you get the same type of run blocking performance and you can incrementally increase and think about this. I looked at this from a film perspective the other

day on Purple Insider was Garrett Bradbury and his potential to get better. There were last year, a lot of rookie things. I think he's still going to get picked up and run back into the quarterback because it's just, he's never going to be big. He's never going to be long. He has in the sixth percentile, that's out of a hundred of arm length for centers so I mean he's never going to have that ability to just you know overwhelm someone with his power and he's still going to get picked up and pushed back at times but if he can be technically a little better and not make big mistakes that lead to easy sacks I think that there can be improvement overall in the offensive line and we have said this, and it has not come to fruition,

but if you can get to average, then you're good. Like, okay, sure, everyone wants to be the 1992 Dallas Cowboys because then you'll just run over everyone and give your quarterback six seconds to throw and win a Super Bowl, but that's just not going to happen, probably not even in today's game. If you can get to the 16th best offensive line the 14th best offensive line then you've got a shot and one advantage that they have this year is no opt-outs on the offensive line if Brian O'Neill opted out I'd be like oh my this is

going to be oh yeah yeah but 100 but if you're going into it with all five starting linemen you're already got a leg up on everyone else. So my expectation, Judd, is that Gary and Rick Dennison actually can get them to average. I am worried about one position, but left guard has the least amount of impact on your offense of any position there. It's just what do they decide to do at the right guard position and how much Garrett Bradbury takes a step forward. I think those are the things that will determine this year. Because I wouldn't be surprised if Brian O'Neill makes a Pro Bowl

and Riley Reif is still your average Riley Reif. Yeah. Now, do you think that Cleveland then, at some point in time, during the course of the season, steps into a starting role? Or do you see them trying to basically get him comfortable at guard so if he has to play, if Elfline's a disaster, he can play there. And then he assumes the starting left tackle role in 2021. Get back to the conversation in just a minute.

But first, I have to tell you about something very cool from our friends at SodaStick. You probably know them for Minnesota sports-inspired hats and shirts and hoodies that are screen-printed in Minnesota. But SodaStick also has artwork as well. You're going to want to check out their Man Cave prints, 20 by 24 prints representing everything Minnesota sports, from awesome throwback logos to legendary plays at first base to famous disgusting acts in Green Bay.

They are on sale now for just $35. You can't go out to games at the moment, but you can liven up where you're watching them from. You want to get SodaStick's very cool prints. Go to SodaStick.com. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com and use the promo code PurpleInsider for free shipping. Yeah. Another question I have, Judd, is where Drew Samia fits in if he is the starting right guard or not, because it sounds like it's a completely open competition, which includes Ezra Cleveland at right guard. That's quite a change from left tackle, which we know from Mike Remmers trying to do that in the playoffs a couple of years ago. So Cleveland would be at

right guard? He would be at right guard because Elfline is still a starter at left guard, unless they're moving Elfline to right guard. I would train Cleveland at left guard. I would not – no, see, see, see. If they do that, I can tell you, I can tell Gary right now, flat-out mistake. You do not cross-train left tackle at guard on the other side. That is like – that's like trying to send him to a foreign country and say they're going to speak no English, just get by. I don't do that one.

That's a huge ask. I'm stressing this to all teams. Keep it as simple as possible. This year is going to be extremely difficult and dysfunctional, and the more that you try to get to be, I'm a football coach. I can coach through a pandemic and coach my guys up. Now, look, if you've got a team full of Harrison Smith types and they're brilliant football players, that's fine. But if you're talking rookies, strip it down, keep it simple. If you have them playing

guard, that's fine. But I would have him, Cleveland, trained to play left guard if Elfline gets hurt or just stinks. There is no way that I'm going to ask him to completely change his brain processes, his handwork, and his footwork at guard, and then tell him, and oh, by the way, if Reef gets hurt or Reef is bad, you're playing left tackle. I am not putting that on anybody's plate, especially a second-round pick who, and we've seen this before, who, Matthew, you do not want to ruin in any way, shape, or form.

If any coach ruins a kid, his confidence in 2020, that coach is guilty of malpractice because we've seen some decent, I'm not saying great, football players get ruined by expectations and by being thrown in too quickly and by being asked to do things they can't do. So if I'm coaching Cleveland, I'm saying, dude, we're going to cross train you at left guard, left tackle is going to be your primary focus because you know I hope to god that for 10 years that's your position once uh reef leaves but I am not moving him to the right side of the line I think that's a bad idea so there are conflicting quotes here from Gary on this from the zoom call

he mentions that Ezra Cleveland has been working with the second team next to Blake Brendel, who is a left tackle. So I was envisioning him at left guard at first, but then when he mentions the one open spot and says that they've got Avion Collins and Dakota Dozier mixed in, and then he says Ezra too, I was envisioning the one open spot as the right guard, assuming that Elfline was going to come back at left guard. But I think now I'm a little confused over whether they're competing for the left guard or the right guard position, because Gary said, you have one spot open, but he did not specifically say, is it right guard or is it left guard?

So if your plan was to start Ezra Cleveland, then you probably would have him start at left guard and have Pat Elfline at right guard. I would do that before, yes. Then he's making another position switch, Elfline is. But, yeah, that makes much more sense than trying to have Ezra Cleveland learn everything backwards to the other side. It makes more sense to have him on the left side. So I'm a little fuzzy on that, but I agree with your assessment that Elfline has moved positions a couple times, plug him in wherever.

He's been around long enough to be able to do it. But if you're asking Ezra Cleveland to go all the way to the other side of the line, do not like that. So, Zolgad, knowing this, give me your starting five for the offensive line, what you think it will and should be if they're the same. I think opening day when that does hit, and I don't know if it's going to be the Packers date or not, Matthew Collar, I think the starting offensive line left to right will be Riley Reif at left tackle. I think Elfline actually does start at left guard. Garrett Bradbury at center.

Drew Samia is my guess at right guard. I think Dozier is just a backup. I mean, we've seen him play. I don't think he is a starter. I think that he is a depth guy. And then O'Neal at right tackle. I think your opening offensive line here is pretty simple. Now, if we had had a full, you know, the OTAs, minicamps, blah, blah, blah, I think if we had had those things I think that

there's a fighting chance that Cleveland either starts at left guard or left tackle but we don't and rushing him to me makes no sense um so I I think Cleveland's on opening day is on the bench it doesn't mean he doesn't start eventually but I I think it's a pretty cut and dry with how few practices and no exhibition games it's pretty cut and dry with how few practices and no exhibition games. It's pretty cut and dry that your starting offensive line should probably be those five and then adjust from there. And you know what? I think that they probably will be sufficient again in blocking for Cook and the run.

And I think that as far as the pass protection goes, it's twofold. One, they need to probably take a step, which is a fair ask. And two is, I'm sure Gary's done this before. You need to go to Kirk and be like, Kirk, we're going to work with you as well and have you make some adjustments and try and make your life as simple as possible. But the reality is the Vikings did not go during the course of the spring or summer and find this magic. You know, they didn't sign Peters.

They didn't make a move where we said, wow. So they chose their fate. And I think that to start, you probably have the offensive line that goes Reef, Elfline, Bradbury, Samia, Oneo. I agree with you at this moment until I've been out there to see it, which I think is coming soon, but not 100% when. I think it's when they put on padded practices, so we might have another week of kind of doing things this way until we can actually get out there to see how they're practicing and so forth, but I agree with your starting offensive line at this moment. It would not surprise me, though, if Ezra Cleveland did end up being the starting left

guard and they moved Pat Elfline to the right side. One of the reasons is because Mike Zimmer has talked about twice now on Zoom calls, guys that have more potential to be good will play over guys who are in their second year who they know what they have. He has said that a couple times, and I've been trying to figure out who he's referring to and I'm not saying for sure that he's referring to Ezra Cleveland and Drew Samia because I always think cornerback cornerback your answer that's what he's doing and I but what I would but let me caution him with this one and and this is where Zimmer's admitted lack of patience could bite him squarely in the butt.

He has to be careful. And if you're Spielman, you actually, I think, have to watch Mike here. I get what he's saying. And in theory, I think what he's saying probably makes sense. But you have to, if you're Zimmer, and Kubiak is probably fine with this, but Mike is not, you have to, if you're Zim, and Kubiak is probably fine with this, but Mike is not, you have to be very careful here. Like, you can't, I'm just telling you, we've seen guys who aren't elite players, but they're good.

We've seen their confidence get cooked, and sometimes they never come back. And how would you feel if you drafted a guy, and in 2020, which again, it's going to be a weird year. I mean, who knows if we're going to have a Super Bowl, right? How would you feel if you cooked a guy this year because your patience was he's got to play? I mean, I would urge this. Don't be dumb. All sports for 2020. Don't be dumb.

It's a pandemic. It's really, really bad. Don't make rash decisions that you ordinarily would feel emboldened making because in football guy terms, that's just the way I do things. Seriously. I just think that if Ezra Cleveland, with his athleticism, they feel like he can adapt quickly the way that Brian O'Neal did in 2018, then he is probably their best option. And if you want to improve what you're doing in pass protection, which is number

one for them, think about last year, Kirk Cousins was still top 10 in pressure percentage last year. And that's despite the offense doing everything it possibly could to move him off the spot. And yet still he was getting pressured, and a lot of that was coming up the middle. So if your main idea, and again, Cleveland is practicing right now, he said, with the second group, so he's not with the starting group, but if that is your idea is to improve the pass pro, he might be your best option. He is a little bigger than someone like Pat Elfline. He has done a lot of pass protecting in his career as a left tackle, even though it was at Boise State. Maybe that's your best argument for it. I still think this is a little bit up in the air, but we know three of the positions now that Gary Kubiak has confirmed.

Riley Reif is definitely staying at the left tackle position. Bradbury's not moving. Brian O'Neill is flat out terrific, and I think he can continue to ascend and be an even better player. Gary Kubiak even mentioned Pro Bowl for him for this year, which I think is a good chance. And the Vikings have not had an offensive lineman in the Pro Bowl since Matt Khalil's first year, and I think he was an alternate. He was. Oh, boy, did that go the wrong direction after that.

Jed, I want to ask you along these same lines what you think and this was another thing that i wrote about at purple insider what you think they have to change on offense to be better than they were last year because in my mind you have to be better to achieve the same results and i will tell you why last year the vikings played 11 teams out of their 16 games that did not make the playoffs. That was tied for the most teams on the slate that did not make the playoffs of any team in the NFL. So there were a couple of different teams that played 11 non-playoff teams.

This year, they've got maybe a rejuvenated Phillip Rivers. You have Matt Stafford healthy for two games, presumably. We don't know who's getting COVID and injured and all those things now. You've got Tom Brady later on. You've got Drew Brees if we ever get there. Aaron Rodgers is going to be very motivated to allow the Packers to never play Jordan Love. It is a tough quarterback schedule, so I think that you're looking at, plus with the defense having so many new faces, you're looking at maybe 2018-style shootouts for some of these games like we saw a few years ago in Los Angeles and in Green Bay early in 2018.

Where do you think that they need to be better, aside from what we were just talking about, pass protection is obvious? So I think there's a couple things here. One is I think they very well could do this because Kubiak does a good job. I think they need to be a little bit more creative. I think there are ways to do that. But with Diggs gone, Jefferson's not going to step in day one and be Diggs. And Diggs is gone. And Diggs is a massive loss.

I mean, the haul that they got back draft pick-wise from Buffalo was very good. But there's no mistaking the fact that Stephon Diggs being gone is going to hurt. And it's going to hurt the quarterback. And replacing him is not going to be an opening day thing. It's going to take some time if it's possible. And I don't know it's possible. One is I think they need to be, assuming he's going to play, I think they need to be more creative and more open-minded about Dalvin Cook's role.

And by that, I mean there are different ways. And the tape is all over this league from guys like Cook who have his skill. So it's not some deal where you have to come up with the ideas. But there is tape that you can watch of guys like Cook and use him that way. And I think that you need to give teams, teams that have been studying Cook and your offense throughout the course of the spring and summer, need to be given a different look of, oh, we didn't expect that. So one is I'm putting him as a receiver more or in the slot more.

I'm going to get creative more. That is one. The other thing that, and this is where I think, at least at the beginning, you tried to replace some of Diggs production, Matthew, in a different way. I think that they are sitting on a gold mine in Irv Smith Jr. I think Irv Smith Jr. could be an elite, and this is a small group, and they're really good, but we saw enough from him last year, the athletic ability, the receiving skills, the hybrid skills, to say that that guy's role in this offense should increase definitely, and I think that he could quickly become a favorite of Cousins.

And so just off the top of my head, the two things that I would do is, with Dalvin, I would present looks the teams aren't expecting. And the second thing is I would look at some of the elite pass-catching tight ends in this league, and I would say, how can we use Irv Smith in that ability and if they don't increase his use which I think they will it's a crime because this guy could become a real pain in the ass for opposing defenses that's just two quick thoughts we used to complain about it all the time about why Latavius Murray and Jarek McKinnon were not on the field at the same time or why Delvin Cook and Latavius Murray were not on the field at the same time and I wonder if I should start complaining already. I mean, yes, CJ Hamm is very valuable as a fullback. He presents different matchups and it's really fun to watch on tape when they line up in like an I formation, you know,

old school. CJ Hamm goes to the right, but the run play is to the left and you watch. He's got right. I tried to convince him. I tried to convince him once to wear the neck roll, but he said no. You'll watch the linebacker go to the right with C.J. Hamm and completely eliminate him from the play. It's amazing how they can use basically the fact that defensive linemen or linebackers are locked into these keys that they read and use them against them by using C.J. Hamm. But I also think that when you have this brute running back in Alexander Madison who runs over people and somebody who could be more finessed when you want him to be in Delvin Cook catching

the ball running routes, that you can use those guys at the same time. And I think that just taking the creativity up a notch would be helpful. I agree with you that last year they were 28th in the amount of motion that they used, pre-snap motion, and expected points added goes up when teams use pre-snap motion. That's something that they could pretty easily implement just using it more often. You know, an advantage, of course, of not using it is you can run up tempo, and they did that successfully last year. But mixing and matching those things, taking some Stefanski things and adding them with some Kubiak things from the

old school style of offense, I think is necessary. And when it comes to play calling, take your second down in 10 runs and put them in a rocket ship and shoot it to the sun. Because I looked this up last year, their success rate in terms of getting themselves closer to a first down on running on second down and 10 was bad. As you might expect, it usually is. It was like 30 something percent when they passed on second down and 10 it was 60 i mean it's just it's one of those things where it's a small detail but a lot of teams have learned that running on second down and 10 is kind of a death wish for a long drive and that's something that they're just going to have to be a little more modern with and follow the numbers a little

bit more is gary going to do that though i don't know question do you think because that's the one thing that I'm curious about and we know that from day one that Gary got to the Vikings that this was his offensive philosophy and then Kevin called the plays and Kevin did a good job um but the one thing that I don't know now is with Kevin gone does Gary like up with the times and does he keep the mentality of the play calling? Or does he go to, I like to do this and I know that my boss, I know Zim loves to run. I'm very curious to see with Stefanski being gone, not how it changes the offensive overall philosophy

because I don't think it will one bit, but him being gone on game day and the play calling intrigues me. And does Gary adopt what we're talking about here? And does he look at Dalvin Cook and be like, I can do 18 things with this guy? Or does Gary say, no, my philosophy for Cook is going back to Denver.

I'm really curious to see how that changes or doesn't change. We'll get back to the conversation in just a second, but have you ever heard of deal-dot-com? It's the best, most honest bidding site where you can win things you'd never expect at a price that you'd never believe. They have over 1,000 auctions every day on electronics, appliances, beauty products, home decor, even cars. Here's how it works. It's like an auction, but every item starts at $0

and then goes up one cent every time you bid the kicker is that the auction clock restarts every 10 seconds that means every time you bid everyone else has 10 seconds to answer or the item is yours if you go ahead and buy now deal dash is offering up our listeners 100 free bids upon sign up on top of their other discounts go to deal dash.com and use the offer code insider deal dash.com dot fm slash insider that is d-e-a-l-d-a-s-h dot fm slash insider and that was the biggest question with gary kubiak in denver was after manning left but you know trevor simeon was the quarterback. So who knows? But it was, is this offense moderate enough? Is it creative enough? Is it still Gary just using

the same offensive philosophies again? And it is funny how it bounces back and forth that there is a very happy medium here because if you're John D. Filippo and you try to implement every offensive scheme ever used in the history of football going back to 1921, then it gets too complicated for players. And we discovered that. But if you are too simple, then teams start to solve you a little bit. And I do believe that the better teams we saw the Vikings face last year had a very good idea of what they were going to do and were able to solve it because they had the players to do it. Washington, New York, even Philly's defense at that time, they did not have the players to stop what the Vikings were doing.

Philadelphia had the stupidest game plan I saw all last year on defense. Jim Schwartz, did you lose your mind that day? My God. Not only that, but they also had, like, like you know their number eight cornerback in their starting I think that Stefan Diggs was smoking that day so you know there were there were multiple factors that might not happen this year or they might I wanted to ask you Judd about this idea that it was thrown out there by CBS Sports it was tweeted to me, and I thought, the comment from the tweeter was, this is Zulgadian, and I totally agree that if the NFL decided to scrap its schedule and play in sort of a mini

bubble where the teams play their division games only in weeks one through seven, would it give the NFL a higher chance to succeed? And here is my follow-up for this, because of course, we're way too close right now. They've just got to go and do it how they're going to do it. But let's say that it doesn't work. Let's say they go into week one, 20% of the league gets COVID after week one, and they've just got to stop. And they've got to say, hold on, like the NBA and like the NHL, we've got to rethink this in the middle of the season. If at any point they have to do that, divisional bubbles are kind of interesting here,

Judge. Should the NFL have done something different than how they're going to go about it? 100 percent, yes, yes. I mean, baseball is having outbreaks. Baseball has fewer players. The outbreaks within teams are between people that are probably socially distanced more than in football. The fact I feel like Goodell and the National Football League got emboldened by, well, we got through the draft. OK, it was a virtual draft. It was really cool. It was fine. You know, and then we released our schedule and that went fine. And it feels like they are entering training camp or started training camp sort of emboldened that we are the NFL.

It's going to work. I think, Matthew, before we get to opening day, we're going to have at least one, if not more, team-wide breakouts of this because these rosters are huge. There is no way that you can keep these guys quarantined when there is no bubble. I'm not saying they're all going to be stupid, but all it takes is one or two guys. So the plan that you just said, I sort of love because I do think, I think we all have to be for this season in any sport, adaptable to what we can do. And saying the Super Bowl is in Tampa Bay and, damn it,

we're playing it on February. No, no, we don't control this. The virus controls us now. It sucks, but it's true. So I love out-of-the-box ideas because selfishly, and I'm guessing that you feel the same way, I just want to watch sports. And, like, if we don't watch them officially how we ordinarily watch them, okay, I'd rather watch games played in a bubble or in a tournament concept than no sports. So I love, I love the idea because football is just destined for an outbreak. And then what,

what happens if the Vikings have an outbreak? They don't know it, right? They play the Packers. I mean, these guys are hugging and basically breathing on each other and tackling constantly. So now you've got not one but two, which could lead to four. I love the notion of very quickly here, if you could, pivoting to a different idea that's just going to get us the sport. And unfortunately for the athletes playing the sport, the sacrifice is you basically can't have a life outside of your sport. The payoff is you still get paid and lots of people have lost their jobs, not being paid now. So the idea to me, kudos, congratulations.

It would have been nice if the league had thought of this and not thought what I think they always think, which is we are the NFL. We do what we want. I do think that this can work if the players act responsibly, and that's something you can't guarantee. But if the players act responsibly, it's going to be on them because by the time that they get to the game

and they hug the Packers, and so forth, if everybody is COVID free, it will be fine. If somebody is not, it could be a huge problem. And that means if they have gone out to a bar or whatever else or gone to a party, and the NFL has put things out there like you are going to be penalized. If you do these things, and you put yourself at risk, your you are going to be penalized if you do these things and you put yourself at risk your money is going to be taken away that was in my mind as weird as it sounds and you start to get to feel like is this Russia but like at the same time smart to say you will be legit penalized your cash if you mess around. Stay in your hotel. Stay in your house with your family. Do not play games with this or you're going to get your money penalized

because, one, I think that a thing we underrate is you and I as journalists have very good media literacy, and we can tell BS from reality pretty easily. I'm not sure all athletes have that same sort of media literacy, and you wonder where they're getting their information about COVID and so forth I saw this Bengals player tweet out hey only 0.4 percent of the nation has gotten it or something so why are they taking all these measures it's like you're gonna have that guy or a couple of those guys in the locker room but if you tell them look man you wear your mask and you don't go to parties and you just get through this season or we're going to take your money. Well, that's a

pretty good way to convince them, I think. And the other part that the NFL has that is a big advantage is that Major League Baseball screwed it up. So now they can look at Major League Baseball and say, that's what they did wrong. There's the example of how you do not be. And now we can make this succeed. So I have some optimism about it. But if it blows up, I love the idea of a tournament. I love the idea of bubbling some teams together. And now this is a little different from what the CBS article proposed of having like a 2014 tournament, like the NHL, I wouldn't even mind a double elimination tournament for the whole league or something like that, that it would be super compelling, super fun, and I 100% agree with you, Judd.

Just play football. Find some way if this does blow up. Find a way. Bubble people for three months as opposed to a full season. However you got to do it, do it. A, there's a lot of money involved, also like we all want to see this succeed we all want to see this work out and there are other ways and alternatives that they could potentially use uh if this doesn't work out now what i would love to know is on roger goodell's zoom call

with the owners what are they throwing out there? Because my understanding is a lot of coaches publicly are saying, oh, we feel 100% safe, everything's great, we're the best organization in the world. But behind the scenes they're going, I don't know if it's going to work. I mean, it's just so, so hard. And can you trust these players? I mean, there's so many players. That's the problem.

And they're in proximity. I mean, to play their sport, it's not their fault. But, you know, they have to tackle. They have to be, you can't socially distance. But if I'm a coach, there's no way that I can trust. I mean, we are talking about ultimately what with practice squads. Something like 69 players. Surprise.

Surprise. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We're talking about 69 players, the majority who are in their 20s, okay? Like when I was 25, I would have been a Bozo too and give me millions of dollars potentially. You know, are you – okay, so the Vikings – let's say the Vikings beat the Packers week one, all right?

And it's Sunday night. You're really telling me everyone's going right home? Like you're really telling me no one's going to a bar? You're really telling me that no one's going to celebrate? I don't buy it. And it's just, it's the nature of things. And so these coaches and teams can be as confident as they want. And I know they're brash, and I know that they can be arrogant about things.

But the reality is it's only going to take one or two teams. And, you know, baseball is going through the same thing too. It takes one or two teams, and now the whole thing seemingly is derailed. Now, you could try and get it back on track. My fear is with football, though, is if this spreads, it's going to go like wildfire, and it's going to wipe out teams, and you are going to have a huge problem. So, again, to go back to and you are going to have a huge problem so again to go

back to the idea of a tournament in a bubble at least that gives us something and and the reality to me with players of this age and it sounds bad but if you don't control them completely like their lives like their bodies if you don't them, you are asking for disaster because if two guys screw up, now my whole team is in trouble. And I could be the most confident, cocky coach of all time. I could be Sean Payton. But guess what? It doesn't matter. We'll get back to the conversation in just a second. But have you ever heard of deal-dot-com? It's the best, most honest bidding site where you can win things you'd never expect at a price that you'd never believe. They have over 1,000 auctions every day on electronics, appliances, beauty products, home decor, even cars.

Here's how it works. It's like an auction, but every item starts at $0 and then goes up one cent every time you bid. The kicker is that the auction clock restarts every 10 seconds. That means every time you bid, everyone else has 10 seconds to answer or the item is yours. If you go ahead and buy now, DealDash is offering up our listeners 100 free bids upon sign up on top of their other discounts. Go to DealDash.com and use the offer code INSIDER, Deal-dot-com-dot-fm-slash-insider. That is D-E-A-L-D-A-S-H-dot-fm-slash-insider. All right, I got two more things for you, Judd.

Number one, let's say I gave you $5 million in cap space because Michael Pierce gave the Vikings $5 million in cap space. Would you spend it on Delvin Cook's extension to front load, which helps you later down the road in terms of spreading out his cap hit? Would you use it on a guard to add someone to this mix or a nose tackle like Snacks Harrison or whoever else is out there or a veteran cornerback like Logan Ryan remains on the market. How would you spend exactly $5 million in cap space?

Can you tell me what my expectations for 2020 are with that question? I think your expectations are to still win the division or be highly competitive. I do not look at this, and I don't think anybody there does, as a tank season or as a rebuild. I think they realize that 2021 has a better chance for them as a Super Bowl team, but that everything is possible, as KG would say, here in 2020. And I can't use the pandemic as an excuse for my lack of success, right? Correct. Correct. Okay. Then I am going defensive side of the ball for sure, me and i can't use the pandemic as an excuse for my lack of success right correct correct okay then

i am going defensive side of the ball for sure and i'm either going veteran corner or nose tackle and to completely answer your question i probably am going nose tackle because i'm confident that i can if i might uh i'm confident that i can coach up my cornerbacks. I might be wrong, but I'm confident. At nose tackle, I look at that group right now, and I don't see a lot there. And the cornerback part of Zim's existence is sort of the sexy part, because corner's a sexy position. Shut down a receiver, it's awesome. And fans can watch those matchups on Sunday and clearly see that Xavier Rhodes is either spectacular or terrible, but you can see that. The no-cycle position and the three-tech in Zimmer's defense are absolutely key. They are absolutely imperative to the success of that group. But because it's interior defensive line

play, it's not as sexy, so we don't probably focus on it or talk about it but I think if we see it deteriorate it's going to become quite obvious so given the parameters that you just provided me for 2020 I'm probably going I'm probably going to attempt to go with my five mil with a guy like snacks because I know the importance of if nothing else having a guy who's got veteran savvy. And, you know, Collar, if I'm going what right now, Shamar Stephan and Armin Watts or something, I don't think I can put lipstick on that. So I'm going to take my cash and I'm going to attempt to invest it in a nose tackle,

a big old fat guy who is healthy, who I think is going to play a very important role in the success of my defense and defensive line. So I think that I'm going with corner because as much as I agree with the nose tackles value in what Zimmer is doing, I also think that last year they got pretty replacement level nose tackle play with Linval Joseph mostly being injured and Jaleel Johnson filling in, and yet it didn't really impact the defense as much as maybe we would have thought that it would have. And maybe I am being ridiculous here, and I guess history will play this out.

Reporters always have players that we got way too high on or wrote something huge on and then it blew up in our face. Armond Watts is good, I think. I think. And if they play him instead of bringing in someone like Snacks Harrison, who's a veteran, but he's kind of washed. I mean, I think you find out you might have someone really good there that does more than just a nose tackle. If you are competent at plugging gaps, but really good at getting after the passer, that's more valuable than being great at plugging gaps and being bad at getting after the passer. So I'd love to see what they have in Armond Watts,

and if he turns out to be a great find for them and then Michael Pierce comes back, then, wow, you feel really good about this. I think that that's the way that I would approach it, and I think Shamar Ste Stephan is enough of a veteran that if you need him to plug those couple of gaps, he can do it. And that's kind of been his job anyway. So my last choice is Crook's Contract. That's my last choice. Well, I'll tell you why that might be a second choice of mine mine because what you want is when you have this extra space that you got for free is to use it now so he doesn't take up as much cap space later. And if we've all agreed upon the fact that they're going to do it, so there's no point in really debating should they do it, that they're going to do it, then this is the way you want to structure it. Like, would I rather have Logan Ryan for a year,

or would I rather have not that much liability with him, Cook, two years from now or something like that? I'm going to take that with Cook probably. That's the way I might look at it. Last thing for you, Judd. I want you to tell me, intern Paul asked me a great question the other day. He asked, if this year had been normal, who would have been the player that everyone was squealing like the Beatles just came to America over, like Kyle Slaughter was last year? Who is the complete rando that, or someone who will never make any difference whatsoever in the NFL, that preseason the debates would have raged like wildfire.

Okay, to be clear, this guy could make a difference and he could be good, but I believe that the debates, if he didn't get the opportunity that the fans wanted, they would have gone nuts. B.C. Johnson. I think if Jefferson's going to play the slot and if Phelan's going to kick outside, Phelan can certainly catch the deep pass, but he could catch passes short, deep. But Diggs had that explosive ability, right? And Diggs could run that nine route, to talk in football terms,

and Diggs could make the sexy play. And B.C. Johnson, I think, has that capability. Now, is B.C. Johnson really, really good? I have no idea. He might be. And B.C. Johnson, I think, has that capability. Now, is B.C. Johnson really, really good? I have no idea. He might be. Is B.C. Johnson okay? That could be the case as well. But I think if B.C. Johnson, during the course, if they had played training camp and preseason games, of course,

and B.C. Johnson hadn't gotten the sufficient opportunity to prove that he could be part of, if not, the deep route replacement for Diggs, I think fans would have been very upset, and that we would have heard, we would not have heard the end of, you got to give B.C. Johnson more of a chance, and so, so this is not to say he won't be successful, but I just think that he would have been the guy that a lot of people were hyper-focused on, and saying, you know, you found Diggs in the fifth round, B.C. Johnson's the seventh-round pick. Why aren't you doing the same thing? Yeah, okay, so where I could have –

Like this? Yeah, along these very same lines, what I could see is someone like Dylan Mitchell making three preseason deep catches, and then Chad Beebe making the team instead and people losing their ever-loving minds is the way that I could have seen this but why is BC Johnson and Chad Beebe on the team and not Dylan Mitchell he had those three catches that could have seen that coming so uh Judd it's always a good one too it's always great to catch up with you uh I enjoy these chats as you know and uh I I do miss I do miss us being out there at uh training camp and reminiscing about the great times and the wonderful times.

Where is Ezra? That's the question. Where is Ezra? We know where Ezra is. The Vikings would say, please don't report it. We would say, we have to report it. I just put this out on Twitter for the other reporters. Like, is it left guard or is it right guard?

They're competing. And there is legitimate, like, confusion over the quotes from Gary and whether it's guard or is it right guard they're competing and there is legitimate like confusion over the quotes from gary and whether it's left or right so i don't know we'll see that's why we that's why we cover the team all right judd well uh we will catch up again soon man thanks for taking the time good talking to you matthew take care