Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Fearing for football and Vikings coordinator speak

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Will the NFL have the same issues with outbreaks at their facilities? What will they have to do in order to play on time? Plus: What Gary Kubiak said about Dalvin Cook and running backs was interesting. Where we see Justin Jefferson lining up after Kubiak praised his slot work in college and breakdowns of two position battles that we're intrigued by. Read Matthew's work at PurpleInsider.substack.com And fill out the Bluewire survey  https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=BugBBZdAw0aNFUvtuGkgyhnTao1hdWxOjJwTA2fwHGJUN0hUNEhaSExWN0RRRFdCV1ZOTkdHR1IwOCQlQCN0PWcu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from potential training camp battles, positional battles, to how they have been handling everything through COVID-19. So I just want to start out with saying, first, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. good hanging in there and getting ready for i guess is this the off season the true off season because everybody's wrapping up with otas and there was no mini camp but it's like this time suck i don't know exactly where we are if we're still like because usually there's that five week period that we go into our mini vacation and players go travel home or wherever they're going and we get ready for training camp but it all kind of feels like this giant long blob of days don't matter weeks don't

matter it's the off season is it not I don't know it's it's confusing I just hope that you know we can get the COVID cases down in the places where they're spiking heavily because, like I said to you before we started, that if football, if there's no drop in the cases in places like Texas, California, and Florida, then we're not going to have a football season because if those states can't play, it's just not going to happen. So really hoping that this next month brings some good news. So we're back here in late July at the start of training camp right about a month from now you know gearing up to actually have like a full experience of it so for the most part on the show here I have tried to avoid the inevitable conversation about whether we're actually going to

have a football season but since you opened the door let's talk about it for a second before we get into Gary and what he had to say about justin jefferson every day to me is i guess uh increased anxiety about whether it could happen because when everything initially got shut down all the sports and the ncaa championships were canceled and baseball every player went home and so forth the thought was football is going to have all summer long that it's going to get hot and COVID-19 isn't going to exist when it's hot. And we're going to socially distance and wear masks and shut down businesses. And this thing will disappear and then we will jump right back into sports and everything will be fine again. That was the hope when this all started.

And here we are only 40 days away from the beginning of camp or something like that. And it doesn't feel like it's any better. And when you look at the cases that are coming out of Florida, where there are multiple NFL teams, and like you said, Texas, Arizona has opened up a lot. California has had this problem as well with uh you know the cases spiking the safety of the players just seems like it's going to be at risk here if there isn't a dramatic drop very very soon and then when you see these other sports where you have philly's organization opens up their training facility and then immediately a bunch of people get it we've seen these college players get back together for practices.

And then half of their roster ends up with COVID-19. I mean, for the NFL, it is so difficult. Even if you're the Vikings with a hotel of your own to put everybody in. And then you could just go right to practice. And you can quarantine yourself and so forth. But it just seems like it's so hard to keep this completely out of 32 different facilities I I mean it seems like a monumental task to even get through training camp in a couple of preseason games without there being some type of outbreak and I'm getting more and more nervous about this

yeah and I think that this is something that people expected like you, you can't just expect, oh, we bring everybody back, we're going to create this so-called bubble city, just like the NBA is trying to do in Orlando, and everybody's going to be safe, everybody will be quarantined, it's fine. This isn't New Zealand. Like, you know, you're not on an island. You have people interacting with each other that are, you know, not getting tested every single day.

And I think everybody expected this to happen. Like, I know everybody's freaking out when they see that Kansas State shut down its football workouts for two weeks because a bunch of players tested positive. These colleges are starting to go back. Same thing with, you know, LSU apparently is quarantining players. Twenty-three players tested positive for it at Clemson. You can't tell me that that wasn't the expected result, just knowing that we know how this virus spreads and that it could be very similar for when NFL

teams are eventually able to return that you see a spike in cases. I mean, what was it last week? The Cowboys had a bunch of players tested positive. The Texans had a bunch of players test positive. The Bucs coaches, there were several coaches who got it and a few players just as they were returning to the facility. And even in a different sport in hockey, Tampa Bay Lightning shut down their facility because they're in a hot spot right now where it's spreading like wildfire. And they just realize that's the only way to mitigate it is to stop doing what they were trying to do in the reopening process of hockey. So I know it's a lot of doom and gloom. And I know there are people who want to put their head in the sand and not think that this is real or just act like it's going to go away.

It's an anxious time for everybody. We want something to look forward to. We don't want false hope. But I think that maybe a month from now, it's like if we can just, you know, take it month by month, hope that the cases drop, and then by training camp realize that it won't be the full experience, but if we can just get some semblance of the full experience where, you know, we realize that if there is an outbreak, you might have, sorry,

some teams might have a competitive advantage because one team has to shut it down for X period of days because of an outbreak. You just got to roll with the punches. I know that we are so concerned well maybe not us but like coaches and NFL teams about the competitive advantage disadvantages in certain cities because of the spread of the virus and even beyond that they're just always worried about trying to create a level playing field well you just got to kind of have this radical acceptance this year that that might not happen and that's okay so you know I try to keep my eye on the horizon and not get caught up in the day-to-day minutiae as hard as it is um but coaches are doing the same thing like like we you mentioned with the

coaches that you know spoke last week from the Vikings like this is all new to them they're not used to not being able to touch and mold and meld their players the way that they want to you know Andre Patterson and the conversations I've had with him has really gone back to his days of as a teacher when he was in Washington back in the early you know late late 80s where he was teaching high school he feels like he's kind of back in that role um in having to really adjust the way that he teaches players because you have to do it on a digital format so I mean it's still going to be an adjustment this whole year is an adjustment um it's just a matter of will we see football in its form you know that we're used to I feel like it's going to be different but I still hold out the optimism knowing you know what's at stake here for owners

that they're going to try to push forward with this. And listening to the coordinators talk, I came away with the feeling that if training camp goes off on time and they play two preseason games, that we'll talk about how much that means. But I've always been the training camp slash preseason doesn't matter that much person. That they've already decided out of 53 roster spots, 51 of them, and then it just comes down to who's the backup safety or the punt gunner or something like that, that might be of tiny consequence over a 16-game season versus all the key positions that are well decided by the time we start training camp. And then preseason games, I think last year we really were shown very clearly how little those actually mean to position battles.

If you remember the wonderful Kyle Slaughter times of our life that we kept telling people, it does not matter that he's lighting it up in the fourth quarter because the practices are what really matter. So if they only play two preseason games, that's not a huge deal. A lot of these adjustments that we've gone through so far with the NFL, the weirdness of the draft and sending it out to different cameras and having Roger Goodell sort of look exhausted in his basement, all those things we could say, well, that was kind of a weird time in our lives. But we haven't been, as football people, impacted really whatsoever.

You and I were not out there for OTA walkthroughs in shorts, as we would have gotten a look maybe at the early rookies. But even then, we're always stretching so much on what it means. Looks like this guy can catch the ball in his shorts, and it doesn't matter. But that was fun. And we've still gotten to talk to all the Vikings people. So we haven't really lost out a whole lot in the information that we've been able to gather, aside from just watching those handful of practices that are not that meaningful in the big picture.

And that's why I've sort of been of the mind, okay, let's just wait and see. Let's just wait and see. Other sports will lay out the blueprint for the NFL to be able to figure out how to do this safely, and they'll take safety measures and they'll invent things to put on you know face masks and and so forth but just lately I have felt more and more like this is going to be more disruptive than I even thought I thought maybe they'll play without fans it'll be okay but if you do have multiple outbreaks in a week I mean you might have to shut the whole league down for a

week or if you do two pre-season games and find out that you end up with half of a couple of teams rosters with covet 19 then you just can't go forward and it's such a sport of being in somebody's face i mean it's just like you know the thing about the quintessential football noise is like people running into each other and smashing with spitting blood in each other's faces. That's not exactly the most health conscious sport to play, you know, and I guess in my mind, it's just been more and more wondering, how does this actually happen? No, I'm the same way. And it stresses me out because you try to think about like worst case scenario and worst case scenario is pretty terrifying right now. And I always like,

anytime I'm on radio or, you know, just dissecting this, I realized that the number one thing I need to do is preface. Not that it's not obvious, but I am not a doctor. I am not an epidemiologist. I am not a pandemic expert. All you can do is go off of what the experts are saying right now. And it's a little stressful because last week when Dr. Fauci comes out and says that the NFL should adopt the bubble, you know, bubble philosophy that the NBA is considering using, let's see if they actually get there in Orlando.

And then I think it was Tom Meyer from the NFLPA, he's the NFLPA doctor, said, well, that's not what we're considering. Like, we respect his, you know, thinking. It's just like the conflicting of opinions, that's not what we're considering. Like we respect his thinking. It's just like the conflicting of opinions I think is a little stressful. And, you know, eventually it's going to be okay. I don't know when eventually is, but all you can do is just kind of keep moving forward with, you know, the same mindset that you have when you hear about coach speak.

I mean, the one day at a time thing, like that has gotten me through quarantine of like when I'm thinking about, shoot, am I going to, you know, I'm in a contract year right now for myself. Like, am I going to have a job in the fall? Am I going to have, you know, football to cover? Will I be employed? I mean, those are things that myself and I know millions of other people are thinking about.

And it's, you know, in the same realm of the football world, all you can control is what you can control is what you can control and everything else at that point should just be left out so I think that what these teams are trying to do um at this point is prepare themselves for worst case scenario which would really mess a lot of things up but at some point this is going to get not get back to normal I don't want to use that anymore but we're going to see the other side to normal. I don't want to use that anymore, but we're going to see the other side of this. I don't know when that's going to be. I think all we can do is hope that people just try to take this thing seriously going forward. Like if you want football in the fall, wear your damn mask. Stop with the nonsense on it.

Like I had, you know, I go on and on about the conversations I've had with people who are like anti-mask and it's government controlling you and all this other nonsense um I think it's just it's ludicrous don't be selfish wear your mask realize that outbreaks are going to happen sometimes regardless of how you're protecting yourself and move forward with it like eventually there will be a vaccine like you hope that they're doing it quickly enough. And, you know, I've talked to somebody who said there's, each team's going to need about 200,000 COVID tests for the season to test players alone. And that's a lot like, I mean, players and staff and coaches, but if we can just kind of like get all those ducks in a row,

I think we'll have a better chance of seeing football in the fall, but everybody's got to do their part here. Like it really is an all hands onands-on-deck effort. And the NFL can no longer run from this being like, well, we're going to see how baseball does it. Well, baseball looks like a freaking dumpster fire right now. And I am highly doubting that we're going to have a baseball season. Well, let's see how the NBA does it.

Well, there's a lot of players who are saying, I'm not so sure I want to go live in Disney World and live in the bubble format. And they're worried about their safety. Like, I'd rather have people be concerned about their safety and not poo-pooing this whole thing like we've seen before. But the NFL at some point is no longer going to be able to run from it and realize, hey, at some point you've got to let fans know if they're not going to be able to come to games.

At some point you've got to let people know if the season's going to be pushed back because we're, as you mentioned, we're 40 days out from training camp just about. At least, you know, everybody has to be in camp by July 28th. Like, we really need to get some answers here soon about what the contingency plans are going to be. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. They just launched their partnership with Michelob golden light for the Mick golden light fishing club merch line. The logo includes a walleye chugging a beer and they have it on shirts, hoodies,

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That's right. They keep kicking the ball down the road, and we'll answer those questions later. We'll answer those questions later as if they're just trying to wait and see, but eventually they're going to have to have answers will they need hub cities i mean could you have a day in minnesota for example that is a state that's handled things really well overall could you have three games played at u.s bank stadium almost like the high school tournament or something there's so many of these options that are out there and we've heard nothing about what their contingency plans are if they can't just plow forward. And the thing that keeps

going through my mind is Tony Sperano and what that was like to have a coach pass away right before the season. And thinking about all these coaches who are in their 50s and 60s and even some in their late 60s and 70s that have been around for a very very long time and would be at high risk and it's not so much the players you worry about though there are possibilities of guys having their careers impacted by this depending on just how your own body reacts to it we've been lucky so far that we haven't heard of any athletes whose careers have been altered by getting COVID-19 but you know those people who are in that red zone of this could be a major problem if you get it, including Mike Zimmer, that's what really, really concerns me about how this is going to go forward.

So let me just stop there because what happens is once you start talking about this, it rolls on and on and on and on, and then our whole podcast will just be us being afraid of COVID. So let's talk about some other things, some football things. Yes. But I felt like when you opened the door there, I needed to kind of get that off my chest that this is really starting to be concerning. So let's talk about Gary Kubiak then. What he had to say about Justin Jefferson really jumped off the page for me

last week where he talked about how Jefferson's moving around or playing inside and in different sets is actually a benefit for him. I think a lot of people think, oh, if you're only a slot receiver, well, this is kind of a problem. But Kubiak saw it in a lot of different formations of him lining up in the slot. And that's very much what NFL teams do where on every play, if you run 60 offensive plays, you might have 45 different looks throughout an entire game, and that's one of the reasons it's so hard to adjust. So should we have been looking at Justin Jefferson's slot production

as more of a good thing for his early transition? Yeah, I think it's a great thing. And, like, teams, you know, the connotation that your slot receiver, like, pigeonholes you into one thing, like, that to me is just that's outdated thinking because you can move these guys around. And I don't, you know, the Vikings wouldn't have drafted him, like, if he didn't have a really defined route tree. Like, he did.

At LSU, he ran a pro route tree. I mean, that's how he has ways of creating separation that show you, you can line this guy up in a number of different spots, and he's going to be able to produce. Like, you know, so he goes from, he had zero catches as a freshman to 54 as a sophomore and then a school record 111 as a junior. And 100 of those catches came from him being inside the slot. And, like, you know, I think that that's, you know, one area where you don't think of Stephon Diggs as much. Like, I mean, I know that, you know, last – he bounced around throughout his career.

Under Norv, he was one thing. Under Pat, he was another thing. And under DiFilippo and now, you know, Stefanski, like, he played all over the place. Like, he's not who you think of as a slot receiver, but he did play in the slot. Like, I think that Justin Jefferson, the logical place right now is to start him as a slot receiver he you know his um you know he had a he had seven drops and a drop which is a drop rate of 5.8 percent out of the slot last year like he caught 92 percent of catchable passes which was the fourth best in his draft class like you can do that from other spots but i think the logical way to think of this is that you're not going to be able to get your hands on these guys

the way that you would have normally and test them out I mean Gary Kubiak said himself they don't run one single football play this offseason you're going to have to try to go and not say in the easy way but like try to like and not cut corners but try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt here and do like not overthink it not reinvent the wheel if the guy's good in the slot let him start there because you know that teams are going to be doubling Adam Thielen until Justin Jefferson can become a proven commodity and if he can make plays in a place that he is comfortable a place that you know he set records at LSU on his way to becoming a first round draft pick why wouldn't you put him there yeah the issue that might come up if you try to have him in the slot all the time is just

making sure that him and Irv Smith are on the field at the same time we know that Kyle Rudolph is still going to play a high percentage of snaps that a Gary Kubiak offense is going to have a tight end out there all the time so can you have Irv and Jefferson out there if Irv is often going to line up as a slot receiver himself and do you limit yourself if you try to focus Jefferson in the slot. But then again, if you put him on the outside and he isn't ready for that role in the NFL, in part because of an unusual offseason,

then you're talking about having him not be able to separate, not be able to get open, struggling early, having his confidence hurt early on in his career, and you don't want that either. So there's got to be a real balance from Kubiak how he uses them and I think the answer is probably condensed sets where technically he'll be an outside receiver but he'll have a two-way go he'll have an opportunity to beat press on the outside or inside and you know trying to find different ways to get him off of the line of scrimmage in bunch sets, things like that, that make it a little bit easier.

Yeah, and that's what they did with him before. I mean, a lot of times, like, you saw that same type, you talk about the bunch formations, that's where he lined up a lot of the times at LSU. They used stacks, and I mean, that's, like, you're going to try to do what's best for him right away because he's a rookie coming in here with the expectation that he's here to fulfill Stefan Diggs' role. Like, that doesn't mean necessarily the exact, like, lining up exactly where Stefan Diggs did and doing all of those things, but it's the production, it's the amount of snaps he's going to be asked to play. And like you mentioned with Irv Smith, maybe a way to kind of ease that burden is put more of it on Irv Smith, especially early on in the season. Yep, definitely, definitely. And that was another thing that we can transition to here with kind of ease that burden is put more of it on Irv Smith, especially early on in the season. Yep. Definitely.

Definitely. And that was another thing that we can transition to here with Kubiak, that he had the glowingest of glowing praises for Irv Smith. And one thing that's really fun about our job, Courtney, is that we're always reading between the lines. So whose praise for who is kind of faint, whose praise is real. And I think we've gotten pretty good at this game over the years. And with what Gary Kubiak said about Irv Smith,

his instant reaction to the question was something like, I love him. You know, he's like very, very, very impressed. And here, I'll just read you what he said.

He said, you watch throughout the course of the season, we called on Irv more and more. I think there's a big, big upside there. And I think that that is not false praise. I think that Kubiak is being straightforward there, that he loves what he saw from Irv. And I was really impressed with Irv Smith on a bunch of different levels.

His ability to get open and run actual receiver-like routes. His blocking really surprised me. I thought he was going to get bowled over in blocking just because he's undersized and he's a rookie, and that is not what happened last year. He was able to hold his own in a lot of what they asked him to do blocking-wise, and I think that gives him an opportunity to play almost every snap. I think if you're Kubiak this year, you'd be much more comfortable mixing Jefferson in and out with B.C. Johnson based on the strengths if you can have Irv Smith on the field all the time.

Yeah, and I mean, think about what happened with Irv last year. Like, Gary had mentioned in the beginning of the season, in the preseason, that he was swimming because they're throwing so much at him. The transition from being a college tight end where, you know, he lined up a lot of different places at Alabama. He was an H-back from time to time. You know, his hand in the dirt is an inline tight end, and he'd be outside. I mean, he did a lot of stuff, and I think that his transition

probably couldn't have gone any better than it did. I mean, yes, they used him primarily as a blocker for about the first eight weeks of the season. That was just, you know, that was what we were seeing in the evolution of the offense when they were a very run-heavy team and they had to bring in extra tight ends to max protect for Kirk Cousins. And then finally, you know, he gets his opportunity to show what he can do when Adam Thielen goes down in that Detroit game

and then is out missing pretty much, you know, two months of the season. Like you saw a big uptick for Irv Smith. And I've been asked this question, you know, really just, I think it has a big fantasy impact of like, what do we expect Irv Smith's role to be in the passing game now with Stephon Diggs gone and a rookie receiver in Justin Jefferson? I think it's going to be huge. I think that we're finally going to see,

we're going to see why they drafted him. Like they didn't draft him to be, you know, Tyler Conklin, an in-line blocking tight end or somebody who just catches, you know, somebody who's that third down, you know, threat. I think that Irv Smith has a huge potential here to become a very key part of the passing game. And it's building that trust with Kirk Cousins that both Smith is going to have to continue to do and especially someone like Justin Jefferson.

This is the thing that everybody doesn't understand. Just because you're a first-round receiver and you are expected to fulfill the role of Stephon Diggs does not mean that Kirk Cousins is going to throw you the ball at the goal line in critical situations. As we saw with Stephon Diggs and with Adam Thielen at points and even Kyle Rudolph like there were times that you'd be like why isn't Kirk why isn't that the option for Kirk like there's something about it where you have to really earn his trust and he's just not going to give you an opportunity just because you think you're open like he has to know that he can trust that you're open that's just his style as a quarterback so

someone like Justin Jefferson that may take a while to get a couple games, half the season, to get on the same page with Kirk Cousins. What we saw was Stephon Diggs. It took him several years. So I think with someone like Irv Smith, who already at least has the benefit of a year under his belt, that could potentially boost his targets and see you know a big boost in targets for him and Adam Thielen early on just because Kirk doesn't have that same sort of you know

repertoire um or you know I guess I guess you know continuity with uh Justin Jefferson yet so it should be it should mean really good things for Herb Smith yeah between uh week 7 and week 13 when Adam Thielen was out, he had 24 catches. So you kind of project that over a season. I mean, that's like around a 50-catch type of season, 60-catch type of season. And I don't know if that's a little too high, but I think that that's kind of a fair expectation for him. And I totally agree with your point that getting on the same page with Cousins

seems to be an important thing for Cousins. That even with Rudolph, he had to realize that Rudolph is not going to separate from a linebacker the same way that Jordan Reed did when he was playing in Washington or Vernon Davis did when he was playing in Washington. You're not going to see him juking guys out, but he's still open even when he's not open because of how massive he is. That was something that Case Keenum figured out really quickly, but it seemed to take Kirk Cousins a little bit,

especially in the red zone, to realize you just throw it to him. So with Irv, he's got a year under his belt of showing Cousins he can play. And also B.C. Johnson has done the same. He's a guy not to forget in this because B.C. showed that he can at very least be a possession-wide receiver on the outside. So if Jefferson does struggle a little bit early on, you know that you at least have an NFL-caliber receiver there, and we're not talking about Laquan Treadwell having to step in.

I was curious what you thought about what Gary Kubiak said about running the ball. He mentioned that he gets asked all the time, Hey, Gary, why are all these rando running backs always turning into stars with you as their offensive coordinator, including a little sixth rounder out of Georgia who turned into a Hall of Famer and Arian Foster undrafted who turned into a consistent Pro Bowl NFL player. But then, you know, the other names, the Mike Andersons and the Tatum Bells and so forth. And he also said that he loves Delvin Cook and he loves running backs and that Terrell Davis is one of the reasons he has a ring. So great running backs are helpful. But I took away that they're going to run the ball no matter what.

That Gary is looking at this and saying, I'm not going to change anything with my offense if Delvin Cook decides he's going to sit out because you just can't approach it that way. And the other two guys they have in the backfield last year ran 149 times for 735 yards, which is 4.9 yards per carry, Alexander Madison and Mike Boone. So I think that Gary, in a way, was brilliantly playing both sides of, you know, I love Delvin Cook, but I'm going to run the ball no matter what happens,

and I'm not changing my offense. And you can argue the fact about Delvin's leverage to the Vikings and why they should pay him and the fact that Minnesota is 12-3 when Delvin has at least 100 scrimmage yards in a game, and they're 6-9-1 when he has fewer than 100 yards. You can argue, like, Delvin makes this offense go. He is the focal point. They built it around him.

That's true, but that doesn't mean that there can't be another running back that steps in and is able to fill that void. Alexander Madison is not Dalvin Cook. We're not comparing the two whatsoever, but if you need to go running back by committee, it can happen within the confines of this offense. I know it's not the same scheme, but the principles are very similar to what happened in 2017 when Cook went down and they went committee, you know, running back by committee with Latavius

Murray and Jarek McKinnon. Not the same offense. I know, different play callers, West Coast concepts, the whole thing. But there was same, zone blocking is zone blocking and a lot of that is the byproduct where you're seeing really good running backs come through gary kubiak system it's not the notion that you can just plug any old joe schmoe in there and expect him to you know have a thousand yards rushing and you know 300 touches a season and,000 yards from scrimmage. That's not going to happen. But they can get by, and they are prepared from people I've spoken to to get by if they have to go running back by committee.

In the end, like what Gary was talking about, you know, I know he obviously wasn't going to talk to the notion of running backs not getting paid in this era and, you know, what he thinks about that. He's always going to support running backs because they've done some really good things for him, and know, what he thinks about that. He's always going to support running backs because they've done some really good things for him, and he knows what his head coach wants. It's a team that, you know, is a run-first offense. That's fine.

You can get that done in other ways. Like, you're not just going to all of a sudden abandon what you're doing if Dalvin Cook isn't there. But, like, they have other ways to, you know, create some of that production that they may lack, at least initially, you know, if Dalvin Cook isn't there. So, I mean, I think it's, I think it'll eventually be fine because here's the thing, like, you know, Dalvin Cook doesn't have most of the leverage here. I know that some people think he does, but, you know, you miss training camp now.

Well, sorry, you guys agreed to the CBA the way it is. Like, you don't just make those fines go away. If it's $40,000 a day and you miss the whole month, that's a million dollars. You're on pace this year if you don't get an extension to make it, like, $1.3 million. So is it really worth it at that point? Like, yeah, you could luck out and become Ezekiel Elliott, or you could become Melvin Gordon, where you have to walk back with your tail in between your legs and be like, okay, I'll show up now. Right.

Both sides, I think, benefit greatly from figuring this out pretty quickly. And I think that, like I've reported before, you know, the Vikings are in position to be able to pay him around that $13 million figure. Now, will they? I guess we're going to see. But, like, there's still so much time left. And when we think about the uncertainty of when training camp's going to start, when the season's going to start, all of that stuff, that's what you need to consider in the fact of why we're not hearing anything

with negotiations right at this moment. But back to the football point, Gary Kubiak is associated with all these no-name backs, like you mentioned, and turn them into stars because it's the principle of what he's asking his offensive line and those other players who are responsible for blocking to do. You have to be able to have an athletic guy who can cut outside and bounce outside and be able to mitigate the job and the task of what his offensive line is being asked to do. Like, you need athletic players, and they certainly have that. And if you have to go running back by committee with Alexander Madison being your quote-unquote lead back

and then also relying on a Mike Boone type or maybe even seeing what Amir Abdullah can do for you if he can hold on to the football, because that was the concern last year with his fumbling, you know, I think you could be able if it was worst case scenario where dalvin was going to hold out this year um in that come or at least for a few weeks maybe a few months whatever that you'd be okay yeah and uh i i think you make a really good point about the offensive line and their role in this thing and how it's been built to be a run-blocking offensive line that we almost never really discussed. That part of it is the offensive line. We're always talking about how poor they are and how much they struggle all the time with

pass protection, which is more valuable, of course. But the way they're set up, they were a top half of the league by a pro football-focused run-blocking team last year, and they probably still could succeed to some extent with the running game. But, you know, I think that if Delvin Cook continues to play hardball on his side and want that 15 to 17 type of range, the Vikings will say, sorry, we're just going to hand it off to Alexander Madison because we like him. But on the other side of the coin, we do always talk about how Gary has made everybody into a great running back,

and that is mildly true. But also, the 2016 team with Devontae Booker and C.J. Anderson and Justin Forsett was one of the worst running teams in the league. There was a year where Arian Foster got hurt in 2013 that they were absolutely terrible, worst running teams in the league. There was a year where Arian Foster got hurt in 2013 that they were absolutely terrible. And Ben Tate was the top running back for Houston. So, you know, it's not always the case that every single running back is just going to step in and be a monster. But I do think that you could replace a good enough chunk of the production to have that

leverage in the negotiation is kind of uh what gary is saying in a way it's like look we're going to do this we're going to commit to it it's going to happen so we'll go forward with you or without you um and who's to say too like we never we never talk about this but who's to say that they didn't draft alexander madison when they did which was which was post dalvin acl and and post-Dalvin hamstring, that eventually he would replace him. Like, they could have seen that the writing was on the wall in knowing, hey, he's going to get to the third year in between the fourth year and want a contract extension.

And obviously, they drafted Madison before the great season Dalvin had this year in becoming a Pro Bowl starter. But who's to say that they didn't foreshadow this type of thing happening? And not obviously coronavirus and the restrictions that the salary cap may face next year and all that. But from a football perspective, that the wear and tear that Dalvin already had, maybe they already had it set in their mind that they needed to have the contingency plan in place.

And that's why they traded up to be able to get wherever they get – I don't remember, trading up, trading back, whatever. I think they traded back about 14 times, but they selected him before people thought they were going to. Yes, it was the last pick of the third round, whatever it was. That's a very high pick to spend on a running back, and I remember at the time we're wondering, why is this? Well, maybe they do see him as a replacement for Dalvin Cook, and they will play hardball because they realize they have the leverage here.

We'll see, but it's not out of the question. You don't necessarily have to have a superstar talent at the position, a Christian McCaffrey, a Le'Veon Bala, an Ezekiel Elliott, a Dalvin Cook. You can probably get by doing it on a much cheaper scale. It's just going to depend depend is that actually going to pan out the way you expect it to it's very much rolling the dice and hoping for the best but let's not like we need to consider their rationale here and why they did that move and maybe that's something we see play out this year before we get back to the conversation i want to remind you that

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BetOnline, your online wagering experts. Right, and if it does turn into a Ben Tate type of situation where you just aren't getting that much out of your running backs, that puts a lot on Kirk Cousins to be able to carry the offense, and that's something that it seems like they've never wanted to do or not wanted to do last year since they fired John DeFilippo, who really did put everything at the plate of Kirk Cousins. Two position battles that came up quite a bit. I want to get your opinion before we wrap up. fired John DeFilippo, who really did put everything at the plate of Kirk Cousins.

Two position battles that came up quite a bit. I want to get your opinion before we wrap up. Defensive tackle and punt returner. The defensive tackle one, I'm just going to tell you how I have it right now. I think Michael Pierce will obviously be a starter, but he's not going to play any more than about 600 snaps. He's never played more than 600 snaps in the NFL. So he's going to be the first down second down third and short nose tackle armin watts will pass rush on third down and has a chance to play even at the three technique position a lot more mixed in with

shamar stefan on run situations and then after that i've got james lyn Lynch in the lead for a spot there and everybody else. Jaleel Johnson, Jalen Holmes, Hercules Mata'afa, all essentially equal. With Jaleel, the fact that he could play nose helps, but in Week 17, Armin Watts played nose and was quite good there. So it kind of bumps him out with Jaleel a little bit. How do you see the defensive tackle battle at the moment well someone like jaleel i've always kind of been confused by the development and like you know the progress level because he's obviously going into the final year of that rookie contract um you know he's going into he was drafted in 2017 so he's you know got a point to prove here if they want to keep him

around if he wants to be here beyond this season so it's like I asked Dre about this not that long ago and I was like well what do you think about Jaleel because it's kind of like he's always been the afterthought because he's never been more than somebody who is a rotational nose or three technique and last year they really tried to play him at that nose spot that's kind of where they wanted to put him um I know Jaleel will say that he, you know, when we've talked to him, that he would have rather been a three technique, and that's kind of where he wanted to be.

But nose is a position he can play. And Dre told me that, you know, he plays obviously in the run game. He's at his best at three technique. And he's the one that Patterson saw as having, you know, a good chance to turn the corner all the way. Will that happen this year? Well, the defense of the interior rushers are going to be probably the most intriguing camp battle because your edge positions, at least for now,

unless they sign somebody and it just kind of feels like we don't know what's going to happen in that regard with bringing a veteran in. You know, it's Daniil Hunter and it's probably a Foddy Odenabo replacing Everson Griffin. So what does that leave you to do now when Afadi, who was a third down, you know, would rush inside on third down last year, is probably going to be playing outside? Well, that opens up a spot.

And I think they're intrigued the most by James Lynch because he's got, like, a really natural, like, a natural feel for how he finishes the rush and like the good inside rushers. That's what they have to do because rarely you're going to win off that. You're rarely going to win off that first move very quickly. It just doesn't on the inside. It doesn't happen that way. So I think that when we talked about during the draft,

like he plays inside, he plays outside. You can line him up. I mean, the way that he finishes his sacks and the way that he's able to get to the quarterback is something that I encourage everybody to go back and watch because I spent the month of May kind of diving into the defensive line and figuring out this period of you know adjustment and transition that they're going to be going through and someone like James Lynch when you know you're not necessarily relying on Shamar Stephan, you know, in third down situations, obvious passing situations, that's a wide open competition.

Shamar is your run stopper. There's no doubting that. But how they use James Lynch and maybe because it's like it was kind of my thought was, OK, is this just another Hercules Mata Asa that didn't pan out, or is this actually going to turn into something? And I think it honestly could, just given the way, what he played in college and how that translates to the NFL, because they drafted him to be a three technique. Like, they don't see any other role for him other than being a three technique, and I think that that's probably the smartest way to go. He can do it.

So looking at his college production with Lynch, he is really something. I mean, Pro Football Focus credited him with 16 sacks. The college scorekeepers gave him 13 and a half. But if we say that he had 16, that puts him among the greatest seasons for a pass rusher since they started tracking sacks, like ever. It puts him in the ballpark of guys like Joey Bosa, Mario Williams. It would be a top 10 sack season for a college pass rusher since they started keeping that stat. So we're not talking about a guy who was just decent at getting after the passer. It's someone who was really, truly exceptional at doing so. And his transition, though, inside, as you mentioned, will be be interesting but even someone like a fadia denbo or stephen weatherly was able to beat guards even even though that that wasn't really their thing

ever uh stephen weatherly was more of an outside linebacker in college he would drop back in coverage and rush the passer and then he's rushing over guards and having success the same with uh b-rob you know for a while there he would do that same thing so they could get Daniil Hunter and him on the field at the same time. I think B-Rob might be the type of comparison, even though they're different weights, Lynch is a little bit bigger, but that's sort of role for year one if he shows that he can play early on. And with Jaleel, yeah, I feel the same way, that you never really just picked a role and went with it.

You just kind of bounced back and forth. Is he a nose? Is he a three-tech? Is he a nose? Is he a three-tech? And when he filled in, I thought it was admirable. He played fairly well and showed that he could fill in for Linvald Joseph if you need him to. But I wonder if he's a guy that eventually goes somewhere else and becomes a solid player in one specific role. Then another team says, this is what you are for us, and here you go, play that role, and then he grows in it.

I just think that it's been a little bit, you know, one step forward, two step back with him every training camp, kind of changing what you're asking him to do. Last thing, who's punt returning, you think? Probably K.J. Osborne, right? Like, I mean, that seems like the most logical. If Mike Hughes is probably going to see his role in any sort of returning responsibility shrink because he's going to be playing more, you know, cornerback, they're going to have to turn to one of the rookies.

I think K.J. makes probably the most sense just given, like, the success that he had at it in Miami. I don't know. Is there anybody else that you can think of? I know Justin Jefferson can catch punts according to Marwan Maloof. So, yeah, I think that, you know, it's probably, I think it's probably logical. Yeah, I don't want Mike Hughes there. I want Mike Hughes playing corner every single snap. And I don't think that Mike Hughes is Deion Sanders where he can play a

baseball game, offense, defense, and punt return in the same weekend like Deion did. I would prefer that he focus on just becoming a healthy corner that plays every snap and fulfills his first round draft status rather than having him spend even 10% of his time learning to be a better punt returner and focusing on that, especially if he's going to have to be in the slot. And aside from that, who knows, right? I mean, if it goes badly for K.J. Osborne and it's just a different level of punter, I don't know, then maybe you're talking about Amir Abdullah ends up with that type of job. I do also wonder, like, will they keep Amir Abdullah?

Does that depend on Delvin Cook's status, or do they like him as a special teamer either way? Would they ask him to be the punt returner too if it doesn't work out with Osborne? But I do believe that they drafted Osborne specifically with this in mind. This guy will be our punt returner, and it's his job to lose early on. So I guess we will see. All right, well, that was fun to actually talk about football stuff there

for the majority of this podcast. I'm glad. That makes me feel better. I know. It makes me hopeful for the season because there's so much that this team has at stake, and I know that some people consider this more of a rebuilding year. Some people still think they're in win-now mode. A lot of the moves that the team has made haven't really aligned, like, with one philosophy

or another. So that's why I think it could be a really interesting season. Like, it might come as a surprise to some people if they do really well, if Kirk has a great season in spite of losing, you know, his top receiver and, you know, the defense not being able to, you know, retain some of its key starters and having to start over in certain facets. But either way, it'll be refreshing. Whatever we're covering in a few months, it'll be refreshing that we actually are hopefully going to be talking about real football being played.

And it's one of the reasons that I am so anxious about it is because I kind of can't wait for all this to play out. There's so many positions that are open. There are battles that are happening. Last year in camp, we were stretching on battles. I don't know. I mean, fourth cornerback, bottom of the roster, safety. Well, the kicker drama was hilarious.

Yeah, I mean, that was peak training camp. Thank God that we had that but aside from that and we needed that we needed Corey Vedvik to show up because everything else was more or less decided this year there's so much up in the air that I desperately want this to happen so uh Courtney Cronin as always excellent stuff and we will get together again soon thanks for having me and thank you all for listening to Purple Insider