Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Friday roundtable: The Athletic's Arif Hasan talks about Patrick Peterson and Dalvin Tomlinson's scheme fits

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom are joined by Arif Hasan of The Athletic to dive deep into the X's and O's of the Minnesota Vikings' two big signings. What did Dalvin Tomlinson have to say about his own pressure statistics in his press conference? What are the odds that he has a major impact next year? Is there something to Patrick Peterson and the scheme change in coming to Minnesota? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We just talked to Delvin Tomlinson, and one of the first things Rick Spielman said in announcing Tomlinson, maybe after reading Arif Hassan's work at The Athletic, was that he does more than is quantifiable when it comes to the pass rush. And I believe that that's true. Like, if you're a guard, you don't want to go up against Dalvin Tomlinson because he's big and he's nasty. And we found out that he pinned a guy once in nine seconds while wrestling.

Still, though, pressure is a big deal when it comes to getting after the passer, not just pushing the pocket back. So evaluate this for me in terms of the, like, thing we can't quantify with things we can quantify. Also, let me just say that Arif introduced Dalvin Tomlinson to pro football focus during the press conference, which I thought was funny because Tomlinson was basically saying, I don't think there's a stat for pressure. Well, because I had the question queued up and I was like, now I have to like acknowledge that he said that you can't do it before I ask. Well, actually, Dalvin Tomlinson, like the first time you met him. Good job. That is entirely within my brand. I feel like no one

should be surprised by that. No. OK, so my piece first of all i want to acknowledge that devon tomlinson is genuinely just a very good player like i have no issue with the talent evaluation or a market valuation that puts him at like 11 million dollars a year that makes perfect sense to me my problem is more just kind of the role he plays and what the Vikings need. Because, yeah, the Vikings absolutely need to fix their run defense. But I feel like they're going to go the majority of the way there just by getting two linebackers back from injury and Michael Pierce back on the field, because he's a remarkably good run defender. I think that Tomlinson's actually probably a better nose tackle overall than Michael

Pierce. And so if it was just kind of a swap, that'd be actually, you know, pretty fundamentally good move. But the issue is that the plan seems to be, unbeknownst to Tomlinson, I guess, that he'll be playing a lot of three technique in the Viking system. And rushing from the B gap is just not something that he's historically done very well. Even this last year, where he's had a lot of pressure, almost all of it came through the center, which, yeah, that's super valuable. But if he's not lining lot of pressure almost all of it came uh through the center which yeah that's super valuable but if he's not lining up there you're not getting a ton out of it except you get some flexibility if there's a motion or something like that or if you know michael

pierce goes down you've got you know maybe the best backup nose tackle in the nfl now um he's i mean the the type of stuff that he'll be asked to do is the stuff that, I mean, he had a 7% pressure rate from the B gap. That's better than what the Vikings have had last year, but it's well below the NFL average there. So a marginal improvement there for a lot of money is probably not the best way to do it. And the pressure that he has created, and I agree that you can create pressure without generating a pressure

statistic. But even accounting for that, And I agree that you can create pressure without generating a pressure statistic. But even accounting for that, the pressure that he's created is really below average for a three-technique tackle. Sam, you muted yourself. Unbelievable. Should we stop for a brief breaking news item? You know, I was so caught off guard by this, I forgot to unmute. Kyle Rudolph to the Giants.

Wow, look at that. Two years, $16 million. Just a swap of underrated run players. Yeah, a great swing tackle move for the New York Giants, is what I would say. So, Sam, did you, I mean, good for Kyle, I guess, and they could use him in New York. So, Sam, your reaction to what Arif was saying about the value of Dalvin Tomlinson against the pass? Yeah, I think we're going to see some of that,

and I think that's kind of what the Vikings have expressed that they want when we were all scratching our heads about Shamar Stephan last fall. Andre Patterson insisted that he's not intent on getting sacks and necessarily even pressures from his defensive linemen. He wants them to occupy blockers, and it kind of sounds like, from what they say, if they happen to push the pocket back, that's a bonus. But they're more about creating like a foundation where centers and guards have to be preoccupied. Linebackers can shoot the gaps. I don't know if that's the best way to go about it, like if you're polling every coaching staff in the league.

But that's the way the Vikings want to go about it. And you can judge whether that's the correct thing or not. But in that sense, Dalvin Tomlinson will do that job extremely well. But some might say, well, I'd rather have four pass rushers on the field at all times. And the Vikings are limiting themselves to two true pass rushers. So there's a difference there. And if you think that, well, it's easy enough, we'll keep them on the field on first and second down, and then we'll have some athletic guys move inside on third down. I don't know if you can always box it in like that, because teams are not, as a rule, run-run pass on first, second, and third down. So there are a couple holes you can poke in it, but again, I think he's going to

fill the Vikings' idea of his niche pretty much to a T. Yeah, and I think that if that's what the Vikings are going to do, they need to blitz a lot more than they have. I mean, Zimmer shows blitz a lot. He's one of the more aggressive in terms of the looks that he'll present in opposing offense. But the blitz rate, even just on third down where he's known for designing really excellent blitzes, the blitz rate is fairly low and it's below average in the NFL. And, you know, when you've got a player like Anthony Barr, when you have the ability to create these one-on-one matchups, if you're going to sacrifice two of your players to not be able to create pressure, you're going to have to create pressure from an additional player. That's going to demand a little bit more of your secondary,

which is young and had a lot of trouble last year. But I feel like if that's what you're committing to, if you're committing to having two players that just cannot generate pressure, you need to add another player schematically to create, not blitz every down or anything like that. But, I mean, Baltimore's the last team that had a genuinely great defense that committed to just not having two good pass rushers on the field, which included Michael Pierce with Brandon Williams. And they blitzed a ton. They were the top blitzing team in the NFL that year. And they ranked third in points. So there's sort of a theme that develops with both of the players that they've signed,

with Delvin Tomlinson and with Patrick Peterson, which is, A, they paid market price for them. They didn't pay below market price. They didn't get a good deal. They got an average deal for what you'd expect. There's also the fact that these roles that they're asking out of these guys, assuming they're not going to require Patrick Peterson or expect him to be their superstar like he's 26 again, the roles are things that you could have gotten cheaper.

And that's another theme is that it always seems to be that way, Arif, with this team that nobody has a problem with Anthony Barr, thinks he's not any good. It's usually about you paid. I know they said he took a pay cut or whatever, but like you paid top market price for Anthony Barr to come back. And it's sort of ironic that Daniil Hunter is unhappy because they paid top market price for Yanika Gakwe for what they got out of Anthony Harris.

They paid the top market price in the franchise tag for last year. And that's just sort of keeps happening and makes it difficult to do a lot of other things. And I think you can look at Delvin Tomlinson and say, this guy's really good at football. But the other part of it is other stuff has to go right in order for this to work. And that would be my other hesitation. So those two things, like you're always paying top dollar and you need X, Y, and Z to work

as opposed to, oh, you just brought in a pass rusher and he'll rush the passer. Yeah, the last like true bargain that they brought in a free agency was probably Tom Johnson, who, by the way, was pretty bad against the run and was on some pretty good Vikings defenses. It's interesting how much they've changed their philosophy after Sheldon Richardson, who admittedly was up and down, but by the end of the year, his totals in terms of pressure production were pretty good. And that was a pretty good defense as well. Yeah, and what's interesting about the Anthony Barr thing is they didn't pay top market price. Anthony Barr set the market and then they paid more than that. Right. Because he was scheduled to get something like 13 million with the Jets. And they were like, well, or 13 and a half or something. And they were like, well, you know, you do want to come back. So,

you know, 15 million it is, I guess, like they negotiated against the market that had already been set. But yeah, it's weird that, you know, in free agency bringing in people, you know, they don't generate a ton of bargains. The last bargain that they got from a re-signing, obviously, was Danielle Hunter, and you can only get so much mileage out of that before the player gets frustrated. And so, yeah, you're right. They have to make sure that everything goes right because Tomlinson is the

kind of piece that enables other pieces to do really well and if you don't have those other pieces then then you've got half of the defense whereas you know someone like a prime Patrick Peterson or prime Daniil Hunter or whatever those are the players that do well and take advantage of those complementary pieces but if you're signing complementary pieces like Anthony Barr who sets up these pass rushes then everything else has to just be lining up to a tee. And then, you know, to the contrary with Patrick Peterson, that's not a player that you can just put in an offensive line or defensive line group and hope that he fits well.

You're kind of on an island when you're a cornerback, and if your skills diminish, it's unlikely you're going to be bailed out unless the scheme is, like, perfect for unlikely you're going to be bailed out unless the scheme is like perfect for what, for what you can do and mitigates your maybe declining physical skills. It's less believable that that player is going to flourish because there's not a lot around him. Whereas on the defensive line, you can rely upon the group of you and hope that that sort of outweighs any lack of skill you might have. And if in two months, or not two months, if in six months we're sitting here saying, well, Patrick Peterson's struggling, but we saw this coming,

like there was evidence of it, if you can look back and say that, well, we saw this coming, then it might be a questionable signing to begin with, because all the writing is on the wall that this might not necessarily work out for Patrick Peterson. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the whole deal with Patrick Peterson is that you knowingly are taking a risk that you can find a way to exploit the stuff that he's still good at and avoid getting kind of dinged by the weaknesses that he certainly still has. I mean, I think that it's easy to kind of exaggerate the level of decline that he's had. If you only take a look, for example, at his snaps on the

outside, eliminate his snaps in the slot, you know, he ranks 29th in yards per coverage snap given up, which is not, you know, a perfect statistic. He's benefited from, you know, he ranks 29th in yards per coverage snap given up, which is not, you know, a perfect statistic. He's benefited from, you know, drops and inaccurate quarterbacks, not taking advantage of receivers getting open and stuff like that. But, you know, when he gets to line up on the outside, when he doesn't have to defend deep, I think he allowed something like a 70 percent completion rate on throws over 20 yards. When he's in a situation where he can take advantage of the fact that he's a really smart cornerback, when he's in a situation where he can take advantage of his length and his size and his strength, he's still pretty good. And so if you can isolate those instances to the parts that he's good at, which might be a cover two zone, which is like a very full circle moment for Zimmer, then yeah, you might be in the right spot, but it is like a kind of a high risk

middling reward move. I think it's probably still the right move. Like I get it. They overpaid for him, but like everybody else is on a rookie contract. So like I get why they did it, but you have to be really careful about how you approach it. I think if their cap situation was a little different and their needs were a little different, I would look at it a little different. Like when Sheldon Richardson comes in for one year and $8 million, I mean, yeah, he's not a perfect player, but you

looked at him and said, I mean, that's an opening for them that he can improve and everything else is kind of set and you don't have cap issues at that point so you can do it if you're a team like the jets who just has so much money to spend and you throw that dollar at somebody to come there for a year and hope they improve your secondary that's okay with this one it's like that's a big chunk of what you had left for that job that he's now asked to do where we're not certain that he's automatically going to bounce back i wanted to ask you about that with the coverages, because I have felt like over the last two years that Zimmer has changed his coverages because he doesn't have corners who are playing very well.

And Xavier Rhodes struggling, Mike Hughes struggling, and Trey Waynes is sort of Trey Waynes. And then last year, you're talking about rookies. I think you're trying to limit what they do by playing zone coverages I just could see Zimmer saying to Patrick Peterson all right it's island time buddy like go be that guy because that's what we signed you for and here's my evidence that when Chad Greenway was on the back half they still played Chad Greenway probably too much and when Everson Griffin was on the back half, they still said, hey, rotational rushers, LOL, we don't need those. We're like, Everson will play 900 to 1,000 snaps.

It's sort of like Zimmer doesn't really see age all the time. And I wonder if that will be the case here where he'll start saying, ah, got my Xavier Rhodes 2017 back. It's Patrick Peterson. Go Island, my friend. I could totally see that happening. I mean, the weird thing about Patrick Peterson is we talk about him like losing his step and aging, and that's all true. I think like his birthday is within a month of Adam Thielen. Like they're very close to the same age. And, you know,

we've talked about, you know, the Vikings need to have a long-term plan to replace Adam Thielen. But we haven't talked about the fact that, like, hey, Adam Thielen's over the hill because he's not, right? Peterson has, like, aged just quicker, right? So it is kind of weird. And maybe Zimmer takes a look at his age and he's like, well, yeah, Harrison Smith, Adam Thielen, they're the same age. Why would I have to, you know, this guy's really great. Just take a look at what he did in 2018. And what's really interesting is that with Wilks in 2018, he played more zone than he ever has had in his career. I mean, he's known to be a man coverage

corner. His beef with Richard Sherman was that he was a man coverage corner. I mean, he said outright, like Sherman could never survive, you know, with what I do, which, you know, it's great television. I love it. But like, you know, his best year in the past five years was in a much more zone-heavy scheme where he was asked to do a little bit less. And then, you know, he comes back and, you know, this defense wants him. They did the exact same thing that you're describing, Zimmer. They're just like, well, it's Patrick Peterson. We'll put him on an island.

Obviously, it will be fine. And, in fact, he had one pretty good game against DK Metcalf where he shut him down and then the next time he played DK Metcalf he got like burned for like 130 yards like I don't know it's it's tough because Zimmer loves his veteran corners he lets them do so much and so it must have just hurt him to change that scheme to the cover two stuff halfway through the year last year because he has a little bit of disdain for protecting corners. And I think that part of the reason he made this move is that he didn't feel like he had to protect Patrick Peterson. But the reality is you do. And he's really probably pretty good in those scenarios where you protect him. But if you're not going to do that, you're going to expose yourself to a lot of problems.

The only thing that gives me a little hope that it's not going to be 100% on Peterson is that Zimmer has shown a willingness to rotate cornerbacks, more so than safety, more so than linebacker, more so even than defensive end. Like when Xavier Rhodes was struggling to stay healthy, he was only playing 70%, 75% of snaps. And when they had the personnel for it, they were rotating between Mack, Hughes, Rhodes, and Waynes. So I think it's possible that they don't ask Peterson to play 95% of snaps. I just don't necessarily know who the rotational piece is if Mike Hughes isn't ready to go. If Mike Hughes is healthy,

then it's a decent stable because you've got a couple true slots, I think, with Hughes and Gladney, a couple true outside guys with Dantzler and Peterson, and a handful of those inside guys can play outside as well. So I like that rotation if they choose to adopt it, and I think that might be beneficial for everybody because you have a lot of – you have two injury-prone guys and you have an old guy. So I think a rotation is actually pretty smart this year. I was pretty familiar with Terrence Newman. Well, I also think, too, that you have to force Mike Zimmer to rotate you,

like Xavier Rose. Yeah, how many games are they going to give up before they realize they have to do it? It took a couple of games for the Vikings to change their defense, right? And this is the issue, like to push back again, Sam, we asked Zimmer a couple of times this offseason, hey, you're pretty used to having, you know, guys that have, like, lived your defense, have breathed your defense for almost, like, seven years or whatever, and you've added complexity every year, and it's taken a while for rookies to adopt your system. Now your entire, like, secondary is rookies, right? Your entire cornerback group is rookies.

Are you going to change what you do? Are you going to simplify things for them? You know, when new players have come into the system they've had handoff problems they've had communication errors i mean i i don't think that we would have had like for example when they got blown up by buffalo when they were 17 point favorites communication errors all over that defense right uh and so now that it's all younger players the likelihood of communication error is going to increase massively especially if you maintain a complicated defense. So are you going to simplify it?

And he said, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. And then like six games in the season, he's like, yeah, well, you know, we decided to simplify it. He's kind of a stubborn. It takes a while for him to like decide to bail on a decision he makes on who the starters are going to be the first couple of games of the season. The Vikings are not a team that if they want to make the playoffs can just

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and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. He can be an enigma when it comes to the can Mike Zimmer adapt question. It's like, can he, mid-season, make an adjustment that resolves an issue? Like, definitely. Like, can he grow from year to year? Can he spot offensive trends that he needs to fix and add new rules to his defense and all those things of course but then there are some things where it's just like you will never get that man to change on x y and z and the running

game as we know is part of that of course and stopping the run too let me ask a broad question to you guys so you've got these two players and let's just sort of freeze it right there and not assume any other move at this moment and ask this question how good are they right now like are they a team that you would lock into sorry still in that middle my friends even though you made two big moves does this move the needle for you like a reef how much did this change things for you that they signed these two guys i mean they signed a good player in dalvin tomlinson but in a way that i don't think substantially makes the defense dramatically it makes the defense better obviously but not like dramatically better given the role i mean okay so the defense is is getting

closer to average i still don't think that the defense that they're going to field based on the personnel that they have is an average defense. And so if they still have a below average defense and they maintain, which Eric Eager was quick to point out, you can't just make sure that the stuff that you were bad at you're good at now. The offense is probably going to regress, right? If you're not going to do anything to improve the offense, it's going to get worse. If you're not getting better, you're getting worse.

And so the offense is probably going to get a little bit worse just through regression. And the defense is only going to get a little bit better. If we freeze the roster, this team is, I don't think we can say they're a dark horse to make the playoffs. I think they're a middling team. I think they're on a path that makes them a dark horse. I think that if they make the right moves in the draft,

if they make a couple more smart signings that are in minimums or whatever, they can turn themselves into a dark horse. But freeze the roster now. Well, and to that point, freeze the roster. These would be your starters as of today. We haven't had the draft yet. That's the roster. These would be your starters as of today. We haven't had the draft yet. That's the disclaimer. But Drew Samia is probably starting if you play the game today.

Rashad Hill is obviously starting. Josh Metellus is starting at safety. Or Patrick Peel, maybe move him to safety. And Steven Weatherly. What do you think about the safety talk? Because I think there was a report before he signed that he was willing to play safety, but teams were going to recruit him as a cornerback. I don't buy for a second that he's a safety. I think he's a cornerback.

Do you have any bearing put into that rumor? I think that he can be. I think the issue is that he just really wanted out of Arizona. And however that was going to happen, he was going to do it. And if that meant playing safety, yeah, sure, fine. I think that's how he approached it. I think that now that he has a year of quarterback in a different team environment, he's going to be less willing.

But I think that he doesn't think that his career is done, and if it requires that he be a safety, he'll do it. And, you know, it happens, you know, because some cornerbacks have turned into pretty good safeties. I really wish Antoine Winfield could have, you know, finished out his career as a safety. We saw, you know, Charles Woodson do a pretty good job of that. He's probably the, you know, the best example of in recent, you know, football memory of a player doing that.

And I think that he's got still has the kind of talent that it would take to to be that kind of player um so I I don't know I kind of buy that report but I think for like different motivations can I can I ask Arif a quick question here Matthew I know we've had this discussion on our old podcast numerous times about the guard conundrum about how guard is a less valuable position than tackle and you shouldn't over invest in it that's been been your stance for a while now is this vikings approach to addressing guard responsible in your opinion because as of today they might have one with ezra cleveland and that's it um and it seems like they're either going draft or they're going budget approach to

filling those spots. Do you think that's a responsible approach? I mean, you know, I don't think that the guard position is as important as it seems. The offense was good with just the worst guards in the NFL. And so that probably tells you that the guard position, as obvious as it is, is a problem. But I think that not spending any money there is an issue. I think that getting a guy that, you know, if you like the scouting reports in Ezra Cleveland, we're all like, yeah, you can only really play him a tackle. Exactly. And so if you if you grab offensive linemen that probably can only play tackle. And if you spend veterans minimum on a guy that, because he's friends with Denison from their time in New York,

and you don't have to teach in the system, then that is irresponsible. But I think that you can make bargain moves. I think that you can draft a third round or whatever. And then you can find a good enough guard. I mean, obviously you can find a Hall of Fame guard in the third round. I mean, that happens sometimes. But I think you can find reasonably Hall of Fame guard in the third round. I mean, that happens sometimes. But I think you can find reasonably good enough guards

with minimal investment. I just don't know if the Vikings or the team but I also don't know if they're a team that they spend a lot at guard. I mean, they spent a bunch on Alex Boone, right? That didn't really work out. So you can do that

with the level of investment that the Vikings have in front of them available to them. I just don't know that with the way that they approach these bargain guards, they can do it. I guess they did a little bit with Josh Klein. They did a little bit with Joe Berger. So it's possible. Austin Blythe, still available caller. That's your guy. That'd be a great addition.

I mean, somebody who can play your system who can give you average play. I mean, that's the thing is that the difference between absolutely terrible, dead last in the league, and average is a pretty darn big jump. If they had made a huge move at guard, though, I would have supported it just by that's where your pressure has come from the entire time Kirk Cousins has been the quarterback here. So if you can remove that, maybe that will help based on how your quarterback plays. I want you guys to tell me, better or worse, the Vikings right now,

and again, like freeze frame roster because we don't know what's going to happen, better or worse right now, and I'm just going to name a couple of teams, and you guys tell me what you think, like if they're better or not. Football team, do you think they are better right now or not than football team? Or if you go first. Yeah, they're better. I love Fitzpatrick, and Taylor Heineke is obviously going to be fun to follow. But, I mean, the quarterback is king.

They're better. I think they are. I think football team has made some nice moves. I love they are. I think football team has made some nice moves. I love Darby. I love Samuel. But Harif nailed it on the head. They don't have a quarterback. I don't think so.

I don't think they're as good as them right now. Because they have one of the best defensive lines in the NFL. They have a good offensive line. And they just added Curtis Samuel for another weapon. And I get it that it's Fitzpatrick. And maybe they'll draft Mac Jones and he won't be that good or something. Hey, we're freezing rosters, man.

You've got Fitzpatrick, Brunk, Terry, Terry, and Curtis Samuel. I'm taking it. I think I'm taking it because their roster as a whole is stronger, especially since they added William Jackson. And I'm not sure how much Kirk Cousins can fill in the gaps that the Vikings have right now in freeze-frame roster, whereas I think Ryan Fitzpatrick steps into a roster that's really, really strong. So I'm going to give slight edge, even though it's Fitzpatrick, and I know he hasn't generally won a whole lot in his career, but I'm going to go with him.

Dallas Cowboys, better or worse than the Minnesota Vikings right now, Arif? Worse. I mean, they both have issues generating pressure. But, you know, whatever. It's Dak Prescott. I think that, you know, they've got the best claim to be able to say they've got a better receiver core than the Vikings, just because they've got three. And, and, you know, before the quarterback shift, I mean, CD lamb was was doing pretty well compared to Justin Jefferson.

So it's there. The issue of course is, cause I don't, I don't know where Chidovia was. Yeah. Ended up, but it wasn't in Dallas, Cincinnati. Yeah. They've got an issue with some of the talent that they've had. I think they kept Byron Jones, who I just found out, like, yesterday didn't commit any penalties at all, and he's been a lot better. So the defense is, I think, a little bit better than it gets credit for. But, yeah, I mean, oh, yeah, and they re-signed Jordan Lewis.

I think Dallas is probably better. I think that the Dallas investments are coming to roost a little bit. I don't know if you can fall back on, well, Dallas has the best offensive line in football anymore. That was the line for a couple of years there. But when you're that good, everybody wants to get paid you can't keep everybody um they're paying a running back a lot of money and they're now paying a quarterback a lot of money they're paying receivers a lot of money so i'm not sure if that defense is gonna is gonna be all that strong in years to come maybe maybe uh mike mccarthy and who's his defensive coordinator not george edwards whoever's above george edwards um whoever's bossing whoever's bossing george edwards around maybe has some tricks up his sleeve but i don't know if they're well coached

enough either like i don't have a lot of faith in mccarthy so i i guess i'm taking more taking the vikings yeah this one's hard for me because the Vikings technically get to say they were 7-9 last year. They win a meaningless game at the very end, and that's the one win that's the difference between them and the Dallas Cowboys, 6-10, and they played Andy Dalton for most of the year. And now they get Dak Prescott back with an incredible set of weapons. I don't trust Mike McCarthy at all to have that team be great, but I also think that weapons drive the success and right now they have a better group than the Vikings because

the Vikings won't do what we keep begging them to do and get another receiver. I mean, and even their poor offensive line is probably still better at this moment. But I think that Dak Prescott is also a level up on Kirk Cousins. So I think I would lean a very slight edge to Dallas, but the McCarthy factor sort of brings me back. I got two more. Arizona Cardinals. They have made some moves. They brought in J.J. Watt.

I am not a huge Cliff Kingsbury believer, and they play in a very tough division. Arif, do you think that the Vikings are better than Arizona? I am not a Kingsbury believer. I like Kyler. I think he's actually a little bit overrated by draft Twitter and football analysts in general. Dehop is nice to have. You know, I actually, honestly, I think that this is the minority opinion, and so I'm going to be open to being very wrong on this and being convinced,

but I think the Vikings just might be better than the Cardinals. I like J.J. Watt, but he's not, you know, J.J. Watt, right? Yeah, I don't know. Matt Prater might put them over the top. That's a pretty – that's a high-level signing. J. put them over the top that's a pretty that's a high level signing um jj watt that that's useful um useful aj green is probably the fitzgerald replacement that that's the vibe that i'm getting there yeah yeah i don't i don't know i felt like they um the way that they kind of whimpered to the finish last year

raised some questions in my mind about the sustainability. And obviously they won that crazy game with Seattle in overtime that I don't know if they had any business winning. And they had the Hail Mary shortly after that that, again, I don't know if they had any business winning. Maybe they were actually like, what did they end up, 8-8 or 7-9? Maybe they were actually a five-win team last year. I don't know if they had any business winning. Maybe they were actually like, what'd they end up, 8-8 or 7-9? Maybe they were actually a five-win team last year. I don't know.

I do like Kyler, but I guess I keep coming back to the Vikings have this high floor with Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer's schematics, and they're probably not going to dip too much further than, you know, I think 7-9 sort of is their floor. So I think I'd go Vikings again. I also think that their division is very, very tough, and I know the Vikings play that division, but they have to play every game twice. Not twice.

Yeah, right. And I think that San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle are still better than Arizona, which makes me think that, I mean, they're probably a 7-9 type of team that everyone's gotten a little hyped over because they've spent some money and they brought in JJ Watt and Kyler Murray. You would have thought halfway through the season, he was going to win the MVP the way people were talking about him, but it didn't really come to fruition. He got hurt toward the end of the year. And I'm with you, Arif, that just Cliff Kings kingsbury i'm not sure he's got it i'm not

sure that he did everything he could to maximize kyler murray either one more team the new orleans saints with whom stever will be playing quarterback for the new orleans james james winston or um tasem hill there's going to be a heck of a camp battle between those two are the vikings better than the new Orleans Saints? It depends on how effective LASIK is for quarterbacks, I guess. That's a story line. Not so much for receivers. Yeah, I think the Saints are better.

That defense is good. It's, you know, I don't think it's great, but it's good. They, what, they franchised Marcus Williams? They got him back somehow, right? Yeah, I like that defense. but it's good. They, what they franchised Marcus Williams or they, they got him back somehow. Right. Yeah. I like that defense. They get, they lost Trey Hendrickson,

but they get Marcus Davenport back, which I think is a loss. I think Davenport's overrated, but just overall, that defense is pretty good. You get Michael Thomas. I think you're going to get a couple more shots to throw. I think James is going to win the battle.

So I think you're going to get a couple more shots to throw. I think Jameis is going to win the battle. So I think you're going to get a couple more shots to throw deep downfield. Yeah, I don't know. It's just a really well-constructed roster. You know, I say quarterback is king. I think that Kirk is a better quarterback than Jameis. But I think that the difference between them is small enough for you to be able to take a look at the rest of that roster and just say it'll be able to carry them. Collar, I know you did a show with Nick Underhill, Saints guy.

Are they having, like, a massive exodus on one or both sides of the ball because of their cap hell that they're in? I mean, they lost that puncher. That's brutal. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I mean, yes and no. Like, a lot of players, it would be like when the Vikings lost a handful of guys that were role players, that they have found ways, as teams so often do, to just finagle with the cap.

And losing Breeze to retirement has created a huge amount of cap space right there in itself. So when it was like they are 700 zillion dollars over the cap like well a big part of that was breeze retiring that helped them out so their roster has not fallen off the face of the earth they still have the two great tackles the two uh great playmakers michael thomas and elvin kamara but losing emmanuel sanders is a thing for them and their defense is still pretty strong i just don't know what version of james winston you see and even the good version wasn't that good and so that that's where i would question it but it's also sean payton and he finds ways to get a lot out of quarterbacks they won with

tasem hill last year and teddy yeah i think i go i don't understand it the worse the quarterback is the better that defense seems to do i don't really understand it it. Like, that defense was nuts while Teddy was playing. Everyone just makes everybody better around him, that's all. He's such a good leader. Do not say that sarcastically. So, Sam, better or worse than the Saints? Worse than the Saints. I think the Saints had the best roster in football over the last two years.

They had the fewest weaknesses. And that foundation is going to hang around. And when you have just a real offensive-minded coach like Sean Payton who knows how to get the most out of your quarterback, I tend to think they will survive, maybe not thrive. But I think they'll still be above.500. Well, those were the teams that I just felt like as of this moment, you'd be looking at and saying,

you'll be competing for playoff spots with those teams. And I feel like we're kind of 50, 50 on whether we're better, you know, the Vikings are better or not than those teams. And that's where we get to kind of the last part of this, which is sort of what's next next but also let's include the draft because what's next is obviously they have to do some stuff at guard at safety you know on the defensive line still they could add a pass rusher but let's let's like sim forward uh on madden style to the draft what do you think the favorite is right now for what direction they go arif

uh offensive line i think is the favorite for the direction they go, Arif? Offensive line, I think, is the favorite for the direction they go. Like, I know the mock drafts generally are picking an edge rusher for them. But I think that if you nailed down Vikings fans right now as to who they would pick, it would probably be an offensive lineman. That might be more of a hope than a reality. But I think that's likely the case, that it seems like that. Plus, I mean, they technically made moves along the defensive line. It might, you know, allow mock draft analysts to kind of ease off on,

you know, continuing to draft them, Quidi Payne, Gregory Rousseau, and Jalen Phillips, and so on. But I could just as easily be convinced that the favorite in-house is an edge rusher. Hey, everybody. I want to tell you about our friends at Sim Bowl. Sim Bowl is a new sports marketplace where you can trade shares with professional teams like stocks. So as we jump fully into free agency season, you're going to want to get in on teams now before your team's stock rises.

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You don't need, need edge rusher right now, which doesn't preclude that from being picked. You don't always draft for need, need. Right, they can fall in love with a guy, and there's some insane athletes at edge rusher in this year's draft, so they can fall in love with a guy easily. Yeah, they also need, need safety. So, I mean, that has to be considered as well.

They don't have somebody I'm comfortable with playing next to Harrison Smith. I still think that – I think the back end of free agency will probably be used to fill that hole in some way or at least bring someone in to compete. Usually there are cheap safeties available. Did you say Sandejo? Yeah, he's available. Snap him up. Hey, let's just get the gang back together.

How's George Iloka's ACLs at the moment? Yeah, how's Tremaine Brock doing? How's Emmanuel Lemur? Lemur. Get them all back. 6'9 linebacker. Yeah, let's bring him back in. Yes. Him and Vig bring him back in. Yes.

Him and Vigil and Kendrick's bar. I'll make this prediction that we'll know by draft night which way it's going to go. That by the time we get through. We'll know after the draft certainly which way they've gone. Thank you. Thank you, Arif. By the start of draft night, we will be very confident where they're going to pick. Because I think in recent years, they have left spots open when they get to the draft and said, we're going to fill it with this.

And that even goes for, that's not even first round picks. That's second and third round picks that they've done that with. They used the draft pick on Pat Elfline to fill an immediate spot, which worked for a year. They used their second round pick to fill an immediate spot with Delvin Cook after losing Adrian Peterson. I mean, this team doesn't even have to pretend that they draft best player available because they don't. And last year, now they nailed it with Justin Jefferson. They happened to get the best player.

Not even just available, just period. Right. I mean, and that worked out stupendously well for them uh but you know had they reached and taken somebody else there instead or fallen in love with somebody else we might have criticized it and said well you didn't take the best player you took the fifth or sixth or seventh best receiver and you know the corner was the same sort of thing where it was like guaranteed they were going to take a corner at that point yeah we were going to grab two and they did and and this even goes for when they pick garrett bradbury i mean it felt like uh-oh you have to improve on pat alfline you have to take an

offensive lineman here and there were some other players that came about that have made bigger impacts for their teams that they didn't pick because they really really needed garrett bradbury there yeah i mean sorry i don't mean to go through every pick, but every pick is this way. Like, uh-oh, we're going to lose Kyle Rudolph in a year. We better pick Irv Smith. Uh-oh, we don't have a tackle for the future. We better take, you know, Brian O'Neal. And this goes way back.

Jerick McKinnon, they had just lost Toby Gerhardt. We knew that they were going to pick a running back, Daniil Hunter. The Robinson was on the back end. We knew that they were going to take a mid-round defensive end Robinson was on the back end we knew that they were going to take a mid uh mid-round guard uh defensive end which I mean they kind of do every year anyway um yeah I mean they they do a very good job of not leaking anything but they also do a very poor job of not making it like insanely obvious what they were going to do like Laquan Treadwell we knew like yeah it's either Doxner Treadwell and then Doxner was off the board so it was Treadwell so yeah I mean they the the need profile of the Vikings makes their strategy

fairly evident the only time it was kind of off balance or it put us off balance was with Mike Hughes and I genuinely think that they really expected a guard to fall into their lap in the second round they got pretty lucky with Brian O'Neill instead. Well, they also probably knew that they weren't long for keeping around Trey Wayans and maybe not even Xavier Rhodes either. Yeah, it made sense in retrospect for sure, especially as the contract situations became more imminent. But that was the only time where it felt like they didn't grab the most immediate need in the first round. And that was also like coming off the most complete team they've ever had in

the Zimmerman. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. So they probably felt like they could just make a luxury pick. I have not checked on Will Hernandez lately, but I'm sure he's been okay. So Arif, really fun to have you for these Friday roundtables. You're going to be doing a bunch of them with us throughout the summer. Sam, nice to see you again.

Good to see you. Reacting to everything that has been going on. So we'll get together. It was great to talk to you again, Sam. Hi, Matthew. Oh, hi. Well, that's a great place to end this. So thanks to Reef. Great stuff. And we'll do it again soon. Awesome.