Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Harrison Smith is almost alone on Vikings defense and how the guards can swing the season

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about what Harrison Smith said about returning to the Vikings rather than going elsewhere and how it's relevant now that the Vikings have overhauled the defense and then answers questions from Vikings fans, particularly on whether the two guards can take another step next year and make them a good offensive line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is indeed another fans-only episode. I promised that there would be multiple this week fans-only episodes and you guys delivered with a ton of great questions so I have a lot more to get to and it'll be another week before we have otas and then it goes on to mini camp and of course in the next two weeks keeping an eye on june 1st also something that i never talked about that i just realized as i was writing about today is harrison smith sticking around he

had a press conference a couple weeks ago but it was in the middle of you know where we were deep into the draft and we just kind of said like okay Harrison Smith is back and it is what it is and whatever right but as I was going over his comments it actually was quite interesting to listen back to Harrison Smith and one of the things that he was talking about that I wanted to bring up before getting into the questions just because it stuck out to me was that he wanted to stay around to play for Brian Flores. And I think that you could put this together. He didn't say it so directly, but you could put it together that he wanted to play in a more aggressive system than they had last year with Ed Donatell, play in the box more often, blitz more often, all the numbers that

we've gone over a bunch of times just about how different Brian Flores is. And that really popped to me that he was saying, it's one of the reasons that I wanted to be here in return to be a Minnesota Viking again. And he also talked about not feeling like it was an obligation, but more of something that he not enjoyed doing necessarily or that he felt like was a major part of his job. But being around younger players and passing along his knowledge, being a part of what his job is, and also feeling like it was something that many players did for him. So now he has an opportunity to do it for other players. And I was thinking about this, that out of everybody on the defense, only one guy remains that was on the 2017 team, and that is Daniil Hunter. And how long Daniil Hunter remains, we don't know.

At least on the defensive side, Delvin Cook was on the offensive side. How much longer he's going to be a Viking, we also don't know at least on the defensive side Delvin Cook was on the offensive side how much longer he's going to be a Viking we also don't know either so we'll see but you know Harrison Smith does have a chance here under Brian Flores to maybe extend his career a little by being used in the proper way in my opinion getting up the box, trying to make plays in the backfield, getting sacks, getting interceptions, getting tackles for loss to maybe boost the Hall of Fame resume a little bit. He's got six Pro Bowls, only one All-Pro. Usually it takes multiple All-Pros. That will be hard if the Vikings don't have a great defense, though. So there is a chance that he will get overlooked if he has a

good season. That's happened before where he's had good years, but they struggled defensively and it just did not get talked about at all, or he did not get the attention that maybe he deserved. However, if they have a big turnaround on defense, that will get discussed a lot. Brian Flores will be talked about. Harrison Smith will get a lot of attention. So if they go up against Kansas City, if they go up against Cincinnati and he has big games, then he could get another Pro Bowl. You make seven Pro Bowls, maybe eight Pro Bowls, then you're talking about really bolstering that Hall of Fame resume. And Harrison said that he wasn't sure how much longer he was going to play, that the thoughts creeped in about moving on to the next phase of his life.

But he's here and presumably he's going to be back playing very well, as he always has for his entire career. So I think that's another interesting little dynamic that if they do make big gains, he will get a lot of the credit and it will of course be deserved and then you know maybe we do see him get some of those awards as well because if they have a good defense it's going to be a very good team and if they win the division and so forth it that they will get that spotlight that maybe wasn't there last year because the defense was so bad. So they were getting all the blame. And then, you know, not make the playoffs in 2020 and 2021. Like that's a lot harder to get the attention, even if he was still playing well. So that's just something that I found to be interesting that I would pass along. You could always read the article purpleinsider.com or I'm sure I'll tweet it out and so forth. But let's get into your questions

because I have a lot of them to run through. So we'll start with Skull Doc on Twitter. Is Ezra Cleveland a finished product at this point in his career or could you see him improving his consistency? Yeah, I think it's really hard to declare someone who's an offensive lineman a finished product before the end of their rookie contract he's 25 years old I swear if he's younger than Hendon Hooker it will be quite funny but he's 25 years old and he has had a lot of flashes throughout his career I mean his overall PFF grades have always been on the plus side. A lot of that has been due to his run blocking, though. He's always been an exceptional run blocker, especially the last two years. And I mean, plus plus last year in terms of the run blocking.

But he has never graded average as far as a pass blocker. And that's pretty concerning that there hasn't been any gains so far in his career by his PFF grade. I mean, 52, 55, and 53. So that's not even getting really slightly better. And when you talk about that consistency, I mean, wow, is it inconsistent? So I was looking at his game-by-game grades, and this really blew my mind. So he had, in a stretch of five or six games, he had an 84 pass-blocking grade against Chicago.

Now, I know it's Chicago, so he wasn't facing the toughest competition, but that's still a great grade. That's an elite grade, 84.5 out of 100. And then it went 45-57-0 against Washington. 0.0 grade. Nothing went right in that game. And the next three games were all above average.

I mean, it seems to be how the other team plays, who is playing for the other team, what is the competition like, maybe how much they mix up their defense, the stunts, the twists, all those things that play into it, and then just the caliber of competition Washington the team he got a zero against they have Jonathan Allen they have

good players and that I'm sure played a huge role versus say Chicago who he was able to play very well against now nobody in the league ever has great numbers week after week after week. We always do see ups and downs, even from the elite players, but the downs are not usually zero. The downs are, okay, you had a below average game and then three good games and then a below average game and two good games. That's not been the case. It's really been a coin flip from week to week with Ezra Cleveland and I don't know whether that consistency can change or not with Garrett Bradbury he went three straight years where it wasn't particularly good and then he took the next step and last year now some of that might have been circumstance with teams just going after the guards much more the less experienced guards or Cleveland who I'm sure opponents know

is very inconsistent when it comes to handling blitzes and stunts and twists and things like that so it might be just that Garrett Bradbury was attacked a lot less than he was before but I also tend to think from watching the games back that he did anchor better that some of the technical stuff was better from Garrett Bradbury so I do think somebody who is an elite athlete at their position, like Bradbury or like Ezra Cleveland, that there is that chance for him to take that big step forward at some point. And you also have to consider that this guy went from tackle to right guard to left guard. Now, I still think that it was fair to expect another step this year as opposed to the same exact numbers. But in the run-blocking area, he was better.

And in the overall grade, he was better. And I know that these PFF grades are not the exact gospel truth to everything. I mean, we just always have to say that, that we always want to contextualize what these PFF grades mean. But in this case, it matches up very much with what we've all seen from a week to week basis. And going back through the all 22 tape and watching is that this guy can be the best offensive lineman on the field, or he can have some really, really long days. And those really long days can cost you.

And if you have too many of those, then it's just like a guy in baseball, right? They always say, what's the difference between a 200 and a 300 hitter? It's like one hit a week. Yeah, but the best guys get that hit. So what's the difference between a great guard and a mediocre guard is two or three misses per week.

But those matter. Those are hits on your quarterback, right? Those are pressures on your quarterback and plays that are not effective. So that consistency does have to matter. It's really hard to predict it. What I can say though is that if it does happen and he does take that next step, this guy was a elite athlete. So if he does take that next step this guy was a elite athlete so if he does take the next technical

step or maybe it's just recognizing certain things communicating it's the second year with an offensive line coach if that happens this also offensive line could be legit and that's even kind of regardless of whether ed ingram takes a big step as well, which, you know, again, it's very hard to say if he does or not. But if you have everybody except for one guy cooking, then you're still in pretty good shape. You can cover up for one guy. You can't cover up for two. That's kind of the way I've always looked at it

is you can double, you can, you know, kind of move the protection, shift the protection one way. You can, you know, chip. I mean, guards are a little harder to chip, but you can give help to everybody except not two people at once and last year they had to give help to two people at once and they weren't able to do it and they gave up a lot of pressure because of it but he's a swing guy for that offense I mean someone asked on the last fans only hey could they be a top seven offense and one of the reasons that I kind

of balk a little bit is just, well, one, we're projecting Jordan Addison to be great already. He's a rookie. We don't know where that's going to go. And usually there is a learning curve unless he's Justin Jefferson, then there isn't one. But even then, you know, Jefferson was a little behind to start. And then as soon as he got more playing time took off but we don't really know how to project if Jordan Addison's ready to do something like that or if there will be a learning curve so that's one thing but the other thing is about these guards and whether they take that step forward if they do they can have a top offense and I saw Mike Clay from ESPN ranking the Vikings offensive line in the top 10.

I'm sure a major part of that is the tackles, major, major part. But he also is probably working in some element of these guys who are drafted high, should at some point get better. If that happens for them, it'll be a very good thing. And it might, maybe, maybe Kirk Cousins first really good offensive line since he got to Minnesota. I don't know. I don't want to be bold, but I think it's possible. All right. From a Vikes fan, six, nine, one. If you had to make one Vikings related wager, what would it be? And how about one for the rest of the league? Personally, I think

Vikings plus three 50 to win the division is very ent enticing I think that's very enticing as well I mean I as far as making one for the rest of the league I'll have to look at who might be interesting as far as winning divisions and everything else but I can give you kind of a broad one in a second but for the Vikings, I mean, everyone is so high on Detroit and kind of intrigued by Chicago. And those right there, I think, are enough to draw a lot of attention away from the Vikings. The other thing, too, is we just talked about a couple of swing factors on the offense. I mean, you look at all the different things that they're going to have as a team overall. They're going to have a different starting linebacker. They're going to have a different starting linebacker. They're going to have a different starting edge rusher.

And Marcus Davenport, probably a different starting safety. And Louis Seen, a backfield that's quite a bit different. No more Adam Thielen. If you're an outside person trying to decide, do you want to put your money down? When a team has that much turnover and that few proven people taking over, there's kind of an inclination to say, you know what, they lost a lot of talent and I'm going to stay away from that one or I'm going to lean into the Lions.

But maybe missing the forest through the trees a little bit that they have a proven quarterback that always wins a certain amount of games. At least they have a good offensive coach, the best receiver in the world. Like I just mentioned, an offensive line with potential and what's going to drive your success on a week to week basis is the offense, right? So, you know, there is a scenario where the Vikings do get 11 wins. I don't know that it's higher than that. But if they do, are the Lions going to match them or are the Lions going to Lions? And even Lions, Lions-ing could mean just nine wins. It could mean that they repeat last year and they didn't actually improve. Now, when you look at their roster though, it's kind of hard to believe that they will not improve. I mean, they have just made so many moves on the

plus side on defense and getting a linebacker in the first round is not something that is statistically all that sound. At the same time, if the guy is good, it's going to be really good for them. And they also got three corners in free agency and all three, I think were good moves. I mean, so they should improve they should be better but that's not a guarantee and the other two teams it's just hard to envision the Packers being right there at the top with Jordan Love in his first year and Chicago I think is one year away and if the quarterback comes to fruition so I like that for sure. If I, I don't know how, like how bold should I be? Should I be insulting to Aaron Rodgers and saying, take the under on the New York jets because I'm

not buying it until I see it. I don't know, because I usually have a rule that we don't doubt legends, but that one, I think that where you're thinking probably with talking about this bet is whatever the offseason hype team is often disappoints. And that's the Jets and the Lions. Weirdly, weirdly, the two teams that have just been atrocious for so long. But the Jets and the Lions are getting the offseason hype. So if you always go against the offseason hype then picking against rogers in new york thinking that you know maybe he doesn't have all of that skill back that he used to and he's going to look just

like last year where it's up and down and maybe it wasn't all the receivers fault or if you buy into that then you could certainly see them hitting the under the other one might be well it's hard it's hard with green bay because i don't know how much hype there is with Green Bay uh the other one that came to mind for me though as we're talking is the Giants and a team that wins a playoff game last year brings their quarterback back is going to get a lot of love but we've talked about the regression for the Vikings the Giants were another version of the Vikings last year they had all the same issues and we don't know what's going on with Saquon Barkley I imagine he's going to play they did get Darren Waller that helps them quite a bit but they didn't make some humongous receiver move

Daniel Jones might regress a little bit from last year and kind of go back to what he was before they won a lot of one score games, things like that. So, you know, I mean, the Giants might be a pick to kind of go against the other one that would be an interesting pick for anybody. And this would be very risky, but I don't know. I don't know what the over under is for the Houston Texans, but look at their division. They got a coach who might be good finally a serious coach after several years of completely not serious coaching hires and if CJ Stroud is even decent right away maybe you win some games I don't know those are hard bets to make all of them are hard

bets to make but if we were kind of looking to the rest of the league and saying, hey, what's one that's not super obvious? Maybe those are a couple. But I'm not the best person to go with as far as wagering goes. So take that for what it is for just analysis of what I think of those teams. And do not use your money based on what I say. Go to somebody smarter. Like I had Drew Dinsick on the show the other day. He's smarter when it comes

to gambling go to him folks i'm super excited to announce a new sponsor to the show that just made us a whole lot cooler oakley express yourself and build a look that's made for you you guys know that i spend my summers on the golf course and while my golf game will remain the same oakley's will do two things for me they will improve my golf look by a lot. Anytime I can look more like Justin Jefferson, I've got to take that opportunity. And they will also protect my eyes from the hot Minnesota sun as well. If you're out golfing like me, training, going to baseball games here in town, or hey, training camp is right around the corner.

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glasses that'll be sure to change your look for the better when you wear oakley there's really more than meets the eye trust me try it for yourself i've worn a lot of sunglass brands in my life and i can assure you that oakley is not only the best looking but the best quality out there head on over to oakley.com for more information today. This is from Josh R. Smith, our friend Josh Smith, who was on the show not too long ago. Pie chart of 2023 carries for Madison, Chandler, McBride, and Kenne Wongwu. I will say, this is all of course assuming Delvin Cook isn't here it's been weird talking about just Delvin Cook being gone when he is not gone but I guess we talked about Z'Darrius Smith in the same way and well he's gone but let's assume that it is those four running backs you forgot

CJ Hamm so already that's a demerit there. C.J. Hamm deserves at least 2% of those carries. I will go out of those four players with Alexander Madison getting 60% of the total carries and the other 40% going 25 to Chandler, 15 to McBride and zero to Kenny Wong Wu and I'm basing it on history last year there was opportunities to use Kenny Wong Wu and they did not do it they made no effort whatsoever to get Kenny Wong Wu on the field I don't really know why but it was quite clear when Kevin O'Connell was talking about it that was something he didn't want now that might be because he does not understand the offense as well as they need him to it might be because they don't trust them in pass blocking or I'm not really sure what the guy is a dynamic talent and you would definitely think that he would be able to get the ball in his hands a couple times and use that explosiveness I could be totally off on that it It's just that right now, based on

what we saw last year, it doesn't feel like they really want Kenny Wong to play as a running back. Seems like they just want him as a kick returner. And so a fourth round pick that turns into a kick returner running back may be underwhelming, but you know, is what it is. I think McBride's going to show something right away. And what Chandler did last year was very intriguing, but Madison is the guy. I mean, he's the one that has all the experience. He understands all the blocking scheme and just something to keep an eye on for Alexander Madison. I think he's a really good catcher of the football and they did not use their screen game or their short pass game to running backs very effectively at all but a few of the most effective throws aside from that one against

indianapolis the 80 yard touchdown but most of their not most but a lot of their effective throws did go to alexander madison a touchdown on a little screen pass uh in new orleans had another one where he ran a slant over the middle, went for a touchdown. So I think that he actually can catch the ball and maybe has a little better talent with his hands. It doesn't drop as many passes as Delvin Cook. So that might be something to watch for. But I mean, until we see training camp and preseason, how that plays out, it'll be hard to know. But if I'm projecting it right now, I still think the massively going toward Madison. And if you're a fantasy player, who's a Viking fan, that would be a guy I would really lean into because I am skeptical about the young running backs, just completely taking away his job. From Elysium, maybe for how you pronounce it sorry if it's not uh is it too late to trade Kirk

no uh no uh after June 1st is when his contract sets up for that possibility and then I guess we'll see realistically yeah I mean it, I mean, it probably is. It probably is. Technically speaking, it only becomes time that they could trade Kirk after June 1st. And if there was anything ever in the works with Trey Lance or whatever conversations that they might have been having, if there is a team out there that wants to trade for Kirk Cousins, then that could happen after that. But the question of course is going to be who is playing quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. Then if it is Kirk for Trey Lance, first of all, the internet will

explode. And I will laugh hysterically because of the number of times we've talked about how unrealistic it was. And then for it to come to fruition would just be very funny. Uh, I still think it's quite unrealistic that that could happen if it does, if it does, then it will happen two weeks from now, three weeks from now or beyond. And it's not the craziest thing. Uh, once upon a time, this old veteran quarterback showed up with the Vikings in 2009 and took them to the NFC championship. Missing OTAs, I mean, probably shouldn't really hurt somebody if they're a good quarterback. They'll be able to catch up over the summer and then be ready to go in July. If they're going to do it, then they're going to do it shortly after June 1st. I would say the odds are at the tiniest flicker at this point, but they're not completely dead.

I mean, because there's no extension. And as long as there's no extension, then the possibility is alive. But creating this extra cap space, then after June 1st, they could totally do it without any sort of problem yeah I mean it's possible but I don't see it happening I think what this year is going to be is Kirk Cousins doing everything he can to again prove to the Vikings that they're making a mistake by not giving him that contract extension that he wanted that's. I think it's to audition for the rest of the NFL should he hit free agency. He still could sign a contract extension at any time. So maybe it's to force their hand. And it's also after last year, Kirk Cousins ran up the meter

a little bit on his win loss record. And that has always been a discussion with Kirk Cousins that he has always been a 500 type quarterback and he has been asked about it repeatedly and he's kind of been Mr. 500. So getting 13 wins last year, that was big for him. And I'm sure he would tell you, Oh, I don't care about that. When loss record doesn't matter. Of course he does. Any one of us would care about that. You want a winning record as a quarterback? I mean, I know some of the statistical people will tell you, I don't know about the win-loss thing. I promise you that the actual quarterbacks,

they want to win more games than they lose by a lot. They want their pro football reference page to say, this dude won a lot of games. So, I mean, Kirk has a lot to be motivated for for this season and the Vikings and their management can look at this as, well, we're going to try to be legitimately competitive in a division where there's no real sure things. And if you win the division again, you're in pretty good shape. How that affects the whole quarterback situation in the future, hard to say, but then you might

be in a spot where you feel really good about your team because if you in the future, hard to say, but then you might be in a spot where you feel really good about your team, because if you win the division, that means those defensive players who are young, they took a step forward. That means they stepped up and it probably means Jordan Addison was pretty good and your young running backs were pretty good. And so then you feel really, really strongly about the next quarterback you're going to put into a position where it's a team ready to win. So yeah, I mean, like again, circling back to your question, it's not too late to trade Kirk Cousins, but you can still see the vision for where this could go and how it could work out ideally to be competitive and still look to replace the quarterback position in the future if that's what

they want to do uh this one comes from at uh warly owl what's the difference between playing defensive end in a 4-3 and outside linebacker in a 3-4 i think you mentioned zadarius being best suited for the latter but uh why and how does that translate to Daniil Hunter? Yeah I mean so the 3-4-4-3 thing is pretty overrated to talk about because it's not like the old days of these four linebackers the dome patrol where you got Ricky Jackson and Sam Mills and you know you don't really have that or even going back to Pittsburgh the early Carolina teams with Kevin Green, they had something like that. So there were these beastly 3-4s that were playing four linebackers all the time, and we just don't see it like that a whole lot anymore.

What it turns into now is on a 3-4, you'll see, I mean, sometimes they line up in that kind of formation, that base 3-4, but normally everyone is playing in the nickel. But what the one thing that you will see as a difference is the standup outside linebacker where you're playing way outside the tackle. So those guys are not lined up like right over the tackle. What you would see in a three, four, a a lot more it's a lot tighter to the formation

most of the time that but you can even make adjustments on that and sometimes someone like dean lowry will be called a defensive end because he'll be the one lining up closer to the tackle but the differences are pretty small since most teams are running three wide receivers and it's mostly nickel and you don't have that one massive nose tackle over the center two traditional defensive ends and then outside linebackers outside of them so it's not often uh five men at the defensive line but you will see that though i think more often with one linebacker it's kind of an interesting little twist that a lot of teams have done in

recent years where they play five men on the defensive line and just one linebacker. And that's kind of three, four ish as well, I guess, or you do see that from the three, four guys, but as it pertains to Daniel Hunter last year,

I think there was a little bit of an adjustment of standing up or playing way outside. But by the end of the year, it was the same guy with the same production. I mean, even like midway through, the light kind of came on and there really wasn't that much of a difference. But I think with Zedaria Smith, when you think 3-4, you think of like more flexibility, more versatility. And that's what Brian Flores is trying to do. That's what Bill Belichick has long done where Zedarius Smith I think he was best fit for it because one he's an excellent stand-up rusher so if he's way outside the tackle he can stand up and explode quickly or I think Daniil Hunter's a

little better when he is down in that three-point stance and exploding up just I mean from the experience that he's had doing it I think he's better with that than it is the stand-up just I mean from the experience that he's had doing it I think he's better with that than it is the stand-up but Z'Darrius is a stand-up guy doesn't mind being outside the tackle but also you can move him to a lot of different spots in a lot of different looks and I think that the 3-4 has a little more of a reputation for flexibility that's kind of the way that I would look at it but no it's not it's not massively different. And I think that if Daniil Hunter stays and plays under Brian Flores, he's just going to be Daniil Hunter that as long as his health holds up, he'll get his 10 sacks, he'll get his 50, 60 pressures, and he's going to be a really good player for them. I mean, I don't think that system, and we saw this last

year, I don't think system really impacts edge rushers that much, unless you're trying to move them to some traditional pass rush or non-pass rush role. There were a few times where Daniil Hunter dropped back in coverage that were ugly last year, but in all told, it wasn't very much. So that is a little bit of the difference too, if you're playing in that base 3-4 four that guy can get caught playing coverage sometimes but when you look at the actual numbers it was one or two times per game it really wasn't very much as opposed to zero times so yeah there's not that much of a gap these days in the way that that's played uh from wade do you have any recommendations for books or other resources that might give us a better understanding of pigskin data science? Well, I know that my friend Eric Eager from Sumer Sports just wrote a book that is extremely math driven about football analytics, kind of like how to make them.

I have not read it yet. I'm on my way to do that but he's working on that project now I think it's just come out so I think that's very very mathy so it really depends on what you're looking for for pigskin data I mean are you looking for the actual data science which is deep in the weeds because that's what I would suggest I would suggest following someone like Eric what Sumer Sports is doing now what PFF has done in the past with their data. Those things are worth looking up. Another guy that's great to read, and it sounds like it would be perfect for you to sign up for his newsletter, is Kevin Cole, who comes on the show all the time. He is a great data science guy, former PFF, and he breaks it down kind of like no

other in math terms. Really, really smart when it comes to that. So I think that the best plan is to seek out the data scientists. Tej Seth has been on the show. He's working for Sumer Sports now. Seek out some of the data scientists and follow their work closely and see what they do. I know that Ben Baldwin of The Athletic, he was kind of an inventor of the punt machine. He's also worked on the draft stuff. His website is really good for looking at expected

points added and things like that. So it's really that there are a handful of leaders in that arena that are worth following, maybe more than just getting a book that teaches you data science. Because again, I don't know if you're interested in knowing what it says in the conclusions and trying to learn how to think like a data scientist, or actually you want to create those charts and learn how to plug it into your computer. So those are all different levels and there's different people that you can learn from when it comes to that. Also, I know that Football Outsiders has had some financial struggles that have been written about, and I feel very sad about that because I read a ton of that over the years, Football Outsiders being a leading voice in applying data to football.

So there's a lot of resources out there. Aaron Schatz, if you don't know him, follow him. He's always got great thoughts as well. Brian Burke from ESPN, Seth Walder from ESPN. So they're kind of out there and there's a lot of interesting data study that's going on now. Ton of it really. I mean, especially with the big data bowl,

which is where a bunch of analytics people get together and do presentations for the nfl at the combine a lot of those folks are sharing their work and creating more of it so i i would say go to social media and try to seek those people out and follow what they do from there our next question is from at Connor Strunk. Since the Vikings traded away Zedarius, are there any free agent pass rushers you think the Vikings would add before training camp? Well, let's go to the old overthecap.com

and look at the free agent list and see. I have not memorized it, so I'm going to look. Now, Leonard Floyd is the first guy that comes to mind because he has the Los Angeles connection. So he's the one that i've kind of brought up for hey maybe this could be somebody uh robert quinn played a little bit for the eagles last year i don't think he was that effective but he is a free agent as well you have yanni gongakwe jadavian clowney shelby harris is an interesting one, Marcus Goldman. So just kind of one by one. Melvin Ingram was still good. I think last year, I didn't know he was a free agent.

Justin Houston is an outside linebacker. I mean, there's dudes, there are dudes. Kyle Van Noy, he would have a connection through the Patriots. And then, I mean, Vinnie Curry always gets a job, Carl Nassib. Yeah, there are players, there are players and I'm not cross-checking every single one of these. So I'm sorry if any of them have signed really recently and they're still on this list. But if I were ranking, if they wanted to go out and get a veteran, which I would prefer they not do and just go with the young guys and young-ish applies to Marcus Davenport and see what happens. But Leonard Floyd would be at the top of the list. He was excellent last year. Frank Clark, I'm not all that interested in for this team. Robert Quinn, Yannick Ngakwe, very meh on them. Shelby Harris is an interesting one. I mean,

he's 32 years old, so there might not be a point to doing that but he can get after the passer a little as an interior rusher and uh Marcus Goldman Golden the same kind of thing he's 32 I don't know if there's a point to doing that uh Melvin Ingram is 34 same kind of deal and so is Justin Houston so these guys are all on the older side of things and you'd really be getting a veteran veteran type of player. If that's the way you're doing it. I again would prefer if they were going to spend some money that they did it for somebody who was sub 30 years old, who might have some upside. unfortunate part is that most of those guys are gone at this point they are not in free agency anymore so if they were to go out and get a veteran they could help their pass rush i mean i named five six players who could instantly help them and they don't have jobs yet so they're not going to be expensive and i mean maybe they sign too i don't know like it just it's where they are right now makes so much sense

to me though. Seeing what Patrick Jones can do, seeing what DJ Wanham can do, because even though Wanham has not been a consistent pressure creator, he still has picked up some sacks over the last couple of years. Can he take a step to be a little more consistent of a player like we were talking about with Ezra Cleveland and then you want to see Marcus Davenport play 600 700 snaps he's never really done that in his career so can he be an every down guy can he stay healthy can he stay consistent enough to do that and take another step and fit in this defense these are all things that I'd like to discover as we go forward rather than saying like oh Leonard Floyd is here and he's going to get his handful of sacks and then what he's going to go play for somebody else next year and we've left Patrick Jones on the bench and haven't found out if he can really

play or not and I think that there was enough there with both of those guys would want him and Patrick Jones to want to see them to Wanham see them no no no don't do that uh but to yeah to want to see them uh maybe play a little bit more and that doesn't have to mean in an every down roll but if they're rotating in with Daniil Hunter if he's here and Marcus Davenport then you're discovering what you have for the future rather than just leaving those guys on the bench. And then it opens the door for also, you never know who's going to kind of emerge and surprise you. Luigi Villain was a guy on the team. Andre Carter, though I think he's more of a project player, still, like, could he maybe emerge throughout training camp? Like, I don't know. I want to see.

I don't know what the odds are that those guys become as good as Leonard Floyd. Probably not much, but I want to see rather than seeing a veteran. But there are names. If they want to get somebody, they can. All right. From Phil Antinarella. Sorry. I think that is close.

How long do they let Ed Ingram start if he struggles? That is a good question. Well, in 2021, they briefly for a couple of weeks benched Garrett Bradbury. That was in year three. I don't know if he gets benched this year, unless it is a total disaster as it was sometimes in past protection last year. But I think that they'll let it play out. Yeah.

I mean, when you look at who is on the bench, you have only Udo, right. You have what Chris Reed came back. Austin Schlotman. I mean they're you're if you're benching him it's over it's like that is a bust that pick didn't work because the guys behind him are backups they are not really starters that means that you're pushing kind of the bust button and i think they'll wait to do that.

It is a good question that if he struggled for most of the year mightily, and you got down the stretch of the playoff race and it was really costing them, like, let's say that in week 13, he gives up seven pressures, two sacks, Kirk's get strip sack, lose the game. There might be a moment where they say, all right, we're in the race here. We got to do something. We got to make a change.

That you could see. If it's a regular year and they're kind of winning or up and down and there are good weeks and bad weeks, I think they'll let them fight through it. It would have to be, it's going just as bad as last year. And then there's a moment like remember in Seattle in 2020 with Drew Samia, that was the moment it was over. He played so poorly in that game against Seattle. It was just over. They just couldn't put him back out there after that. And if, if Ingram has has one of those games then i think they will have to

consider it but i would more likely think that they'll just let him play it out for the entire year and see how it goes but it's kind of a situational type thing i mean with garrett bradbury if i remember he missed the week maybe due to covid and then Mason Cole came in and Mason Cole's a decent player. And so he came in and played okay. And they decided to just stick with Mason Cole because it was working. And then they changed it back after Mason Cole wasn't working anymore. We might see situations like that as well, but once the guy is taken out and hits the bench, you know, back in the day, maybe you'd bench guys all the time and then just bring him back in and whatever it was part of the league now though if you invested that much and you've been starting him and everything else and then you bench him it probably means he's unlikely to ever

come back so you have to take that pretty seriously but that is like things to watch that we are setting up for next year definitely one of them is the progress that he makes because that is very important to this offense. All right, from at Johnny Drag, what are the most likely uses of the freed up cap money without assuming that they have also freed up with and without assuming that they have freed up Delvin Cook's money?

Well, I think that the most likely use is probably just to save it and use it for the contract extensions. They have several of them that I think that they want to do. TJ Hawkinson, Justin Jefferson, and then we'll see about Daniil Hunter. But as I was talking about a little bit yesterday, you can push some of that money into right now, which could be helpful for spreading out the cap hits down the road into the future. So that is the most likely either way.

Now, if they do free up the money with Delvin cook, you could potentially bring in one of those players that we were just talking about as depth, as a pass rusher, I think as an interior pass rusher maybe they could use another body in there because so they drafted jaqueline roy but he's more of a nose tackle run stuffer he's got some ability to get after the passer but that's a late round draft pick that you can't

really expect to make a difference on the interior asasia tomo woe Ross Blacklock. I mean, maybe they're factoring Ross Blacklock into that, but I could see another interior player coming in and having some competition, but also they might want to see, and here's another interesting dynamic that does happen. And we don't really talk about it much, but I remember a couple of years ago, Kim Dantzler got hurt and was not available for I think OTAs and that's when they went out and got Bashad Breeland basically to say look if you're not going to be ready then we're going to go get someone else that wasn't a great move to get Bashad Breeland if they feel the same way about Andrew Booth Jr. or Caleb Evans they could look

at corner even though they drafted two defensive backs they could look at corner, even though they drafted two defensive backs, they could look at corner to bring in a veteran at those positions. But I think that the roster is, this could be like famous last words, and there could be an avalanche of moves, but it feels like the roster is close to being done, even if they move on from those guys, and you are allowed to carry over cap space into the future so that is an important note as well that if you create the cap space now and you don't really use it for anything you can use it in the future it's not like you can't take it with you you can and that might help them maybe lighten the load after some particular quarterback has a 28 million

dollar dead cap for next year. So the answer, if we were ranking, what are they going to do with it? It's probably some for extensions and then maybe not much else and try to use it for next year and set up their cap situation a little bit better than it currently is. All right. From a coma one, two zero one on Twitter in your mind, what is the ceiling and floor for this team in 2023 record wise at this moment, which is a long way away from them actually playing games. I think that the ceiling is 11 games. And you guys, if you were listening to the podcast, heard will Raggetts pick them to win 11. I think that's probably about everything going really well. If they have that top 10 offense, if the

defense improves realistically, I mean, asking it to go from 27th to top 10 to top five is a big ask for a bunch of players that have very little experience. And it's very hard to project from that way. So 11 wins with the schedule, knowing how hard it is, they could play just as well or better than last year and win 11 if they lose a couple of close games, have a couple of bad breaks that they didn't have last year, and then just play harder opponents than they did last year with better quarterbacks. And so I think that if they won more than 11,

I'd be very surprised. The floor is probably like five. Five. So here's the thing about Brian Flores. I think that Brian Flores with all the chess pieces is as good as it gets for a defense coordinator. But there's only so much that one man can do. And if things go sideways, roster wise, he has a 32nd ranked defense on his resume once with Miami. Now they were tanking,

but they had a lot of the same sort of things of unproven younger players. And that's how they ended up at the bottom of the NFL once and if they just struggle if Booth Jr. gets hurt if Evans isn't good if Murphy's not a great fit if Louis seen isn't in there or is struggling if they're not pressuring the quarterback if they have to get rid of Hunter and then Davenport gets hurt like we've seen this movie before with hey all these young players will just take these big steps and then they don't. And if that happens, might be a five win team. I think they could still score, but can they score with a lot of those teams? And the thing to consider is last

year, it was Mack Jones and Mike white and all sorts of not great quarterbacks, Andy Dalton, that were having pretty good days against them. This year, the median quarterback, the middle quarterback that they're facing, the average quarterback, put aside the Jalen Hurts, put aside the Joe Burrow, the Patrick Mahomes, just don't even consider those. The middle quarterbacks are very good. The Jimmy Garoppolo's, again, if he's healthy. The Derek Carr, who's always healthy for New Orleans. These guys are good. These guys have big games on their resume.

And they will light you up if you're a bad defense. I mean, these Kirkian-type quarterbacks, what does Kirk Cousins always do? Throttles bad defenses. Well, if you end up with a bad defense, you could win five, six games. And look, sometimes it's luck. Last year, the Raiders, it was luck for them. They lost a ton of super close games. They were the anti-Vikings. And if the Vikings do what they did this year, they could win five or six.

I think it's a pretty wide spectrum of potential for wins and losses. Yep. Okay, one more question here any movement from zonk love this zonk 641 that's a good name any long-term uh any movement on long-term deals for jj or tj after this cap clearing move yeah i can I can't tell you. I don't know. I cannot get inside Justin Jefferson or TJ Hawkinson's head. All I know is that it makes a lot of sense for the Vikings to extend both of those guys, because if they do, then they are putting together one of the best offensive setups in the entire NFL for the future. Both of them are young. Both of them are really good at their jobs.

Justin Jefferson, the best in the NFL. And I think ultimately with Justin Jefferson, especially now, TJ Hawkinson, a little more dodgy on this. But with Justin Jefferson, you have to consider that if you try to fight the man when it comes to the contract situation yes it is the player empowerment era and you can try to just like have a hissy fit and fight your way out maybe maybe you can do that if you want to and it's been done but for the most part it's very hard to get out of a rookie contract that's's the CBA we live in. But they did this on purpose, the first round picks, so they didn't all just hit free agency as soon as they're done with their contract. They made it very favorable for the team that drafts the player to keep the player because you have fifth year option, you have franchise tag. I mean, this thing could go on forever. So it is better from his position to sign the contract, get the massive money,

get a lot of it right away, put it in your pocket, secure your future, secure your family's future. And also you're with a very good organization that you have a lot of say in. I still lean that direction with Justin Jefferson, that that is a lot of say in. I still lean that direction with Justin Jefferson, that that is a thing that can happen. TJ Hawkinson, I don't know. I don't know what's on TJ Hawkinson's mind. I mean, I think that he's a guy that fits super, super well with this organization, but he's also got to know that if he hits free agency, it's going to make a lot of money, a lot of money. And he's already played well with the Vikings and Kirk Cousins leans on him a lot.

If Kirk Cousins throws him 87 footballs next year, that dude might press 20 million on the free agent market. There is an argument for TJ Hawkins to do not sign right now, bet on himself, make a ton of catches score some touchdowns and get a ton of money next year but I think the Vikings will make an effort there

but as far as actual movement no I mean there's no rumors reports anything else out like that that those things are happening and if they do 90 chance if it happens it's going to happen before training camp or at the start of training camp that's just how it's traditionally gone so we'll keep an eye on that i am still leaning though toward betting that jefferson does sign an extension hawkinson though i think is more like 60 40 he does but i'm not 100 sure what's going on in his head and his agent's head they've got to know that that payday is going to be huge and And if you're the Vikings, you do have to make decisions. Derrissaw, if you're signing Hunter, Jefferson, it's a lot of money to be spread around.

Can you afford to pay a tight end that much? Maybe they'll wait. Maybe they'll wait a whole year and kind of see where it's at because it was only a half a year last year. If they make the trade for a second round pick and he doesn't sign, it looks a lot different. If he does, that's also gotta be a motivating factor. I think they've gotta consider that for sure.

So, okay, well, great questions, great questions. And there's gonna be at least one, maybe two more of these episodes. I hope you like them. I really like them. Answering these fan questions, you guys always have so many interesting things to say. So purpleinsider.com, the contact us is one way to do it.

You can also tweet me, DM me on Twitter at Matthew Collar is a good way to get your question answered. But you guys really on fire this week with these. So there will be more episodes to come. Thanks so much for all your questions and for all of you watching slash listening. And we'll catch you next time.