Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Highlights of Vikings training camp opening press conferences and questions about expectations

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Matthew Coller pulls clips from the opening press conferences of Harrison Smith, Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and then answers fan questions, including how Vikings fans should form expectations especially considering the nature of the QB position in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and this is going to be a little bit of a unique podcast, but I hope that as the training camp goes along and the season goes along, this becomes part of the regular rotation of podcasts where I have taken 10 clips from the press conferences, the opening training camp press conferences of Kevin O'Connell, Kweisi Adafomensa, and Harrison Smith. And I've pulled the clips from them and I've got them kind of in an order to talk about a lot of the things that they said. So if you miss the press conferences, you can get a splice of what

they're saying out at training camp. And then I can throw in my own little comments in between and hopefully give some context to what they're saying at TCO Performance Center. So Wednesday will be the first practice, but almost every single day there's going to be new people coming to the podium, new storylines to talk about. So I've got a lot of clips from today. don't know if it will always be this many, but I'm going to make an effort of getting my phone up there on the lectern and making sure it records so I can use the audio here on the podcast. And this is probably something that I just didn't take advantage of in the past. So hopefully you guys like this. Always give me feedback. Let me know if you think this is a good idea or if you like how these go.

So we'll run through these clips. We'll talk a little bit and then we'll see if we could fit some fans only questions in as well. I've got the Google doc open and I've got a diet Dr. Pepper here just in case. Although opening one for only a couple of questions, I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe we're not allowed to do it unless we have the diet Dr. so okay let's start then uh harrison smith talked today and the first thing that i asked harrison smith to open his press conference was about working with lewis scene and i think if you're ranking all of the storylines which maybe i should have already done a podcast doing but if you're ranking all of the training camp storylines, Lewis scene is way up toward the top of the list. It's new head coach, new offense, new scheme on defense.

And how does the first round pick fit in? So here's what Harrison Smith had to say about adjusting to yet another partner, but this time somebody a little bit different in terms of his physical gifts in lewis scene there's no uh no set plan i'd say you know i've like you said i've worked with enough guys a lot of different personalities body types game styles um we'll figure something out so he's he's got a good head on his shoulders he's he's. He's got a bunch of tools. Plus, we got a bunch of other guys in there that know what they're doing. So we'll figure it out.

When you do this thing where we listen to a bunch of press conferences and a lot of it is not press conferences because most of it is sort of like that, where you just have to parse through looking for something interesting. But you look for little things like that that are telling like, why did he say that? He wouldn't have gone out of his way to say that if he didn't believe that that was his first impression. And that's one of the reasons why Harrison Smith and Louis Seen, I think, could be a very interesting partnership because that was my first impression of Louis Seen as well, that he seemed to have a maturity and a confidence to him that rookies don't always have, even if they were drafted in the first round. But whether it's Louis Seen or Harrison Smith,

both of them are going to have to adjust to a new scheme. And Harrison Smith has seen a lot of things when it comes to defense, but he hasn't really had to adjust to a new scheme in a very long time. He's been with Mike Zimmer since 2014. He was in the league for two years before that with Leslie Frazier, and he's gone through some of the adaptations throughout the year, but it's always been Mike Zimmer's scheme, and now he's going to be working with Ed Donatel, and there are going to be some differences. So he talked about how he's dealing with a new scheme for the first time in a long time.

You know, I'm sure you've heard it in interviews from coaches and players. There's some stuff similar to what we've done in the past and some new stuff. So, um, just getting the reps, getting the mental, the mental reps, watching the film and envisioning, okay, I've done something maybe like that, but this is what it looked like. Now this is what it needs to look like, or this is totally new or I did this in 2009 or so there's a, you can always call on different experiences and stuff. And that's a, so it makes it fun. So once again, in my efforts to find things in press conferences that are relevant for us to talk about, he was asked about, like, there's this sort of ethos that the coaching staff has about explaining the why

to players, as opposed to the, I said, so way of coaching, that's why you have to do X, Y, and Z. This coaching staff finds it very important to explain the bigger picture of here's why our scheme is what it is. Here's how offenses are going to attack us. So you have to understand it at more of a 30,000 foot level. And I think that that's very smart because these players are usually capable if they're at this level of seeing the bigger picture and nobody is better at that than Harrison Smith. So when he added in that, he really appreciates that the coaching staff is explaining the bigger picture on these things that stuck out to me. And it feels like that's going to be a really good fit with Harrison Smith. And it also feels like it's one of the reasons why Harrison Smith

is who he is because he loves understanding the bigger picture of football. You know, when you when you learn the whys, it gives you a lot of confidence in what you're doing. And you know, the emphasis of like what we can't give up and what we're trying to kind of either force or take away or whatever. And I think that that just kind of gives you a little more knowledge of how coaches are thinking and maybe even how offensive coaches think to attack certain defense. And that's not only important for a vet, but young guys, that's how you build your football knowledge. And so I definitely appreciate, you know, Ed young guys, that's how you build your, your football knowledge. And so I, I

definitely appreciate, um, you know, Ed's, Ed's great at that. He starts every, every defense we talk about, he starts, he talks about what we're trying to get done with this certain thing. And, um, you know, it might seem like a small thing or not, not, you know, not a big deal, but to me, that adds up over, over days and over years for sure. Okay, on to Kevin O'Connell, the Vikings' new head coach. He brought with him today to the press conference some very good news. This was expected about Irv Smith Jr., but we weren't 100% sure where he would be starting training camp because he was able to do more in OTAs and mini camp than we had initially expected.

But was he going to be on the physically unable to perform list to start and then work his way into it? Or was he going to be a full go? And Kevin O'Connell says that he is ready to do everything they need to start training camp. Talk about a guy that put in some work coming out of the spring. I thought he had a good spring for what he was able to do for us. He was great in the classroom.

He was great in that walk-through, jog-through setting. But then to see him moving around yesterday, we got out on the grass with those early report guys. You can tell the work's been put in. You can tell there's a real mindset for Irv, and I'm really excited about him. So we're expecting him to be full to start. As always, you guys know we'll take each know, kind of comes up day by day, uh, circle up with Uriah and Tyler and Kweisi and we'll have the best plan for Irv himself to,

you know, with a mindset on, on, on that opening game. And I don't have to tell you guys how important Irv Smith is to this operation, but they have not brought in anybody else significant in the tight end room. They did add a camp body this week to the tight end room, but there isn't another veteran player who would be pushing Irv Smith Jr. or even somebody that could fill his shoes were he not there. And that kind of speaks to the amount of pressure that's on him to be the Irv Smith Jr. that everybody expects. So good news on his part, especially after a great training camp last year that he gets to come back from the very beginning because in years past, we've seen guys that are

slow out of the gate recovering from an injury, whether it's Latavius Murray or Mike Hughes. And it does tend to slow those guys down and, and put them behind. And even with Justin Jefferson, I think it was a COVID thing that he didn't participate in the first couple of practices in 2020. And it did set him behind. Like they have a very kind of strict schedule and it's hard if you're not there from the very beginning. So that's a benefit to Irv Smith Jr. to get right in on this new offense. Another thing about Kevin O'Connell that is interesting, and I've talked about it a bit on the show, is their sports science approach and trying to manage player workload. But also with training camp, you got to have competition. You got to figure out who can play.

And Kevin O'Connell talked about that balance as it pertained to competition and the padded practices. I told our team at the end of spring, the competition phase will start. And that goes for really every guy on our roster. We want those guys feeling those situations. Sometimes, you know, for an established player, a guy that's a starter on your team, it's the competition with the other side. It's maybe that one-on-one matchup between a Brian O'Neill and Z'Darrius Smith.

It's how do they push each other by that competition to make themselves better. And like I said, the opportunities in those 11 padded practices are great for our team and our players, but we've got to find a way to replicate that you know and still take care of one another when maybe we aren't uh full padded and kind of those full sessions so every time we step out on the grass from here on out in my opinion we've got to have a plan to accomplish real tangible things um while we continue to build so the other day i tried on the website to put together a 53 man roster and it faced heavy scrutiny from the critics i don't know i may have had one too many linebackers i'm not sure

trying to figure out who they're going to have as a special teams specialist at that point is pretty difficult um so maybe it's an extra safety maybe it's not uh maybe Dan Chisna is there. Maybe he's not. But Kevin O'Connell talked about as the roster evolves and taking into consideration a lot of different factors, we're side by side day in and day out, constantly talking about very small details, very small things. Every aspect of our roster is a big deal. It's a big deal, obviously, to how we're putting together the team, the depth in certain areas, and the identities of our offense and defense. We kind of know our philosophies, but I think an identity of those phases comes together pretty organically as your team builds itself throughout training camp,

which I'm excited about because then, you know, not only our staff, but the personnel staff, you know, getting together with Kwesi and that collaboration that we've used that word a lot, it's because it's real. There's really not much more to it than constant communication and making sure that, you know, we're on the same page every step of the way. And that makes it particularly hard to project who's going to be on the 53 man roster, because with Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman, we had a really good idea of how many players would be at each position, how much they valued certain types of skill sets, where they wanted their depth.

And these are all new things, just like with the draft where we thought we used to know, but now it's different. It's a new regime and new things to study how this coaching staff wants to design its offense and defense and its roster. Kweisi Adafo-Mensa spoke as well at Tuesday's press conference and something, an answer of his stuck out to me. He was asked about whether the green Bay Packers impact his decision-making when it comes to the competitive rebuild. Like if he factors the, uh, the division and how, and how the other teams are doing and

what their timelines are and everything else. And I thought as the question was being answered that it was going to be kind of dismissed as we do what we do and we don't worry about anybody else. We're trying to win a championship and so forth. But Kweisi actually acknowledged that what the Packers are doing does matter to them in their decision making. You want to consider all factors. You know, the first path to getting in that dance is winning a division, right? So you want to be sure that you're mindful of the different changing dynamics that are happening in the NFL at large, but also close to you. So that, again, that's one

of a lot of factors we consider, but you do in a team building kind of horizon exercise to consider a lot of factors. The best thing that you can do, though, is build the best team you can for the foreseeable future. And that's really the core focus of what we do now is speaking of the timeline in a recent interview quesia daflamenso was asked about you know the timeline competitive rebuild all those things his theories on uh you know trading draft picks and so forth and going all in like the los angeles rams did and he may have said some things that I'm not sure if it came across badly. I thought that it came across as maybe realistic about where the Vikings are at, but, you know, definitely raised some eyebrows with some people. So he was asked about

the all in comments and asked to clarify them. So he did here. You know, I have a great deal of respect for the Rams and what they've done, obviously, and what they've been able to accomplish. What I was trying to say to your point was that in football, a lot of times we tell ourselves that we're there, that this is the year. And there's an oblong ball.

There's variance to the sport. There's variance to injuries. So to be able to put all your chips in at the poker table is a lot of times not wise. You want to be able to do it your chips in at the poker table is is a lot of times not wise you want to be able to do it at two three four times so that you can win one or two that's just kind of how the odds work if you look at the Patriots and their great one they got to the game a lot more times than they won the game and so that's ultimately what I meant and just you know I probably didn't use the best turn of phrase I'm gonna you know do what my my wife tries

to tell me sometimes and say less so I'll say less speaking of comments that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa was clarifying, that also included what he said about Kirk Cousins, which again was not super controversial, but more just confirming what we already knew about how he thinks that Cousins is a good quarterback, but he's not Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes, which is, I think, an odd thing to say, even if it's blatantly true, um, as a general manager, which you have to consider.

And I think that if we're giving Rick Spielman some credit, even though he didn't talk very often, one thing you could say that he tried to avoid was manipulating people with his comments in the media. Like you couldn't read back very often into Rick Spielman's press conferences and say, Oh boy, I know who's taken that one badly. Now, Mike Zimmer, on the other hand, you could do that almost on a daily basis, but as the general manager, you have to really do this delicate dance and be very cautious about who is going to read what in what way. So when he talked about, you know, being nervous about the quarterback timeline, uh, he wanted to clarify that comment as well. But I think also it's a sign of the times with the media that exists in the NFL, that everything that gets said gets blown up.

But also, everybody reads it as well. You never hear anymore, oh, I don't read what you guys write because everybody knows that everybody sees it. And when you say these things about your quarterback, it sort of flies in the face of the idea that you guys are the regime that's all in on Cousins. And Kweisi said, you know, oh, you know kirk knows how i feel about him it's like well he does now i guess uh maybe there were some other indicators by his contract and so forth but i think you want to avoid stepping on a potential landmine so he discussed that you might know this better than me and i'm kind of new than the media thing i think at times i'm a really passionate person i love talking about this stuff team building decision making and i think in in those moments i can get theoretical and high level

but as a general manager of the minister of vikings everybody's going to fill in the gaps what i'm saying and relate it to the team and. And that's unfair to me, for me to maybe put that under the organization. I never want to do that. I think at times your words can be airlifted out of the context of the conversation and placed on the page. And as somebody who's new to this, I have to get better at understanding how that might look and imply things. And obviously I want to be great for this organization and i'll keep getting better folks training camp is here and there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to soda stick.com and checking out all their minnesota sports inspired goods the best football designs in my opinion are randy moss's disgusting act and the purple people eaters look but look there's lots more for you to check out at SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com.

T-shirts, hoodies, hats, whatever you're looking for, use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at checkout for 15% off your purchase. Okay, before we get to some fans only questions, here's the final comment from Kweisi Adafo-Menta just about making the tough decisions and the process and the data part of it that they're going to use. It will be a first for them to go through this. And Kweisi talked about how he and Kevin O'Connell are very much on the same page. They're communicating all the time. O'Connell said, it's never going to come down to the last day because there's always going to be communication and we're going to know where each other stands.

But if you have a football team that is putting together a 53 man roster and there isn't some conflict, uh, you're living in a fantasy world. Like, that's how it works. So he discussed how they're going to make some of the tough calls when it comes to the roster. A sign of probability, right? And it's not just the probability or the outcome that you think you're going to get this year. It could be, you know, it could be 23, 24, and also making sure that it aligns with your time horizon and your goals.

You know, the decision paralysis piece is potentially an issue but we have we have a really detailed process that's why we collect so much information and ultimately you know when you get on the margins those a lot of those decisions are 55 45 60 40 at best and you live with them knowing that you have a great process you understand why and having the coaching having somebody like kevin up at my side having us all involved, you can make decisions happen, if you know what I mean. Like there's a 64 decision, but if you're aligned in it, you can withstand the variance of the day, the ups and the downs, and we're going to do everything we can to make that a 70-30 and 80-20.

So I don't worry so much about those decisions. When you get to those 55-45 decisions. Okay, like I said, I hope you enjoy that kind of press conference recap and uh hopefully one of the issues that i have this is like uh inside baseball i guess here one of the issues that i have at tco performance center is the wind and so when i do one-on-one interviews with players for articles a lot of times it's hard to use the audio via the podcast because of the wind. So I'm, I promise you that I'm going to work for a solution to get a wind screen. I usually just use my phone to do the interviews. So I'll try to get some sort of wind screen or make it better. So you guys can hear kind of what

those are like with the one-on-one reporter and player interviews after practice. Usually they're like five minutes or something like that. So I'm going to do my best to try to include some of those and to book some people from the Vikings to talk on the show as we go along throughout training camp. But, uh, it looks like to me, we've got plenty of time to do some fans only. And, uh, if you asked fans only questions and you haven't heard them yet, be patient. I have another couple episodes recorded already as I'm trying to work my way through all the great questions that you guys have, but let's open the Diet Dr. Pepper and get into some of your questions here. Just pull up the file, but again, give me some feedback on that. Purpleinsider.com,

the contact us or send me a tweet. If you like that, I'll keep doing it. It's sort of like with the fans only. I was going to do it a couple of times just as a test. And then you guys kept sending awesome questions. So now we're doing it all the time. Same thing with the press conferences. If that's interesting to you and you like to kind of hear what they had to say and my reactions to it, then I'll keep doing it.

But if you think it's kind of tedious or you already watched the press conferences or whatever, then maybe I won't make it an everyday thing and I'll just do it if there's something special. So I'll do it based on your feedback. Okay, let's get to our questions here. We'll start with Paul via the email. Fans only question, who is your favorite in the Buffalo Bills to Minnesota Vikings pipeline?

Eliminate the easiest choices. Antoine Winfield and Matthew collar. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Uh, available names would be Pat Williams, Daryl Talley,

Henry Jones, Gabe Northern, Bryce pop, Keith Newman, and Sam cowards. Even old fan favorite. Chris Walsh came to us via Buffalo. All right, I have to tell the story first about Antoine Winfield

because it has to do with sometimes I'll get questions on here about like, hey, why aren't you like really a Bills fan or something? You came from Buffalo or why aren't you a fan of a team and you're more just an enjoyer of the whole league and so forth. And one of the reasons is when the bills allowed Antoine Winfield to go, I decided I was done with them. And you guys get this because you understand how good Antoine Winfield is or was, and his son is very good too. Cause I almost said junior because he's just, I've been talking about him in the league recently, but Antoine Winfield senior and how good he was

that when the bills allowed him to leave town. And I since heard that he just never had any plans to stay to begin with. It wasn't a place where he wanted to put down roots, but I did not know that, uh, or understand that when whatever year it was that he was allowed to leave Buffalo and the Bills ownership had this big problem with being cheap and they let go a lot of star players that came in. Jason Peters was one of them. They wouldn't pay Jason Peters. And then he goes on and becomes a hall of fame left tackle. There was a bunch of guys that they could have kept around. Nate Clements was a good corner, and they just didn't seem to want to pay anybody.

And this was kind of back when there were still cheap owners in the league. Now the money has gotten so insane that everybody can pay everybody, and, you know, whatever. Walmart owns a team. It's just kind of crazy. But allowing Winfield to leave was the, like point for me to say like I'm just not rooting for this team I'm just gonna enjoy the entire National Football League I'm gonna watch football all Sunday I'm gonna play Madden with other teams and I'm just not putting my efforts

into the Buffalo Bills if they can't keep Antoine Winfield and And so I kept up with him as a Viking, of course. And when I got here, it was one of the first conversations I had, I think with Judd Zolgad, where he was talking about this exact pipeline that you're discussing. It's absurd how many players came from Buffalo during a certain era and how Antoine Winfield highlighted that group and how good he was, because even as good as he was as a Viking in his earliest years, he was probably just as good or even better in Buffalo. And that was in the day where we didn't have PFF grades to really tell us. You kind of just had to watch and be like, I don't think that this guy gives up a lot of passes.

Clements would get more interceptions, but Winfield would not get targeted. And I just wish I had those numbers to go back and look at because the PFF grades available for Winfield confirm everything that you think, that he was just a great player, but they don't go back quite far enough to catch maybe even some of his better years. So I know that wasn't the question, but, uh, I think like Bryce pop is from here or went to Minnesota or something. Gabe Northern has a great personality. He's definitely one of them, but Pat Williams, and I'm sorry if I've mentioned this on the show before, uh, but Pat Williams is just like, they put him and Ted Washington, who you guys might remember in the trenches at the same time

in Buffalo. And they allowed like 3.2 yards per carry. And when they let Pat Williams go, it was never the same with the way that they stopped the run. They, because running was so important back then, they pretty much run stuff their way all the way to the playoffs during the, I think it was 99 season or 98 season, whichever year it must've been 99 where Doug Flutie was the starting quarterback and got benched for the, uh, music city miracle. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, Pat Williams was just such a monster and to lose him to lose Winfield, you can see like all these players that were good ended up leaving why I kind of just put them on the back burner for the most part, but it's a great, yeah, it's a great

pipeline for sure. I think Ken Irvin also might be another guy who showed up here at some point. So anyway, some, some good memories of the, of the Buffalo to Minnesota. And it's, you know, what's really weird is there's even several people who I knew from Buffalo who ended up moving here. Like there was another radio host who had worked in Rochester, New York, which is right near Buffalo, who was from Minnesota. And we moved here and got to know him and a basketball coach who my wife had worked with when she was doing radio in Buffalo. And he ended up here as well with his wife working for the Gophers. I mean, just kind of a crazy thing.

I don't know why that would be. Maybe people in Buffalo are just willing to come here because we're not afraid of the Colt. That's probably it. All right, next question. Let's see. This comes from Nick via the email what are fair expectations for this team on one hand it seems like you just rolled everything back and extended cousins so you should be in win now mode but you have a rookie head coach and gm and it's very

unrealistic for them to win a super bowl in year one i also give the front office more of a grace period for the kirk extension after seeing where QBs went in the draft. Then again, they could have gone with a bridge quarterback and drafted one next year. Yes. No, I think this is a Nick. You're a very rational gentleman. I think with this comment, I think it's just it's just a very reasonable thought to not completely freak out about the way they handled the quarterback situation. The only thing I would say is that if you look where we stand right now with the quarterback situation, Baker Mayfield didn't move till the last minute. Jimmy Garoppolo didn't move till

the last minute. If they had traded Kirk cousins, there were other people available that could have been brought in here on the shortest of short-term deals with no connection whatsoever. You can move on from them whenever you want that you could have as a bridge quarterback and not lock yourself into anything, including whatever type of no trade clause Kirk Cousins has. You could have done that to move on and have that type of bridge quarterback. It didn't have to be Mariota or Winston. You might have had to have traded a fifth round pick or something for it.

What did they give up? What did I forget? What Carolina gave up is basically nothing right to get Baker Mayfield and the Browns have to pay for a lot of it. And here's San Francisco not going to be able to get anything for Jimmy Garoppolo. So had they waited, they could have done that and not been locked into either one of those quarterbacks and not had to pay them as much, you know, particularly Baker Mayfield. I mean, you could have basically gotten him for free here and had the cap space to do other things. Um, but you know, that's sort of the hindsight is 2020, but it's also

like, as soon as they made that move for Deshaun Watson, then like that was there on the table, but the Vikings would have had to have taken a leap of faith there. Uh, I'm not ready to completely criticize them for that, but more just say that was still on the table when they were making that decision. So giving that So giving them time is understandable. I think we can criticize reasonably some of the things they did that did not help themselves down the road, but how they handle the next offseason when they have the entire year to evaluate and the entire year to formulate their timeline and plan, as opposed to, hey, you're hired hired now handle like 50 really difficult decisions.

That's kind of what happened. And they basically kicked the ball down the road to handle a lot of those in the next year or two. Um, but, but, but these are not excuses to say we should have lower expectations. Even if the expectations are not likely to be reached, they still deserve to be set where they deserve to be set. Like even if they only have a 20% chance of winning 11 games or whatever it might be, I guess someone smarter than me math wise would have to tell me what the distribution is of likelihood that they win 11 games, but let's just say 20%. I still think that should be the standard because if you can't win 11 games, then you shouldn't have done this. Then you should have moved on from Harrison. You should have moved on from

Thielen. You should have moved on from Kendricks. If you, if you cannot win 11 games, then you made a mistake. If you win eight or you win nine, maybe you make the playoffs at nine. Maybe you don't, but if you miss the playoffs and you don't have a legitimate chance to go to a Superbowl, to me, anything less than 11 wins is not that legitimate of a chance based on history, which I I've been over a bunch of times, but it really, it really changed my view of like what it is to be a competitive team, which is you should be able to win 11 games with your roster because then you have an actual chance to make the Super Bowl.

You're strong enough to be able to do it. So that's where I set the bar. I picked them to miss that bar. I picked going through the schedule like everybody else, nine. But feel free to prove me wrong. And if they get to 11 wins and they lose in the first round, I will go back and say that they did the right thing. They got it. They gave themselves a legitimate chance, even though it didn't work out. They got in the dance with an actual shot to go to the super bowl by being an 11 or more win team.

That's my bar. I'm going to stick to that. So that's where I feel like we should set the expectations. But, you know, I also think that you can look at the process that they used just right off the bat and say, I've still got questions. And I didn't read the second part of Nick's email. I'm sorry for that. Here's the second part of Nick's email. I'm sorry for that.

Here's the second part of Nick's email. He says, I just don't know what's reasonable. What would make me feel good about the direction of the team? I want them to succeed. I also don't want them to do enough where they think Kirk should get another extension. I want JJ to be happy, so he signs an extension, but I also want them to get a higher draft pick so they could pick a quarterback. I'm sort of twisted up into a pretzel, not knowing what I want and not knowing what I should expect and think that what you have captured right here is how all of the reasoned fans of the Minnesota Vikings feel because that needle is so tough to thread.

It's like, is it exactly 11 wins where you'd say, well, they're not going to for sure lock cousins into another extension, but they also, well, well, I guess maybe let's think of it this way. If they were able to get to 11 or 12 wins, that means that the O'Connell and cousins combination worked great. And if we believe that the results are repeatable from that combination working great, then we have to change how we think about just cousins in general. I'm not projecting that we'll change how we think about them in general, but it's with, it's again, it's another outcome that's possible. So if we set it at, if they win 11 or 12, and then they do extend cousins, well, that means that it's worked. And this offensive situation

has worked. and even though Thielen would be a year older you're not losing Jefferson you're not losing the young offensive lineman like you'd be able to bring it all back and take another swing if you didn't reach the Super Bowl with those 11 wins anything below that I think they're going to be forced to be reasonable about this and say it's just not not working. If it's eight wins, if it's nine, maybe you're on the cusp of it, but you're probably saying let's play it out for another year rather than let's sign him to a long-term contract extension. So I think that you can live in both of these universes to say, if you get to 11 or 12, that either means that Ed Donatel is the biggest genius in defensive history

or that the O'Connell offense has done the thing with Matt Stafford that happened in Los Angeles, or even with Jared Goff, where he went from, you know, being an okay quarterback, but was able to lead a number one and lead a number two offense in the entire NFL. If that happens, I think all of us will be surprised, but you also have to change your opinion on things as information changes. It's like, think of the different people that we have here in Minnesota in sports and how they're always changing with our takes. Like if Carl Anthony towns shows up in the playoffs next year and drops 40 points a game and is just a monster and all he needed was somebody else to handle that difficult rim protection role with Rudy Gobert. Are we going to say, nah, man, he's still not

clutch. Like, no, we're going to say, Oh, okay. That's what he needed. It was fair to criticize before, but now we know the answer to why it wasn't happening. So if that's the case with Cousins, then we'll change our opinion. But anything short of that bar, I think the team, based on how they handled this situation and Kwesi's recent comments, is at least what I think is going to look at this as you have to draft the quarterback next year. And I wouldn't be super committed to caring all that much about where the draft pick is, because if you're in that range and you're picking 12th to 16th or 18th, you can move up. You don't have to give up the farm to move up, but you can move up. Or you could just wait and see which one of the quarterbacks drops and just take that guy.

And it's so funny how history has changed. Like you go back years. And if you were the third quarterback taken, it was like, no, this guy's never going to make it. But in recent years, it could be any of the guys who make it. If it's five, it's if it's six, it could be any one of those. So you just take the guy that ends up there for you. And your odds are probably similar to what it would be if you were taking the second guy taken. You know, the good example is just not just my homes, but you know, the 2018 draft was supposed to have five superstars. Lamar's taken 32nd. Josh Allen was the third quarterback, right? It was Baker and then Sam Darnold. And then, so it was the third and fifth,

right? Last year it was the fifth. It was, you know, Mack Jones was the best quarterback of that group in the first year. I would be comfortable if I'm them with just waiting for whichever quarterback lands in your lap and then going with it. I know that front offices don't work on that logic, but I think recent history is telling us that. So I think that what you have here, as far as expectations go is if you have a chance for the super bowl, it's been a great year. Then it's been super fun for everybody. And you're really excited and you don't worry about extensions or anything like that's great. That's 11, 12 wins or more. If it's less than that, if it's 10, that's the hardest, that's probably the hardest if it's 10, because then you could,

you could see them saying, well, we just need, but if it's nine or less and it's the same old deal, then you know that they will have to change course and they cannot run it back. If it's eight wins, if it's seven wins, that's where I think you stand with expectations is just knowing that if X, then they go direction Y and if Z, then they go direction ZF or whatever you get what I'm saying. So, um, but that's a, it's a really thoughtful email and I appreciate it, Nick. Thank you. Uh, onto the next one. This is from at rich monk on Twitter fans.

Only question. Sorry. If you've gotten this one already with training camp coming up or, you know, starting in this case, do you see possible surprise cuts or anyone you think personally maybe could be on the chopping block? Thanks and keep up the great work. Well, thank you for following along. Well, let's pull up our roster here because to tell you the truth, as I was going through surprise cuts, I just wasn't really finding ones that would shock any of us. I mean, is the Wyatt Davis is not a surprise cut. Uh, you know, I, I think that like the guys that we're

sort of ready for that potential Kellen Mond is another one that who's going to be a surprise cut with the roster. It seems like it's pretty set outside of a handful of positions. Okay. I've got one, but I don't know if this is even feasible, but I think it is possible. Let me look real quick on his page here and see what it would cost them in dead cap. If this is something that could happen. Uh, no, nevermind. Nope. This can't happen. I was thinking Jordan Hicks would be the one, like if he showed up here and was just not a fit at all that you just cut him and call it a day. But if they did, they will take on more dead cap than his cap number. So you'd just be better off having him as a backup and playing situationally than unless he, he was just

completely dusted. Uh, and you really loved Brian Asamoah. You'd still be better with bringing him off the bench. That would have been my first pick. Anybody who was drafted last year, I guess, is not a surprise at this point, right? Like whether it's Kellen Mond or if it was like Janarius Robinson, those would be surprise cuts. If it was the same regime, if it's Kellen Mond or if it was like Janarius Robinson, those would be surprise cuts. If it was the same regime, if it's not the same regime, these are not surprise cuts that you'd be moving on from. I mean, someone like Amir Smith, Mar set, we've been setting the bar very high for him. That if Jalen Naylor and BC Johnson and Albert Wilson were just fantastic and he got left behind, that would be pretty

surprising. I'm not really projecting that though, because of his physical skill, but I guess that's what a surprise cut is supposed to be. Uh, Shandon Sullivan would be a surprise cut again. Like I'm trying to reach to a point where it's like reasonable. So it's a surprise, but it's also not insane. And Sullivan with his recent performance playing for the Packers, that one would be very surprising. Someone would have to emerge as that nickel corner and take that job away from him. And that's something I don't expect. Only Udo, maybe if they just didn't feel like he was getting it.

But he seems like a pretty solid swing tackle to me, like the new Rashad Hill, basically. And those are the only ones that I can really come up with. Surprise cuts. I mean, somebody like James Lynch wouldn't really be a surprise. Yeah. I mean, I just think that this roster, there are rosters throughout the league that, and we've covered these before, have a bunch of different battles. And you're saying, who's going to make it, who's not going to make it going back and forth like crazy.

And then, you know, you get to the end and everyone's sort of surprised like, oh, well, you know, even with this roster with like Brian Robison really surprised me when they cut him because he had been such a good veteran. I think they may have made a mistake in doing that. I mean, they did it to keep to Sean Bauer. So yes, they definitely made a mistake in 2018 when they cut B Rob, um, that was a surprise. This one, you kind of look for like, who's the veteran that might be underperforming or not up to full speed or something in camp. And I just can't really find too many of those guys. Uh, any higher draft pick from this year,

a Caleb Evans, like a fourth round pick if he just isn't good. But yeah, that's a good question because maybe there will be a surprise and I'll go back and say, see, I was actually really surprised. I couldn't even guess it when I tried to guess when I'd be surprised. Thanks for that question, Rich. On to the next one. This is from at R. Gonzalez 0211991 on Twitter. With a new system and a new coach, I wouldn't be surprised if the Vikings lost their first few games. Would fans and media grill the Vikings for their slow start? Yes.

Yes, they would. You can bet on that, my friend. Uh, yeah, I think that what they did is they didn't give themselves a whole lot of grace period here. If they had taken a longer approach, then it would have been a grace period it would have been us saying all right well look if they start out slow it's a new system or if you know these young players who need to adapt don't begin their young careers all that well then okay no big deal they're developing but that's if they had taken a long-term approach to this when you you sign Harrison Phillips, who's a veteran, when you sign Jordan Hicks, you bring back Patrick Peterson and you build the roster with a lot of veteran players through free agency to try and get the defense back on track. And as opposed to say, playing

Brian Asamoah right off the bat and just saying sink or swim, my friend, or having an open competition, they decided they didn't want or having an open competition they decided they didn't want to have an open competition next to eric hendricks that they wanted to sign a veteran to me that means well then you want to be good right away and there's no excuse in the nfl today with the information the players have and the talent they have for knowing the game i mean this is not learning the offense during training camp. It should already be learned. And now they're just trying to master it throughout training camp. There's no excuse for not coming out hot. And if they start like they have in years past, uh, it's going to be a disaster for them. I

mean, if they go, Oh, and two, and we're talking about losing to, you know, two NFC teams, you're behind the eight ball right away. That will be a disaster. That will mean that right away they had struggles capturing the defense and that the offense didn't have immediate returns against your, you know, some of your biggest rivals. And that's what you're here for. That's how you played the off season was to come here and immediately make it better. And it's just the harsh reality that if you get to 0-2, 0-3, 1-4, whatever, that your season is almost over. And we've seen why in past years because it leaves you no margin for error. I think it is very reasonable to set the bar high and say,

win one out of those two or two out of those two if you're a real contender, come out of the gate fast. And it's on them during this training camp to get the players to master it One out of those two or two out of those two, if you're a real contender, come out of the gate fast. And it's on them during this training camp to get the players to master it because they have the players to do it. They are not trying to teach people how to play football here. Look at the roster. How many young players are going to be called upon to do anything for this team? Like right away, like on the first level, on the first team, how many can we think of think of Lewis scene is one, but there's even a parachute for him with combine and behind him.

Can we even think of two? No, I mean, Christian Darasaw, cause he didn't play that much last year. That's it for young players who are being asked to do something on the starting lineup. So if it's all veterans, then the bar is what it would be for any other team that's going for it and trying to win and trying to reach the Superbowl. Great questions. Great questions. I love these for the opening day of training camp. If you missed my interview with Sam Monson, it was really fun from pro football focus and I'll continue to mix in

interviews. We'll be out there with other beat reporters watching practice uh the will raggett show was off for a week as he traveled on the final week before um camp but we'll be doing hopefully a raggett's round table uh or at least just you know will and i getting together and talking about what we saw in practice and so forth so it'll be a lot of fun there's gonna be a lot of people coming on the show. Kevin Seifert's covering the beat now, you know, Kevin is one of the best NFL reporters out there. So it's great. Um, you know, kind of an honor to sit next to him in the media room because I've just respected and loved his work for so long. So that's really cool. We'll get him on the show as well. And it's, uh, it's going to be a fun summer,

man. It's going to go fast, but it's going to be a really good time. They've got a practice at us bank stadium coming up. So all sorts of things to get to keep sending your questions. And I mentioned later this week, there's going to be another fans only that comes out that I recorded before, but the timing of it is a little wonky. So kind of keep your eye out for that. If you ask the question. And again, I just cannot thank all of you enough who have left the five-star reviews. You don't have to say nice things, but you have, and it is really meaningful to me. It just, I, it helps other people find the show with the algorithm and all that. So it's great. If you can leave a five-star review on Apple, if you're listening on iTunes, um, and your thoughtfulness, uh, in those

comments, I saw someone said that they just like watching the Vikings is a better experience because of listening to the show and things like that, uh, are just really touching to me and kind of make it worth it. You guys know that I put a lot of hours into this cause I just love doing it. And I love hearing that means a lot. So thanks so much, everybody. It is camp time football.