Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Hockenson's contract details look very manageable

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about the details of the TJ Hockenson contract and what it means for the Vikings' future cap situation. Does this make it impossible to keep Kirk Cousins now? Is Justin Jefferson next? What if he doesn't sign? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and how about this? We have a contract extension for TJ Hawkinson. I also have a sunburn because I was out there at TCO Performance Center and I forgot to put on some sunscreen and here we are. So that's the update to the background. I've got the football flags and everything. I didn't change anything about the studio. It's just that I look different. Also wearing the hat.

This guy before the season, I'll get a haircut. But right now, a little out of control. So that's your only update of how things look. So we'll get into everything today. TJ Hawkinson, what TJ Hawkinson said, what Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafomensis said, the updates on other things not related, your opinions, the actual structure of the contract, because if you listen to the episode I did with Will Regetts, halfway through the episode, we got the terms of the contract, but they were the broad terms and the actual terms are very important. So we've got to take a look at those as well on the show tonight. So leave your comments. I want

to know what everybody thinks, want to react to that. And then there's another guy we need to talk about now. Is it Justin Jefferson time? And if you keep your eyes on the channel tomorrow or on the podcast feed, you will hear Brad Spielberger for PFF, the foremost salary cap expert, I think, honestly, in the world. I mean, he goes on NFL Network. He spends all of his time focusing on contracts. So we're going to get his breakdown of TJ Hawkinson and then also his thoughts on a little bit. Maybe we'll get him

to do a mock negotiation with Justin Jefferson and what that could look like but before we get into all that I want to remind you guys of our great sponsor Grillmasters uh the Grillmasters Club is a is amazing honestly Grillmasters Club is amazing. It is like, I guess you could call it the Netflix for barbecue. I just call it awesome. It's the solution for anything you want barbecue wise. And trust me, I've gotten the Grillmasters Club boxes sent to me. They are fantastic. You have barbecue products, sauces, marinades, spice rubs, grilling tools,

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And, oh, the shades. Maybe that's what I should have gone with, with a little bit of a sunburn today. Maybe I should have gone, you like the shade? Maybe I should save the shades, the Oakley shades, for when Justin Jefferson signs. But when we do hot routes, I'll throw those back on from time to time. But yeah, Taco Bell is more of a stop in. Make sure you get something that you need at the time just for a quick meal. But when we're talking about actual dinners that's where you get the grill masters club get

the stuff sent it to you get out there do the work to have a real meal so anyway uh do you guys have takes on and if you're if you're angrily watching the gophers game then that makes this even better for that that makes it even funnier but what's your what's everybody's take on TJ Hawkinson's contract? I think what we should do before anybody goes completely crazy is take a look at the structure. And I've got this up for you from OverTheCap.com. So let's all take a look with the screen share, but I'll read through it for, we'll get me in the corner there. I will read through it for, we'll get me in the corner there. I will read through it for those listening.

So the first year, that is this year, the cap hit for TJ Hawkinson is now down to 4.99 million. So essentially a $5 million cap hit for this year, which of course makes you wonder, all right, well, is that because potentially there's another extension coming that you need a little more cap space for? Possibly Justin Jefferson? Maybe. Maybe. So they lowered his cap hit for this year. And then in 2024, it is a $14.1 million cap hit.

15.1 in 2025. Then it goes up in 26 and 27 to 19.6 and 21.6. But here's the key part of this, that after 2025, so you have essentially kind of a three year at this point, they could move on from TJ Hawkinson if they wanted to, while only taking on $7 million in dead cap. They can also restructure. And one of the great features here is it gives you an idea of the restructure and you could save, according to overthecap.com, $7 million on a restructure by 2026 if they wanted to do that. And then the last year of this deal essentially doesn't count. There's so little dead money, so much cap savings that it really is not even the last year of the deal. So this is more of a two-year extension than it is a four-year extension.

And with the restructure, you could call it more of a three if you take it till 2026. So my question is, does that change anybody's mind about the contract? Because I'll give you my opinion on that is that at that structure, it is incredibly reasonable. And when you say he made 17, and this is what I was always trying to kind of, when we're having the discussion and we're comparing him to other guys, we're saying, is he worth this? Is he worth that? Whatever. One of the things I always tried to put the brakes on is we're going to have to see the structure of a deal because that's really important to this. So when you have three years that are under $17 million, but you call it a $17 million per year deal.

Well, that's not really what it is for the majority of it. And then you know it's either getting extended or restructured at the end of the deal if they like TJ Hawkinson. If it doesn't go well, then they can move on from him at that point. And then it becomes really a reduction of salary this year, and then two years where it's 14 and 15 million dollars. And in my opinion, when you look at it that way, it's a really good deal for the Minnesota Vikings. I think that it was important to his side to be able to say that they moved the needle forward for tight ends, that they pressed the ceiling up,

and that tight ends can now look at TJ Hawkinson and say, that's our guy. That guy fought for us to get more money. And hey, I'm like TJ Hawkinson. You should pay me $17 million. But when you look at the guaranteed money, I think if you go back and listen we were either really close or right on based on the other tight ends because i i've got this uh as well how

this compares and i just give me a second because i'll just go over to this but his 29 and change million dollars of guaranteed money is very very close to the other best tight ends in the league. So you have TJ Hawkinson at 29, George Kittle at 30, Mark Andrews at 30. And Kyle Pitts was a top draft pick. So the other guys who have signed contracts got about that much. And this is always the money that really matters. Evan Ingram got 24 million. And so we were using throughout this process, Evan Ingram as a baseline. And he ends up with

$6 million more fully guaranteed than Evan Ingram, which I think is fair because I think he's a better player and he's younger. So I am really struggling to find any issue with TJ Hawkinson's contract. And I think that when you look at this thing in totality, you've got to be extremely happy with the entire picture, which is at the middle of the season last year, the Vikings are lost in the ocean with their tight end. Irv Smith was struggling. Then Irv Smith gets hurt, and it's, what do we do? You got Johnny Munt, and there wasn't a development tight end to come along.

Now there's Nick Muse, but there wasn't a development tight end to come along. And you go in the division, which always is a little risky. You're going to trade in the division. And acquire T.J. Hawkins, who plays great, like hands down. the division, which always a little risky, you're going to trade in the division and acquire TJ Hawkins, who plays great, like hands down. I was looking at some of the underlying statistics. Every other time that they targeted him on third down, it turned into a first down. So a 50% rate, if they targeted Hawkinson, what's a good rate of third down conversion? Is it like 38% or something? 50% of the time that they targeted Hawkinson, it turned into a first down.

He was number one in the entire NFL in contested catches for tight ends, according to PFF. I mean, there's a lot of numbers that sort of show that the guy is more than just like a little bit of an undersized receiving tight end. And when you think about the different options that it gives Kevin O'Connell to have TJ Hawkinson long-term and build his offense with him in mind as well, and not just sort of plop him into an offense, then I think that they did as well as you could there to get that player who was a great fit for Kevin O'Connell. And then you end up signing him to an extension that's extremely reasonable when you really look at the structure and not just the what Adam Schefter tweeted out. This is this is an A plus move on the whole because it helped them in the short term get into the playoffs it came very close

to helping them win a playoff game and you know hey the fourth and eight is going to go down in in infamy uh maybe he's a slipped tackle away if it was somebody different tackling him from yeah that being a big play in the game i don't know know, but Hockinson had a great game. He had 10 catches, 129 yards. He made the giants pay for just putting all their eggs in the Jefferson basket. So even in the short term, if that was all that he gave you, well, he gave you a lot. And then, you know, now he's signed an extension. So you give up a second round pick for somebody who is at the top of his game at 26 years old, a perfect fit with your organization and a really strong fit with your offense. And you can make up for some of the shortcomings when it, when it comes to blocking by using Josh Oliver. So I have a very difficult

time finding anything that's on the downside of this TJ Hawkinson deal, which, you know, I, which I kind of figured when I logged on tonight, there would not be too many differing opinions on this. And I know that sometimes like people throughout this summer have been fired up about the general manager and the draft class that didn't work out and Hawkinson didn't have the extension and what's going on. But you just sort of have to add another, like, that's a good move to what they just did. So, you know, I think that they are really, really well set up now and they got somebody who is going to be here a long time

and is a perfect fit for the Vikings. You know, just, I mean, he's from Iowa. He came to Minnesota and started going to hockey games. What more do you want from the man? So, yeah, you know, this is an interesting thought, though, from Deontay. Definitely have to sign JJ, but Reisner is right there. I mean, it wouldn't be a live stream that we have at night if Dalton Reisner's name did not come up, but it is a good point though, when they structure it this way and they create that much cap space, um, an eyebrow goes up. Oh, you can't see them as well with the hat on goes up a

little bit. And you wonder, is there someone that they want to sign or is it just Justin Jefferson? And when, when Jefferson's salary goes up like it does, you know, maybe they want to push some of that into this year to make the structure more favorable, or it is possible that they have their eyes on someone who is a little more expensive and they were already pretty low.

You have to pay a practice squad, whatever it says teams have before the end of the preseason. Like they have less because you have to sign a pre a practice squad teams bringing other players. So they have to keep a good amount of cash in reserve. And so with the Vikings, they didn't have a ton to be able to spend, but maybe, maybe that's part

of the thought process I don't know it doesn't seem like it because it's gone this far but then again last night and this just speaks to how they're not really showing their cards which I'm okay with a lot of speculation on our part on some stuff and then you know last night I'm feeling like I don't know this Hawkinson thing. It just doesn't seem like it's, it's going to get there. We're getting toward midnight. And, and I was feeling on the, on the less than 50% side. In fact, it was like five minutes after it got announced that somebody sent the clip of me saying that, which I thought was funny. It was like, well, Hey,

this is my point. I've made this point all along that they don't put out a bat signal of like, hey, it's coming. We'll see. The Hunter thing kind of came out of nowhere. The Hawkinson thing now comes out of nowhere. That's what we should expect with Justin Jefferson, that we're not going to get these outside signals from other reportings like, oh, it's coming, it's coming, or it's not, that kind of thing. That's just how it's going to work from other reporting. It's like, oh, it's coming. It's coming. Or it's not,

that kind of thing. That's just how it's going to work from now on, which is totally fine with me. But the same thing goes for someone like Dalton Reisner or whatever other free agent. If they're going to do these things, they're just going to do them. And we'll all kind of have to be surprised together because they're clearly not putting it out there before they're doing a lot of these things. And then it's done and we have emergency podcasts. But there's a reason why that cap space is there. And I think we're going to find out what it is. Or you can always carry it over.

That's another part. I got an email from some, but it was an email? No, it was a tweet. I might have to pull up my phone. I don't have my Twitter up on my screen here. And Twitter also kills the internet for the live stream. So let me just pull it up. Because I had a good tweet from somebody about Hawkinson.

Oh, yeah. From Sad Planet Podcast. I mean, it sounds a little bit of a downer, but okay. It says question for the show, the Hawkinson extension, seemingly JJ one, no doubt on the way. Then Daris on next year almost certainly means they must draft a quarterback to balance out the spending, right? Yes. And no, I mean, it kind of depends on how many players you have on rookie quarterback, not quarterback, rookie contracts. So if you have a good number of players on the rest of the roster on rookie contracts

and the structures of these contracts and their cap hits can work around, you know, a big contract. Yeah, I can make it work because if you go back and look at Kirk cousins and where he was at with his cap hits, they were still affording Everson Griffin, Anthony bar, Stefan digs, Eric Kendricks, Harrison Smith. They made all that work. It's not like, it's not like if you have an expensive quarterback that you can't afford anyone ever at any time it's really more of when your roster is what it's going to be when you have that guy like there's not i think the most money that they ever gave out in terms of total with kirk cousins

here in free agency was michael pierce mean, that kind of tells you from the outside that it's hard to go into the free agent market when you've paid all your players to stay and say, hey, that one more piece, we can bring them in. That's where the limitation is. Or it's sometimes around the fringes where you're saying, well, hey, that good veteran player that we had in that sort of mild role of wide receiver three or offensive guard or something, well, you know, we got to cut from that position. That's the thing that happens when you pay everybody, is that you are going to have to have positions that you're not paying. And guard has been that position during the Kirk Cousins era.

And if they have another expensive quarterback, if it's Kirk or Kyler Murray or who the hell, Tom Brady, if he comes back out of retirement, then some position is going to suffer in some area of the roster is going to suffer. And the only way to fill that in is hitting on draft picks. And really the downfall of Rick Spielman was that I can't remember. I counted this up one time and I included an article. I can't remember the exact numbers. So don't quote the exact number to your friends, but it was something like 17 defensive players drafted since 2016. And Cam Bynum was the only starter. I mean, you just can't have that happen. So you can do it, but it's, it's a little bit of a tighter window to hit than it is if you have the rookie quarterback contract.

Would I say that it increases the odds? Not from what we already knew because we anticipated this, but it makes it way easier to build the rest of the roster if you have that cap space, for sure, because you're talking about the difference between what does a rookie quarterback make? I've got this up. Maybe I should just take a look.

The rookies went at the top. What are their cap hits for this year? I mean, it can't be that crazy. And the rookie year is the least expensive year. Hold on, I'm scrolling. I'll get the answer to this. So what are the rookies making cap hit-wise this? Oh yeah. You got to scroll down quite a ways. Bryce young is making. Yeah. Six, a very nice number, $6.9 million on the salary cap this year.

That's a big advantage from when you're paying 35 for Kirk Cousins. That's a lot of money. That's like four players, five players. So yes, it, it does lean more toward, you probably have to do that and have a rookie quarterback, but we knew that we didn't know that already from Daniel overall, it seems team friendly. 2026 can be an extend or cut ties, in my opinion. Yep, yep, extend year or cut ties. What the contract tells me with Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw, no way Kirk is back. This sets up for a rookie.

So, yep, that's exactly what we were just talking about, and I agree with that, that it does. And, I mean, it's the same thing with Kirk because it was pretty much signaled there all offseason that this is the last Kirk year. And that's what makes it so interesting is just when you know already going in that there's a very good chance that this is the last year.

What is that going to mean for everybody? What's it going to mean for the future of the position but also as we get ready to play a game what's it going to mean for kurt cousins 2023 my guess is that he's just going to play exactly the same way that he's always played but that does it does like add a level of intrigue that um it has not been there before because they've always extended it. Daniel says Alec Lewis had a good point today that 16.5 AAV has him at the 17th highest paid wide receiver. Last year between nine and 18 was targeted seven most overall. Yeah, I mean, the thing about the receiver market and Will Raggetts brought this up on our show earlier as well, is that it is wrought with overpay.

Odell Beckham Jr. is a good example. And what in the world would tell you that what Baltimore paid him was a great idea? Baltimore's all in, though. I mean, they're trying to win the Super Bowl. And so they're going for it with him, and they did dead years and things like that. But Odell Beckham, he didn't even play. I mean, he's coming off the ACL in 2021, didn't even play in 2022 and then comes back and gets a ton of money. Wide receivers are raking it in right now. And as you said, when it comes to the target share, TJ Hawkins' target share rivals top wide receivers in the top of the league.

Now he does not do it in the way that a receiver can. So receivers are worth more because they are more dynamic. They can go down the field. They can make more impact plays deep than tight ends can. And that is the one shortcoming of TJ Hawkinson is that you're not going to launch it deep down the field to TJ Hawkinson very often. I mean, sometimes you could catch teams by surprise, but you're not usually throwing a 40 yard go route where with receivers, you're regularly throwing a 40 yard go route.

So it is, it is different. What you can do is more dynamic with them. But the fact that he can line up at these different places and the fact that he has such a high football IQ, it allows Kevin O'Connell to kind of do whatever he wants with him, which is really valuable to the offense. So if you want Jordan Addison and KJ Osborne both in the slot, for example, you can line up TJ Hockinson as outside wide receiver and have him run, I don't know, like a deep in here and he can do it. Whatever you're going to ask him, he's going to be able to do it. There's a lot more value that goes beyond the box score with him because of, you know,

things like that. David asking the same thing about Hawkinson or saying the same thing about Hawkinson, pretty much guaranteeing that Kirk Cousins won't be a Viking more or less because, you know, if Cousins gets to the end of this year and and of course look if he goes to the NFC championship we might be having a different discussion here but if he goes eight and nine then it's absolutely over because he's going to be looking for at least what Derek Carr got at least what Daniel Jones got, at least what Daniel Jones got, but probably more now that we're a year removed from that. And that's just not possible to fit that with him there.

So it's kind of weird to see a guy who you know is a lame duck or you think very, very likely is a lame duck, but yet also seems to have the best command of the group that he's ever had since he's been here. I mean, even last year, he was kind of learning to do that as it came along because he never had the endorsement of the head coach, and he's never really been that guy anyway. I mean, he's never really been the, like, I'm the guy, rally me until uh those fourth quarter comebacks started happening and now when you have more of a young team i think they're looking to the veteran quarterback when they had the other team it was like uh okay all of us had been to the nfc championship you

weren't here for that we lead this team you don't kind of thing and that's not the vibe now so just as he's coming out of that, then the team doesn't really endorse and they make all these contract moves or one is presumed with Jefferson, we'll see on that. So they make all these moves that would say, yeah, we're not really buying into you. Yet from everything that we saw at camp,

I think he had probably the most fun camp that he's had, at least just from watching from the sideline. You know, he didn't say that. And he seemed a little annoyed at some of the Brian Flores stuff, but the loosest, the loosest, I would say that he's acted throughout the entire time and maybe the most in command. So it's a, it's a weird situation where I think they can be good this year with Kirk Cousins, but then we all just know it's over. And last year we compared at one point to a summer fling.

Like you know it's not going to last, those late game comebacks and everything else. This is the next summer. This is summer fling part two. Your last, and maybe there'll be heartbreak. I don't know, but you're like your last fall with Kirk cousins. Very interesting. Let's see the purple heel.

Dave says, if Casey signs JJ before the 10th, he exceeded expectations. In my opinion, even with the 2022 draft, we still can't call it bad. Yeah, no,

that's true. That's true. It's not, the guys that's true that's true it's not the guys are still on the team and it's not completely dead but yeah you hope you'd get some people playing a little bit better at the top of that draft than they have but you know look if a caleb evans starts and plays well and ed ingram improves then all of a sudden who cares if it was the first rounder or the second rounder or the third rounder in the draft that turns out. So you're right. You're right to say it's not over.

That's a fair point. And I think that if they are able to sign Justin Jefferson to a long-term contract by the start of this season, I don't know how you could give anything less than just A's across the board for the way they handled this entire offseason, which doesn't guarantee they'll have a good regular season. But just how are you setting up this organization for the future? You would have to say that they set it up in maybe the best possible way.

They moved a bunch of cap space for players that were older and declining. They didn't spend stupid money on anybody. I mean, Marcus Davenport and Byron Murphy Jr.'s contract were reasonable. They didn't let people stay here and decline for expensive money they moved on from them and gave opportunities to younger players they didn't lock themselves into Kirk Cousins and they locked in the most important players to set up for the next quarterback I mean and potentially drafted a really good wide receiver and a starting outside corner I mean mean, wow. You know, I don't know, man. There's a lot going on there that is pretty good. And so the weird thing is, I mean, for some of you, it's got to be interesting who have listened for a long time because this is a lot of what we were asking

for in 2020 coming to fruition, you know? And it's sort of weird to see it come to fruition, where it was like in 2020, they tried to rebuild half the roster, but then panicked and traded for Yannick Ngakwe, and they got rid of some people, tried to keep other people. It seemed desperate, and it just didn't work at all,

and extended Cousins. When they could have not extended cousins gone into that last year, planned to draft someone and, you know, moved forward that way. And I thought that was a pivot point in this, in this team's sort of progression.

And now we're, we're seeing all of that happening, but happening with Justin Jefferson. And if you sign him and you're locked into that and you feel good about that, then it's going to be kind of that whole thing eventually happening just years later than we thought it was going to. And in the interim, you did have one really good season, two miserable seasons. I don't know if it was all worth it, but this was kind of what needed to happen at some

point. And it has the entire entire offseason refreshing the roster bringing in younger players filling these spots with draft picks like if the linebackers are hicks the one veteran who they're not locked into long term and then two young guys who could be here for a while i mean this is actually very similar to what happened in like, you know, 2014 when Zimmer took over where you brought in a lot of players that might be good. And some of them stuck and some of them and, you know, criticizing the micro decisions of signing more nose tackles and trading for Chris Herndon and all those things that we just went over and over and over again. And so now it's a little bit of a different feeling

to see it all kind of happen and be like, oh, actually, no, this is right. This is what's supposed to happen. So we'll see. I'm sure on Sundays we'll have plenty of critiques depending on how things go because I got a question from somebody today about could they go into week six with a losing record. I was like, I don't know. I don't think so.

And then I looked at the schedule and went, Oh, all these camp vibes, all these, you know, extension vibes and everything else, the high that everybody's coming off. If you don't win week one,

this is a huge week for the Vikings. So we're getting this. We're going to keep an eye on the Jefferson extension. And then we've got to, you know, transition into bucks. It's a, what a time to be alive. Everybody. What a time. Deontay says, in your opinion, We're going to keep an eye on the Jefferson extension, and then we've got to transition into Bucs. What a time to be alive, everybody.

What a time. Deontay says, in your opinion, what would force them to re-sign Kirk? NFC Championship appearance. Hmm. That is a good question. You know what? I'm going to take a drink of Diet Dr. Pepper and think about it. I think it is NFC championship because let's say that they win

10 games as I have projected and they lose in the first round. That's easy. Okay. Well, is what it is. Thanks for the memories. If they win in the first round, but get pummeled in the second round, we saw that 2019 2019 i think that they ownership would learn from their 2019 mistake which they should have just moved on at that point and and gone forward because it was going to take so long to rebuild the roster even around kirk that by the time and we saw this happen that the roster was just so flawed that he wasn't going to be able to take it farther than he did in 2019. So I think even the second round of the playoffs, if you've got one playoff win, it's just probably not enough. And it also matters what he did in the regular season and what he would be asking for in return is another part of it because this year uh you know at least from

the reporting that was out there he just wanted too many years he wanted to be locked in for longer than they wanted to lock him in for it when they had their contract discussions so that would matter too but i think if he went to the nfc championship if you are this close away from going to the super bowl then you're gonna feel like you are this close away from going to the Superbowl, then you're going to feel like you are right there. And we know that could be a fallacy. We do know that, but actually, if they went that far in the playoffs, I would have to say, I mean, this team is a, is, is right there. And I would, man, I'd probably, I might didn't do it. If they get there, I would probably endorse bringing her cousins back because you'd be get there, I would probably endorse bringing Kirk Cousins back

because you'd be talking about they would have to have a top five offense and you're trying to do that again and take another swing. But anything short of that, if you finish 11th in offense and you go 9-8 and you randomly win a playoff game because it's a good matchup, then you know like that is that what we're looking for here probably not but if Jordan Addison is phenomenal and the bones of the offense aren't changing at all and you're right there okay well you can talk me into that uh 44 rhino man says with contracts for JJ and CD even. Yeah. I haven't counted that out. Murphy and

Davenport coming. This has to be a swan song for a KJ Osborne. Yeah, I think it is. And part of it is because of what we were just talking about and nobody is more deserving than KJ Osborne of getting his bag, right? Like TJ Hawkinson is a eighth overall pick and Hawkinson has already made a good amount of money in his career. But, you know, hardworking guy, good for him, a lot of talent. KJ Osborne has done this by outworking people and being available and being tough and being reliable and smart. And like when you see a fifth rounder like that,

grind to the spot and then get a huge contract, that's pretty cool, honestly, because I mean, he played one year at Miami and then was at Buffalo before that. That's a guy getting a huge contract. That's pretty cool. But I, I am interested to see how it plays out. Like, I think the answer is absolutely yes, that he will hit free agency and he should, but I do wonder if there is going to be a little bit of a receiver bubble at some point. And so this year was kind of nuts about how some guys got paid, but sometimes it's weird about who gets paid and who doesn't get paid in the NFL. Like there are good players who don't get paid a ton. And I think it was a Jacoby Myers who, you know, just didn't get a really great contract

and i think that he's kind of like a jacoby myers i'm trying to find out what what it was that jacoby myers made in his contract i think he's kind of like that um myers got yeah myers got 11 million dollars a year and if if there was some chance where it worked out like that, I mean, here's the thing. When the Vikings did go to the NFC Championship, they signed everybody back because everyone was willing to sign reasonable deals because they thought they were going to go win the Super Bowl. So there is a world where it's more reasonable than we expect. But I think if you're him, you're probably just taking that big swing, especially if he has more receptions than Jordan Addison. That will be noticed by a lot of people, I think.

J.J. Viking says, disappointing exit for Irv Smith Jr. last year. Knee, meniscus injury, thumb injury, high ankle. Yeah, I'll be interested to see if he shows up in some big games with Cincinnati. I'm curious about him. For many years, we kept saying, hey, the guy's having a good camp. He's ready to break out. And he was really good in 2019 as the number two tight end and kind of a slot role and things like that. And it just didn't work out with back-to-back years that slowed him down. I'll be keeping an eye on him, but over the long haul, this worked out really well with TJ Hawkinson instead of Irv Smith Jr. now that he signed the contract, and we see what it looks like.

From High Times KG, signing Hawkinson and JJ, no-brainers, not much effort. Hawkinson got top-of-the-line money, so will JJ. Hard to give major credit for that. Well, see, I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you there. I don't agree with you there. Well, first of all, you made the trade. So you trade a second round pick for TJ Hawkinson.

You target a player who is going to be a great fit, who is young, that you can extend and keep and make a centerpiece of your team at the trade deadline. Show me lots of other trade deadline moves like that. I mean, what, Bradley Chubb was like that? But you don't see that all that often, getting a future foundational piece in a trade deadline and then signing him to a deal that works for both sides when the players seem to be digging his heels in finding a middle ground with him where he got to be the highest paid and yet the structure was very favorable i understand like at a surface level signing a really good player seems pretty simple but i think even the amount of time that it took is complicated but acquiring a pro bowl star level player who was second in the nfl and targets last year and shined in your

offense at the trade deadline uh i mean you got to be trying hard to not give the general manager credit for that i think that's pretty good good with Jefferson. We'll see. I think it's going to get complicated with Jefferson. I don't know if he's next or if he's not next because, or what I mean, not next is by the start of the season, because there was one comment. And I noticed how Kweisi Adafomenta today did not have long answers regarding Justin Jefferson, which I guess you could take as it's not going well, or you could take as they're getting close and he doesn't want to say anything that would jeopardize it.

But he did sort of indicate that once you get to the start of the season, those discussions are not really happening anymore. The players just want to carry on and play. And then you have to pick it up next year. You know, this is, this is, this is, can't be underscored. So when we're talking about how we're grading them and everything else, like you can't get to an a without Justin Jefferson on the whole, you can get an a for the Hockets and move. You can get an a for Byron Murphy, who looks great, or we'll see on Marcus Davenport,

but Byron Murphy, I think, has been a great signing. You can get an A on drafting Jordan Addison so far. Definitely not an A on the first couple picks for 2022, but, you know, as we're grading all these things, like, you can get a lot of good scores for a lot of things, but the weighted question, the essay question at the end, that's what they've reached for the off season. They've reached the essay. And you know what? The essay is 50% of your grade and that's Justin Jefferson. It's 50% of your grade, get it done. And if it's not done,

then it's not over. It's not like you have to trade him to Jacksonville, but it certainly is not ideal if it's over. And then you start to get a little bit of nerves when it comes to what's going to happen next there, what, what, what it's going to look like next off season and, and so forth. So,

and even then it's not over, over or anything, but you know, uh, Lee says, uh, Caleb Evans had a 47.2 pff grade last year what makes you think he's going to be good see this right here would be a uh probably a flag on stats usage on pff grade usage because how many snaps did a Caleb Evans play last year?

Was it like a hundred in coverage? I mean, when it comes to cornerback grades and Patrick Peterson is good proof of this, even large sample grades can be a little bit misleading. So he had exactly 100 coverage snaps. So I guess if you've decided that he's no good after 100 coverage snaps then i guess you've decided that but it's certainly not proof of what someone is going to be over that small and he was a rookie and one of the plays that he got downgraded for he literally got concussed so that's just a tough break but um i with ev, I don't know that I said he was going to be great. I don't recall saying that, but he's starting as a fourth round draft pick and he had a good training camp. That's what we know so far about a Caleb Evans. the draft of 2022 of which we must every single night evaluate the 2022 draft or what are we doing

because if we spend too much time you know praising a good move then we have to circle back and criticize the 2022 draft for some of you but uh if if evans plays well which i believe is what I was talking about. If he plays well and, you know, Ed Ingram is average, say, and it's a jump and I'm not saying he's going to be just to be clear. I know what his PFF grades were last year as well. But if he is, then all of a sudden the draft looks different in the light of day. That was the point because someone said earlier to give it time. And I think that's fair when you have several players from that draft starting right now. It's just that there's a lot more focus on the guys who are drafted higher, such as life. So that's the whole thing. But I would just suggest PFF grade for corners.

You need a much bigger sample size than that, especially for a rookie, and that these grades will vary from year to year depending on circumstance. Sometimes it's luck. Sometimes the grading system is a little too harsh on a certain play for some guy. I mean, it's hard with corners, very, very hard with corners. Christian says, have to go defense, I think if you can, if you can, if you're going to open up cap space for this season. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could see them pulling in one more guy and there is that rule that gets brought up all the time about the first

week of the season. After the first week, you bring somebody in, you don't have to pay them. There could be some defensive players out there still that they like and they want to sign that that is possible like yeah we were talking about dalton reisner like it doesn't have to be him and if they're going to do it pass rush would be the place to do it i agree with you christian uh matthew says nice to see you matthew i hope you realize uh matthew i i've referenced a few times on the show that a listener sent me the over-unders for each year going back to 2012 i've mentioned that and how the vikings had one year over 10 which kind of says where they are right they're always kind of just on that fridge well well that was matthew so thank you sir for that uh i appreciate that that was very insightful anyway uh you seem more excited about

this team than many previous years maybe it's just that they finally drafted a first round wide receiver well you've got me there you have got not only that but the first round receiver that i had in my first mock with chris trapasso so not only like a receiver but like the receiver that I had in my first mock with Chris Trapasso. So not only like a receiver, but like the receiver that, that was, uh, that was my guy. But, um, if so much as I'm capable of having draft guys, but you know, I think what it is, Matthew, is that it's refreshing for me to not talk about the same frustrations year in and year out going into a season. And it's also exciting to me to not really know how this is going to go. Because one of the issues with the last few years of Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer is even though it always gets weird and

unpredictable ways, boy, was it predictable? I mean, seven and nine, eight, nine fired. I,

you could have written it on a napkin in 2019 when they walked off of the field against San Francisco. In fact, I remember being on the phone with Judd Zolgad. I, we were doing a podcast together. He was in Minnesota. I was on the phone in Judd Zolgad. We were doing a podcast together. He was in Minnesota. I was on the phone in the press box in San Francisco and talking with him about how this was it.

Like that was their big chance with that group that went to the NFC championship. That was their last shot. And now everything was going to change and it was going to get harder. And they kind of, in a lot of ways, refused to accept that and paid for it for three years. That's a lot of football for me to cover with. So now it's a lot of new people that I don't know what's going on. Like is Alexander Madison, how good is he going to be? I don't know. I, you know, I knew what Delvin cook was going to be. I knew what probably Clint Kubiak was going to be. I think I understood you. Right. So this, this sort of new frontier of a team this season that has a lot of guys like Ivan Pace, Brian Asamoah,

you know, at Caleb Evans, I'm really interested in these guys. I mean, I know Lee decided that Evans is bad, but like, I don't know, we're going to find out. And if, if he is, he is, but that's something that we just haven't had so much. And I think that's probably what it is. It's just a lot of questions to be answered. And that means more interest for me, I guess. And it seems like a lot of you as well. It seems to me, that's another part as well, that everybody got tired of that and now the interest has gone up and even just the number of people who watch on a nightly basis here i just feel a lot of energy about you know what they're doing and and the team that they're putting on the field so yeah i think you make a good point um it's interesting and that that's, that's number one for me always.

The purple heel says Addison looks like he is going to be great. KJ Osborne took a step towards the end of last season and it looks like it can continue anything less than 4,000 yards by Kirk would be a disappointment. Yeah. Well, yardage is a funny stat because, you know, if you're losing and racking up yards and so forth. But to your point about just in general, I think anything less than I want to use a different metric that you guys have heard me talk about before that I really like. And if you listen to the episode with Parker Fleming from Sumer Sports, it's along those lines. I want a top 10 efficiency offense this year, not just point total, but in how often they produce points, like more sustained drives, more finishing drives than they had last year. I think the standard to set for them should be in the scoring percentage, how many drives you have versus how much you score get in the top 10 of that because you look at that stat you find a lot of winners in that stat that's what i would say uh russ says with the money to hawk and to jefferson they may have to go cheaper at quarterback

and that will be an interesting thing is if they don't love someone in the draft now that's where it gets dicey is who are you trying to fill with the quarterback position if they wanted to do the Kyler Murray thing which I know is totally insane and uh you know I don't know has we I said yesterday what 30 chance of Hawkinson signing and it happened hey it's still three out of ten does happen 30s and zero so if I said like five percent chance of Kyleron signing and it happened, Hey, it's still three out of 10 does happen thirties and zero. So if I said like 5% chance of Kyler Murray still means it happens five times. It seems like a very often the distance thing, but I think you're not signing contracts for a hundred players. You're signing them for a few stars. And right now the rest of the roster is cheap and you could do something with a more expensive quarterback. Will right now the rest of the roster is cheap and you could do something with a more expensive quarterback will well the rest of the roster is cheap if you have you know starting

linebackers that are on rookie contracts starting outside corners that are on rookie contracts those are important if daniel hunter goes that's a lot of money you draft the defensive end or something you fill in you know these kind of things harrison Smith goes, you place in a younger safety. You can survive it. It's not like it's just you have to decline getting an expensive quarterback, but it's just harder to afford many more things after that. So you've got all your stars. If you go back and look at the Rams roster when they won the Super Bowl, they were paying a lot of people. Cooper Cup and Aaron Donald, they're paying people, I think. Was Cooper Cup? Yeah, he must have been signed by then. So they were paying some superstar players.

Stafford was paid fairly well. But they also hit on some draft picks and found some players to fill out other spots on that roster that played really key roles. It can be done. It can be done. But usually the issue when we talk about cousins is that they were paying a good amount of people and you just couldn't get that one more or two more moves that might've made the difference.

And then you just have a quarterback who has got his own limitations. And then the defense peaked and then fell off hard. And so even if Kirk Cousins played fairly well, the defense was so bad you really weren't going to win anything. And then that's where it became a real calamity. Anthony says, I really hope the Wilfs are able to keep Kweisi and Coach Kevin O'Connell together for a long time, including the rest of the coaching staff.

I believe they can get us to the promised land eventually. One thing I will say about this duo, and you can like a lot of the things that have happened and the direction and feel like they've made a lot of very logical moves like I do and still have skepticism about where it's all going to go eventually like this this is no crowning this is just to say a lot of these moves match up with what I think they should do that's it but it's not you know the Denny Green you can go ahead and with what I think they should do. That's it. But it's not, you know, the Denny green, you can go ahead and crown. Well, I'm not crowning. No one's crowned,

but from the perspective of culture, it is the most overused, obnoxious, frustrating, like all that, you know, right. A word in sport. When you hear it, you just go like, who cares? But what they have done here in a year to turn around from where this place was is truly remarkable. And that was the first thing I asked TJ Hawkinson today. I asked him like, what is it that made this click for you with Minnesota? Because I think that's genuine, not just, you know, chasing the money. And he said, the first thing he said was

what the culture that they've created here and the NFL PA survey has, you know, back that up as well. So when you find a coach who knows how to do that, you don't just like, let him go because there are so many bad coaches. Hey, one's on TV right now, Matt rule. There's so many bad coaches. Hey, one's on TV right now. Matt Rule. There's so many bad coaches. So to have a good coach, very important. I think when you get one who meets that baseline, you keep him. And with the front office, you know, I think there's questions to still be answered. Resetting a lot of things, smart. Hockinson move, smart. building the rest of it to where it's a championship caliber contender still has to happen and signing justin jefferson still has to happen uh matthew says qb aside next year's roster better than this year's so that pesky dead cap

hit is going to get in the way a little bit with Kirk Cousins, unfortunately, if he leaves. But what this year is going to answer is the question about whether some of those young players are guys you can go forward with for a long time. These are our guys. Caleb Evans is a good example. Is he a guy or is he not? Is he somebody that you'd rather have as a backup or is he someone who's a long-term starter? And I don't know the answer until we see him play real games.

If I was able to figure that out just from training camp, the only guy that I've ever been who's a rookie where I went superstar instantly out of training camp, it actually wasn't Jefferson because training camp was so weird that year, if you guys remember. But it was Delvin Cook was the only one where I was like, this is unbelievable. I've never seen somebody move like this. I didn't cover Adrian Peterson in training camp,

but you know what I'm saying. Instantly, whoa. Everybody else, you can say they had a good camp you can like what you saw but we'll see so i think that goes for both the outside corners we'll see on both of them but you like what you see so far and if those two are the starters this time next year then the answer your question is probably yes and you know but there's a lot to be answered there there's i think but with the defense rebuilding it with a lot of these players and finding out who can play and making progress that was the problem is they were trying to rebuild the defense

on the fly in 2020 and they just didn't make progress they just they you know they put some young players in position who failed but they just bailed on They just, they, you know, they put some young players in position who failed, but they just bailed on all of them and then, you know, brought in veterans like Bashad Breeland, which what the hell was that? And like, you know, so I think this group is actually going to give some players some time to work through it and find roles for them. And that could help and then fill in the gaps when it comes to next year. So very possible. And the guard position, everyone. If Ezra Cleveland struggles, there will be a new left guard,

and that in general could be an upgrade. Someone asked about kick returner with Kenneon injured reserve. We drafted Osborne to be a returner. I was actually a punt returner with KJ Osborne. They drafted him to be, and that went horribly. So no, a hard pass to me on KJ Osborne kick returning. Also, you know, if you got him hurt on a kick return, that would be so dumb. He's just going to be a really important piece to the offense. It's going to be Ty Chandler. And if I had to guess, he would probably, he's, he's going to do a lot of this. He's going to wave to the crowd as the ball flies over him

or as now he does the fair catch thing. Yeah, I don't think the kick return's a dynamic play with anybody but Wong Wu, but we'll see. I mean, Ty Chandler is a super fast guy. But, I mean, I think it's more detailed than just being super fast. Joseph says, If you sat down and figured out if we can afford TJ, JJ,

Darisaw, O'Neal and cousins, haven't seen anyone lay out the potential. That's because, I mean, the answer is yes, of course they could, they could afford all those guys,

but it's how are you dealing with the rest of the roster? But based on what the cap hits would be early for next year, of course they could do it for next year. I mean, because if you sign Derrissaw, his huge cap number isn't going to hit for two years. Jefferson's will probably be reasonable early on. We saw Hawkinson's not that bad early on. If they wanted to do it, they could make it happen.

And the fact that they haven't tells you they don't want to do it they could make it happen and the fact that they haven't it tells you they don't want to do it uh also but also when we're just talking about the defense if if those things don't work out with the outside corners what you want is the cap space to fill it with somebody better than bashad breland like that's the point is you know you want to have the flexibility to make a wrong answer right. And they couldn't do that for so many years. Christian said, what are the chances these short contracts are more about the ridiculous predictions that the cap will be $300 million by 2025? Could that actually happen?

Oh, yeah. I mean, sure, it could actually happen. The more Amazon gets involved in the NFL, the higher the money could go up for sure. But yeah, I mean, I think if you're a player like Justin Jefferson, you might want to set up your contract. So you hit free agency right when that's expected to happen. But I do think that that could happen. Yes. And that players probably are being advised to set it up around that but that's only a handful of players i mean there's just not that many who can actually do this uh eric says at this point do you expect lewis seen to be a weekly healthy scratch well that's a good question have some uh some have said theo jackson look better

in camp yeah i mean theo jack Jackson's a special teamer, so he's probably going to play. He's a very good special teamer. It was last year, so I think he's going to play. But with Louis Seen, that's where it's going to depend. If he can't be helpful on special teams, then he is going to be a healthy scratch. So I think it's possible. Very possible. I mean,

Theo Jackson's a great story. A guy who just comes in and fights his way on the roster. Good for him. But special teams is how you do it at that point. Bob says, what happens to KJ next year? If we were doing sort of pie chart of what happens to KJ, I would say the most likely thing to happen is that he is a free agent and he signs with another team for a lot of money. But the second most likely thing and not that far behind is that he has a decent year and the Vikings give him a decent amount of money because they can afford it because their quarterback left a big amount of cap space. I wouldn't count KJ Osborne off the team. We're doing last night, I was off on a 30%. But maybe something like that.

Maybe it's like a 3 out of 10 shot that he's here next year. But I think that if he has a good year, there's going to be some pretty good offers for him. And the other thing is, if he has just an okay year, but Addison is great, well, okay. This is a throwback to last night. We had 9 o'clock. There we go. We're at 9 o'clock.

I don't know what it is about 9 o'clock, but we always get the hot take kind of flying in at 9 o'clock. From Bob the Builder, Jared Hall is the next kyler murray i don't know like were you listening last night because that's a good that's a good like poll if you were listening last night if you weren't i don't know where that came from that's funny though uh matt rule and urban meyer yeah wow urban meyer was there for halftime oh wow the urban meyer and matt rule you have kevin o'connell you lose stefan digs you get justin jefferson sometimes luck is a factor uh which i want to watch the game so i'm probably

going to wrap this up uh shortly but you guys are awesome so i'll i'll let me rapid fire i'll rapid fire uh matt says i believe tanner vallejo is still a free agent a lot of people were surprised So let me rapid fire. I'll rapid fire. Matt says, I believe Tanner Vallejo is still a free agent. A lot of people were surprised he was cut. Were they? Do you think this shows the Vikings were right to cut him or surprised that he wasn't added to the practice squad? I mean, he is a proven free agent or not free agent, a proven special teams player, but you can only keep so many special teams specialists. So if it came down

to Najee Thompson and Theo Jackson as being the guys, then they probably just chose them over Tanner Vallejo. He came in late. It's hard to come in late to a team and then make the team. I wasn't shocked. I mean, those players, even if they have previous experience who are brought in halfway through, they're just facing such an uphill battle. It's really, really hard on those people. So I'm not terribly shocked. And he might just be banged up over the years and you know just not be the same so i i don't know like

it's hard it's hard to evaluate with someone like that who's a special teamer how they look when you're watching practice because they're not hitting people so you'd have to just really i guess study the preseason tape of practice you know special teams i don't know so uh no i wasn't surprised that he was gone or that he wasn't brought to the practice squad because that's usually guys that they've drafted or they've picked up and they want to develop so yeah i don't know i don't know but i mean he's kind of been around and like proven himself so at some point i'm sure someone will pick him up uh lee says uh atlanta dc i assume that's washington uh oh yeah right and uh san francisco starting mid to late round picks from 2022 could you see the vikings doing something similar with jaron hall next year would be quite surprised if that was the case. Now, I mean, I like some of the things that he showed from the preseason game,

the third one, and I thought that the first half of that game, he looked really quite good. It would be a stretch to say starting. I think he'll be the backup for next year, but the thing is with those teams, at first Atlanta, a little bit of an odd choice, I think. With Washington, they seem to really like Sam Howell, and they did from the beginning. He just must have stood out right from the beginning.

Brock Purdy's a weird, all-time weird case. But yeah, I mean, it's a good observation that three teams are starting those guys, and O'Connell clearly likes Jaron Hall. If I had to bet right now Jaron Hall's the number two to either the player they draft in the first round or to the veteran that they acquired. That's who I would guess right now.

Because the thing is that Jaron Hall can't really make a lot of progress from here. Now, he was the last guy off the field today. I did observe that. So he's working. But it's hard to make progress at that point. Right. Hard to make progress once you get past training camp. So I thought he did a nice job of getting better and having a good first half of the third preseason game. But if they're starting him and Justin Jefferson and TJ Hawkinson and Christian Derrissaw, and these guys are on

the team that are real like winners, uh, you know, star players. I mean, it's seven to three Nebraska. Yeah. They kicked a field goal on that drive that I was watching before I came down here. Not great with the offense. Not great. Do I have a college team that I follow? Insanity is the college team I follow. I only root for the craziest and weirdest things possible with college football. I don't have a team. No. Um, I I've just always just sat back and enjoyed the show that I went to a division three school.

So I always, you know, go golden Eagles. But aside from that, you know, I watch whatever's on pretty much. It's usually, I'm usually like doing something like writing. Uh, so I'm kind of like one eye on college football. And then I just totally, totally root for, you know, craziness. Let's see. One more. One or two more. Probably one. All right. From Billy, straight up. 2022 Vikings versus 2023 Vikings.

Improved or gotten worse? Well, they don't have Ed Donatel. So that's improved. They do have a more dynamic set of weapons now. I think by quite a bit, actually. Josh Oliver had something. I don't want to declare Jordan Addison better than Adam Thielen. I feel like that would be some disrespect,

but potentially Addison could be more dangerous than Adam Thison or than Adam Thielen could run the ball more effectively. I think their offense can be better. I think it would be hard for the defense to be worse. I think that this might be a better team. It might be a better team, even with all the talent that went off the board. Now, if they start one in five, I never said this. Okay. But you can talk yourself into it. Put it that way. You could talk yourself into it. I also think that they can play better and they can be better and end up with the worst record.

So that's part of it as well. I think that they have improved toward their future. Also quite a bit. They've improved toward their future quite a bit. Last year felt like the end of the line and now something new. So that's how I feel today. And it could very much change. But it does feel like on offense specifically with the changes that were made with bringing in Addison, bringing in Oliver, having a new running back, having maybe a new mentality

toward the run that I think that they can be a little bit better. It doesn't mean the results are going to be better, though, in the win-loss category. So that's my hedge for that. Anyway, great stuff tonight, guys. Awesome, awesome conversation. As always, super fun. And so tomorrow night, I think around this time, we're going to have the Brad Spielberger interview tomorrow night. And then I will wish you all a great weekend because after

this, it's football. That's right. It's that is time. So thank you. Thank you all again. And, uh, we'll see y'all later.