Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How can Mike Zimmer move past the rough start to camp? Will the Vikings use Kene Nwangwu?

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom hold their weekly Bring Me The News live stream in which they answer fan questions from training camp, including whether the Vikings will use anyone at running back outside of Dalvin Cook, whether they will stick with Danielle Hunter as their only proven defensive end and how Mike Zimmer can work around early camp drama with Kirk Cousins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

let's get off into some vikings talk right away sam how are you this morning doing well my man um bronco's coming to town tomorrow. That'll break up the monotony of camp for sure. Can't wait for it. Yeah, no, that's for sure. And we heard Mike Zimmer say yesterday that they're glad to start hitting other people, which is a classic training camp thing. We got a couple of classic gems from Mike Zimmer yesterday. He called out the linebackers. He called out a rookie for not playing good enough special teams. It was like, yes, this is the normal training camp stuff that we're used to, not having to learn all the protocols and what size rooms the quarterbacks can stay in and all those things.

And we have a little bit of breaking news just as we're launching the stream here that Kellen Mond has been activated by the Vikings off the COVID list. So let's start our discussion with Kellen Mond and then we can get into the kind of main topic that I wanted to discuss with you today. So Kellen Mond was already, I think, behind Jake Browning by quite a bit to start training camp coming off of mini camp and OTAs. Now he has to sit out a number of practices. He'll be coming back. The Vikings, I assume we'll have to make another move with the quarterback. So we'll see if they decide to move on from Nate Stanley or something. That's sort of not a huge impact, but Kellen Mond has a chance still now

to play in all three preseason games and get himself back on track what do you think we should expect from kellen mond over the next coming days as he comes off the covet list feels like a slow re-acclimation process um that's kind of a theme of this camp the vikings acting slowly with rookies um not bringing people back too quickly from injuries um and in the case of Mond to throw him in there immediately against the Broncos tomorrow and the next day and then in the game seems unrealistic um I I think he's missing that first preseason game, even if he does get a practice in beforehand. That just might not be fair to him. Having missed this much time, I know that he was probably joining virtually a lot.

But based on the progress we saw, I mean, even if he had been practicing, you know, it still, I think, would have been, you know, an uphill climb for him to perform well in these games. And now he's just so far behind the eight ball. So I think we need to sort of start Mond like next week. Like, let's get through the weekend and then we can truly just start re-evaluating where Mond is at. It's going to take him a little bit, I think, to get back in the mix where we can even talk about him competing with Browning. Because Browning has held the fort down admirably um hasn't always been beautiful uh he's not gonna threaten to unseat you know Kirk Cousins or anything like that but I think he's put himself squarely as the favorite

to be the backup and the next few days are just going to be about getting Mon some work that that that's the way I feel about it and if you look at the totality of the third round picks, the four third round picks, it's not going well for any of them, Matthew. Kellen Mond on the COVID list hasn't looked great. Wyatt Davis is with the threes. Chaz Surratt looks nowhere near competing for the linebacker three job. And Patrick Jones is also with the threes. No one is really overachieving at this point. near competing for the linebacker three job. And Patrick Jones is also with the threes. Like no one

is really overachieving at this point. And Mond, you know, has been so far disappointing that we just can't watch him and watch him develop and just see how his progress has been because he's been out for now almost two weeks. This is why a lot of times draft nights are the best night for any draft class. And then after that, you run into things like you are now. Some guys aren't ready to play in the NFL right away that you're drafting to play in the NFL right away. Kellen Mond, even when he was on the field, was struggling with his accuracy, struggling to figure out just where he was supposed to throw the football in the system. And it was really early and there was a long way to go, but now

he's got this pretty serious setback. Do we think that there's any chance that Kellen Mond comes out of training camp as QB number two? I don't. And I don't think it's 100%, but I think there's the vaccination issue, which matters a lot to Mike Zimmer. Jake Browning is and Kellen Mond isn't. And that, you know, has obviously elevated Jake Browning, I think, in Mike Zimmer's eyes and his availability is going to be important. I think they can start week one with Browning and they can, they can switch at any time if they want to, but I think they're keeping all three. I don't think that the Vikings are going to allow, you know, their primary backup or only backup to be unvaccinated Mon behind unvaccinated cousins. Like that's, that's just the reality of, of the NFL this year is that you need to have a little more security. So I think the three quarterback room is for sure going to be a thing. And I think Mond probably starts the year as a healthy scratch

and Browning is going to be your number two. I'd put it, I'd put it at 10%. I mean, I think Mond would have to be stellar in the second and third preseason games. And, um, and I just don't know if that's going to happen. And it sounded like from some of the comments from the players that Jake Browning has been working really hard behind the scenes for several years now and has already impressed players. Now, we're always going to get the, hey, like, we really like our guy. No one's going to slam dunk on him. But at the same time, Garrett Bradbury seemed genuinely thrilled for Jake Browning. And the way that they acted after the night practice was the same way. Like they really sort of rallied around Jake Browning. And I think that said something about how they feel about him.

And we saw this from Case Keenum in 2017, that when the entire team is sort of pulling for a guy, I think it makes a difference. And now Kellen Mann has to come back. And I agree with you that he would have to be like worlds better than Jake Browning in the preseason games if he plays in the first one. And then if he doesn't play in the first one, he's already getting behind or Browning would have to really, really struggle, which is hard to see because he's mastered the offense. And so, you know, he's not the most accurate quarterback. He's not the strongest arm quarterback. But if you can at least deliver the football where you're supposed to deliver it,

we know this offense gets a lot of wide receivers open. We saw that in the practice the other day on Saturday where crossing routes threw off linebackers and there were open passes to be made. And I think Browning will at least do the train on the tracks thing during preseason games and will ultimately still be QB two and not Kellen Mond. I do wonder if we will get a chance to talk with Kellen Mond or not. If he'll come to the podium, because it would be interesting to get

his perspective on being unvaccinated, just like Kirk Cousins. I mean, you're the team's top draft pick quarterback who was discussed on draft night as, hey, maybe this guy can be the future. And you make this decision that puts your football season at risk and immediately has a negative impact on you as a quarterback and has a negative impact on your starting quarterback, which I'm sure Mike Zimmer was not happy about at all. Obviously, you can't blame people for testing positive for COVID or getting sick, but it could have been avoided is the way that Mike Zimmer will probably look

at it. And from that perspective too, Zimmer is an elite grudge holder. So I have, I think he would have to go very far. You know, like, Hey, you're the guy that took out my starting quarterback for four practices or five practices. He would have to go very far. And I think that they'll stick with Jake Browning for QB too. Now I'm going to get to a question. We've got Joe Nelson from bring me the news on question watch. So if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, feel free to throw a question in there and Joe will send it to us. He asks if Patrick asks if the Vikings are going to still look for defensive end help, or if they're happy with the development of the younger players. And this is sort of an odd one,

Sam, that they never went and looked for another defensive end outside of Steven Weatherly to be across from Daniil Hunter. They seem to be pretty happy with DJ Wanham and they've been moving DJ Wanham around and doing a lot of things with him but i don't think so i think like once you get past a certain point in training camp there's no just bringing somebody in and expecting them to be able to help you yeah everything we've heard this camp um defensive end saying how you you can't stimulate being a defensive end in the offseason because you can't put a 320-pound man across from you. In other words, it's hard to get ready to play from scratch at defensive end. If you bring someone in off the street, it's going to take a while to get them ready.

If you were going to make that decision, you would have made it earlier. You're absolutely right. I think they're content with what they have, for better or for worse. Now, I think the key player in all of this is Wanham, because you look at the depth chart and you've got veteran Hunter, veteran Weatherly. At the bottom, you have two rookies, Patrick Jones and Janarius Robinson, who Mike Zimmer evaluated yesterday, kind of a mixed review. He needs to see both of them reacting more and thinking less. And that's a problem that Daniil Hunter even had for several years.

So they're still going through the paces. The guy, the fulcrum of that group is DJ Wanham, because he's a second year player. Still, you would consider him a very young player. But Andre Patterson has a crush on him right I mean that was his pet cat in the draft and he absolutely thinks he can be uh a star one day I think in Patterson's mind so if Wanham can be not a star but close to what Patterson you know views him as I think that makes the room pretty decent. And the way that we've

seen them deploy Wanham has been really interesting because I've never seen the Vikings go with a defensive end converted to outside linebacker sub package. I mean, that's a really rare thing. And it actually worked in the scrimmage on Saturday where they dropped Wanham in coverage, brought Blitz from the weak side, and Wanham had a pick six as a coverage defensive end. So that's pretty interesting. And I think if he can be sort of your first guy off the bench at defensive end, you're going to be fine. I don't know where Kenny Willekes exactly fits in. He's the seventh round pick from last year who had the knee injury. You spoke to him a little bit. Maybe you have some insight on that. But if they go six deep there, I think they keep

Willekes. If not, they probably keep the two rookies. And then I guess Jalen Holmes might have to play a role because he hasn't been very productive in his career so far, but he can be someone that knows the system. He can play inside, outside a little bit. So you've got a couple of players that you're counting on that, you know, haven't really proven themselves yet, but I think they're going to be okay. I think with Will, because it's going to depend on how he looks in the preseason games, but he was getting some second team reps yesterday. And this is a guy coming off of a knee injury last year where he was getting second team reps when he got hurt. And I think that there is a chance that he was getting second team reps when he got hurt.

And I think that there is a chance that he's in the mix, whether he plays a significant role or not. I don't know. I think the Vikings look at the defensive end like they got their extra help by signing Steven Weatherly. We've seen them do this in the past where they sign someone for very cheap and they say, yeah, this is our guy. guy he's all set he's locked in as the starter here and it hasn't always worked like andre smith came to mind right away yeah we'll just start him at right tackle and with stephen weatherly he was one of the lowest in the league last year from pff in win rate of pass rush and he was i think in the same ballpark as Jalen Holmes and consider what we saw from Jalen Holmes as a defensive end last year whether we might he might be better with Andre Patterson but is he way better and that that's hard to see and so that like you said it kind of leaves DJ

Wanham as the guy that if you can make an impact and you can even be an average player which he was not last year as a rookie DJ Wanham but if you could be an impact and you can even be an average player, which he was not last year as a rookie, DJ Wanham, but if you could be an average player across from Daniil Hunter and then with the interior pressure that you can get, I think the defensive line overall has looked really good in the early in training camp. That spot, though, sort of remains a big question mark. Yeah, and a little teaser for a feature story coming out today on our website,

purpleinsider.substack.com. I write about why players like Weatherly want to come back and play for Andre Patterson. And I think there's a loyalty that is almost present to a fault with Patterson and some of the guys that he's brought up along the way, like Weatherly, who is a seventh round pick, might have gotten discarded by a lot of organizations. Patterson stuck with him for several years. And even though he was not very good in Carolina and was pretty average, you know, that last year with Minnesota as well, got jumped in the rotation by a Fadio Dennebo, who, by the way, is another Patterson product. They can they like going back to these guys. Like there are a number of defensive linemen that have circled back here for better or for worse,

like Shamar Steffen's reunion here wasn't that great. Afadio Denebo came back and was fantastic. You know, Tom Johnson came back. Sheldon Richardson has come back. So there's sort of a loyalty to Andre Patterson because of how much patience he has with these guys. And it'll be curious to see like if Weatherly struggles, whether they stick with him or whether they make a quick hook and make Wanham the number two, because let's face it, Wanham has the upside there. Yeah, no question that they come back and that Patterson has his loyalties, whether it's good for them or not is what we're going to find out here with this situation with Steven Weatherly.

It's hard for me to say whether Weatherly looks different based on training camp or not. But when a guy goes somewhere else and has zero sacks and nine starts, that makes you go, okay, well that team believes he could play the real role and he did not rise to the challenge of playing that role. And now you guys are going to say, no, he'll play that role for us. That to me is a little bit of a bridge too far to say that, that I'm going to buy into that. And the recent track record with these defensive ends, not named Daniel Hunter is not

particularly good. Uh, Daniel Hunter or Everson Griffin. Question from, let's see, a question from Joe here. How is Alexander Madison being used at training camp and will Zimmer give him more chances this year? I mean, that one's pretty easy. Probably not unless Delvin Cook gets hurt. It's going to be the Delvin Cook show. I think the more interesting question is really about Kenny Wong Wu because we know exactly what Alexander Madison is.

He's Delvin Cook's backup and he's sort of a end of the game. You're up by 20 points. You're going to bring in Alexander Madison to pound away, but Kenny Wong Wu is special. I think his Madden rating that CJ Hamm brought up for his speed was 94 and it is much deserved. We've seen quickness from him like we have not seen on the practice field before. Are they going to use Kenny Wong Wu's insane speed for anything or not? I mean, I still tend to lean toward probably not. I mean, your guy Mike Boone is coming to town today and he had he had freakish athletic ability too and they just never found a role for Mike Boone and I feel like it's gonna go the same

way with Kenai Wongwu yeah so it's you know show your speed for show but then it's pass block and pass block for dough is basically that that was a bulky way of sort of saying my little quip there. But I think with Boone, the issue was he was a little smaller in stature, wasn't as great a blocker, didn't have great vision. And that's what separates some of these running backs from Dalvin Cook. Dalvin Cook has some of the best vision, which is incalculable on the stat sheet. But it's unbelievable the holes that he finds behind that wide zone. Mike Boone didn't have that, even though he had all the physical traits. To my chagrin, he never got much of a chance. And the one time he did, that one start against Green Bay, it didn't go great.

With Wangu, there's no doubt that he has similar physical characteristics. And I think they were trying to replace what Boone brought when they drafted him in the fourth round, arguably overdrafted him in the fourth round. So clearly they were pretty enamored. He had such a small sample size in college that it's, it's kind of hard to really know what he is. And I think that his sample size with the Vikings would, would be small if he is used. It's just

going to be a quick change of pace, maybe a sneaky wheel route, get him in there for a series. They're still going to ride Dalvin Cook, though, pretty heavily. And does Wangu's involvement come at the expense of Madison? Maybe. I mean, Madison is more similar to Cook than Wangu. Wangu is the true change of pace. So I think Madison exists to be the bell cow if Cook gets hurt. But Wangu could be the interesting kind of number two, the lightning to Cook's thunder that I would love to see more of. I think this team could be more creative when it keeps five running backs, at least find a way to use them, which they've not done in the past. But my gut says that they're going to kind of stick to their guns and just

drive Dalvin Cook into the ground, which isn't always the best strategy, but it seems like they want to live and die on that Dalvin Cook hill. I think this is one of the sort of, if you were going the pillars of criticisms for Mike Zimmer over the years one is that he tends to uh frustrate some players with his straightforward style with the media which we've seen on display here early in training camp but the other one is sort of a lack of offensive creativity and the guy that always comes up with this is Cordero Patterson Patterson one of the special players in the NFL with the football in his hands, the greatest kick returner maybe of all time, Cordero Patterson, who the Vikings with Mike Zimmer in charge for a couple of years essentially refused to use him a little bit more on bubble screens and things like that. But I only remember maybe one or two reverses to Cordero Patterson in 2016.

Then they let him go. New England uses him eventually after he had to stop with the Raiders, uses him a little more creatively. And Zimmer said that he regretted not using Cordero Patterson in different ways. But they didn't use Mike Boone that way. Boone was a receiver, I think either in high school or early in college, or came out of high school as a wide receiver. So he had good hands and they never sort of mixed him in. And when they did play him, he averaged over five yards carry. So here we have Kenny Wong Wu. We have a new offensive coordinator in Clint Kubiint kubiak what are we putting odds on the

idea that they get a little more creative with someone who even if even if he got 50 or 60 carries in a season a couple a game but they are reverses or their delay handoffs or their whatever to get him the football in his hands to let him run with it and i think that that's a reasonable ask for someone who has such special speed. But I just can't get to a place where I say, oh, yeah, they're going to change that fundamentally. Yeah, you know, if left to his own devices, I think Clint Kubiak has the capability to be really creative because he's worked under like every system under the sun in his coaching career with different college teams, you know, Air Raid, West Coast. He knows like the book on offense.

And obviously his dad was an offensive genius. So I think he knows what he's doing. But he's also a first-time play caller. And he's working under Mike Zimmer, who has very strong ideas about how these things need to be done. I'm sure Clint Kubiak is aware of what happens to offensive coordinators when they don't kind of meet those demands. So, you know, and obviously we're not talking about passing the ball more here with Wang Yu.

This is a running back. So maybe it fits a little more into what Mike Zimmer wants if he says, hey, I want to run the ball the same amount, but I'd like to divvy up the carries a little bit because there's this thing called load management. It's better if Dalvin Cook is fresher in the latter months of the season. I don't know if we've ever seen Dalvin Cook fresh in December

because he's either been hurt or he's been too banged up to be effective. And I think that'd be a refreshing change. So I endorse it. But I think if there's any hesitancy about what he can be as a pass blocker, if he can't be trusted to pick up a blitz, then Mike Zimmer's gonna put his foot down.

And if you look at the last two years from Delvin Cook, the second halves of the season, his yards per carry go down by kind of a lot. Last year, it was six yards a carry through eight weeks. In the second half of the season, it was 4.1. And two years ago, it was 5.4 through the first half of the season, then went down to 3.3 in the second half, and he got banged up. But isn't that kind of the point?

Is that he will ultimately get banged up if you continue to run him as much as they have. And I thought last year, considering the circumstances and where the team was at, I mean, you know that Zimmer was going to, you know, grit his teeth and fight as hard as he possibly could to win games, but they were using Delvin Cook to slam into the line against the Jacksonville Jaguars in overtime when they were already in position to kick a game-winning field field goal or could have just had Alexander Madison do it and they just mostly left Alexander Madison on the bench Madison ended up with something close to 100 carries and 80 percent of that came in like three games where against Seattle against Atlanta and then in the final game of the year when Cook wasn't there so there was never a rotation and I wouldn't expect there to be a rotation. But I do think when we see someone as explosive as Kenny Wong, I mean, this is an NFL team

with Jefferson and Thielen and Cook, and somebody is standing out like this in terms of their speed. I mean, that means that at very least his playmaking ability is special. And I think it would be a mistake not to draw up a couple of things to get him the ball quickly and see if he can make a big play. Another question comes from Matthew. He says he had a dream last night that the Vikings traded for an offensive alignment. Is it a vision or a pipe dream given how far away the rookies are? I'm going to go with that as a pipe dream because again, trying to trade for somebody at this point in the game.

Also, who's giving you offensive linemen? This has always been the problem. I remember when Laquan Treadwell was on the trade block and people said, do you think we could get a guard for him? Like, no, because no one's giving away guards. It just doesn't happen. And so I think that they're probably in a place where they can't really improve the situation that they have now. They have to hold their breath and say, Oli Udo and Rashad Hill guide us to the light because these rookies are not going to be ready by week one. First of all, was that your dream?

Are you the Matthew who asked the question and had the dream? It is not me, no. It wasn't you. Because here's my dream. The Vikings and Broncos will be converging tomorrow. There will be a meeting of the minds. Who's the Broncos GM? Oh, it's ex-Vikings GM George Payton.

Who is on the Broncos roster? Brett Jones. Ex-Vikings guard Brett Jones. I knew it. I knew that's where you were going with this. I think there needs to be a reunion of famed camp body, Brett Jones, who never got the respect he deserved, never got the opportunity he deserved.

I think George Payton is going to sweet talk Rick Spielman. Maybe they'll have a cocktail on the perch overlooking TCO, and he'll say, hey, Rick, you got any little fifth round picks you want to throw our way for Brett Jones? Mason Cole's not going to cut it. Dakota Dozier's not going to cut it. And Rick will say, George, as a favor to you, I'm going to agree to your deal. Give us Brett Jones. He can stay here. He doesn't even need to go back to denver this is going to happen the dream is going to come true it will be prophetic want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original minnesota sports inspired goods if you have not seen it yet you've

got to check it out couple of my favorite designs are the duck duck gray duck and the randy moss goat which you've got to see all their apparel is screen printed here in minnesota on super soft super comfy shirts and hoodies you will love it we're going to hook you up with free shipping on your next order by the way use promo code purple insider for free shipping that's soda stick s-o-t-a-s-t-i-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. Okay. Even if you're kidding,

they did trade a fifth round pick for a kicker slash punter. So I wouldn't put that out of the realm. Well, they traded for Brett Jones original. What did they give up then? Six? That's right. That's right. To the Giants, right?

Pat Schirmer's Giants. I guess Schirmer decided that Jones wasn't going to be a fit. So is it possible you could trade for an offensive lineman? Yes, it is. Is it possible you could trade for a useful offensive lineman? Not necessarily. I wouldn't count it out based on how they look. And let's circle back to your point about the third rounders

and the fact that none of them have been able to make an impact and Wyatt Davis. And I want to know your degree of concern about Wyatt Davis, because I think with Christian Derrissaw, we would still make the bet that Derrissaw is a good player long-term that he's had this setback, but he's a first round draft pick. A lot of people had him as a top 10 talent or fringe top 10 talent in the draft. So I'm not ready to say, come on, you blew that draft pick.

I'm not ready to say that here a couple of weeks into training camp because he's been injured. But when you draft a guy to be your starting right guard who played at a huge program in Ohio state, and this team has started rookies before on the interior of the offensive line, to have him with the third team exclusively for these last couple of days, I think that that is, what, like a 5 or 6 out of 10 for a panic meter? Yeah, maybe even a tad higher. I mean, he is a third-round round pick and as we've laid out third round

picks are not guaranteed to be good right away like patrick jones you know a defensive end had every opportunity just like you know my davis to sort of like rise up the ranks and be like a contributor on this team and it doesn't look like you will chas surratt had the same opportunity like third round picks are just low enough that they're not instant plug and play players. And I know Pat Elfline was, you know, back in 2017, things didn't work out for Elfline, but they trusted him right away. In Davis's case, none of the signs have been very encouraging. You know, he was asked to lose weight in OTAs by Mike Zimmer and then injured for a few days here in training camp and then an apparent demotion to the third team.

So it is mildly concerning. And I think Mike Zimmer's philosophy is, I'm putting the burden of proof on the rookies to prove that they can play. They're not preordained anything. That's been his philosophy forever. And until he sees it from Wyatt Davis, he's not going to play him. Here's a concern, Matthew, like frame it up this way. Drew Samia was drafted one round later than Wyatt Davis. Like they're not that different of prospects. And Drew Samia has nowhere to go on this team. He might be cut on cut day in his third year. So I think people need to temper it a little bit. Yes. Like he was taken, I think with the intent to be a starter on this team but I think Samia was too one round later so um people do need to probably start accepting the reality that it's

going to be an Udo or Dozier and um and you know still give Wyatt Davis the opportunity to to show what he can do in the preseason games that'll be a huge chance for him and there's a couple of concepts that just need to be sort of touched on as it relates to Wyatt Davis. If someone tells you this guy would have been a first rounder, if not for blank, blank, blank, you're you are what you're drafted as. The entire NFL decided Wyatt Davis was a third round draft pick, probably for a reason. And he was a guy that was talked about as having the potential as a first round draft pick probably for a reason. And he was a guy that was talked about as having the potential as a first round draft pick after 2020, but that's not the reality or after 2019, but that's not the reality. The reality is everybody looked at him and said, we're going to wait and not draft

that guy super high. And so there were probably reasons for that. One of the reasons I think was his injury history, his play also declined at Ohio State last year. And I think that that was a little bit of a concerning thing as well. The other thing is, too, that if you ever say that Kirk Cousins' contract doesn't impact the rest of the roster because they have a good cap guy, this is why you're wrong. Because they have to rely on two rookies to start, or rely on moving a sixth round draft pick to guard, or rely on Dakota Dozier and his million dollar contract because he wasn't good last year. Like these are the effects of that trickling down.

Let me get to another question here from Point Kenny asks, is Harrison Smith on the decline? Which connects to an interesting discussion we were having yesterday about whether the Vikings will extend Harrison Smith. The Brian O'Neill one still seems inevitable to me. But Harrison Smith, you throw in some vaccination status into this age potential asking price i don't know if harrison smith decides to sign a contract extension or if the vikings decide to put in an offer for him right now that says stay around with us for a couple other years i mean you have to consider decline in terms of uh your age and natural decline that's going to happen to anybody he's's still very, very good. And one of the better safeties in the league last year,

but you're projecting down the road. And then who knows when vaccination status won't be an issue. And if you're looking at this and saying, well, there's always a possibility for someone who's not doing that to miss games in the future or, you know, whatever,

like we really don't know with this thing, when that becomes, uh, or when that stops being relevant, I hope for all of our sake, the answer is soon. Um, but I don't know that that one is getting done soon. Yeah, that's a different calculation, you know, to, um, to answer the question, I don't think he's in decline. I just think that he's at an interesting point in his career. This is year 10 for Harrison Smith. That's crazy to think that it's been a decade, but he's past the 30 threshold. He's getting in the twilight of his career. And I think he probably will look at this defensive roster and say, we got a ton of contract years, me included.

Are we going to have another exodus? Am I going to have to sit through a 2022 rebuild? He's got all the money he needs. He might want to go to a different roster. And he's said, I think, all the things that would indicate he'd like to be here long term. That's kind of par for the course for contract negotiations, but it wouldn't shock me if he decided to wait. And I think he can be honest in saying that he'd like to stay here, but also with the asterisk being, I'd like to be on a competitive Vikings team. Now the Vikings always try to be competitive.

They're not going to like tank, you know, he doesn't have to worry about that. But I think if he hit free agency in the spring i think that he respects the vikings enough they respect him enough that they would still like have negotiations but he might listen to other offers as well and see what comes about because i think he would still be in demand um and i think he's got plenty left in the tank uh i think so too and if you want to go championship chasing i understand that if you're harrison smith there's never been a player when asked if they wanted to

stay with their team that said no no do you guys think this team's gonna win i'm leaving get out of here i mean if you're harrison smith this thing could just be very different next year if if you're harrison smith and this team be very different next year. If you're Harrison Smith and this team goes 7-10, you know that Kirk Cousins is gone. And you're going to start probably a rookie quarterback that you trade up for in draft. Do you want to stick around for that? Because that's probably not a championship the next year. Now, if they go 13-4, 12-5, and Kirk Cousins is great and everybody overcomes this, then yeah, maybe you do stick around. But I think there's no real reason for Harrison Smith to rush to

decide that he's going to sign a contract extension to stay here. And we've seen this from Ed Reed. We've seen it from Eric Weddle. I'm going to go with Harrison Smith probably decides to wait this out. And I guess we'll wait it out and see. So this, the next one sort of connects it to my original thought process for the show, but we've got such good questions that I'm enjoying answering them is Keith asks, I'll just paraphrase about whether Mike Zimmer can keep this train on the tracks because of how we've started with this, uh, training camp with Zimmer calling out his quarterback, his quarterback biting back Zimmer, having a little more to say after that had to throw in that one last comment from Zimmer about the, um, the protocols and how we follow the protocols about the room size and so forth. How can Zimmer

keep this team going in the right direction and recover from the body blows that they have taken? Like you haven't played, and Zimmer said this so perfectly, you have not played a game yet. And Zimmer says, I feel like I lost the game with the press conferences that he's been doing. I feel the same way. I felt like last week that we were talking about a team that just went to one in five like we were last year. And yet they have not stepped on the field yet. So what can Mike Zimmer do to recover from what they've gone through so far? Yeah, this is time for Mike Zimmer to show why he makes the big bucks, because I think in times like these, you expect leadership from certain

people. Your quarterback might be one, but I would opine that Kirk Cousins did not do that last week. So then the buck gets passed to, you know, other team leaders. And we don't know how things are being handled. Patrick Peterson might have to play a role to galvanize the locker room a little bit. But Mike Zimmer is going to have to show some serious leadership too. I think he's kind of correct. When he came out after the several days of ripping Kirk Cousins and the unvaccinated, he came out the next day and said, all right, I'm done talking about it. And I think to some extent he almost has to do that and, and like, continue to, you know, bring, bring in people to educate by all means, but he does at some point need to try to like bring this team back together

because it felt like there were some fractures and he's got to, got to do a heck of a job to make sure there's not a rift if he wants to win football games and make sure that he's good with his quarterback. I mean, the coach quarterback relationship is so important, as you've said countless times, and it did not seem good. Like I know they had this alleged phone call to clear the air. Kirk Cousins seemed just think, seemed just in his tone to think it was a little more positive than I think Mike Zimmer portrayed when I asked him about it. But this is going to require some serious chops by Mike Zimmer to make sure that everyone is on

the same page. And I think getting back to like real football games will help because that will give more direction to like the way they're spending their time and their meetings and the way, you know, things just to talk about with his players. This is like Mike Zimmer's toughest coaching job. Last year was tough, but I think with higher expectations and, you know, maybe the hot seat underneath Mike Zimmer, I think this is even tougher of a task. Hey, everyone. Summer is here, and you're trying to get out on the golf course,

but if you're like us here at Purple Insider, spending all day golfing isn't always an option. That's why you need to check out Birdie Golf in Woodbury. I'll give you an example. My wife is new to golf, and she's intimidated by the big courses, but at Birdie Golf, she can come and play without the pressure. You can make golf a family but at Birdie Golf, she could come and play without the pressure. You can make golf a family experience at Birdie Golf. Bring the kids, still get all of your swings in. They have eight of the world's best golf simulators where you can sharpen your swing and still have a great time. I've heard from several listeners to the show who have tried out Birdie

Golf and absolutely loved it. You'll want to try the whiskey or beer float flights. And every time Sam and I show up at Birdie Golf to record our podcast, we always get the boneless swings, make golf a night out. It's the perfect place to hold parties, events, fundraisers, and even your fantasy football draft. Check out birdie golf at four 94 and Valley Creek in Woodbury. Just a short drive away from anywhere in the Twin Cities metro at birdiegolf.com, B-I-R-D-I golf.com. Call 651-998-2200 today, and I'll see you there. I think the answer is in the 2017 story. If you remember at the end of 2016, it felt just like this, like the sky was falling, that the cornerbacks had gone rogue in a game in Green Bay and they had injuries and they fell

apart from a five and oh star to an eight and eight season. And it, there was a lot of pressure even on Mike Zimmer at that time, because he had called some players out, lost the locker room to some extent that year. I remember a lot of frustration from players about Mike Zimmer in 2016. And a lot of players have walked away from that season saying, you know, maybe if Zimmer had been a little more thoughtful in some of his comments, we could have stayed together and won one more game. I think that was a real thing. And we saw North Turner also resign that year. So a lot went wrong. 2017, they go through more stuff. Dalvin Cook, his injury, Sam Bradford, his injury.

But they overcame all those things. I think the reason was they were the number one defense. And Zimmer is always going to be who Zimmer is. Zimmer upset people, including Case Keenum, by making some comments about Keenum and saying he had a horseshoe around his neck, saying that he I mean, there's even other things that he said, like against, I think, Washington, that he sort of just kind of took too many risks and threw down the field and threw some key interceptions and all those things. So there were a lot of comments about Keenum throughout that season that even Keenum himself, he never said it publicly, but behind the scenes, I think he was like, I keep winning games here for you guys. And every week I'm getting thrashed by the head coach about the risks I take. And ultimately Zimmer ended up being right that those interceptions mattered in the playoffs for Case Keenum. But why did they overcome all those things? Zimmer didn't change. He wasn't different. They had the best defense in the league. And so every week they went out, they knew that if we play the number one offense in the Rams,

we could beat them. If we play a great offense in Atlanta in their dome, we could beat them because we're going to shut them down and be able to run the football and grind out some wins. And I think that it's the same story here that Zimmer and cousins to make a relationship comparison, as we often do, they're sleeping in separate beds. I mean, they are, uh, you know, cousins is packed to stuff and moved to the other side of the house. But, but you can still live together. If Clint Kubiak can take this offense to another level, if the offensive line can perform just well enough, if you can have an average offense, if you have a top notch defense, then it's going to take you places.

Even if there is a lot of discomfort because NFL players are sort of used to playing with everybody on the outside saying that the world is is falling apart how many times have we seen even this team where the discussion has been what is going on there they lose to Buffalo in 2018. They lose in 2019 to Chicago. And there have been times where they've been able to bounce back, even when they lost to Green Bay in the end of 2019. At that point, I thought everybody was getting fired when they were locked into the number six seed because that loss to Green Bay was so bad. And then they bounce back two weeks later, they go to New Orleans. What wins it for them? A great defensive performance. That's what it rests on. And

they have the talent to do that. Yeah, you're not wrong about that. And, you know, that's been a strength of Kirk Cousins too. And it's, it's not as if Kirk Cousins always comes through in big situations, but he tends to perform well off of bad situations, I guess, if that makes sense. Like whether the opponent that week is like a, you know, doormat or like if they're actually pretty good, he tends to sort of rise to the occasion when the expectation is at its lowest. It's when the expectation gets to be a little higher that he tends to struggle, which is kind of backwards. But he's got his back against the wall right now. And as we've discussed on previous podcasts, this is not an issue that's going to go away necessarily. I guess

if there's any solace, it's that Mike Zimmer is a defensive coach. Crew Cousins is a quarterback. As bad as their relationship is, they are on different sides of the ball. This isn't going to be like a Carson Wentz, Doug Peterson situation, and he should be able to still function as long as he's on the same page with Clint Kubiak and Andrew Janoko. Those are the people that he works with most closely. So I think there's reason to panic and think this season's going off the tracks, but it's not off yet. There's still five weeks almost to

course correct before the regular season starts. And you know, that winning heals a lot, Matthew, if they start to know on the road, there's going to be a lot of positive momentum around this team. And I think you'll be surprised how quickly that people would forget about some of this negative stuff we've been discussing. That's true. But as we have seen in the past, it lingers underneath the surface. So you go 2-0, but then you lose a game at home to Cleveland or something and have Kevin Stefanski come in here. And then all of a sudden it's pointing fingers and all hell breaking loose again. And I think that that's what we saw even from 2018 where they didn't start off the season terribly and they won against San Francisco. They had that crazy tie against Green Bay. But then when the Buffalo game happens, the LA game happens, it's like, oh no, this is coming apart. And then the offensive coordinator and the head coach are headbutting. And that quickly turns into the offense not being able to function. It's like these things snowball very quickly when there was tension from the very starting point.

And that's what we're going to have to keep an eye on. So let's answer one more question and then we'll call it a stream. This has been fun. I like having the questions here. Just from Ron, an extension for Brian O'Neill. It's obviously a very different situation from Harrison Smith. What do we expect from that, from the extension for Brian O'Neill? Because I think that the Vikings got thrown for a loop by some of the other contracts for offensive linemen, including Braden Smith from the Colts, who got a huge deal. And maybe they didn't see that coming. I think everyone thought Ramchak would get paid. But for Tyler Moten and for Braden Smith, those are more in the ballpark of Brian O'Neill.

And those are basically left tackle contracts. So I think that they probably had to like readjust everything after that. So in each of the previous two years, Moten, Smith and Ramchick have all been top 20 graded tackles. O'Neal has been between 20 and 30 both of those years. So he's slightly lagging behind. And I'm sure the team knows that, that he's not quite in that ballpark, but he's close. He's in the stratosphere. So I think the Vikings probably point to those 18 million a year totals. They probably try to undercut that a little bit, settle at 16 or 17, which if this had been negotiated in May or June, and the Vikings

are usually hesitant to do that during the summer for whatever reason, they probably could have used Jack Conklin as a comparison. And Jack Conklin was making $14 million a year, and he was one of the top paid guys. It's amazing how much these new contracts just blew away the top of the market. They set a completely new market. And now O'Neal absolutely wants to be in that mix. He is sitting in a great spot. But the Vikings have the money. They can handle it. I mean, the cap hit is only going to go up this year, like one fraction of the total years on the deal. Probably just part of his signing bonus will go on this year's cap. So that's not an issue. Like,

they can afford him in 2021. The cap's going to go up next year. I don't think money is a huge problem. So I don't think the team has much excuse to not get it done. I would expect maybe some backloaded kind of Vikings-esque deal where they give them a nice little signing bonus. They give them the four-year term, $16, $17 million a year, but the guarantees might go down in the last couple of years to give the team flexibility. That usually is what happens, but I think it for sure gets done. I think so too. I would put the timeline probably maybe a week before week one. They've had a lot to deal with in the front office over these

last couple of days. And so maybe that hasn't been a main conversation as everybody was in, you know, put out the fire mode with what's been going on with Kirk cousins on the COVID list and so forth. But that one probably gets done. I think there's another conversation of whether it's a good idea to pay a right tackle that much money. They are still extremely valuable. There are a lot of great pass rushers that line up over the right tackle. It's just when you do this sort of math equation of who is truly worth that money. And when you have someone who's very good, but not Ryan Ramchak elite top five every year, is it worth giving them a contract that puts them up

there in that stratosphere and it's very hard the thing that the vikings always run into is that it's very hard to say oh we drafted this guy he turned out to be great but by like they they never do that with anybody and i think that there are certain teams like the patriots in years past who decided that that's kind of how they were going to do things. Like we got the most out of you at your cheap price and we're going to let somebody else pay you if we don't believe you are truly the one of the key cogs to this machine. And Brian O'Neill has been a decent, good offensive lineman. And I hope he gets paid. I always hope everyone gets paid.

But how have the overall offensive lines been not very good. Like one player only has so much impact on the offensive line. And so you have to do this equation of, is there someone else that you can draft in the next draft? Or is there someone else that you could sign in the next off season? That's going to be reasonably priced who could give you similar play and let the other guys on their rookie contracts continue to ascend in their rookie deals that is an equation that I think a lot of teams would start to talk about but also front offices love to pimp their home runs when it comes to draft picks and I think they ultimately end up paying yeah Phil Rauscher said something pretty telling. I think

last week when he spoke to us, the offensive line coach, he said, you know, you're only as strong as your weakest link. So it's not Brian O'Neill's fault that the guards have been so bad. I also think in his favor too, is that no, he hasn't been top five any year, like Ryan Ramchick, but all three of his years, he's been solid. Like he hasn't been up and down. You've kind of been able to expect a certain baseline of performance from him. And that matters. You don't want somebody who's going to fluctuate and they're not giving him a contract based on just one really good year. They're giving him a contract based on three solid years. And that I think carries some weight. Right. For me, I've decided to start to

think of things in spectrums and how far this is away from that versus the other thing. You know what I'll explain with Brian O'Neill, like Brian O'Neill is probably closer to a guy who signs a one year, $5 million contract at right tackle than he is to Ryan Ramchak or the left tackles who make that sort of money. And so that would be my equation, even though I think he's very good. I just think that the elite players at the offensive line positions are quite a bit better, whereas his play, could you replace it with a cheaper price? And that's not to say that I think that they'll have the same equation. I think they'll pay them and that's what they do. It's just, they haven't thought twice about paying

people. And this is where we are with a roster that requires a bunch of scrambling to work around, not just Kirk's contract, but a bunch of players who make up 80% of the salary cap. And this team has sort of had their way of doing it. If they were going to consider changing that at all, maybe this would be a player they would do it on. But I, again, I don't expect that.

So we've got to run, we got to get out to practice and maybe we'll see Kellen Mond at the podium. I'm not sure. I guess we'll find out and we'll be doing this every Tuesday. Sometimes the times are going to fluctuate to be in the morning for the rest of training camp. And then probably the afternoon as the season goes along. But if you enjoyed it, check out the purple insider podcast,

purple insider.substack.com. We have 11 days of training camp reviews of everything that's gone on, everything that's been said out there. So make sure you go check all that out and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for your, for your time, Sam. Yep. See you, Colin.