Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How did the Vikings stack up against The Athletic's consensus NFL Draft board?

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom are joined by Arif Hasan of The Athletic, who puts together a consensus draft board each year. His board has been used to look at how much different teams' draft selections are from what analysts thought of the prospects. Hasan talks about whether "steals" and "reaches" matter and Sam forces him to give the potential downsides to Christian Darrisaw and Wyatt Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hello, welcome to another Friday Roundtable here on Purple Insider. Matthew Collar, Sam Ekstrom, and with our guest from the Athletic, Arif Hassan. As always, the show is presented by Scout Logistics. And Arif, you become famous every draft season on the internet for your consensus board work. So here on the Friday Roundtable, I want to talk about what's still to be done, of course,

and also how some of these draft picks match up with the consensus board and the outlook for them short and long term because sam wrote a piece about how uh they will perform in 2023 really pulled out the crystal ball for that one wow so we will discuss so how was your draft season how was christmas for you um it was it was actually it was pretty tough right you know you have to pump out like 15 articles in five days. Luckily, the consensus board is a bunch of other people's work, so I don't really have to worry too much about generating the content myself. I don't know. I always get credit for putting together a bunch of other people's work.

I really enjoy it. Arif, how long does it take you to, A, like compile all the boards, but, B, kind of – because you have to go back and update everything afterward, you know, to kind of cross-reference and see how people perform. So how long does that take? That's got to take hours. It takes a fair amount of time. It's tough to tell because I start doing consensus board work like in early April or so, and then I have to update when,

because sometimes people will say, hey, this is the final board. And then they send it to me. And then, you know, like 10 days later, they're like, ah, actually, uh, here's 20 updates. Um, so, uh, normally I, I start, uh, early April and I don't know, I don't keep track of the hours for every consensus board or anything like that. So, so Arif question about the consensus board. So what you do is gather all these people's different draft boards from all over the place. And then you try to figure out like kind of what everybody thinks as a whole as draft analysts about each player and where they should go. And I was going to ask how telling this is for draft night. And also, do you have a sense for like, we talk about people being overdrafted or being a quote steal and i think the consensus board is a fair way to do that like all the people

who looked at this said that the guy should have gone 290th and instead he went 140th so what were you doing with ian book um and things like that right i think that's a fair way to do it but uh i'm curious about kind of like the the broad findings before we ask you about how the Vikings related to the consensus board of if it's sort of a telling factor to how these things end up playing out. Yeah, well, it tells us a lot about kind of how the prospects are rated, of course. I think it also tells us just about like the draft industry in general, which is kind of good.

So PFF has actually done a ton of studies using the consensus board, which is really nice because then it doesn't feel weird that I'm talking about it. Like, ah, you know, my research says that my work is accurate. Right. I don't have to worry about that. But, you know, one thing that they found was that generally speaking, the draft analysts overvalue, you know, interior defenders, right? So I find that just kind of interesting, you know, relative to everything else. But yeah, it is a really good tool for kind of just generally gauging the idea of whether or not, you know, a player is a stealer or a reach on draft night. Actually, just Thursday morning, I think, or actually Wednesday night, PFFL published another thing about, you know, whether or not steals matter, whether or not reaches matter based on the consensus board. And it turns out, you know, for the most part, steals kind of don't matter all that much. I mean,

there's always these individual examples, like DK Metcalf is a really good example. But reaches do matter, that if a team reaches, that typically that player will underperform the draft slot. And that actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it, because for a team to reach, one team has to make a decision on a player. For a player to fall down the draft board, all 32 teams have to make a decision on that player. If all 32 teams agree that that player is not as talented as people think, that's probably a good indication, for whatever reason, that that player is not going to live up to their potential. And sometimes it can just be injury related so that

that player will end up, you know, quote unquote, overperforming and teams are just making a risk calculation. But yeah, for the most part, it does a really good job of predicting NFL performance. Arif, you've got the Vikings at 18th in terms of quality of their draft based on the consensus board and return on investment. Do you agree that they reached maybe on a couple of their day three guys? But I think you also had Christian Derrissaw as one of their biggest steals. Yeah, as one of the biggest steals of the draft, yeah. It's kind of interesting. If you stopped it at the end of day two, the Vikings would have ranked fifth.

But I believe they reached on every single day three pick, which, you know, for a quarterback like Cullen, I don't really care about that. But for the other stuff, you know, it's maybe kind of worth considering. You know, we don't really know where these players would have gone had the Vikings not picked them. Right. But like, you know, they probably could have waited on Wangu and a couple of the other picks that they made just because you know those those players weren't seemingly very highly regarded uh what i found kind of interesting is that i expected the consensus board to really drop off in accuracy in day three because um you know people doing this work just don't have the time to watch like a guy that's going to go undrafted they'd rather just spend another hour trying to figure out whether or not, you know, these three guys in the top ten are in the right order or something like that.

But it's actually pretty good for day three, too. And so for the Vikings to have kind of reached in every single pick, it's not, like, catastrophic, right? But it does represent a lot of missed potential value that, you know, later on, no one's going to talk about. Like, for example, if they missed on the next Stefan Diggs, you know, no one's going to talk about that. Right. No one's going to be like, ah, the Vikings, instead of drafting Kenan and Wong, who could have drafted Jalen Darden. Yeah. Right. Jalen Darden. Right. Which I don't know. I like him. That would be fun. But yeah, no, exactly. But it's kind of interesting if they had gone by the consensus board, they probably would have been able to find a lot of these players a little bit later on. These the running backs that were all super athletes, all of them went earlier than the consensus board picks.

So maybe the Vikings did actually make the right decision. It was like Chris Evans and Jake Funk and Kenan Wangu, all elite names, by the way. You know, all of them went earlier than the consensus board. So that might have been part of it, too, is that if you wanted to have a super athlete at running back, you needed to pick them earlier than you normally would have. But yeah, I think for all of these picks that the Vikings made, nothing I would, you know, ding them massively for. And I said every player, Jalen Twyman actually was not a reach. I should have said that. But I totally forgot about him because he was, like, the sixth-round pick. He was the last pick.

But that one was considered a steal. We'll see if that, you know, turns out. Has this been a trend recently with them reaching on guys later and late in day two and day three? I don't know because I don't remember what your 2017 consensus board was, if you had it, but I don't remember what it would have looked like compared to, you know, where Jaleel Johnson was supposed to go. It's just sort of a general feeling for me that when we get to the late day two in round three and then, you know, into day three, that they'll draft an

Alexander Madison and we'll go, really? I mean, because NFL.com has them as undrafted. And the same thing kind of happened for a few guys here where even Cam Bynum, who I like and think that it's a good idea to take Cam Bynum, again, you go to NFL.com and you see seventh round slash undrafted, and you wonder, okay, was this someone that you had to draft at that point? And we'll never really know what other teams thought of him. I just wonder if that's a trend because since 2015, these day three picks,

there are very few that have even worked out to even be a role player, which is kind of what you're looking at. Even special teams gurus we have not seen really emerge from day three for them recently. Yeah, I think up until about 2018, the Vikings, like, collectively were the most aligned with the consensus board. So if you looked at ROI versus consensus board from 2014 to 2018, the Vikings were number one in the NFL. So if there's been a change, it's been pretty recent. I know, for example, like, Julio Johnson was regarded as a steal by the consensus board, you know, OL, I guess. But, yeah, I think that just generally speaking, you'll find these kind of weird reaches on day three because the Vikings are very particular about the types of players that they want at each position just in terms of, you know, their athletic profile. The last two years, the Vikings have, like, put a ton of emphasis

on whether or not they're, like, a team captain or something like that. And the more you kind of restrict the potential talent pool that you'll draft, the further down the board you'll have to go in order to find the kind of player that you're looking for. So that's part of it over the past couple of years. But, you know, also, I don't know, man, like, day three picks just don't do a ton until they do. Right. And so, you know, I think we've gotten kind of used to these guys, you know, contributing in a big way for the Vikings.

So, you know, three years in a row that they haven't. And you feel like, wow, they really must be screwing up. But like, yeah, it's a little bit less than the NFL average, you know, over three years. But it's also not like meaningfully so. Like day three guys just don't do a lot. Arif, just removing myself from consensus board talk, I do like a few of the day three guys. I like Bynum. I like Janarius Robinson. I like Smith Marset. Who's your favorite day three pick out of the six that they had? I don't know. I really like Smith-Marset. Maybe I'm just getting, you know, sold a bill of goods on him.

But I talk to people who do a bunch of, like, skill position, like Nate Tice, for example, really likes Smith-Marset. And I talk to people who do, like, skill position stuff, and they all really like Smith-Marset. And so, you know, they know more than me. And, you know, watching him and watching his highlights, that's pretty fun to watch. So I don't know, there's, there's something kind of to, to be, you know, it's appealing, right. To, to see, you know, a deep threat, just kind of go off, you know, he's got a lot of personality too. He's a really talented kick returner.

If you've watched like just the kick return stuff, I don't know. He's really good at it. So I like him a lot. I think he's, he's a great pick. If I remove myself from the consensus board, just if I just take a look at the players and I don't look where they're picked, I kind of like all of these guys to some extent or another, especially, I think, you know, Jalen Twyman. When he was connected to the Vikings, I thought, you know, that's a bad pick.

They should not pick him. The fact that the Vikings are intrigued by him, I'm a little bit worried by. But the fact that, you know, they didn't have to spend like a sixth round pick on him, I think that that's really fantastic value, honestly. You know, for just a shot that he'll be as good as he was in 2019, I think that that's good. So, yeah, the Bynum pick, I wasn't sold on until I learned he was a safety. I expect that, you know, going back to the consensus board, I expect that if everybody was told that he'd be considered a safety, he would have been, you know, ranked higher on the consensus board, I expect that if everybody was told that he'd be considered a safety, he would have been ranked higher on the consensus board.

So I don't know. I like all of these players. These are all players that I've identified as people that either look like they fit the Vikings or players that I kind of liked anyway, like Kellen Mond and Awangu and all that. These are all players that I've talked about before as players that I thought would be a good fit. So if I remove myself from how much they paid to get those players, I don't know, I kind of like all of them. Sorry, on the Smith-Marset thing,

I think that your steals don't exist would be what I would say with Smith-Marset. I also follow people who really love them, but I'll let you know three or four weeks into training camp. When it's someone the whole league watched and went like, why couldn't you get more catches at Iowa? I don't care how bad your quarterback was, right? He did lead the team in receiving two years running. With 25. He was catching passes from Nate Stanley.

Let's cut him some slack. He looks really cool when he's somersaulting into the end zone. I wanted to just add that I think Jalen Twyman is like the most interesting player in this Vikings draft, just from like a personal standpoint. And his resume is really intriguing as well, because he was like Aaron Donald-ish in terms of his production in 2019. Ops out of 2020, it sounds like, because he just wanted to like make sure he got drafted, even

though he wasn't going to get drafted very highly. It's a little bit ambiguous why, but he's like, he broke down crying when Rick Spielman gave him the call. There's a really cool video the Vikings released. He had like 40 bench reps at the pro day, but had a 5'5", 40. So he's like super strong, not very fast, not really a Vikings-esque kind of prospect. But that interior strength is super intriguing to me. And I think he's kind of a unique person with a really unique background. So I'm looking forward to digging into him more.

Well, so what's interesting about him is that that's not who he played as he didn't play as a super strong anchor as a giant body he played kind of like aaron donald he played at 285 pounds when he was at pit i think he's listed at 290 but he played at 285 pounds he was super fast he was super quick he was explosive he could even do stuff off the edge kind of like donald can right which um i mean those comparisons are going to be inevitable because that's who he idolizes, and they also both went to Pitt. And, you know, these things kind of just build on themselves, and it's a little unfair to him. But he invites them, right, because he idolizes Aaron Donald and he wants to be him. He hangs out with him.

Donald is like a mentor. Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. But the way he spent his offseason or opt-out season was to build himself in the same way one would for a nose tackle, which is not what he was at Pitt. And so it was just a very unusual process. You know, the giant body, 40 bench press reps, I mean, that's very, you know, useful for a nose tackle.

It's not all that useful for a pass rushing three technique, which is what he was. And so for him to have the mediocre pro day he did, which is not just, you know, a 5-5-4, he was really poor 10 split, he was really poor vertical jump, I believe he did only one of the two agility drills, and it was really poor as well. And those are the kinds of things that translate well to three technique. And so that's the reason he fell, because if he was a nose tackle and he put up those numbers, and he had a nose tackle-like performance similar to what he had in 2019 as a three technique, you know, I think he would have gone in the third round or something like that. But if he had put together a pro day that was a lot closer to kind of matching what he did on tape, then I think he might have even potentially gone in the second. I mean, he was a really, really talented player that, you know,

just kind of built his body the wrong way during the opt-out season. And so, I don't know, it's very strange, right, to talk about kind of what the pro day implies about who he is as a player and then to just kind of turn on the broadcast footage or the tape or the film or whatever you want to call it and watch him play. They're two very different people. I compared a couple of nose tackles to him in their combine performance versus his pro day. Now pro day is supposed to be better. And guys like Alan Branch were running faster than him. Alan Branch was like 325 pounds at the combine and probably played at 340,

and he's faster than him, which makes me very skeptical. If this is your quickness, you're just not getting to that quarterback in the NFL. It's kind of the way I look at it. And still it goes with the same sort of thing with Smith-Marset, where it's like, is it worth it to give it a try? Yes. Am I going to care about you until you're getting first or second team reps

in camp? No. But, Sam, you can write the story. You can write the feature because that's what camp is for, is writing features about guys who probably won't be good. But Chris Sims also says he doesn't really watch much tape, that he just like watches a little bit of the guy and their highlight reel and whatever, and then sort of makes his list that he's not like a draft analyst. And so that's nice that there's one guy that really liked your quarterback. But what did the world say about Kellen Mond? And with this in mind, still like the league deciding not to take him in the second, I think, was pretty telling about where they think he can go.

But what did the consensus board say about him? Consensus ranked him 99th. The Vikings took him 66th. Again, at quarterback, I don't really mind reaches. That is a pretty dramatic one. So that's kind of worth considering. But, yeah, I guess there was a run on that second tier of quarterbacks, and the Vikings wanted to get in on it. I guess I get it. It's just weird because the run was started by a team

without a quarterback. I mean, they used their first pick on a court. I mean, we're assuming that Deshaun Watson is not going to play for the Texans again, but they used their first pick on a quarterback. And yeah, I guess that started a run on quarterbacks. It's kind of weird, but yeah, I mean, the, the consensus was that he was barely a top 100 guy.'s kind of weird. But yeah, I mean, the consensus was that he was barely a top 100 guy. And so, you know, yeah, Chris Sims liked him. And people will point you to, you know, Chris Sims' draft record or a record of identifying quarterbacks. And like, part of it is just that Sims will throw out five different rankings in the same class, and then you pick the one that was closest to reality and say, hey, he nailed it.

You know, and, like, you're right. He's not a draft analyst. He'll admit it, and he doesn't kind of put in the same type of work that a lot of draft analysts do. It just feels kind of weird to constantly go up against, like, hey, you know, Chris Sims liked it, and he's got an amazing, you know, record. And it's just like, you know, I do my own work too, man. Let me do my work. Well, also, right, you have to ignore all the other people

who are much better at this than Chris Sims. Right, yeah, yeah. It's sort of funny. It's like, well, you know, Dane Brugler, who spends his entire life doing this, and Daniel Jeremiah and many others. And Jeremiah, I think, calls the senior bowl where Kellen Mond played in. And still, like these guys didn't have as high of an opinion. So it's not that Chris Sims can't be right. But also, if you took if I told you, Aarif, there are seven human

beings who could be drafted in the first three rounds of quarterback. And I just said, you have to pick numbers in a random order. Sometimes you would get it right who turned out to be the best guy, which I think is kind of Chris Sims. But yeah, so we're not considering this a reach though, because I guess I didn't. I thought like this is sort of a classic third round quarterback, third, fourth round, somebody who didn't put up huge numbers, has some skills to like.

And if you were going to pick a middle round guy, it might as well be him. Yeah. And that's kind of how I think of it. I think that he's got, you know, reasonable upside. I think that you could make the argument that he could learn more in terms of, you know, being a quick processor on the field and stuff like that, and that he's coachable, right? And so you've got a guy that's got all the tools. You've got a guy that might be coachable. You've got somebody that's worth a mid-round pick at quarterback. Yeah. I'm trying to think back to Dak Prescott, who I think is, you know,

the gold standard along with Russell Wilson for sort of third and fourth round quarterback hits. Why did Dak Prescott fall to round four? Can you think back to, like, what the reasoning was behind that? Because, like, if you look at his physical ability, it's hard to imagine that being the case. And then he played really well right away. Do you think there's any chance that Mond is in sort of that same vein? If I'm trying to remember why Dak Prescott fell, I think part of it, some of it sounds pretty similar, right? He had accuracy issues. Some of it's not so similar. I think, you know, a lot of people were unimpressed by the fact that

he had such a great supporting cast around him and he didn't really turn it into much. But yeah, I don't know. Like part of the reason he fell, I think is just like, you know, he needed to get rid of the ball faster and he needed to be more accurate. Both of those things kind of apply to Kellen Mond. And, you know, obviously, you know, he's a physical specimen in much the same way that Mond is. But I don't know. I mean, it's just kind of like a once in a blue moon kind of thing. I don't want to, you know, compare someone to a guy who got picked in the middle round and you got some similar traits to why this guy fell. So those traits don't matter.

Like, eh, I don't know about that. The only thing that I come to is just if you're going to do it you might as well do it for the fast guy uh because at least the ones who are who have clicked i guess kirk doesn't qualify for this and neither does brady or tony romo but it's a you know like if you're going to do it you might as well do it for somebody quick like uh take dj shockley and play him on madden in certain situations but um this to me, Arif was more about waving a flag. Hey, Kirk, we might be done with you. Then it was even getting a guy who has a super high chance to succeed. And I guess, so I wrote a little column each week. I write one for bring me the news. And what I wrote is basically like the nice thing about this draft is that it means 2021 is sort of the final fight of a marvel

movie like this is it and it's either going to go this way or not all the marvel superheroes either get killed by the villain unlikely or they uh that or they defeat them and save the universe right like that that's how it is it's either Kirk does something and goes into the playoffs and exceeds expectations for this year or he doesn't and this is a funny thing about analytics Twitter and everything else Arif is that every one of them will say like oh look QB wins can't evaluate a quarterback that way this is only a wins this is it I mean you win or you don't you win or you leave because you've done the statistic thing and it didn't get you very far and you've had good quarterback ratings good pff grades and it's meant

nothing uh so win something i i think that's sort of the the message to kirk cousins by drafting kellen mod yeah no i think so i think that the vikings don't draft kellen mod without um knowing that this is going to send i mean because k because Kirk Cousins was a fourth-round pick, right? Like he can't not be threatened by another quarterback coming in because that's exactly what he did. And so, for sure, I think that this is kind of a message without, at the same time, bringing in somebody who's immediately going to be able to – it's not like Jordan Love, right?

It's not going to immediately push Kirk and make him – because you can't – because Kirk can't just be like, wow, I don't think you guys believe in me. It's a third-round pick. Relax, right? But if it's a first-round pick, he'd be able to say, look, I just don't think I have the team behind me, right? So I think it's kind of the perfect balance of being able to send that message while also being able to genuinely develop a quarterback that you believe that, you know, they could have picked another quarterback that they probably believed more. And I think the reason they picked Calamond is because they liked him. Right. And so I think it balances, you know,

the message that you're sending to Kirk and also genuinely potentially improving your roster. You know, maybe, maybe this guy turns into nothing right or whatever, but if, if you're trying to find as many ways as possible to motivate Kirk to win, I mean, we saw what a first-round pick did for Aaron Rodgers. I mean, that team blew apart after that apparently. But, you know, turning in an MVP season after a quarterback gets drafted, I mean, you see that from like half an hour away.

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I know. I get iTunes reviews based on your appearances that are mad. I was like, look, I just brought him on. I didn't tell him what to say. All right, well, if we want the negative view of both of them, I think I could do it. So for Derrissa, I think the issue is, you know, you hear like in draft reports that, you know, there are concerns about him not finishing.

And I feel like it kind of undersells the issue for him. And the problem is I don't really care that much about offensive linemen finishing. I think it's, you know, as the PFF guys would say, overrated. But I think for Derrisa, it really isn't. And it takes a lot for an offensive lineman to play in such a way that I feel like I want them to do more. Like I feel I want them to play with more of a chip. And the reason I say this is because he just seems to stop about two seconds after every play,

which is pretty significant because a lot of sacks occur at the two and a half second mark. And so for him to stop, just seemingly stop, like not, I don't mean like pancaking a guy not finishing. Like if you never pancaked a guy in your life, you could still be the world's best offensive lineman. That's not what I mean. I mean that he will just become disinterested seemingly. I don't know what's in his heart or whatever, right? But he will seemingly become disinterested in the block and the guy will slip off the block and make the tackle or make the sack or hit the quarterback. And this happens a ton. i watched um and it wasn't just on um so the first game i watched was against miami because you know they had multiple draft picks um so that was worth watching but i also watched um uh against duke which i think they had uh they had one draft pick

a six round pick and then i also watched liberty because like what is he like against um a team that that didn't have any edge rushers drafted? And it was the same. You know, he just he did not attempt to finish the play. And it was infuriating to me. Like, I was shocked, right, because this is the sort of thing that offensive line coaches typically will just get on a guy forever for. You know, we saw that with Yadni Gajus last year, where offensive line coaches would leak to the media that they think he's soft, right?

We saw that with Andre Dillard a couple years ago, where people thought he was soft. And while Dillard went in the first round, most of the time, these offensive linemen get that knock, they fall further down draft boards than we typically see. And so for him to be drafted in the first round, despite this huge knock on his game, I was shocked by it. And so I was really curious about this. I asked around about this, because I was like, this is nuts to me, that this guy just won't, like, finish. He just, like,

gets in the way a lot of the time. And there's stuff I like about him, but that's not what you're asking me for. But, like, I asked, and they were like, well, you know, he played injured. He had a sports hernia the entire season. And, you know, I've never had a sport tourney. My understanding is that it is immensely painful to play for, right? When Adrian Peterson finished his 2012 season off a sport tourney, it was amazing, right, that he was able to do that. But for somebody to commit themselves to kind of playing without, like, finishing a play because of the injury, it makes you wonder if they're going to be able to fight through aches and pains when they play in the NFL. But in fairness to him, I went back and I looked at the 2019 stuff and it is a lot better, right? It's not perfect.

He still has issues finishing. It is a lot better in 2019. So I will give him that. But it was a huge concern for me that he didn't play tough. You know, it takes a lot, right? And this guy did that. So that's that. For Wyatt Davis, I think that, you know, he doesn't really move as well as you'd want for an NFL zone running guy. Like, obviously, they played a lot of zone at Ohio State, and he was able to do that. But in order to get up to the second level and win i just he doesn't seem to be able to get to his landmark quickly enough to be able to beat you know the really fast linebackers that you have in the nfl and so my worry is you know i think he's a good offensive lineman my worry is if you're going to keep running zone plays which you are you know

that's who you are right um if you're going to keep running zone plays you just you can't have an offensive lineman consistently be off the mark uh and so while i think that he's a good pass protector and that's good to have and that's better to have than a good run blocker, if you're going to base your offense out of your ability to run out of zone, you need to be able to get a guy to get to their spot. And if you can't get to a spot, that's going to cause a lot of problems. So those are the negatives for those guys. Again, you asked me to only be negative. I'm grinning over here because they didn't play Brett Jones ever, and you just described Brett Jones. He just drafted Brett Jones.

But that was the whole knock on him was that he, like, couldn't reach those linebackers and stuff. And I think all of us went, okay, fine, but, I mean, you're playing Dakota Dozier here. I mean, like, what are you doing? You know, like, that's, you know you doing you know like uh that's you know it's just like well i you know this uh this pizza is not good so i'll eat rat poison i mean it's like all right well you know that's maybe not the way choices that you're making but yeah right yeah you actively

chose to play someone who couldn't pass block at all because you needed someone to like you said reach linebackers um priorities were a problem last year at the guard position. So let me ask you this. What did they not do that you wanted them to do? Or that you think they should have? I would have liked a receiver that could compete as a receiver, right? Like, yeah, Smith-Marset, maybe he could turn into a deep threat. That'd be great.

But, I mean, very clearly they grabbed him and Nwongu to be kick return specialists that might also be able to do punt return. Very obviously, that's the point. The Vikings not attempting to shore up that wide receiver three position has just been – it wasn't catastrophic last year, right? But, like, it's always on the verge of catastrophe. And the Vikings, even last year, the Vikings were more efficient out of 11 personnel than any other position grouping or personnel grouping that they had. That was true last year, that was true the

year before, and that was true in 2018 as well. But they never do it, right? And that's part of the reason they're effective out of 11 personnels because they don't do it as often as their other stuff. But I'd like them to run an efficient offense, and it'd be much better and easier to run an efficient offense if you could trust your third wide receiver. So I would have liked them to grab her instead of like Chaz Surratt at linebacker, who I think you could have picked later,

and I think that if you didn't get him, you would have been able to get a pretty good linebacker anyway. I would have liked them to grab a receiver that would have genuinely been able to compete at that third wide receiver spot. What about not getting a corner, not only in the draft, but in undrafted free agency as well? I mean, I know a lot of the quality ones were, were eaten up in the draft so I can forgive them in the UDFA signings, but to take only one corner and convert them to safety when

you've got this impending problem with Gladney, a bunch of one-year contracts, I thought that was peculiar. Yeah, they have a lot of bodies at corner, so I can see why they looked at that group and said, how is this guy going to make, you know, the roster come, you know, the day of training camp? But like, if your sacrificial lamb is Harrison Hand, I think it probably gets, they probably should have grabbed a corner. Yeah. But I think it's just, they saw so many players in the roster that they liked that they didn't know who they were going to cut at the end of training camp. That might've been it. I think that's maybe incorrect thinking. I mean, the whole point, the whole reason that they drafted Mike Hughes in the first

place was because they had three corners hitting free agency in a couple of years. Well, in one year, they've got three corners hitting free agency, plus another corner that might never play in the NFL again. And so they might be fine-ish, I guess, for 2021. But given how long it takes corners, I guess in theory, to be effective in Zimmer's scheme, you'd kind of want to grab that guy early and just say, yeah, I'm sorry, Chris Boyd. You were great for a couple of years, but you're competing against a second-round pick.

Good luck. Hey, everyone. I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Ins our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do. Scout Logistics is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads.

And if you're wondering what that means exactly, well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America. And we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out ScoutLogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. I feel the same way about corner and there's like different worlds in my mind of how they could have gone about this whole thing and like not pick Derrissaw but instead you know traded up one spot and taking Caleb Farley or stayed where they are and taking him right and so you end up with this

potential lockdown corner for the future and then you trade up from the third to the second and that's where you end up getting your offensive linemen. So instead, you have Walker Little or something like that. It's one of the things that makes the draft so fascinating. But there's just so many other approaches that they could have taken. It was very surprising to me that they decided not to take any corner at all, even when you got to the fourth or fifth round. And like you said, have that guy compete with Harrison Hand and Chris Boyd and may the best man win. And then, hey, maybe you cut him and end up, you know, putting him on the practice squad or something, worst case scenario,

with someone like Hand or Boyd. Plus, we don't know practice squad situation this year. If they're allowing veterans on it again, that also kind of changes the game. Right. Yeah. Sam, you wanted to play a game at the end of the show, and you have not told me what it is, and you have not told Arif what it is. So why don't you go ahead? All right. Very good. I'm really excited. the end of the show and you've not told me what it is and you've not told a reef what it is so why

don't you go ahead all right very good i'm really excited so a reef knows this game from the football machine days this was a fan favorite we called it memory frenzy back on the old show but someone on twitter reached out and said you screwed up the name you got to call it name drop and i think now that we're on a new show we're going to rebrand the game as Name Drop. Here's the concept. There are five rounds. Based on random draw, you will get a position group and a division. Okay, a position group and a division. You will have five seconds, the three of us, in alternating fashion to name a player that fits the description. So, for example, you would say wide receivers from the NFC North. Each person has five seconds to name someone that fits the description. If you can't think of a name, you're out.

If you say someone that's wrong, you're out. This is the classic, like, people yelling at their radios kind of game. And, Matthew, I can see you rolling your eyes. You're like, this isn't going to work. This is going to be horrible podcasting. No, I'm laughing at you because this is the exact type of game that I expected you to have. Usually we would come up with some, we would, like, infringe copyright and put some, like, fun game show music behind this. I don't know if we can do that here. But here some like fun game show music behind this.

I don't know if we can do that here, but here's how we're going to play it. Five rounds. I want you, Arif, give me a number, one through five. Four. Matthew, give me a number one through seven. One. Okay. So it was four and it was one. So the first prompt, you're going to have to edit out some of these.

Are we just yelling these out, like either one of us? We go in turn order, I think, right? Yep, there's an order. So the prompt is defensive backs, current or former, from the AFC North. Defensive backs from the AFC North. Arif is the guest. We'll start with him. You have five seconds to name a player.

There are no repeats. Ready, set, go. Artie Burns. Do I have to go next? Collar, you're next. Oh, okay. Denzel Ward. Ed Reed.

Joe Hayden. Rod Woodson. Drake or Patrick. Marcus Peters. I don't know. I guess I'm out. Okay, so now it's just a reef and me. Trey Waynes.

Marlon Humphrey. Mackenzie Alexander. Jesse Bates. Polamalu? Trey Polamalu? Did we say that? We did not say that. Ike Turner. I got nothing. I got nothing. Arif wins this game pretty much every time.

This game's a lot of fun. You'll appreciate it. It's the same winner every time. Okay, Arif, give me a number one through five, not four. Two. Quarterbacks and caller, give me a number one through seven, not one. Seven. Okay.

Quarterbacks from the AFC West. Arif, you scored, so you go first. Patrick Mahomes. Drew Locke. Oh, Steve Bono. Sorry. It's Matthew's turn. My bad.

Still going Steve Bono. Drew Locke. John Elway. Trent Green. Cody Bridgewater. Alex Smith. Brody Croyle. Matt Castle.

Phillip Rivers. Tyler Thigpen. Dante Culpepper. Oh, wow. Tyrod Taylor. I'll go um wait did you just say Dante Culpepper yep oh okay uh I'll go with uh David Hollis Derek Carr oh um to Marcus Russell oh that's good um let's see uh Elvis Gerbach. Terry Bradshaw. Did he play for the Raiders?

No. No. Dang it. He was a Pittsburgh Steeler. Dang it. I thought he played for the... Okay. Normally a Pittsburgh Steeler.

I don't think he had a hilarious end of career team. That would have been fun, though. Which is a shame. Yeah, it is a shame. Joe Flacco. I'll go with Brian Greasy. Brock Osweiler. Steve Berline.

Paxton Lynch. Oh, Paxton Lynch, that's good. Oh, did you just say Osweiler? Okay, let's see. Oh, Gary Kubiak. Oh, good one. Gopher legend, Adam Weber. Jay Cutler.

Christian Fonder. Tim Tebow. gopher legend adam weber jay cutler uh christian ponder tim tebow oh um kyle orton how about uh peyton manning um oh did collar just cut out? No. Oh, no. Collar drops out, and Arif wins by default. Unbelievable. Oh, crushing loss there. Yeah, sorry. I just pushed the button. I had my finger on the mouse. So, well.

An unfortunate way for Arif to get the win there. Yeah, a TKO, technical knockout. Yeah. Arif, pick a number one through five. I feel like quarterbacks could have gone on a really long time. Yeah, it could have gone on for a while. Okay, receivers from which division? One through seven, caller.

Four. Receivers from the AFC East, Arif goes first. Wes Welker. Am I next? Eric Moldes. Yes. Julian Edelman. Zay Jones.

Chris Chambers. Greg Camarillo. Ooh, I like that. Devonta Parker. Jarvis Landry. Denzel Mims. Randy Moss. Mike Wallace.

He's a dolphin, right? Yeah, he was. Mike Wallace? Okay. Sure he was. Stefan Diggs. Did someone say that? No.

John Brown. Andre Reid? Cole Beasley. I should be able to nail some Bills receivers, yeah. Oh, no. Robbie Anderson. Whew. Former Dallas Cowboy also, Kevin Williams, B's punt returner and slot receiver in 1998.

Lavernius Coles. How about a former Cowboys Terrell Owens? How about Brian Hartline? Hmm. Oh, boy. I think that's going to be a five. Yep. Yep.

Wayne Corbett. How about Marty Booker? Who the hell is Marty Booker? Marty Booker. Former bear and dolphin. Okay. Yeah, sure. Fine.

I feel like that's a delay of game. Plaxcope Arrest. Yelling, who is that guy? That was a fair question. Quinn Early. Santonio Holmes. Steve Tasker. I'm going to get annihilated.

Gabriel Davis. The Bills ones are a lot. Gabriel Davis is a good one. How about James Lofton? Danny Amendola. That's good um let's see uh uh brandon lafell uh troy brown uh lee evans chris hogan stevie johnson i was to go in that direction. Mark Clayton. Let's see.

No, not Robert. What was his name? Not Robert Brooks. Robert Woods. Robert Woods. That counts. I got that in there. Sammy Watkins.

Billy Brooks. That was the guy. Bill Brooks. I'm out. A point for Tom, thanks to his Buffalo Bills background. Okay, that's enough of that, I think. But that was fun. That was good. Let's never do it again.

I'm just kidding, Sam. Let's see your face. That was so sad. You just shot me. It's so much more fun to give you a hard time about the games than the games. I'm going to cry after this. No. It's a fun game, okay?

I want you to like it. I want you to like me. This is historically – Arif knows this too. This is historically an issue I have of giving people a hard time for too long or too much. And then like, they think I'm serious. And then it's, you know, I actually, quick story. This is my wife, my current wife and only ever wife. We, when we first met, she played basketball in college and I was a hundred percent joking i was just like man they still let women do that and i was like i mean right come on like i'm not serious she thought i was serious

and um so we started off on a bad foot in that way and i had to clarify that i do believe women should be allowed to play sports well i'm glad i'm glad that you put that out there, Collar. Okay, tiebreaker between Arif and Collar will make it very, very niche, very specific. NFC East, only current running backs. Okay, is Jalen Hurts a running back? No, how about this? You can have Ezekiel Elliott. I want Tony Pollard because of the missed tackle.

Okay. That's all I want out of this game is that I get Tony Pollard. Okay, I'll take Ezekiel Elliott. Okay, Saquon Barkley. Crap, I'm out. No, let's see. God, I can't remember any of the Philly running backs. Jesus.

Me either. Antonio Gibson. Damn it. That was who I was going to go with. I've got to think that Alfred Morris is still somewhere, right? He says only current. Only current. Yeah, but he's got to be somewhere, right?

No. That guy played forever. You can't just take a guess. Who is Philly's running back? Little guy. That little guy. I'm out. I don't know who Philly's running back? Little guy. That little guy. I'm out. I don't know who Philly's running back is.

Miles Sanders is the one you're looking for. Miles Sanders. Okay. All right. They have, like, four running backs on the roster. Thanks for being irrelevant, Philly. Oh, Boston Scott. He who had one big run.

Was he the little guy I'm thinking of? I think you're thinking of him, yeah. Yeah, I think I was thinking of Boston Scott. Wow. Yeah. And they just drafted the guy, Kenneth Gainwell. Congratulations. Your prize is what we pay you every time for this, no matter what.

Great. Cool. That's a decent prize. Good job, Areva. Thank you, Areva, for all of your time. And, Sam, that was fun. I'm just messing with you. He hasn't taken it to heart yet.

No. You're going to have to reassure him a couple more times. No matter when we do this, he doesn't know whether to be hurt or not. Like when it comes to a golf shot, he'll hit one and be like, wow, that was embarrassing. And then he'll be like, oh, yeah, sorry. It's like, no, it's fine, dude. We all suck. Like, it's okay.

Everyone's bad. You're too vulnerable. I'm a little too good at playing the Margaret card. I act sad no matter what, and I make you feel bad about it. All right. Well, that'll be fun to work with for the rest of our lives at Purple Insider, and we'll catch you later, Arif. Thanks for coming on, buddy.

All right. See you around.