Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How do we know who's shining in Vikings training camp? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans questions, from draft classes that have an instant impact, to how reporters know that a player is emerging during training camp, to which Vikings players could play on the opposite side of the ball, to whether the NFL needs a lottery system rather than letting teams tank for No. 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you. And this is another fans-only podcast because I have so many great questions to get to. So I'm going to waste no time and dive right into our questions. You guys know how this works. You send your questions to me either through Twitter, DM, at Matthew Collar, or through email if you go to purpleinsider.com and use the contact us, I throw it in the Google doc. And then we have a fun conversation where I read your emails and then react and try to give answers to your questions or your hot takes or your predictions, whatever you want to throw my way, including conspiracy theories as well, which, you know, I think we'll

get into in a couple of these episodes of people wondering, you know, how we got here and what's next and all these things to come. So any of your football theories, feel free to send them my way. And then if you can do me a small favor and just go to that iTunes or a Spotify or whatever, use, give a five-star review if you can and, uh, leave a comment. And I would really greatly appreciate that if you enjoy these episodes. It helps for other Vikings fans as we get into training camp to find the episodes and find the show. So thanks so much for doing that. And let's jump right in. Let's first open the diet, Dr. P.

As always. Diet Dr. P, as always, and 100-degree days, no matter even if you have AC where you're podcasting, you still need a very fresh Diet Dr. Pepper. All right, our first question, this comes from at Devin Rubink on Twitter. What are some of the draft classes Vikings or elf elsewhere that have made an immediate significant impact on the team? Most obvious I can think of is the 2017 saints for the Vikings. The 2012 class stands out. Of course, Adrian Peterson carried that team, but I don't think they go from three to 10 wins without their rookie

contributions that season. And what are some thoughts in training camp that make a new player stand out, whether it's a rookie free agent trade acquisition, what do you see that makes you think this could work out really well? So, yeah, I, I was going to go right to the example that you used of the New Orleans saints, but also, you know, I would say that immediate reaction, immediate impact, it doesn't necessarily have to be the rookie year. It can be right after that, as we saw from the 2015 group, where all of a sudden, Stefan Diggs, by 2016, is an emerging star player. Or Eric Hendricks in 2015 had some ups and downs,

and then by 2016 he is in that same category of somebody who is making it very clear that they're going to be a star in the league. And Daniil Hunter flashed a little bit early on, and then, again, second year really started to show up. So the 2015 Vikings class comes to mind for me right away. The saints certainly does. Um, I'd have to go through, uh, I have not memorized and maybe you all will be disappointed with me every single draft class ever. Um, but, uh, you know, I, I think that it is a rarity though, right? Like it is a rarity that you end up with this happening right away.

But usually you can kind of get a hint in that first year that it's going to be something different or that it's going to be something not good, like right away. And then this sort of ties into your other question. Like we knew that the 2016 draft class was just not going to work out because Mackenzie Alexander couldn't get on the field and Laquan Treadwell was, he was active, I think in the first game, but then inactive. And when he was active, he couldn't get in the game and they were playing like Charles Johnson was his name, uh, that was playing over, uh, you know, Laquan Treadwell. So yeah, I mean, usually you can get a pretty quick idea and I can

look through maybe like best drafts or something recently in NFL history I'll google that while we're talking here and just uh start to answer your your second question because how we can tell it's a very simple method and this is going to you know, a lot of the things that we do, not complicated. There's no dark arts to covering a training camp. It's who makes plays. If you go out there and make plays in training camp practices, it's against NFL players and NFL starters. And the coaching staff is going to notice, and we're going to notice, and you're going to get opportunity if you can do that because those practices, and I know that Kevin O'Connell is going to dial them back maybe a little bit, but I think they're going to be intense. They're always intense. I mean, even

the players who know they're on the team, they're not out there to just walk through and wait for the regular season. Guys like Harrison Smith, guys like Adam Thielen, they want to make big plays in practice. I mean, they want to make big plays in practice. I mean, they want to shine. They want to show up people. They want to show everybody who came out to see them in the stands that they can make great catches and that they can burn guys on routes and stuff. And, you know, if you're somebody who looks like they're going day to day here, I'll give

you an example of like Brian O'Neill, somebody who day to day is out there practicing against Daniil Hunter. And you're watching that going, you know what? That guy is holding his own against Daniil Hunter. And Daniil is practice like you play definition guy. I mean, he's going a hundred percent. And if you're covering Justin Jefferson, well, say Andrew Booth jr. If we're watching him and he's covering Justin Jefferson pretty well, we're going to notice that. And then they'll probably talk about it as well. I mean, as much as we give athletes a hard time about cliches and things like that, if they're impressed by somebody, they're probably going to tell you about it because they're going to give that guy some

recognition if we ask. And I'll give you a good example there that, you know, Terrence Newman told me about Delvin Cook in his first training camp. He said, you know, I kind of ran into him on a particular play and I was like, wow, man, like you really pack a punch. He was saying that about, you know, Delvin Cook and telling me this story. So he was really impressed with the way that Delvin handled himself and his quickness. And then I think it was Adam Thielen said right away, we knew that this guy could be a star in the league. And as a reporter, you try to parse through that, but it matched up with what I was seeing. So you kind of match up what you're seeing and then what they're saying, and you get a pretty good idea of, all right, this guy could be pretty special.

This guy is really standing out. And, you know, you end up just putting together all the pieces. Do we get fooled sometimes? I would say that yes, occasionally. And the fringe guys are the hardest because they're playing against, like, you know, they're playing against the other fringe guys. And so somebody can have a really good training camp or a really good preseason game or something. And you write about it. Well, this guy's standing out and this guy's making plays every day and right, but he's doing

it on the third team. And that might not mean much to them. And if they believe that that person who's standing out can play against better competition, they're going to move them up. And that's why the biggest part of our reporting, it seems like in training camp is often who's on the first team, who's on the second team, where are the reps coming from? Because those are really indicative of where people stand on the roster. And sometimes they'll give a guy a first team rep or second team rep to see if he's there yet. And they'll evaluate it based on that. It doesn't always have to mean like they're going to make that guy a starter. It might mean how far is this person away? And so we'll write, oh, they got first team reps, but that doesn't always mean. So you kind of have to take the context of it, but that's kind of the accumulation of things that you gather to try to figure out, all right, who's standing out, who's having trouble, who's falling behind in training camp. You watch those battles, you watch who's getting beat on a daily basis. And I mean, you

know, you see like there'll be interior offensive linemen that you watch day after day and they're having a tough time and you're going, I don't know if this is going to work when you get to the regular season. And then it comes to fruition last year. A good example, Cam Dantzler was just struggling, struggling in training camp, struggling in preseason games. And that was a real thing that they trusted Bashad Breeland more. So, um, I, I don't think I gave you a great answer on the immediate draft classes. I'm sure there have been some in recent years, but it's hard to go through like everyone. It's a rarity though. I would say it's one of those things that every year, maybe one team gets a draft class that impacts them a lot right away. So for example, I have a PFF article here from last year on the 2021 draft and who did the most damage in terms of wins above replacement from the 2021 class.

And the number one class was New England because they drafted their starting quarterback in Mac Jones. But also Christian Barmore, who I remember us talking about a lot, actually played really well for them last season and had a lot of pressures and they got some contributions from some other guys as well. Houston was next. And that's sort of funny because like, well, when you got a quarterback, you're going to get like a wins above replacement because if they play even decently, then that counts pretty for a lot, right? Like if Davis Mills is decent, he's going to be worth a lot more than

a replacement level quarterback, but that doesn't mean he was great. Um, Kansas city after that, they got Creed Humphrey was one of the best centers in the entire NFL right away. So usually it's kind of one guy that's really, um, you know, pulling it along and that just tells you how hard it is to get multiple guys, Detroit, Penny Sewell, Levi on was Zerky. And they had, I'm on Ross St. Brown is a fourth round draft pick who had 90 catches for them. Um, so yeah, every year there's a team that if you get basically two guys who contribute right away or even three, you're going to be considered one of the best draft classes. That just tells you how hard it is to draft and how rare it is to get multiple

good players and picks like the 2015 draft for the Vikings or 2017 for the saints. I mean that those are just super, super rare for anybody to get. So your odds are not very high. All right, let's move on to the next question here at average Vikes fan. If you could move one player from defense to offense and one player from offense to defense with the current Vikings roster, who would they be and what position would they play? I think the obvious answer for me would be that C.J. Hamm should go play linebacker

and that he should get himself a neck roll. I once suggested to C.J. Hamm that he get a neck roll, and he vehemently disagreed. But, you know, I think he needs to honor the old school fullbacks and do that. I mean, that man could play a lot of different positions. He feels like if he lost a little weight, he could be a safety, or he could be a linebacker, like a run stuffer, or even maybe put on a little and he could be a defensive end. Like, he plays special teams, fullback, tight end, running back, anything you need from C.J. Hamm.

But maybe the obvious answer here is Justin Jefferson is the best athlete on the field, the most flexible, which if you are his height, what is he, 6'1 or 6'2, with that flexibility where he can, here we go, football, flip his hips and things like that he would make an unbelievable corner I mean I think he would be like Darrell Revis level cornerback because not only is he able to mirror what the wide receiver is doing because he has that rare flexibility and footwork but also hands and contested catch ability are just out of this world for Justin Jefferson.

So if he played the other side of the ball, he would be a clear cut superstar. Now, defense to offense is a little harder to figure out. I mean, would Eric Hendricks make a decent running back? He does have good speed. He's got good toughness. Maybe there's somebody who could play tight end. I've seen Daniil Hunter try to throw and catch a football. The answer is not Daniil Hunter. Like Daniil Hunter is a man that needs to be running after the guy with the football in his

hands, not the guy who's trying to catch the ball. Like one of the big guys being a goal line back would be tremendous. Harrison Phillips, Delvin Tomlinson, like those guys move incredibly fast for their actual size. Gosh, I think like Chaz Surratt played quarterback in college, so backup quarterback Chaz Surratt. But if you've seen him run like straight line speed, I mean, maybe there is a running back or something there for Chaz Surratt. And, you know, at this point, unfortunately, I mean, maybe there is a running back or something there for, for Chaz Surratt.

And, uh, you know, at this point, unfortunately they might as well try it because I don't know how, if he's getting on the field in any other way, that one's tougher though. Patrick Peterson has got to be an unbelievable athlete. I mean, even now, even at his age, catching the football, like I think he would be quick enough, quick twitch enough to run routes out of the slot and catch the ball i used to do that on madden i would just take the fastest cornerback because the corners would be faster sometimes and you just move them into the slot now it seems like everybody on madden's got 90 plus speed and it doesn't really matter and all the players are good has anyone else noticed this the way? That like the 99 club is great.

Congratulations. But I took the Houston Texans the other day and put Ryan Fitzpatrick on them and just beat the tar out of somebody on all Madden. Just because like every player is the same. If you grade every player basically really good and give all the guys 90 speed, you can make it happen. Just a complaint carrying over from our discussion the other day about how all the guys 90 speed, you can make it happen. Just a complaint carrying over from our discussion the other day about how all the Madden crates are basically the same these

days. But anyway, yeah, I think that those are kind of some of the answers. Maybe there's somebody who could kick or punt. If the Vikings sign Ndamukong Su, which they haven't, so it's gone a little silent on that, but if they were to, he's kicked a field goal in a game before. I think it was maybe a preseason game. He may have done a kickoff. I don't know. But, yeah, I think that you just look at the guys who have the most athleticism where Justin Jefferson and Patrick Peterson are both great basketball players, right?

I mean, they are top draft picks with elite relative athletic scores like these guys could play pretty much any position on the field you've seen justin jefferson throw the football my gosh the guy could throw the ball like 60 yards i mean he could do just about anything athletically i think he could play safety i mean that would maybe even be better than corner because of his height is playing safety where he's just ball hawking like Ed Reed back there. Um, it's pretty rare that you find defensive backs who have the type of ability that a wide receiver would have. Um, maybe Ed Reed and Drell Revis, like those guys are like that, but you know, I think that's what Jefferson would be. And Peterson would be probably a pretty solid wide receiver if he trained. So I guess those are kind of my answers there.

All right, next one comes from spardisjx. Sorry if there's some pronunciation to your Twitter name. I have a fans-only question. Would you be interested in seeing the NFL adopt a lottery system similar to the NBA where the first 10 picks are not necessarily predetermined? So my thing is not really, um, you know, I just, I'm not sure how it really works. Like, does it, does it really prevent tanking? It seems to actually kind of encourage teams to try not to win because if you make the playoffs and you miss that lottery, like you have no chance, but you also, if you make the playoffs, I'm sorry.

Yeah. If you make the playoffs, you have no chance to win if you're the eighth seed, but if you miss the playoffs, then you have a chance to win a great player in the lottery, even if it's a small chance, but the eight seed versus the one seed is no chance in the NBA. So I don't know how that really has changed anything. There's a lot of NBA teams that still tank. The Philadelphia 76ers did the process during the lottery era and they got Joel Embiid and he's pretty good, right. So I feels like in the NHL and in the NBA, they've tried to turn it into extra drama and turn it into, Hey, we got this one night where we do this crazy lottery and it's so exciting and everything else. And maybe back in the day,

and I'm not saying conspiracy theory here at all, but maybe they used to use it to put certain players in certain markets. I don't know that for sure, but the frozen envelope thing or Shaq going to the Orlando Magic, who knows if those things were a little predetermined by the NBA. Certainly, Connor McDavid was not predetermined to go to Edmonton by the NHL. We can pretty much guarantee that was not rigged by the national hockey league. But, you know, I think that teams are going to maybe try harder to make the playoffs when they know that, okay, like you have two choices. You could try to get in the playoffs and there's a chance that you go seven and 10 and you just come up short, but you didn't sell off all your players

and you gave it a shot and you played competitive football games, but you didn't sell off all your players and you gave it a shot and you played competitive football games down the stretch. Or, Hey, you know, if we missed the playoffs by one game, that's actually good for us. It's like tanking on the bad end is always going to happen because those teams can't actually win. That's the weird thing. When people say they're anti-tanking, like I get it. You should try to win football games because it's disrespectful to players' careers and everything else and coaches and so forth to try to set up your team to lose. But a lot of times teams have no other option. Like the Miami Dolphins just ran out of players and like, what are they going to do? Are they going to sign a bunch of free agents and overpay them on long-term contracts

and still lose anyway? A much better idea to just run Ryan Fitzpatrick and a bunch of other randoms out there and win four or five games and try to draft your franchise quarterback. In fact, they should have run someone worse out there at quarterback. So they could have won fewer games. They should have played Josh Rosen the whole year. What did you get out of winning those handful of games with Ryan Fitzpatrick? You got Tua instead of Joe Burrow. That's what you got. I don't think tanking will ever go away in sports when the mentality of fans, and there is nothing wrong with this at all, is pretty much championship or bust.

I mean, you would enjoy an 11-win season for the Vikings, but if they lost in the first round, you would go, what was that worth? What does it matter? It's championship or bust, right? So as long as they're thinking that way and front offices are thinking that way and windows are tight,

teams are going to play and make decisions to rebuild and try to get high draft picks. And I think all you're doing by putting in a lottery is incentivizing better teams that are closer to being competitive, actually dropping back on purpose or not necessarily wanting to reach the playoffs for their fan base and instead wanting to get a higher draft pick or have a potential. Because think about this. Let's say Arch Manning is as great as Arch Manning is or as they think he's going to be, right?

Let's say he's the next Andrew Luck, let's just say. Well, when that year comes along, if you're the team that is eight and seven going into the final week, final two weeks, and if you win these next two games you're in and if you lose them, you're out. I mean, there's a lot more incentive to lose them than there is to win them, to get the higher draft pick and to try to get that one chance to get your franchise changing quarterback.

So I don't know that it's a good idea for the NFL. I don't know that it's ever been a good idea for any league. But of course, you know, you have those games that used to happen in the NBA where like two teams or was it the NBA? I mean, I guess you could run into it anywhere where the winner of the game actually gets penalized. If two teams that are really bad are playing each other on that last day of the season. Um, but I'm not sure there's ever been a really good solution.

Uh, there's been hilarious solutions that have been suggested, like, why don't they play a game or something, play an extra game, and the winner gets the first overall pick? I don't know. I mean, are you really, as a player, going out there and playing hard to try to get your team the number one pick who is going to replace you on the team? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. There's been lots of ideas. And to tell you the truth, I haven't really liked any of them. Maybe at some point there will be pressured to join the crowd, but the NFL doesn't have to join the crowd. I it's probably more exciting for them to, to know who's going to be that top pick. And for that to be a narrative throughout the season, who's going

to get them, who's going to suck for luck, right? Which the Vikings almost did, and then they didn't. So that's kind of how I feel about that. I just don't find it to be necessary. This comes from Andy via email. Fans only question for you. I feel like defense has evolved a ton in the last 10 years to try to adapt to the passing game. Everything from personnel styles from 4-3 to 3-4

to nickel dime quarter etc as well as schematic changes single high cover three like seattle double a gap blitz too high safety heavy zone man to man i'm wondering in your opinion what you think the next big evolution of defense will be i feel like whatever it is will be able to counter all the motions that offenses are trying to use to uncover the defense and create mismatches. Side note, I drink regular Pepsi and have wanted to move to diet pop, but have never found anything good enough going to give diet Dr. Pepper a try. Well, you know, Hey, look, diet Dr. Pepper, you could see it working. The sponsorship is coming, but I But I personally stopped drinking the regular soda

because I was just drinking way too much and it wasn't good for me. And the reason I went with Diet Dr. Pepper was just that it tasted more like a regular soda than anything else. So there's my advice on that. But to your question in the innovations in defense, I think we're starting to see it with the Vic Fangio and Brandon Staley stuff that the innovation that is underway presently is teams not bringing any safeties up to the box to stop the run that teams are essentially saying we're going to stop the run

with our big guys. And this is very much Vikings. We're going to play both of our safeties back. We are possibly going to use a third safety as the box player, where it ends up being like a hybrid type of safety linebacker box player. That's on the lighter side and on the coverage side of things. And we're going to live with whatever you're able to do in the run game. And with the Los Angeles Rams, for example, I mean, A'shaun Robinson was absolutely huge for them. Just a big run stuffing guy in the middle. And he allowed them to kind of do whatever they wanted to do in the backend because they didn't have to worry about getting plowed over. And this is where personnel allows you to be innovative more than anything, because if you can have one guy who's very good at

stuffing the middle and then Aaron Donald, who blows up run plays like crazy, then you don't necessarily have to put an extra guy up in the box or, you know, you play that, you know, cover one where you just have one safety back. There are still some teams that play that a lot and get very aggressive at the line of scrimmage. And they try to live with the big plays they allow knowing that they're going to get turnovers and knowing that they're going to get sacks and knowing they're going to shut down the run and try to force teams to get in those long situations so if you get stuffed on first down it's second and 11 and

then everything is more difficult from there there's not like one way to do this. It does seem, though, teams are leaning more toward the lighter personnel. And when the Vikings drafted Brian Asamoah, Kweisi Adafomenta made a comment about how like this is a modern player. This is a modern linebacker who weighs 215 pounds, and he's basically a safety slash linebacker who weighs 215 pounds and he's basically a safety slash linebacker and he moves fast and he can cover and he can run down guys in the running game but he's not necessarily that old school thumper type of linebacker he's very light he kind of looks like a running back when you see him out there running around with the other guys he doesn't look like he's the size of a linebacker but that was once also the case for Eric Hendricks.

And that might be another part of it too, or we could see it swing back the other way. Like it's always sort of swinging and swaying back and forth on defenses and always kind of changing. And maybe at some point, if teams are really succeeding in the ground game and that's like a counterpunch is, well, we're going to really develop our run game. I mean, this actually might be kind of a San Francisco thing, right? Like finding ways to really develop the run game because everybody is so focused on, you know, playing a dime package or playing two safeties deep. Think about San Francisco in the NFC championship against green Bay. Like that was San Francisco saying, Oh, okay. You want to pretty much play entirely to shut

down our passing game. We're going to run and run and run and run and win the game. And we saw some teams do that to the Vikings last year, where it's like, we can still win a football game by just running over you. And they showed that they could do it so if teams fly too close to the sun if they're going to get pulled back a little bit by offenses starting to innovate with the running game and you know there are teams in the league and i've heard this from some people where the the san francisco 49ers have this just very like unique and robust running attack and they've got all sorts of different things that they do misdirections and using players in different situations trent williams

going in motion and the rams can be this way too but there are other teams who just like well this is our this is our run scheme and the vikings were kind of like this but delvin cook was really good and they were good at executing it but it was was like outside zone. And if we mix in some gap or something else, you can even see this in the numbers. It's like outside zone is what we are. And we're going to do this. And I wonder if we'll see a little more cleverness with Kevin O'Connell in the running game for this year,

but that might be the like punch counter punch that we have to deal with. As far as the motions, they've already started answering that with with rules and with keys and reads where teams have started to pretend that they're showing you their coverage and then switch it up and teams have started to also create these different rules of when somebody goes in motion i stay stay here or you go, or, you know, if they go an out route, I go with them. If they go a vertical route, you go with them. And so it's like a complicated dance that defenders have to do with those motions and stuff. And I remember Anthony

Barr telling me that you pretty much just have to play your defense the way that it's designed, but you have like all these things moving around in front of you, but you just have to play your defense the way that it's designed, but you have all these things moving around in front of you, but you just have to count, like, my key is this guy. He's receiver two on this play, even if he started over there. So teams have put a lot of effort into this in recent years, and I think what you always see, and we already started to see it last year, is the effectiveness of play action went down a little bit, and the effectiveness of maybe action went down a little bit and the effectiveness of maybe

the motions at some point is probably going to go down a little bit as more and more teams study it, focus on it and try to counter it. And then, you know, how will they take advantage of that? The other way too, is just blitzing all the time, which the Ravens have done in the past and Tampa Bay has done in the past. I think I read a stat that Tampa Bay was blitzing like 40% of snaps. That's another way because you can do all these motions and everything you want, but if somebody's in your face in less than two and a half seconds, it's pretty hard to execute anything if you've got a really effective blitz game. So every team is a little different. And I don't know if that's like a clear cut answer of what the future is going to look like, but I think it's probably, it's probably lighter.

It's probably maybe a little more focused on, you know, having multiple or more multiples of defensive backs that we'll see more of those dime packages. But I don't think with the NFL's running games that you can ever go completely away from those situations where you have to stack the box. But that's a really good question. And I am going to be very interested to kind of see where that goes. And there are some people who say, you know, college just has some more answers to these things. But Mike Zimmer had a pretty good argument against that.

Mike would say that, you know, some of the college defenses that are designed to stop, you know, these motions and the different things offenses are doing, like they're just not really adequate enough against NFL quarterbacks who can throw it into tight windows. And I buy that. And, uh, you know, the Vikings did bring in the guy though, from Alabama, uh, Carl Scott last year to coach defensive backs. And I think he might be in Seattle this year. So maybe we might see that where there's just more college strategies for defenses to stop some of the motions and spread stuff than there was before. That's always been kind of a pipeline for the NFL.

All right, this comes from Decal2 on Twitter. Who's going to have a better year, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Jr. or Smith, Marseille. Okay. So there's one Smith that I, that I'm not really sure who that is like TJ Smith or somebody there's a, there's kind of a random play. I'm gonna have to look this up. There's a random Smith on the, on here. Well, Harrison Smith will probably have a good year. Uh, he's one of the guys that I would just go into every season, the most confident that he'll have a good season because I don't think the age bug is going to get him. Uh, I think it's more of a slow decline eventually for Harrison Smith. Oh, Ty Smith, the corner and TJ Smith, the defensive lineman. So put those two at the bottom of the list. And of course, Zedarius Smith, if healthy, should have a very good season.

I think we should probably put it at like 12 to 14 games that Zedarius Smith playing would be a victory for them considering how much they're paying, which is not a lot on the salary cap, only a couple million dollars. But Z'Darrius Smith's health concerns, I would say I'm a little nervous about that. But Irv Smith Jr. is probably the one I would put behind Harrison Smith because I just think that Irv Smith Jr. with his age can pick up where he left off. And he's a guy that we should look at as having a very good training camp and, and going forward and having the season that he was expected to have. I mean, that might be on the optimistic side, but I don't see any reason why that wouldn't happen. Like he, he came back earlier than expected to work out in mini camp and it is a new offense, but he's had to learn new offenses before.

It's kind of all the same stuff of like moving around, having to block a lot, being, you know, a weapon where you can line up outside and get reads on the defense and things like that. And he was somebody most importantly, maybe that Kirk Cousins was, you know, just comfortable throwing the ball to. So I think I would go Smith, Harrison Smith first, Irv Smith Jr. second. And then it gets a little harder because you've got Smith-Marset, who I think is one of the most interesting players to watch during training camp. I'm thinking that that will be an article at some point. It's just the most interesting players. And Amir Smith-Marset has to be at the top of that list as somebody who has a chance to threaten KJ Osborne for a third

wide receiver position, mostly because Smith-Marset profiles as more of an outside wide receiver than Osborne, who leans more toward being a safety. But Smith-Marset also has to, you know, master the playbook and everything else, which, you know, master the playbook and everything else, which, you know, he's not a rookie this year. So he's got kind of that profile of someone who could have a similar emergence to KJ Osborne last year. And then, you know, Ty Smith, TJ Smith, if those guys make the roster be pretty surprising. So those guys go at the bottom, but that's a that's a fun question and I did not realize how many smiths There were on this roster Excuse me next question

let's see a pie chart from at swerve and Mervin on Twitter a pie chart regarding Prospects and the players that they become how much of the end result of how good a player becomes is baked into the prospect and how much is a result of the circumstances was russell wilson as an example always going to be good and nobody knew it or was it a result of how the seahawks and their people developed him has the success oh yeah yeah okay so yeah all right um that's a Um, that's a good one. That's a good one. Good one. Swerve and Mervin. Um, yeah, let's see. Well, I think that, you know, something Kirk Cousins said, answering a question of mine at one point really stuck with

me. I thought it was very insightful when you, Kirk, I asked him about like development and like how much is on you, how much is on coaching. And he said, you just can't rely on coaching to make you better at football. You have to go do that yourself. Like you have to put in the work in practice every day. You have to put in the work outside of the facility, which is a lot for these players. And Kirk himself, improving as a thrower of the football when he first came into the league. These are things that you have to do. And that is my understanding of Russell Wilson, is he is about the most driven player you're ever going to find off the field. I do think that circumstances are important for guys who are kind of on the fringe, but Russell Wilson was a first round talent, high, high talent who got overlooked

because of his height. And I remember, I think it was Buddy Nix, the Bills GM who said, yeah, we would have drafted him if he was like three inches taller, but there had never been a quarterback who had great success at that height. And so we were just worried that it wasn't going to work out because of the guy's height and everybody made that mistake. But his arm strength is elite. His accuracy is elite. His work ethic off the field is elite. You know, all those things are top notch for superstar quarterbacks. I think that if Russell Wilson goes to a bad team, he turns them around and they're a good team. And, and, you know, maybe the proof is in the last few years when Seattle was a bad team and they still got 12 wins a couple of years ago. You know, of course as a fully developed quarterback,

but I think in almost any circumstance, Russell Wilson, aside from if he had gone to a team with a superstar quarterback, that would have been much tougher where he wouldn't have gotten any opportunity at all. So you have to get some opportunity to get on the field. But I think even then he would have shown in practice and in preseason games and things like that, that he had a chance to be a franchise quarterback and would have eventually gotten his opportunity and shine. I think someone who's that good is not going to be held down. If you're, I mean, if you're Stefan Diggs and you're a fifth round pick, like, you know, you've just got to shine. And, and he did. And you look at his skills and you look at his competitiveness and contested catch ability and all that.

Like that guy was so talented that he was not going to be held down regardless of circumstance. Stefan Diggs was getting in games and making plays and becoming a star receiver. I think it's the fringe guys where circumstance matters a lot more. So take, for example, like Eric Wilson. Eric Wilson is a UDFA guy who was actually a good Viking player and they liked how he could make plays, had some splash plays when he was here, fumbles, sacks, interceptions, and that he could play kind of a multifaceted role. He was good in coverage. He was good on special teams and stuff like that. He goes to Philly and gets cut.

And Philly didn't play a very complex defense and maybe didn't have the type of talent that the Vikings had when Wilson was here. And he just didn't do as well or didn't fit in as well. And they end up getting rid of him. Those are the guys where, you know, you can kind of overvalue sometimes if it's a right situation and then you think, well, this guy scored really well by PFF or our scouts or whatever. And maybe it's because the guy next to him was really good or all of the guys next to him was good. And he could just be like a cog in

the machine. You know, maybe this is like a Shamar Stephan point or something like where, when the Vikings were the number one defense, Shamar Stephan played pretty well and was nice and helpful for them. But as soon as they didn't have that anymore, he was just not a good player that that does happen a lot. Um, I think that's across pretty much all sports except baseball. Um, you know baseball. You have a basketball player where let's say you're a pretty good shooter, but if you don't have guys who can drive and kick on your team, you don't get many opportunities to shoot open threes. And open threes are pretty much a better predictor than year to year.

It's like what percentage do you get open? And I think that there's a lot of that for like number three wide receivers. For example, if you are the number three wide receiver on the Minnesota Vikings, and it's shocking that they have not done well in the past, but you should get more opportunity. And I think that that was really what happened with KJ Osborne last year is they had to go to 11 personnel and he gets more opportunity. Now Osborne improved and is a smart player and is a hard worker and all those things, but he needed opportunity. He needed circumstances to get his chance to show that he was a good player because otherwise, if there is a veteran wide receiver three, or he's asked to be more than wide receiver three. I don't know that we're

talking about him in the same way that we would normally be talking about him. And with, you know, this exists for every position, maybe except offensive line. I think it probably helps if you're playing next to another good offensive lineman, but I'm not sure how much, but it certainly does for defensive line. It probably does for secondary if you're a safety and you're playing next to Harrison Smith and you lead the league in picks and then the next year you don't, like Anthony Harris when he went to Philadelphia as well. There are a lot of circumstances where players impact each other. The most interesting to discuss is the quarterback because there's,

there's the conflicting things. Like in order to win, you have to have great quarterback play. I think that's just an absolute truth of the NFL today. It has to be great quarterback play. Can you manufacture that quarterback play for a young quarterback to succeed, like maybe say Mac Jones, or if it's not the right guy, is he just going to fail regardless? And, you know, I think that we could look at someone like Josh Rosen and say his circumstances were so bad and so forth, bad coaching. They fired their coach right away. And then he goes to Miami and they're tanking and there's not much of a chance there. And then the guy's just like out of the league at the same time, if there was something really there, uh, he probably would have succeeded and he probably would have pushed the top.

Um, so I, yeah, pie chart is tough on that because I think that, I think that it's probably like 80%, 90% or more, just how good the player is. And if he's really built for this, because a lot of times that's what it is, is somebody built to be an NFL player. Um, it's kind of like if you are a, a really good college is like, if you're a really good recreational golfer, that's not like going on the PGA tour, right? Like if you could shoot 72 out with your buddies, that is not like playing on the tour. So who's built for the tour? Can you play by all the rules? Can you handle the travel? Can you handle criticism? Can you handle pressure and all those things? It's just so different at the NFL level. So it's usually the caliber of prospect and how well

that player adjusts. And then the rest might be circumstances. And there's a lot of players in the middle of the league that fringe on a roster that on a great team, they might be able to fill a role and succeed. And on a bad team, they're in the USFL. I think that exists kind of across sports. That's a great question. Thank you, Swerve and Mervin. One more. Let's see. Mike via email. I have two fans only questions for you. I said one more, Mike.

I'm just kidding. I just listened to your Myths and Legends pod with Eric Eager. I enjoy your pods with Eric and I hear him on other shows like DC's sports junkies. My first question is as a person, uh, let's see, as a person who lives in Minnesota, is Eric a closet Vikings fan? Um, so he, yeah, he, he's from Minnesota, uh, but he, he lives in Cincinnati full-time working at PFF, but he is a, he's a Minnesota native and he grew up here. So he knows all the Viking stuff from here and grew up as a, as a

Vikings fan. Now he will tell you that he changed to being a chiefs fan at some point where he just kind of bailed when the Vikings were really bad and decided to root for the chiefs. But you know, when you talk about the Vikings, he just knows them so well. So fan of this team, fan of that team. I don't know. I mean, that all changes when you're like working with 32 teams like Eric does. And when you're analyzing 32 teams for his podcast and stuff like that, like fandom really changes at that point. But when you talk Vikings,ings there are few people who know it more encyclopedically than eric because he grew up here and he grew up rooting for the team um and and you said here uh the rest of the the question says almost always when he talks about the vikings he says they are hopeless and he sounds like a Vikings fan. Well, I think he's, yeah, I mean, somebody who has seen this franchise go through all the things that

they've gone through. Yes. There is a certain type of tenor that only people who grew up here or myself who have now spent a lot of time seeing it up close and spending so much time talking with all of you wonderful folks that you really get it. You really get what it is to follow this team, to cover this team, or in a lot of your cases, to root for this team. And Eric really understands that. It's one of the fun things about bringing him on the show. Your other question is, let's see, if you don't want to answer for Eric, here's a question for you. When he's on the Sports Junkies, I assume this is a DC's see, if you don't want to answer for Eric, here's a question for you. When he's on the sports junkies, I assume this is a DC radio show. Um, they always refer to him as Dr. Eager.

I've never heard you refer to him as doctor. So my question is, do you think he would have more or less credibility with your listeners if you call them doctor? Well, he has a PhD in math, so he deserves the Dr. Eric Eager for sure. The reason I don't call him doctor is usually just because we're friends. Uh, you know, we just know each other really well. And, uh, we've spent a lot of time, you know, going to WNBA games when he's in Minnesota or whatever else. And we've just gotten to know each other, uh, over the years. And both of us like love football and, you know, have great respect for what he does. Uh, I certainly don't think that it changes the credibility of somebody who, you know, his credibility is, is extremely high, extremely high within the league. I mean, he's working with, with the, you know, creating a data

science team for pro football focus that is influencing the way we view football. I mean, he's done incredible work, but he's also a really great friend. So I think I'm more casual with him than other people who aren't, don't know him as well. And that's part of it. Like him knowing all the history of the Vikings and all that stuff has made him a really great guest and a fun person to, to hang out with. But that's probably why I don't think it should change anything about what people think of

his credibility, whether he's doctor or not doctor. Um, but he, he earned that for sure. PhD in math is absolutely no joke. So look forward to him continuing to be on the show. So thanks for your email, Mike. And that is another fans-only episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it and continue to send those questions, continue to leave those five-star reviews so other Vikings fans can find the show as they get ready for and as we go into training camp. So thanks so much, and we'll talk to you all soon.