Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How much patience should Vikings owners give Kevin O'Connell?

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy answer fan questions, from the way we evaluate Kevin O'Connell this season and how much time the brass will get to see their vision through to why there's no more neck rolls Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome back into Circa. Hey, everybody. Welcome back in to Circa. Matthew Collar along with Brian Murphy here enjoying Las Vegas for a couple of more hours. And then I have to go cover the third preseason game, which I'm super jacked about. Murph, I just cannot have enough of that. Yeah, that is one thing for Traveling for the preseason game, I am morally against it unless J.J. McCarthy is playing. And since that ship sailed after the first preseason game,

here we are in Vegas for this. We are here for the Circa Million and Survivor contests. And the Circa Million is where you pick five teams against the spread, and the winner takes home a million dollars, which is awesome. But the Survivor Contest has even more of an upside, I would say, where there were four winners last year, and they took home $2.3 million each. You know what a Survivor Contest is. If you go 20-0 or you're the last person standing, then you win.

You have to sign up out here. So if you get a chance, I know that people take flights where you got to make a quick stop or something. Circa's a great place to go. Or if you have a couple of vacation days, feel free to come out here. It is one of our favorite places on earth. It is the easiest promotion I will ever have in my life is to talk about how we love Circa.

So CircaLasVegas.com, the place to check it out. Of course, you have to get in on this before the season starts. That should be obvious but worth mentioning. So Brian and I are going to answer some Viking fan questions. It's Friday mailbag day. It's Friday mailbag. I got a ton of mailbag questions, so I wanted to bring some of the most interesting ones to the show.

So I'm going to start out, and we're just going to answer all the way through, and then I want to hear you tell me who you think wins the Super Bowl just that's my Friday mailbag question to you okay let's start out with Jay Halata 316 says the measure of a successful season change with McCarthy's injury with Darnold under center for the full season, how should we define success? Brian, how should we define success this season for the Minnesota Vikings? I would define it in almost like two parts. The first four to five weeks of the season, as we discussed in our schedule breakdown, they have to remain relevant. They can't afford a two or three game losing skid going into the bye

after that game against the Jets in London. They need to be, I feel like they're going to be about 3-2 heading into that bye, and that's where the buzzsaw portion of their schedule comes in. To be successful, you want to be playing relevant games in December. I think they're going to be able to do that. I think they're going to toggle back and forth between 500 for most of the season, but that final stretch of games with Chicago, Green Bay, and Detroit at the end of the season is going to determine, obviously, not only whether the Vikings

are battling for potentially nine wins and maybe a wild card spot, but it's going to determine what the NFC North is going to look like, and I just think the stakes are going to be higher, certainly for the Packers and the Lions. I think the Bears are ascending, so I think this is the one year the Vikings can't afford the NFC North to be as strong as it is, and unfortunately it is. So you're looking at this as far as a successful season through how many games you win, which is how it's done in pro sports oftentimes. That's just a Diet Coke, by the way. By the way, there's no booze in there whatsoever. It's still 11.45 Pacific.

That may have been a little bit different the last time we were out here in December. 12 hours ago, too. Right, we won't talk about that. But I look at it as that there's other ways that this can be successful other than just nine wins, that there's a little bit of you-know-it-when-you-see-it type of success, meaning if Sam Darnold struggles. But a lot of other things happen that are good for the future players ascend players who you've spent a lot of money on look like stars for

you that you feel good about the coach feel good about brian floris where he stands because i don't think he's going anywhere wrong right i think well you don't think so i don't think he's going to get a head coaching job with the litigation right and uh what I don't think he's going to get a head coaching job. Not with the litigation. Right. And what Tua said and everything else, it's going to be pretty tough for him. If I feel like the entire team has the pieces in place to go forward with around J.J. McCarthy, then you can win seven games and have it still be successful. Now, I'm sure there are some people who would look at that or listen to that and say, what?

What are you? Are you a loser? Is this the participation trophy season? And unfortunately, in some ways it is. It has to be if that's the case. If they win seven and we're talking about how, hey, Ty Chandler's really a guy for them, that is a little bit of a participation trophy type of season. But I think that the overall sentiment when you get to the end of the year, did they battle under Kevin O'Connell?

Did the offense look better? Darnold could be a better version of himself ever, and they still win seven games based on this schedule. Do we feel good about a lot of the things that will matter going into 2025 rather than just looking at it like 8, 9, 10, or 7? If you're 6 or less, then everything went really wrong. If you're 6 or less, then everything went really wrong. If you're 10 or more, then everything went really right. In between there, I think that there's enough ambiguity of field goals,

fumbles, interceptions, tip passes, all the randomness that is the NFL that I could still walk away feeling good about what's going to happen next without them making the playoffs, without them getting to it above 500. And did those offseason bets and roster moves pay off? Yeah. Because that's obviously going to give the front office more credibility. Did Kevin O'Connell manage to avoid losing streaks, to avoid sort of soul crushing moments

in the schedule where you knew the season was over? Yeah, those are measurable. Those are measurable achievements beyond your win and loss record as well. You just, I think you have to go into this thinking, man, if they hammer and tong their way into a nine win wildcard season, feel great about it. If it falls a game or two short, but there's a momentum building, you take it for what it's worth. It's a transition year. Right. Yeah. I think if they get to 9 10 plus then it would be almost impossible to argue that it was a bad season if they're right there in the

playoff race if they're going to detroit with a postseason chance i just think there are other ways that don't have to be above 500 that would make you feel like it's the right track that they're headed on um so success is a little bit of a moving target I think for this team if it's not really good success uh skull 8084 can't imagine what those numbers might be uh says there's no way that KOC and don't get more time right not perfect by any stretch but given the constraints due to both ownership expectations and player injuries I feel they've acquitted themselves quite well so what he's asking is really connected to the contract extension bit of this that they deserve more time and I'm a little bit of two minds on this Murph because in one way if you go three straight

seasons with zero playoff wins there's not a lot of coaches that get many more seasons than that or big contract extensions at the same time this isn't just a win-loss thing we have to understand the entire context of what has happened here since these guys have taken over and where this thing appears to be going but how do you feel about what the ramifications for the head coach and GM could be if they don't have a great season and do they deserve more time if it goes badly again it all depends on optics I mean six wins would be they'd be very they'd be defending their lives essentially if with six wins but did the offseason bets pay off did the investment pay off is it building kind of a structure because you know next offseason

when Cousins contract comes off the books they're going to be flush with cash to spend did Kevin O'Connell manage Sam Darnold into serviceable play did he manage you know we don't have that anticipation of what will McCarthy show that has to also factor into how you evaluate O'Connell because so much of what it is is his quarterback whispering. So it's going to all be whether he can whisper Darnold into resurrecting his career. Six wins, bad breaks, missed field goals, a couple of unforeseen events, a weather game. You could mitigate it.

It's going to be awfully difficult, though. I think six wins is going to really put them on the spotlight because that means things went wrong. That means Darnold didn't play up to lower expectations. It means the offseason acquisitions didn't pan out. It means Brian Flores could only do so much with his defense. Then you have to make some painful evaluations. But I do believe seven, eight wins gets them, obviously, another chance to kind of reset.

And, again, you're right. Three straight years without a playoff win doesn't usually bode well, but there's a ton of mitigating circumstances in this market that have to be taken into account as well. So I was talking with Bill Michaels, you know, famous. Can I call him famous? He's famous in the Midwest, right? Bill Michaels, the talk host in Green Bay.

I was on his show, and he was asking me about, you know, the different teams in the NFC and talk about how I think Dallas is going to be better than most people think because it's always a circus in the offseason. Then when they play football, you realize the roster is pretty darn good. But what I mentioned to him was that the Packers, I think, have an advantage by not having owners, because there's no one to be reactionary that the football people are allowed to just plot out the football things on timelines,

which you have to work on in a league of 32 teams. You can't just go into an offseason and say, you know what, we're going to sign two big players. It's not basketball where you can just sign one or two big players and you're a completely different franchise it takes time to build these things up and i think that when the wilfs evaluate quacey and kevin o'connell they have to do it in through the lens of a timeline of when would it be right to really hold their feet to the fire with this and i don't think that's this year i'm not even sure that's next year and if it's not toxic and it's not ugly then see it through and there's been a lot of examples of coaches who had a couple of bad years and they got that opportunity to

build the whole thing in their vision and then it came to fruition i mean even kyle shanahan i there were injuries involved but two of his first three seasons are like four wins. I mean, he had two very bad seasons out of three to start his career there in San Francisco. Everyone would want him as the head coach. He's probably the best head coach or top five in the entire league. So with Kevin O'Connell, I think the key is go to the point where we know for sure whether it worked or not. And until you really can say definitively it worked or it didn't, then don't make any sort of rash decisions.

Yeah, and I don't think the Wilts are in a position right now. They don't strike me as making too many rash decisions. They made the obvious moves with Zimmer and Spielman. They made the obvious moves way back when with Leslie Frazier and Brad Childress. But I don't see a scenario where they're going to want to blow this up again and start over. I mean, they put a lot of chips in the middle of the table by betting young and innovative,

and this is going to say a lot about them if they pull the plug on that too soon. But again, you mentioned toxicity. You mentioned the ability or the inability of O'Connell to take a one- or two-game streak from turning into a four or five game streak, that's going to be on him to be measured as well. I agree, and I think that you can take a lot away from this if you're the Wills to decide how confident you are and maybe the length of an extension. If they win ten games, then you could say, wow, that was a heck of a coaching job.

And if they win three games, you could say, there's no way it was a good coaching job if you win three games. That's not possible. But anything in the middle, just keep going. Just keep going. How can you not evaluate Kevin O'Connell with a full season of J.J. McCarthy on your center? Otherwise, your whole plan and your whole vision is thrown out the window. I think in a rational world, you need two. Two full seasons of J.J. McCarthy, and by the end of those, you'll know.

But that's not the universe that we live in in the NFL and if you were to go this season and next season without making the playoffs then you're probably making a coaching change and that I don't always think that's the right way to go about it even though I'm sure that Vikings fans will feel like their days are being sucked away from them but this is the right way to get there nobody gets there quick uh even when you draft a great quarterback it doesn't usually happen quick the Kansas City Chiefs the roster they gave to Patrick Mahomes was built over years and the coach that they got was uh you know it took some time to get to that point so we'll see how they end up approaching it I think that this wouldn't be much of a discussion if Mark Wilf hadn't said publicly that there's no extension.

If he had not said that, then we would not be having this conversation. KUFulch on Twitter. I don't know. Got anything? KUFulch. I don't know how to say that. KUFulch. Yeah, okay, whatever.

You know who you are. If you met someone from the future well this is nuanced this is the question here if you met someone from the future would you want them to tell you if and when the vikings win the super bowl the answer could be 4 25 50 75 years or never into the future uh would you want to know the answer or would you want to live year by year not knowing if it's going to happen so if someone offered you the opportunity right yeah uh they offered you it's back to the future and doc brown comes back and says i got something to tell you about your favorite team that they're

going to either never win or they're going to win in the year whatever specific years would you want to know the answer or not that's fine if i were it is if i were able to win in the year whatever. These specific years. Would you want to know the answer or not? That's a fun question. It is. If I were able to look into the future about anything, I wouldn't necessarily waste it on what the Vikings are going to do. But I, as a fan and as somebody of a consumer of this unscripted entertainment, I would absolutely not want to know.

I want to go into every season hoping it it might happen bracing yourself for it not happening being scarred along the way but at least enjoying the ride how fun would it be to know this is the year they're going to go 14 and 3 this is the year that they're going to roll through the playoffs easily and we're going to stomp our way to a championship would that make you feel then all you want to do it's like Christmas then then you just can't wait till december 25th you're going to want to know the answer you already know the answer there is an in between here which i think would be knowing that it happens but not when when yes so you take the edge off however but you might be 80 years old that's the point right if you were getting to your 80s and you're going, is this going to happen or not?

In your lifetime, how about that? If that was going to be the answer, if you just said, if you go into the future, you know how long I live. So is it going to be in my lifetime? Then that answer I think I would want. But then you don't want the other answer. Because if they were going to tell you. You don't want too much certainty. Right.

If they were going to tell you, no, sorry, it doesn't happen in your lifetime. Then your lifetime may be shorter. But what's the but what's the point then what are we covering this for what are we talking about this for what you would just quit watching them and go watch unscripted entertainment it's all we've got left why would you not want to do that no way k you foolish we don't want to know the answers if we did then uh we would do something else and not play sports because that's if i knew the answers, I would plug in a few more topics first before whether the Vikings would ever win a Super Bowl. By the way, I think it's going to happen.

You think so? If the Red Sox and Cubs were able to end their curses, the Vikings will eventually win a Super Bowl. I agree. In my lifetime. In 2027, so keep subscribing to Purple Insider on the way there. You're predicting that, aren't you? Am I right? Yeah. I feel the same way that you're only as cursed as your quarterback situation

most of the time in football, and the New Orleans Saints are the team I always go back to because they were so cursed before Drew Brees, and then they won, and all of a sudden everything is different. And they've had horrible things happen to them. i know everyone's very sad about that in minnesota but they've had the minneapolis miracle happen to them the kyle rudolph touchdown the pass interference that wasn't and they can always go that's all right we want a super bowl that's correct uh and so someday i think it will happen for the minnesota vikings uh at jordan f on Twitter says, if you knew a rookie kicker

was going to turn into Justin Tucker, how early would it be acceptable to draft that kicker? So, Will Reichert, by the way. Again, another future truth teller here. Will Reichert has just been amazing in training camp. And everyone flinches when you say that. I know.

This guy, I am not kidding, is by far the best training camp preseason kicker I have seen since I've covered football. Hands down. It's not even close. Will Reichardt. And what round was he picked? Sixth.

That's what I was going to say. Sixth seems to be as high as you want to go. Justin Tucker, I don't know, fourth, if you knew they had that knowledge? I think that's what sort of Jordan is implying, is how early would it have been a good idea to pick reichard if he becomes the next justin tucker i think so i did a little math on this and the difference between justin tucker the best five years of his career and average was about eight percent higher than the average kicker which would put you unicorn right oh yeah all-time great which would put you at maybe a couple of kicks per year maybe three kicks per year above an average kicker

but when are those kicks but that's enough i mean that's some points i think the reliability factor and that's that's the distance i didn't even factor in because an average kicker was not as good from distance as Justin Tucker or as reliable I just went on pure percentage so if you can kick four five six more 50 yard kicks per year I think that's got a lot of value I might even pick that guy in the second round I know but a 50 yard field goal in the first quarter in October is not the same as a 48 yardyard field goal in late December with three seconds left in week 18. Okay, there's a different way to look at this, which is that we talked about the other day, the average points per game. And the difference between the 20th-ranked team and the

10th-ranked team was only two or three points. If those two, three points, now that's not per game. He's not going to make an extra field goal for an average kicker per game but a handful of points over a season could be the difference and there's also a belief and a trust factor that that guy going out there every time and what i didn't calculate was the difference between justin tucker and a bad kicker which is enormous knowing that you'll never have a bad kicker there's a lot of value in that I would go second round if you if you were going to tell me this guy will be the best kicker of all time because first round that's where you get Jefferson that's

where you get Derrissaw that's where you get McCarthy like you you need franchise changing players in the first but the second they drafted like Irv Smith Jr. in the second you think I would take Justin you think we're going to find a time in the next five years where we are going to have a kicker drafted in the first three rounds? It has happened. The way it's progressed in terms of their skill set and their strength and their distance. And the analytics to this as well,

because Sebastian Janikowski was a first-round pick. Roberto Aguayo, who was a massive bust, was a second-rounder. Yeah. So in this scenario, you're talking about a guarantee. I'm talking about, yeah, not past history. But to your point, and I see this with Will Reichardt, the kids are coming with these kicks. It's a craft now.

Kids grow up wanting to be kickers. That was never the case. He started in sixth grade going to kicking camps. That's different than any generation before. Than Fred Cox ending up with a flat shoe right and say why don't you handle it for the next 10 years right exactly i i do think the average kicker is going to just keep going up the average kicker right now is about 86 last season i think when steve christie retired the old bills kicker it was he was at 82 or 81 and they talked

about him as the highest percentage ever when he retired oh this guy was one of the great kickers of all time at 80 and now they're making him the average kicker so much more there will always be college kickers that come out that people are going to want that have unique skill sets but it will be an easier replaced position uh going forward let me give you another fun one. Actually, all of these are pretty fun. I thought we could have a good time here. Why are neck rolls no longer a thing? Silent177 wants to know, why are neck rolls no longer a thing? You may know better than me, but I think the only guess is that the technology has changed

to the point where there are better pieces of equipment to protect players from said neck injuries. This is a late 70s, early 80s. For those who don't know, you know, the old horseshoe kind of pad that would go over, I think it attached to the shoulder pads around the neck, I think was an early indicator to prevent neck injuries. Tell me the science has progressed more than a dirty dishrag around your neck. I should hope so. There are guys wearing neck rolls or some version of them that you can't really see as clearly on television. When they used to wear them, it would be this monstrous thing.

When I was growing up, you're talking about the dishrag from the 80s and 70s, but when they get to the 90s they had these big backboards basically above your head uh the ray lewis brian cox the brian cox backboard yep and every fullback had one there's still something that's supposed to keep your neck in place and cj ham i did a story on him last year and i said to him as we were having our conversation for the interview i said you know when are you going to bring the neck roll out as a fullback? And he said, I actually wore one in one of the games, but you probably couldn't see it or identify it maybe from the press box or whatever, because it's just not that egregious anymore. Nobody wants that because it looks ridiculous to the younger generation.

But as far as those, I don't know that they worked as well as maybe you thought they would. The other thing, too, is the fullbacks used to run directly head down into linebackers and just smash their necks back. And linebackers used to run head down directly into guards and fullbacks with their head down and then get smashed back. Safeties used to dive with their heads toward receivers. Nobody does this stuff anymore. It just doesn't have the same helping effect that it once did when these guys needed to keep their neck straight rather than snapping it back all the time

because they don't tackle like that and they don't play like that anymore. Which is probably a good thing. And I'm wondering if Silent177, does he prefer the old school neck roll? He didn't kind of weigh in. Oh, I'm sure. If you're asking a neck roll question, you want them back. 100%. Thank you, Silent.

I want the unpadded chin straps back, too, or the single bars for all your quarterbacks and kickers. Oh, very safe. Yeah, very safe. Now, what I used to like, and we had these as kids. We got for maybe our birthdays or Christmas, we got football helmets me and my brother and they had those padded chin straps that were plastic on the outside and they were color

so if you were the raiders they would be like a black one or if you're the packers it might be green or something i don't know where those went now we just have these regular inevitably let led to cuts and stitches if you if you took a hit the wrong way so oh is that what happened well that makes a lot of sense. Football, everyone. Next question comes from Sky Yumiko, who says, in your years watching football, what is your all-time preseason team, guys who performed, for example, Audie Cole is one of the names. So was there – you don't have to make a whole team out of this,

but was there one guy that had a massive preseason game that everybody talked about or that you remember covering and it didn't mean a thing? I want to say Toby Gerhardt had a big day. I know he had a big – well, I remember him getting blown up by Pat Williams when he ended his contract dispute down in Mankato. I thought Toby Gerhardt – somebody can Google it and look it up, but I thought Toby Gerhardt, and somebody can Google it and look it up, but I thought Toby Gerhardt, because he was backing up Peterson or they were arresting Peterson at a time,

had a decent game in the Metrodome that really did not indicate anything other than he'd be an afterthought of a back. That sounds right. And he was a second-round pick maybe out of Stanford? Yes, yep, that sounds right. Mine, there's a Minneapolis Miracle connection. On the last preseason game, Mitch Leidner started for the Vikings in 2017, and he threw a bunch of passes to a guy named Caleb Jones.

Not Caleb Williams, Caleb Jones. And he ends up making the practice squad on this game alone. He had like nine catches or something. Makes the practice squad. Zimmer used to care a lot about those preseason games. 70 snaps probably. Oh, yeah. He was playing into the fourth quarter. He may have caught the game winning pass.

And he makes the practice squad because of it. When Diggs scores the touchdown, the first person to reach him, because everyone ran onto the field, is Caleb Jones. Helmetless? Yep. Well he wasn't dressed. He was a practice squad player. And we talked to him the next day. He thought that he had blown it he thought after he got to digs and hugged him that he was going to get flagged for running on the field and it was going to negate the touchdown he was very scared of it like did i just ruin this because there was flags there was flags because digs took off his helmet yeah but it was but he thought oh my god did i just blow the minneapolis miracle

from running on the field and hugging Stephon Diggs. So I remember that conversation at his locker at Winter Park after that, and that's my guy. Well, Caleb Jones will be immortalized in every poster of the Minneapolis miracle for the rest of his life. Right. As soon as he gets there, the first person that he just screams onto the field and grabs him, Caleb Jones.

There you go, if you were wondering. And only on the team because of a preseason game. And there's a lot ty mcgill had three sacks you don't remember that one there's no way you watch that one uh but i had to cover it so i remember it there's been some funny memorable stuff the arguments over kyle sloder because he would run around the fourth quarter you probably remember that and mike zimmer saying he couldn't get the team lined up stop giving that guy credit he couldn't get the team lined up uh daniel carlson missing a field goal and then zimmer going for two to rub it in his face yeah just despite him exactly so you know preseason everybody and you'll never forget the jj mccarthy preseason game hopefully he does enough that you

do forget it but that was everyone's first impression of him and that's maybe barely it didn't even last 48 hours it did not welcome to the vikings uh high tower randy says and this is for you murph this is why i pulled this one out you have an afternoon to watch football from the couch or your favorite chair what are your go-to snacks and drink of choice a little tougher on a noon game but if it's 325 or later definitely scotch a blended scotch anything with a glen in it probably um go-to snacks generally i'm a big chips and dip guy i love french onion dip oh yeah and plain chips maybe like a three pack of old dutch and some dean's uh french onion dip that sounds like a an ideal sunday afternoon to me what i like doing now that since i'm not credentialed to go to all these games is watching

the game going out raking leaves having a cocktail waiting for all you guys to do the interviews wait for the stat book and the quote book to come and then for the sunday night game pour myself a nice scotch and then let the fingers do the tingling on the keyboard as I'm kind of glancing over my shoulder at the NBC game that's an ideal setup for me I really want football games back man I mean just for me that is not the scotch but die dr pepper instead but for me that's Saturday's Saturday is my only quiet day usually unless there's some travel involved. They didn't mention NFL, so you can put college in there.

I think I can put college in there. Now, as far as I don't do anything particularly interesting. Do you have a go-to snack? I like chips and dip as well. I like big pretzel rods. They get everywhere, but I like those. They mix nicely with the Diet Dr. Pepper. What a conversation this is.

But on a fall day, though, on a fall day, you get one of those slightly warm fall days, crack the window, Alabama-Auburn on the TV, get the pretzels out. I mean, that's the good stuff right there. The only way to make it better is if Vern Lundquist was still calling. I know. I know. That's the good stuff right there, though.

And usually I'm doing some sort of prep for the next day or whatever else, kind of on the laptop the same way as you. Getting down and getting going to the airport. Yeah. The travel is never fun because then you have to miss a lot of the college games. And the last couple years I've tried to pay a lot more attention, especially last year with all the quarterbacks. Sure.

But I've tried to pay a lot more attention to college football. And it's so different and so ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. Every week is just calamity after disaster, after hysterical thing that happens. And I am so captivated by it. So I'm in. I can't wait till that starts. Next question comes from Pat the Pingu, who says, what's your favorite recent player who

doesn't get as much credit as they should have? Mine is Golden Tate. Dude used to kill us when he was in Detroit. So you could go with Murph here, a player that didn't get as much credit, but you always gave him a lot of respect. Or I would even add on to this, a player that always crushed the Vikings that you looked at with a lot of reverence that maybe wasn't always talked about? Well, unfortunately, it is always talked about, but I always thought Aaron Rodgers in his prime. This is not the question. Well, then I can't come up with my favorite recent player doesn't get as much credit.

Doesn't get as much credit as they deserve. Rodgers gets enough. Yeah, you're right. Okay, I'll give you an example. Kenny Clark. Help me trigger something in me. Kenny Clark from the Packers absolutely demolishes the Minnesota Vikings every single time he plays them.

He owns Garrett Bradbury. Garrett Bradbury would have much better PFF grades if he just did not have to play this one man. But this defensive tackle eats the Vikings alive every single time and a great point about Golden Tate I mean we could go through the rest of the league there's probably one player on every team that's had his moments yeah hey he's you know whatever but I think the connection being this guy tends to crush the Vikings and the other one for me is Jared Goff that gets brought up on the show a lot but I have a lot of respect for Goff in part because... He had some moments in games the Lions weren't even relevant at, too.

Yeah, but also against the Vikings. Against the Vikings, I'm saying. Well, getting their first win in 2021. Amon St. Brown. Yep, exactly. Any names? Nothing's coming in my head. I've sort of repressed a lot of these afterthought names.

Look, I don't even know who half the NFL coaches are today. I can't remember a preseason game from 10 years ago or, like, who would normally cross the Vikings. Obviously, Rodgers was the one that, of course, he's talked about. But in his prime, he was in – he was even in Mike Zimmer's head, I think, to a degree. And not too many people got in there. For a while, Stafford was that guy. And then they kind of reversed owned stafford after that once zimmer's defense got to be uh really

good yeah there's over the years dozens of dozens of players who you could include in this uh a guy who comes to mind for me robert woods used to play for uh the rams the bills when i covered him was just perpetually underrated was a good catcher, was very tough in the run game, and is sort of what's missing for the Vikings right now. But you could probably come up with 50 guys that deserve that. This was one of the— Daniel Jones. We'll see him in week one.

He had one big shining moment in January of 23. Will he repeat that on week one? I like that answer. All right, next one comes from Tree J. Coe says, what are the games you're looking forward to the most forward to and what should their record be through the first eight games? And that's part one. So there's two part questions. So what's the games that you're looking most forward to on the Vikings schedule? We just went through the schedule. Yeah, I would say chronologically and right off the top of my head,

the home opener against San Francisco, clearly an obvious measuring stick against an elite NFL team that the Vikings actually beat last year. I don't see them prevailing, but I'd like to see how they stack up in a pretty good matchup with KOC and Kyle Shanahan too. I think the first game against the Lions, which I believe is in Minnesota, I think that's going to be an interesting matchup with KOC and Kyle Shanahan too. I think the first game against the Lions, which I believe is in Minnesota, I think that's going to be an interesting matchup because I do believe the Lions are the team to beat. The Vikings know that. Maybe a little bit of a vengeance game there for

TJ Hawkinson and if he gets back into the lineup. And then how can you not overlook Kirk Cousins coming back in December, assuming he's healthy, for his homecoming at U.S. Bank Stadium? Those are the three that come to mind. I really want to see C.J. Stroud in person. I can't, just connecting to the last question, I can't really form an opinion on somebody until I've seen them in person. When he mentioned being underrated, that was the hard part of that question. But guys who have wowed me would include someone like Saquon Barkley

that I didn't have a huge opinion on, but then when he played against the Vikings in those two games, the number of times that he should have been tackled and wasn't tackled, I thought maybe they wasted Saquon Barkley with a bad organization there, and he was really great. But with the Texans, I want to see want to see cj stroud i want to see what it looks like yeah i mean i know the hype's real he's great he was in the playoffs last year he's a super talent he's a high draft pick he's an incredible dude as far as his football mind

how it works and we've learned a lot more about that this offseason with some of the interviews that he's done and podcasts and stuff like that but i want to see how he handles brian flores's defense because that's a elite football mind for a quarterback you like the chess match at this i really do versus a guy who's going to try to find any weakness in cj stroud's game it's not it's digs it's hunter it's all that but it's really stroud versus brian flores that i think should be such a good matchup. And the other part of it, their record through eight games, we talked about that on our other show. I think I had them at 4-4.

4-4 is maybe the best-case scenario. Now, part two to this question, would you rather trade Aaron Jones for draft capital if we start off slow, or do you think that you could go year to year with him and draft his replacement in 2025? It almost sounds like he answered his own question with the latter part of it yeah i mean i think that if they start off really badly and and that means like two and four you have no other choice because the trade deadline is what around november 1st yeah you really have no other choice except for to trade him away along with harrison phillips can'tum. Anybody that you don't think is going to stay and is an upcoming free agent, you have to move on from. Last year,

they made a mistake not moving Daniil Hunter and they tried too hard. Oh, we're going to make the playoffs and we can do it with Josh Dobbs and all that. And if they had lost the game against the Packers and not won that game, they probably would have traded Daniil Hunter and had an extra draft pick to use that went by the wayside. It's a very baseball mentality that the NFL hasn't adopted, even though the trade deadlines become more active in recent years. It's still, it's a tough message to send to your fan base after week nine. It is.

I know, and they're going to get, and everybody points this out, they're going to get a comp pick and you do get comp picks and so forth. But if you can get higher than what you think you're going to get for the comp pick, then you have to do it. You have to make that trade. And you get the pick the next year as opposed to comp pick is two years in the future. And so much of the market is dictated by injuries to other teams. Who's going to, you know, if it's an elite or a playoff contending team

that feels like a running back can be a final piece they may overpay okay now here's the one that's even harder it's sam darnold is the hard one because if sam darnold were to play okay but they lose five out of their first six now then they get to the easier part of the schedule where they have jacksonville tennessee chicago but if you're 1-6 and there's another team that has their quarterback hurt that says, hey, we play a similar system to you. Let's say it's the Rams. Matt Stafford gets hurt. And Sean McVay calls Kevin O'Connell and says, I'm willing to overpay.

You guys are right. We'll give you a second-round draft pick for Sam Darnold because he can come out and run our offense. You got to do it if you're the Vikings, right? Yeah, practically you do, pragmatically. We always talk about these moves that make sense on paper, but then it's always back to messaging. What are you selling?

What are you promising? What are you not promising? What are you underselling? How are you packaging this to the fan base to say we're literally pulling the plug without saying we're pulling the plug? All right, here's my – let me get my sheet. This is my sheet. This is my sheet. This is all of Circa's, there's a million of these,

all of Circa's NFL futures here. We've been looking at the win-loss quite a bit. I want to look at the Super Bowl, Super Bowl odds. Oh, okay. Okay? Because this is my Friday mailbag question to you to end the show here. Who do you think? I don't to you to end the show here. Who do you think?

I don't even want to see the list before you even do that. I'm assuming the Chiefs and Niners are 1-2 interchangeably. Let's see. San Francisco plus 550 and Kansas City plus 500, 1-2. Okay. Who do you think is going to win the Super Bowl? I think the Lions are going to be in the Super Bowl. I do, but I don't think they're going to win it. I see Joe Burrows and Cincinnati kind of coming back hard, and I think their window has been shutting almost as fast as the Bills. I think this might be the season. I

think they got a week two or three matchup, Burrows and Mahomes. I think this is the, I think this is, Burrows is due to get over that Mahomes hump. I think he's due to get into the Super Bowl. I see the Bengals taking down the Lions. Bengals taking down the Lions. That's bold. Where are the Bengals at? They are at plus 1275, which is in the upper end.

They're a little higher than the Bills on this list. They're a little lower than Baltimore, higher than the Texans. That's interesting that they're higher than the Texans because I feel like the Texans are the classic team that takes the next step with the young quarterback and ends up in the Super Bowl. So I'm going to go with the Texans representing the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. The Green Bay. No, I'm just kidding. Come on, guys. Just messing with you.

I'm going to go Dallas Cowboys. An all-Texas Super Bowl. Houston versus – How insufferable would that be? The worst. Although, you know, everyone would be cheering for C.J. Stroud. Yeah, they would be, no question. Considering I predicted Mike McCarthy would get fired after six weeks,

I don't know if I've got a really credible take on this. I like your idea with Stroud. I like your idea with Houston sort of being poised to be that team that finally, kind of like Cincinnati was maybe two or three years ago, kind of like Buffalo was three or four years ago. They can slither through all the projected heavyweights and catch lightning in a bottle if Stroud is really the real deal on that. That said, Dallas, you see breaking the 30-year drought? No, because they've just screwed it up at the playoffs so many times. I don't really see it.

No one has good odds, right? I mean, do I really think they're going to do it? I don't know. But here's why I want to pick them. Because, well, one, everyone's picking San Francisco, and I understand why, and everyone's picking Detroit. So I thought, well, who else would have the best chance? Because I agree with those two teams.

They're the strongest rosters. But I think that there have been enough instances over the years of a team that gets to the doorstep or has an amazing regular season over and over again, and then one year it just works this is why i'm doing it not because i think dac will be clutch in the playoffs i don't know you just never know who's going to be clutch or not it just seems to be a thing that happens in football once upon a time peyton manning wasn't clutch and they would go to the playoffs and peyton manning wouldn't play that good and they would fall apart uh it happened with new Orleans. They got Breeze and then they eventually won the Super Bowl,

but I think they lost the game to San Francisco eventually at some point there. There's been a lot of these teams that kind of knock on the door, knock on the door, and finally get there to the Super Bowl. Atlanta with Matt Ryan. Remember the throw to Tony Gonzalez that was broken up in the end zone? They lose out year after year. They're pretty good. Finally they break through.

And even someone like Matthew Stafford with the Rams the Rams had knocked on the door and had good offenses in 17 18 and then they get Stafford and they finally get but usually it's the final piece added the Cowboys have had this roster turning for so long I agree and that's why what are their their chances I don't think they're that high. Top five, right? They are plus 1750, which puts them in the same ballpark as a team like the Bills. And they're lower than Green Bay. I'm not sure that I would have them lower than Green Bay. If you have the top offense in the league over and over again,

it has to work eventually, is what've been saying about dallas for like four years and i'm just going to keep going with it and no one likes that take and it would be the most obnoxious thing of all time but it just feels like they're due once all the analysts swing against the team that has this much talent that they always are wrong that's what i'm going with so you're being a contrarian more than you're not that faithful on Dallas. You're just more. No. How could you be?

I mean, they've blown it every single time. This is more of a global type of belief, and that's the team that fits the belief rather than saying, I really buy into Jerry Jones and his team. So there you go. It's been really fun here at Circa for us. We've had a great time. It's a real struggle not to have a great time here at Circa. We're both going to go get some more food here. And just what can you just taste week one though? I can taste week one. I can feel

it. I just cannot ruminate over the same storylines and headlines for another month. I'm jacked. It's almost here. So the circa million and circa survivor contest if you have any chance to come out to vegas stop by circa get signed up they're really fun we had derrick stevens on the show he talked about all the different strategies for survivor leagues that this is the ultimate survivor league which uh we went back and forth on strategy and different ways that you approach it it's just such an interesting and fun thing. So we appreciate Circa so much for having us out here. It's been a great time.

Great host. And thanks, Brian, for making the trip. How could I say no? It was tough on you. I know. You made it. But thanks, everybody, for listening, and we'll see you back in Minnesota. Thanks.