Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How should the Vikings approach the cornerback position?

Episode Date: March 5, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Haley English about her article analyzing the best free agent cornerback fits for the Minnesota Vikings and why it's important to make sure players they target are strong in man coverage. Plus they talk about a report that the Raiders won't go after Aaron Rodgers and what types of trades down the Bears should take. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Coll Collar here along with intern Haley English who has just finished up another very good article about free agent corners and the Vikings and also is preparing to go to the Sloan analytics conference so what is up Haley pretty good have a flight in a couple hours but I'm excited so can you explain exactly what one does at an analytics conference? Because I'm guessing the majority of our audience has never been. So what do you do there? There's a bunch of presentations that go on. It's every sport, so it's not just football. So hockey's there, soccer's there, and there's a bunch of tables that some companies can have. So it's like a big get together for the sports analytics community up in Boston. That is very cool. And I am just about to leave Indianapolis and we've

gathered quite a bit as far as news stories go around the league and buzz around the league, because of course the NFL combine isn't just about the prospects. It's a lot about just what's going on in the NFL, all the teams meeting and so forth. And so I've got some, some different items with teams and things going on for you to break down. Uh, but also maybe you can irritate another fan base after the Chicago bears and their fans were all in the YouTube comments the other day, angry at you for saying that fields isn't going to make it. And, uh and if everybody didn't hear the episode with courtney cronin go back and listen to that as she breaks down the bears thinking but we'll

get to that in a minute i want to talk to you though about what you wrote for purpleinsider.com where you analyze the vikings free agent outlook when it comes to cornerbacks. And we did ask Kevin O'Connell specifically about corners and how they fit into Brian Flores' system and whether they would look to free agency or the draft. He wasn't really showing his card so much there, Haley, but you wrote about this in quite a bit of depth of what they should do with the free agent corner situation. So why don't you break down your article? Yeah. So the Vikings ran, I want to say the fourth least man coverage in the NFL this past season. And they really didn't change up that rate, um, in every game. So like there wasn't a game where they ran a bunch of

man coverage, like teams will do that based on the opponent. They kind of had almost the same man and zones scheme based on like every opponent, which is like, you don't want to see that because it means they're not really tailoring their scheme to their opponent. But yeah, so they didn't run a lot of men and Flores comes in like running some of the most man coverage in the NFL, especially when he was with the Dolphins. He ran more man coverage than zone coverage. And that's like, I don't know if any teams did that other than the Giants this year. So yeah, he's definitely a big man coverage guy but the vikings right now don't have the level of talent at cornerback to run all that man coverage um especially if they don't sign patrick peterson back but i don't think he's another like a man coverage cornerback because

he's been in his own scheme for so long um so but there are a lot of good free agent cornerbacks coming out like james bradbury just had a great season with the Eagles, Jamel Dean, Cameron Sutton. So there's a bunch out there that would fit the Vikings' new scheme and what Brian Flores wants to do. I don't think he's going to come out swinging and run instantly 55% man and 45% zone. I think he's going to slowly ease into that

because the Vikings hovered around 17% man coverage 45% zone. I think he's going to slowly ease into that because the Vikings hovered around 17% man coverage the past season. So I don't think he's just going to come out like full on swinging. But yeah, I think the problem should be like should start to be addressed in free agency. Like you don't want to let all these good cornerbacks go and then like have a big question mark come out of the draft,

even though the cornerback draft class is great. But yeah, so I think they should start in free agency as far as getting a cornerback. I think what you said about the Vikings defense last year was really the analytic smoking gun against Ed Donatel because the biggest criticism just from eye test and listening to Kevin O'Connell was how little they did to change

things up on a week to week basis. It seemed like no matter what went wrong, they continued to roll out the same defense week after week after week and get crushed with that defense. And when I was looking back at Brian Flores, his blitz percentages from a week to week basis, you would have some weeks where he would blitz the heck out of somebody. It would be 60% of the dropbacks. And other weeks it would be 20%. Clearly he was approaching it differently from quarterback to quarterback or scheme to scheme. Whereas when you charted out what Ed Donatel did with his aggressiveness,

it was only really when Kevin O'Connell was publicly mentioning wanting to blitz more that they ramped it up a little bit. And then it just kind of tapered off and against the Giants, they weren't very aggressive in that game. So I think that as far as the scheme goes, we're going to be able to point to things where it's clear that there is a little more malleability or versatility when it comes to what Brian Flores is doing. Yeah, definitely. I think his scheme is going to be a good fit for the Vikings, especially if they bring in one of these like highly talented cornerbacks from free agency. Anyway, well, we don't have to rehash all of that with Ed Donatel over and over again.

Let's get into some of the names that you wrote about and the best fit free agents as corners for the Vikings. The one that stuck out to me right away was Cameron Sutton from the Pittsburgh Steelers, because you're talking about somebody that would have a connection with Brian Flores. He was there in Pittsburgh. And what you focused on a lot for this article was how people could potentially fit as far as being man-to-man corners so you looked at how often they played in man-to-man how they performed in coverage and kind of put the dots together for these might be the corners that could fit with florist now for this exercise i told you to just ignore the salary cap because we really don't know how much money the vikings will have when they go into free agency.

We don't think they'll have a lot. But go through some of the players that you looked at for your study. Yeah. So right now I looked at nine free agent corners. I think there's a couple on this list that the Vikings should definitely not go and sign, like Amarcus Peters because he's old and just has been on the decline for a couple years now. But I think the top three are James Bradbury, Jamel Dean, and Cameron Sutton. But even though like Sutton doesn't have the highest like PFF coverage grade on this list, it was at 70.4, which is like, it's still good. But it's not as high as like a Bradbury 77.1. So but I think the Vikings should go out and try to make the strongest push

for Cameron Sutton, who is on the Steelers, just because he does have the most experience in man coverage. The past season he ran man coverage with the Steelers 36.2% of the time, which is – that's like a high rate. It's well above the league average. And if Flores wants to bring that scheme to Minnesota, he'd be a perfect fit. He also had 16 pass breakups.

That's like top five in the league, I want to say. And then you can look at Bradbury, who almost led the league. I think he was right behind Sauce Gardner in pass breakups with 17. He had a 77 coverage grade. So he was obviously great with the Eagles, had a nice bounce back season. And he's been, I think he's going to be like the most wanted cornerback in free agency out there. And then Jamel Dean has had a PFF coverage grade of over 75 all four years he's been in the league. So he's definitely an easy, safe option. He's going to be great, but he hasn't run the most man coverage out of all these cornerbacks. So

those are definitely the top three, I think. I think Emmanuel Mosley from the 49ers is the biggest question mark on the list just because he had that ACL tear after five games this season. But he was stellar in the five games he played. But then again, like the 49ers are just a defensive powerhouse and they're going to make every cornerback, every player on defense amazing. So I don't know how well he'd fit in the Flores scheme. But yeah, I think that's the top three are bradbury dean and sutton now if we do start to factor in some of those other things like the salary cap james bradbury probably gets eliminated from this

conversation just because he had a very good year and always somebody is going to back up the brinks truck in free agency to sign that player so the vikings might have to look a little more down the line to a dean or to a sutton where they're not going to get the absolute top of the market and i will also say that emmanuel mosley intrigues me because not just the connection with san franc, but he tore his ACL last year. And that would make you think, wait, why would you want that? But you might be able to get a deal. When someone tears their ACL now, it's kind of like we guarantee that they'll be back pretty soon and back to their old selves.

When Adrian Peterson did it way back when, it was this incredible feat of human accomplishment. But we've just come so far in the area of sports science that when I see someone tour an ACL, you assume that they're going to be back to themselves pretty quickly. But the one thing when it comes to signing free agent corners is that they are a very volatile group. When you go through the PFF coverage grades from year to year, that's based on the results, but it's not always results predicting future performance. And I think corner is one of the most difficult to parse out. What was small sample size?

The grades are only based of when you're actually thrown at, which, you know, how about all those times you weren't thrown at and how did you play in those situations? So these small sample sizes can be very, very difficult. How would you deal with that challenge if you're the Vikings of trying to predict which one of these free agents will be as good in the future as they were in the past? Yeah. So out of those top three corners um bradbury sutton and dean they have all had like consistent pff coverage grades the past couple seasons so i think they're not going to be like free agent bus and then um some of the others

like patrick peterson like obviously on the decline marcus peters obviously on the decline um and then you have like byron mur and Rakia Sin who are like, okay, like they're that second level tier, but I think they're the biggest like question marks. But it all like comes down to the scheme that they're coming from and going into. So like, if we look at from a couple of years ago, William Jackson, he was on the Bengals for a couple years and then in 2021 he signed with the Commanders and he had like coverage grades that were like they were decent he nearly cracked 80

in 2020 with the Bengals that was his last season with them but then once he went to the Commanders his coverage grade dropped nearly 20 points um and was consistent like in the low 60s uh in his two years there the past two seasons but he had a like a clear man zone coverage change because they ran a lot of man coverage on the bangles and then he went to the commanders where they ran a lot of zone so i think that was more of a scheme change whereas you have a player like jc jackson who was like stellar with the Patriots and then went to the Chargers and had a PFF coverage grade of 28 so like that's a like like no one could have predicted that to happen the same with uh Mark or Chris Culver who was with the Commanders and then the 49ers so it's just a lot of it is a big question mark you're

really not going to know like how well they're going to fit in with the team. But I think the top three guys that we have on this list are going to be good fits for the Vikings. The J.C. Jackson thing is really wild because last year, I remember at Indianapolis, the big buzz was, where is J.C. Jackson going to sign? And once that happens, then all the rest of the cornerbacks can fall into place. And then he just fell off the face of the earth last year with the chargers. And I've always thought that when you're talking about a Belichick corner buyer, beware and free agency a, if he's letting him go you need to really wonder why

bill belichick is letting him go and the other part is i think that his scheme has always just been really helpful to corners and he's had a lot of successful corners come play through there that didn't necessarily thrive with other teams and maybe that was part of it with Jackson. Maybe it was more scheme related than him being a great corner. And William Jackson, that's a great lesson for the Vikings when they're studying free agent corners that they want to bring in. And I don't think that they'll make this mistake with Brian Flores, with Kweisi Adafomenta, all the data that they have at their fingertips. But you cannot sign a guy and put them into a completely different scheme and then expect the same results.

I mean, that's just absurd. And it seems like it wasn't really even William Jackson's fault that it didn't work out, that he should have just signed with another team and maybe he needed to ask first too. But that's a big mistake and a very, costly one that the vikings can't make now i think that they should paint by numbers here which means looking at several free agents if you're going to draft one in the first round that's okay this position is just so important to brian flores's defense that i think you have to go for multiple different options not just oh we're going to sign this one guy. And then

we're all set because we truly do not know where Andrew Booth Jr. stands, where a Caleb Evans stands that we can't count on those guys to succeed. And you would much rather have too many than not enough. Yeah, definitely. I was looking at the Vikings like cornerback coverage grades this past year. And other than Patrick Patrick Peterson like no one was great I know like Duke Shelley he didn't have like a ton of coverage snaps but he had like an over 80 coverage grade but the past two seasons before this he's been in the 50s so like I see this season as a fluke and I wouldn't trust that to like be starting material like 100% like this upcoming season because he did have two awful seasons before this one and didn't like play a

ton of snaps this year and yeah Booth had a coverage rate of 41. seasons before this one and didn't play a ton of snaps this year. And yeah, Booth had a coverage rate of 41.7 this season. Again, he didn't play a lot, but he didn't show much when he played. And then everyone else was in the 50s and 60s. So yeah, they definitely should treat this as a clean slate. Now with Duke Shelley, he's certainly a fan favorite because he made a lot of plays. And I think he did show that he can play in the league

he's very aggressive he could play the ball he's a good tackler for being a little guy so those things if they want to keep him around i think would translate to the future but no he's not going to continue to put up that pff grade that you said if he was a starter over the full season i think he's much more of just a quality depth guy that you know has proven that he can come in and make some plays if you need him to, but not someone that you plan to have as a starter year after year. Now, when it comes to Byron Murphy and Rakia Sin, I'm very interested here because I think that their teams

were total disasters on defense. And what I'm always thinking about is if the coaching, if the circumstances, things like that are pretty poor, it might give you an opportunity to get a steal if it's a player that can find a fit in a better situation. Do you think that that might be the case with either one of those guys? Yeah, and like Rakia Sin's one of those players who is on a Raiders team. Who's just been a disaster in the secondary for the past, like five years. So like, who knows, like he could be great and he did, he's like, he did well this season. And he could just like not have his potential

reach just because he's been on like a disaster of a secondary. So yeah, he's a question mark who like could be great if he's put in a new system with better coaches and better players around him. Right. Well, you know, very good stuff. People should go check out your article, purpleinsider.com or my Twitter, your Twitter, the Purple Insider Twitter. Your article is everywhere. Very, very in-depth about how free agent corners fit with brian floris on paper now a lot of other things going on and something stuck out to me that a lot of people immediately sent eyeball emoji tweets about which is the san francisco 49ers their general manager john lynch mentioned

the possibility of bringing in a veteran quarterback because of the uncertainty to do with both Trey Lance and Brock Purdy, their health, and the fact that Trey Lance has not really shown in a very small sample size that he can either stay healthy or that he's good at playing quarterback. And they are a roster that is absolutely 100% ready to try to win the Super Bowl next season. We saw that this year. There's even a chance that had Brock Purdy stayed healthy, they would have been in the Super Bowl instead of the Philadelphia Eagles. So you know what, Haley?

Let's do it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about Kirk to the 49ers. Because a lot of times I sit here and kind of roll my eyes and like, I don't know, guys, I don't see why either side would really do this. But let's just have the discussion since the 49ers, it seems, will consider some veteran options. The Kirk for Trey Lance trade that we've had tweeted to us a million times. What do you think of a Kirk for Trey Lance trade? Well, what's your take on this, Haley?

You know, like when I first heard of this Haley? Um, you know what, like when I first heard of this, I was like, why would the 49ers want to do this? Like they have two quarterbacks who yes, they're question marks at quarterback more than less because they're young and haven't played a ton of games and they do have like a Superbowl caliber roster around them. So like, it wouldn't be crazy for them to want to go and get one of these veteran quarterbacks like Kirk cousins. Um, so I think it would be like, it wouldn't be crazy for them to want to go and get one of these veteran quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins. So I think it would be like, it wouldn't be crazy for them to want to do it. I think the Vikings would be kind of crazy to do it because I think they have a good one with Kirk Cousins and like, obviously,

like growing up wanting, like rooting for the Jets, like Kirk Cousins would be a great fit for the Jets right now because they have a win now roster. So I think all the win now rosters like are just looking for that last quarterback piece of the puzzle, and Kirk would be a good fit for the 49ers, I think. But I think the Vikings would be kind of crazy to do that. I think the 49ers should just, like, maybe they go, like, re-sign Jimmy Garoppolo because he's another one of those players who's just, like, he's going to play a couple games, but he's going to get hurt, and then, like, your backup's going to have to come in. So I don't know.

The Vikings pretty clearly don't want to do, at least from what it sounded like from Kweisi Adolfo-Mentz's comments, is sign Cousins to an extension for so long that they don't have flexibility. I mean, even Kweisi mentioned that word of flexibility. If you're San Francisco, this does make a lot of sense because it's the synergy between Kirk Cousins and the Shanahan's. Mike Shanahan drafted him. He played for Kyle Shanahan.

He's a system type of quarterback that can fit in, distribute the football, and you could see him being better or just as good as anybody that they him being better or just as good as anybody that they've had there, just as good as what Brock Purdy did last year, or just as good as what Jimmy Garoppolo did there for years before, only he's got something on those guys, which is durability. And even if it's a price tag that's very high for them, as far as giving up the quarterback they traded up for and fitting him under the salary cap. They are in a position where they may never have a better roster in their team history

than they have right now. That makes a lot of sense for San Francisco to just say, we're bailing on the young kid to go all in on this year on Kirk Cousins. I get that. From the Vikings perspective and the time horizon, as horizon as quacey says it would also kind of make sense as well to have a younger quarterback where if he works out then you've got somebody with a rocket arm who can really run and has the potential to be a star that you can build around and still is cheap for a couple of more years but there is a practical issue here of if you trade away a quarterback who just won 13 games and the team he gets traded to goes and wins the Super Bowl and Trey Lance doesn't work out, even though we both know that's good for them,

you end up kind of looking ridiculous in the public eye and in your owner's eye of, wait, you traded away a quarterback who was capable with the right roster and you got one that didn't work out like that's not going to be a good look for you and these things do matter even if from the standpoint of just on paper black and white it would make sense yeah i think um it would be kind of crazy for it to happen but it's not like totally like out of the blue, out of the water and everything. I think the Vikings, like they obviously need a better defense to be competitive.

And if they feel they can't get that, then okay, trade them away. Like you have Justin Jefferson, who's amazing. So like you have this offense, that's great, but you don't have the defense. So I think if you fix the defense, then like there's no way you should trade away kirk cousins but if you really cannot fix the defense at all then see what you can get for him maybe i'm going to continue to find it funny that you want the vikings to hang on to kirk cousins because you grew up a jets fan and have seen young quarterbacks fail so you are deathly afraid of them uh not all young quarterbacks have failed. I don't know if you know that just in the division there with Buffalo.

I watched them have EJ Manuel and JP Lossman as first round quarterbacks. And then they got Josh Allen. Speaking of which, in other places around the league, the Carolina Panthers met with derrick carr at the combine i don't like this fit really at all i think they'd be locking themselves into mediocrity they would certainly improve from where they've been with sam darnold and baker mayfield and pj walker and so forth but that doesn't mean they'd really be chasing a super bowl and when you're in position to potentially trade up and take someone who you could build even more around and has more star potential as some of these quarterbacks do

in the draft, I think it's a better idea for Carolina to get their name in the ring to pick one rather than locking themselves into someone like Derek Carr. Your thoughts? Yeah, no, I don't think that's a good fit at all. And I don't see a reason why Derek Carr would even want to go play for the Panthers just because they're not a very talented roster. They're a young roster, and they kind of that just don't have a quarterback right now. So yeah, I don't see Derek Carr fitting in well with the Panthers at all. And I don't see a reason for him to like even want to like consider going there. And with Carolina, they've been drafting pretty high for years and they don't have this horrendous roster that no one could possibly win with or that they're going to have to build up over a number of years to be competitive if you look at what they did last year even with about

the worst quarterback play you're going to find they still won some games they've still got some players on defense they still have some weapons so you can drop a rookie quarterback into a good situation with frank reich a proven head coach in the league who has worked with a younger quarterback before and had success. I mean, I just think that everything makes sense from Carolina, from my perspective, for them to put their name in the ring. If you're some of these other teams, they're probably too far back where Carolina's at number nine. But if you're New Orleans, you should just go for the Derek Carr thing because you've got a lot of veteran players and there isn't really an opportunity for you to just draft one of these guys high.

So if you don't go for someone like Derek Carr who can raise your floor significantly, you're just back in like Jacoby Brissett land where you're not going to be able to make the playoffs. You're going to waste the rest of whatever primes you have with a lot of good players still on your roster, but you can't win with the Andy Dalton's or Jacoby Brissett's that you're going to get in free agency if you don't end up with someone like Derek Carr. So that makes a lot more sense to me than someone like Carolina. Now with Aaron Rodgers, he is going to have to be the domino that falls before we know what goes on with Derek Carr.

And it seems, at least from one report, that the Las Vegas Raiders are out on the idea of going after Aaron Rodgers. Now, they are the Vegas favorite, but there's also a report that's not going to happen. It really comes down to, it seems that it's jets or nothing with Aaron Rodgers. Haley, do you think that the Raiders are making the right decision by not chasing Aaron Rodgers? Yeah, I think definitely. Like they don't have the win now caliber roster, especially with that garbage of a defense that blew what, like three plus 14, 17 point leaves this season and just kind of took themselves out of any kind of playoff consideration. Yeah. So like, even if I'm Aaron Rodgers, I wouldn't want to go there. Like, yes, you have Devontae Adams, but he wants to win and that defense is not going to make the win.

And I think they would have to trade away a good amount to go get Aaron Rodgers. So yeah, the Raiders made the best decision, if this is true, to not want to go for Aaron Rodgers because they're essentially giving up their future for a quarterback who's going to play one, maybe two years and probably not going to win a ton because of that defense. Feels like Aaron Rodgers wants the Packers to beg him to come back. Please, Aaron, we can't live without you. Come back. Otherwise, why would he be in public as often as he is telling everybody what he's doing? That's just the way that it feels to me.

And then if they are not willing to do that, which all the reporting coming out of the combine seems to be that the packers are ready for jordan love to be their quarterback and they're not going to beg so then you could see rogers just saying i'm going to take my ball and go home or i will prove you wrong in new york where i'll definitely do great with the media there and won't be upset with anything written in new york i'm sure with him also, by the way, can you imagine all the things that fortune tellers could convince Aaron Rogers of if he went to Las Vegas? Just anyway, I won't go down that rabbit hole with you. But the next question I have though, is the bears. It seems that they are going to trade down now. Not that I believe that general managers are telling the truth since the

Arizona Cardinals once said, Josh Rosen is our quarterback and then drafted Kyler Murray. Number one, we always need to keep that in mind, but I think that the bears are more likely. I know you disagree with this Haley, but more likely to trade down. Now I think that the Panthers are the ideal team to trade with them i've brought

that up multiple times because i just feel like it makes so much sense for them and they can actually do it with the draft capital and with brian burns as a potential chip but give me a give me an argument for somebody else that is not carolina propose me a trade if I were Chicago to move down? I mean, I think that like if the Texans want to do it and like prevent no one from trading up, then the Texans can trade with the Bears. And then who knows, like then the Bears will be sitting at two and then they can trade back again. So I think that's the best case scenario for the Bears, even though I still think they

should consider taking a quarterback first overall. But that's not this point. But if I'm the Texans, I don't know what I'd be giving up. I feel like it would be a similar trade to when it happened with the Goff and Wentz trade. I know they didn't move up one spot, but they moved up to number one. I think that's the last time that's happened recently. But I don't know if I'd give up my next year's first round pick

if I was the Texans to move up one spot. I'm not the best with draft trades and what constitutes a good trade moving up. But I don't know. Would you give your number two overall pick and a second round pick to move up one spot? I really don't know. Yeah, that's a big question. That's a really interesting point because I never thought of the Texans as part

of this conversation, but I guess I was thinking that Houston would just be comfortable with whatever quarterback ended up at number two, but they might not be, they might want to take whoever we think is going to be number one if it is Bryce Young or CJ Stroud or Anthony Richardson they might have someone graded much higher than the others and want to move up that one spot just as a preventative measure like no one's getting this guy but us and when you think about the Texans too they have been so down and so bad and so irrelevant and so miserable that maybe they don't want to take the second best guy on their board. They want number one. I think it would take a little more, though, because if you're the Bears, you're really big game hunting.

Although if you're the Bears, you know, actually, this is kind of clever, your idea here, because if you move down to two, you can also move back again with another team so you could move to two get something from the texans and then move again all the way back to say seven with the raiders and just be drafting every pick for the next five years or something in the first round if you're chicago because you can get so much for these picks, they are in a really good position that way. So the last thing that I wanted to ask you is Sean Payton was living it up here at Indianapolis. He was I saw him at his podium session, seemed like he was really enjoying his conversation with the media, was there for a long time, then did side sessions with their media. They had over 20 people there. We had three, four, and yet the Denver media was all about Sean Payton. But interestingly,

Pete Carroll was asked about Sean Payton and how he will work with Russell Wilson. And Pete Carroll said that he believes that Sean Payton is the right man to turn around Russell Wilson's woes. Do you agree with Pete Carroll that Sean Payton is the right guy to get Russell Wilson back on track next year? Yeah, I'd probably say Sean Payton is good. He's going to be a good fit for Russell Wilson, obviously better than Nathaniel Hackett. But Pete Carroll did great at getting Russell Wilson to be good in Seattle and good enough for Denver to trade away absolutely everything to go get him. And then he ended up being kind of horrible there.

But, yeah, if there is anyone to do it, I think it would be Sean Payton. He got the best out of Drew Brees, but I think Drew Brees is still an amazing quarterback. And I think he'd still be good without Sean Payton. But, yeah, I think Russell Wilson, he definitely will improve this year just because the coaching staff around him is a lot better and more experienced but I don't know if he's going to be that high caliber quarterback that he really was in his prime in Seattle right he wouldn't be the first quarterback of all time to be older and have a dip and then bounce back up. Aaron Rodgers had this happen.

And Tom Brady also remember at the end of Tom Brady's tenure in New England, we weren't really sure is he kind of washed or what? And Brett Favre as well with the New York Jets. It was not the best version that he could still be, which was obviously when he came to Minnesota. So I don't want to completely count it out that Sean Payton will be able to get the most out of Russell Wilson, but there's just something so fundamental about him scrambling and making plays out of the pocket. And he did not look fast last year. He did not look quick like he has in the past. He didn't look like he wanted to make

plays. He looked like he wanted to stay in the pocket and protect himself. And he couldn't really get away from anybody last year. And if he can't do that, then it's very Donovan McNabb with the Vikings ish, where just the skillset sort of falls apart with age and the injuries that accumulate over many years of playing in the NFL. So I don't think that Russell Wilson is going to be like Drew Brees or have some second career resurgence into his late thirties because of Sean Payton. It probably gives him the best chance of any coach, but I would not bet on that one. I think it might be better than Nate Hackett, who was way in over his head.

That won't be Sean Payton. Will it be great? I would guess the answer is no. So last week, you and I had a lot of success with you asking me about the Vikings. You grew up in the New York, New Jersey area, and you grew up watching the New York Jets. So you're still learning as our intern here, the nuances of Vikings things. So what's on your mind to ask me about the Vikings this week, Haley? I have two questions today.

So the first one is how much more nervous are you or and Vikings fans watching Kirk Cousins play in primetime or on like a Monday or something like that instead of him playing at 1 p.m.? Oh, yeah. I mean, Vikings fans definitely get nervous, but they get nervous about pretty much everything that happens on game day. If the first drive doesn't go for a touchdown, then the season is over. Everyone needs to be traded.

Potentially, they're worried about the coach if he's not already getting fired. I mean, you know, that's that's how it is that probably all fan bases get worked up. This one, I think gets especially anxious when things don't go well, uh, or if they're going into a big game because they have been disappointed so many times in big games. This is something I actually studied though, a couple of years ago. And I think it's held up since then, which is that the primetime Kirk thing isn't really real. When I compared how he actually played, not the win-loss record, but how he actually played, what I found was a pretty similar version of Kirk Cousins when he plays against good teams that a lot of times when he was in Washington, they weren't the better team

or when he's been here, they weren't the better team in playing against somebody that has an elite quarterback or somebody that has an elite defense. There's a reason why these games are on prime time. And when they were playing several years in a row, like Seattle or somebody like that, you're going up against Russell Wilson, or if you're playing the somebody like that you're going up against Russell Wilson or if you're playing the Packers you're going up against Aaron Rodgers and we know how that often will go with the Vikings against those teams or against Washington when he was there against those teams so I think that's where that really came from not so much that his performances were vastly different but Kirk Cousins is a roller coaster pretty much

all the time that one half of the season, people will be frustrated with him and his stats won't be that good. And then the second half or the first half will be amazing. And that's always been the way Kirk Cousins is, is that it's hot and cold. It's not a consistent 100 quarterback rating. It's one month of 120 and another month of 80. And that's just how he is. And I think he was the same way on those primetime games. But, you know, you look at this year, it's a good example against the Dallas Cowboys. And yes, their defense got throttled, but the offense played a pretty big role in getting blown out. So they no show completely against the Cowboys. And then just

a couple of days later, cousins has a tremendous game against the new England Patriots. And he started off the game a little slow. Everyone went, Oh my gosh, it's the prime time Kirk. And then he came back and played really, really well in that game. I don't think it's the bright lights or the timing of the game or anything else i think it's just circumstances with who you're usually going up against in a lot of those big games but yes yes if you're trying to learn more about the fan base and how they view things everything scares them yep everything okay now i have a follow-up question for that so in their court like their big comeback against the colts like once they scored that first touchdown or whatever i was like oh like like they're coming back like

there's no way they're not going to win that game is that how like you felt and how vikings felt too oh i i think a lot of vikings fans probably went and did the rest of their christmas shopping at that point um there was a lot of tweets that i was getting, even from our buddy, Jeremiah Searles, was like, I'm going to go shovel the driveway. I'm done with this. I'm not watching any of the rest of this game. I mean, if you get down 33 points, no matter how random some of the stuff was, you get down by that much to the Indianapolis Colts. There's every reason for fans to be completely sickened and not want to watch another minute but it wasn't the first touchdown where i started to think that something was going on it was really they scored

another touchdown to make it i believe 36 to 14 and at that point i thought okay well there's still really not enough time that if they just run the clock and they run three times and punt for the rest of this game, it's probably not going to work out. They're just going to be able to drain too much clock, but on the next drive. So after they scored to make it 36, 14 on the next drive, the Indianapolis Colts ran once and then passed twice, two straight incompletions, stopping the clock on themselves. And I lost my mind in the press box. Like what? You've got to be kidding me. Why would you pass twice when you were up by this much and you could just keep handing off and just drain the clock and get closer to winning with every second that goes by. It's one of the worst managed games I've

ever seen. And and not surprisingly because it was an amateur head coach in jeff saturday but yeah that was that was really something and uh also our friend judd zolgad uh leaving that game in the middle thinking that there was no way they were going to come back and so he left he sits next to me in the press box and uh yeah ended up watching the whole rest of it from home rather than being in the building for the largest comeback in nfl history uh but yeah i mean i think when it's the colts you always think it's possible like in comparing it to what happened with buffalo and houston there was no thought that that was possible. Houston had a hall of fame quarterback and one of the great teams of that era where this was Matt Ryan is supremely washed. And, uh, also Jonathan Taylor

got hurt in the game, so they couldn't run the ball. Zach Moss is not a very good running back, all those things. Yeah. It started to be possible there though, after the first touchdown, I wasn't quite sold, but I was sure that Kirk cousins was going to put up more numbers i was 100 certain of that because we've seen that many times but yeah for sure when it got to they've got the ball at 36 14 with a whole quarter to come back i believed it was possible and i think that's when people started to tune back into the game who had left before yeah because i was i was watching the game at home. And I was like, Oh my god, this is actually like insane, like punt return for touchdown. Like it was just going like every worst way possible. And then I work for a catering company. So I had to work an event like

30 minutes away. And after we had finished setting up the Vikings had, like, basically tied the game. And I was like, Okay, like, whatever, like, it's going into overtime, and they're gonna win. Like, there's no way that they're not going to win. It was actually crazy. Yeah. But then my last question is who's your most underrated player right now on the Vikings? I think it's Brian O'Neill that fans who watch on a week to week basis when he's going up against some of the best pass rushers in the league. And now I don't think that the gap between

what a left tackle and a right tackle means in terms of value is what it used to be that there's rushers coming off both sides that the pass rushers move around all over the place now. So Brian O'Neill gets his fair share of elite rushers, the same as Christian Derrissaw does. I don't ever really see a lot of buzz for Brian O'Neill. I know that he did make a pro bowl. So there is that, but it's not like he's talked about as one of the best players in the league. I'm sure he won't make the NFL 100 or anything like that, but I think he's up there, not just because he doesn't allow a lot of sacks. Usually this year, he got dinged with more sacks than he has in the

past, but I think that it's the model of consistency. If you go through every single week that Brian O'Neill plays, you will almost never see negative games, which is wild when you consider how good the pass rushers in the NFL are, but it's either an average game or a great game year after year after year for Brian O'Neill, one of the most consistently excellent players in the league, but is not any sort of social media person, doesn't do a lot of interviews, things like that. And also became the leader of that group. So I would say him not for Vikings fans necessarily, because they know absolutely everyone, but probably from the outside. Yeah. Makes sense.

I think tackles don't get like enough respect because no one like, like they don't make the big plays. So no one really knows kind of who they are. So yeah. Like having a tackle be underrated is definitely makes sense. Well, this is certainly a podcast where tackles and offensive linemen will get talked about quite a bit all the time.

Great stuff. Haley have a great time at the Sloan Analytics Conference. We'll be looking forward to your next piece, which I know is going to be very, very interesting and exciting for Vikings fans. So thanks for your time and we will see you again very soon. Awesome. Thank you.