Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How should Vikings ownership evaluate their new GM and head coach? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, including whether the Vikings should be signing free agents still in the offseason, whether there's pressure from ownership on Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and whether Kirk Cousins should have taken a pay cut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a fans-only podcast. So take your questions that I've received either through Twitter, DMs, app mentions, or through emails that have been sent to me through purpleinsider.com. Just go there. There's like a contact us kind of thing. Just click on it and send your message through there. And then I gather them up and answer them a couple of times a week or at least once a week. But really, really appreciate all the support for the fans only pod. So we'll continue to do them throughout the summer. And I hope, I mean, even into the season as well, because you guys always have such great questions. So let us open a diet, Dr. Pepper and dive right in.

All right. Still have not gotten the executives from Diet Dr. P to buy in to sponsoring the fans only, but we'll keep working on it. Okay. All right. First question comes from at VF10218. I know we've talked about how Kweisi Adafomensa is an analytics guy. Had me wondering if they are waiting till June to sign some of the more fringe starter guys that would not count toward the comp picks and maybe they'll, uh, maybe we'll

start playing into that game. What do you think? Well, uh, I mean, obviously this was probably sent just before June 1st. So like, you know, now we're a couple of days into June and they haven't really signed anybody, but there's also not a lot of cap space to work with for the Vikings. I mean, if you go to over the cap.com, they have what's called effective cap space, which gives you an idea after the draft class is signed and whatever other factors might go into it, how much cap space a team has. And it lists the Vikings around 10 million left in cap space. Um, so, you know, that's maybe enough to sign a player or two players. What you don't usually want is to go into a season with less

than 5 million because you might have injuries. You might have to add people and you can really, really get in a dicey situation at that point. So every team wants to have a couple of million bucks going into a season. I remember Rick Spielman talking about how they were nervous, I think in 2016, because when they had gotten Sam Bradford, it put them up against the very last dollar of the salary cap. And that was a tough spot. So if they have over $10 million though, they could add a free agent. JC Treader's name continues to kind of bounce about, but if there was anybody else that they wanted to bring in, obviously they did bring in Albert Wilson

as a potential number four wide receiver or to compete for one of those spots. So I don't think though it has anything to do with compensatory picks. I mean, the Vikings did this last year with Sheldon Richardson. They did it with Bashad Breeland. So I don't really think it's an analytics thing either,

that there's any data that would say signing players after June 1st is a great idea. I mean, I think they've always done that with bringing in the kind of last second signing. Everson Griffin last year was another one. It's sort of remarkable to think about how the roster even changed after the draft, which rosters usually don't, but it did last year with a couple of players being brought in to either hold down big roles or start. I don't know that that's really going to be the case with Albert Wilson. I mean, I think if he ends up making the team as a depth wide receiver, that's kind of a win for them with one

of those signings. But I also don't think that you're waiting or doing anything really different or that signings are going to be of great significance. Once you get past June 1st, um, the same kind of thing exists where there's a rule about guarantees after week one. So after you've played week one, so there's always like a free agent or two who are still hanging out there that gets signed after week one, but it's always like a free agent or two who are still hanging out there that gets signed after week one, but it's not really a hack because almost all of the good free agents are gone. So what you're going to get in terms of compensatory draft picks for those guys, or what you're going to, uh, I guess, yeah, right. Is it what that you would know? You don't, well, you

kind of lose compensatory draft picks. Like they even out, like if you're supposed to get one, but you signed a player, they'll even each other out. It's to try to kind of balance the books a little bit there with the value of losing players in free agency. But I've never really thought twice about compensatory draft picks. I mean, the highest draft pick that you can get, compensatory draft pick is a third rounder. And that's gotta be something really, really good. The guy has to sign a really big contract. So if you're talking about getting a seventh or not getting a seventh, I mean,

I don't know. Right. So I'm not sure that there's really some sort of hack there, or if, you know, Kwesi Adafo Mensah is trying to find every little edge in every system he probably is but I'm not sure there's really anything there now that it's still possible and it has happened where players sort of linger on the market to the very last second and we even saw this with Jadavian Clowney and Akeem Hicks that they got decent contracts but sometimes you'll get a player, and where I feel like it happens pretty often is corner, where for whatever reason,

a cornerback has just not been signed, who's halfway decent. I think Malcolm Butler had this happen to him a couple of years ago, and Logan Ryan was another guy that had this happen. For who knows why, nobody signs the person. Maybe they were holding out for X

number of dollars. And then they realized that it's either don't play or take almost nothing. And Sheldon Richardson and Bashad Breeland may have been those guys last year, even Everson Griffin. I'm not sure if he wanted to truly come back or it was the only team that would give him any money. You can find helpful players. I mean, if you think about, so Breland was a, was a huge bus signing, but what Sheldon Richardson and Everson Griffin gave the Vikings last year was on the positive side of things. Griffin was legitimately really good halfway through the season. And Sheldon Richardson, I thought had a fine overall season, started off a little slow, was a a plus contributor if they want to spend whatever tiny amount of money they have left to try to grab one or two guys that could possibly be plus

contributors in any type of role that's a good idea like they should do that not factor in any anything else other than the fact that the roster is still pretty thin in some key areas. Uh, and maybe you can grab somebody for, you know, $2 million, $3 million with the tiniest amount of cap space that you have remaining. So I think it's something to keep an eye on, but I also look through the free agent list and I mean, Treader gets brought up. I don't even know if he's going to play or not. I mean, I guess we'll find out. But maybe he's waiting for a camp injury or something like that. You know, I think that he's somebody that maybe is not being picked up because of his

health situation. It's hard to say. Usually teams don't cut someone that good, though, unless they have a reason to do so. But when you look at the free agents that are still remaining out there, there's not a whole lot of guys that would really change your fate, I think. So you're looking for the minor contributor, the space filler, the, let's say you decide that you really didn't enjoy something that your like seventh round corner said on a podcast and you

decide you're going to cut him for example and maybe you want to fill that spot with a veteran who won't do something that dumb but if anybody saw what chris boyd said you know i don't know like it doesn't seem like they're going to do that but i'm just saying that if they wanted to they could open up a spot i think more more likely than not though, your roster is your roster. It kind of is what it is at this point. And we'll see if they decide to add any other Albert Wilsons to the mix, but those are generally not franchise changers or, or big moves. It's normally, can you get just a little bit more depth? Um, and they should look for that for sure. All right. This comes from Fass Dootball. That's F-A-S-D-O-O-T-B-A-L-L.

So a creative name here on Twitter. And I hope it doesn't mean anything like in German. That's that I shouldn't be saying on the radio. Let's see. Do you think by going competitive rebuild, which is basically running it back and blaming everything on Zimmer and Rick, it puts a nail in the coffin of both Kwesi and Kevin. If they are great, then they are fine. But if they regress, then does ownership point the finger at Kwesi and O'Connell

and say, we gave you a team of fan favorite players and you did worse than Zimmer. If they regress and decide to tear it down next year, maybe not to the extent of the Bears, but bad contracts need to be gotten rid of and change needs to occur. Does ownership look at Kweisi and O'Connell and say, you couldn't even win with a silver platter. Why would we trust you with a rebuild? No, I don't know that it's like that. I'm not sure that it's like that.

I think the way it is with ownership and how they view Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell is they're going to give them this pretty much a similar team from what Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman had and say, can you guys do it better? And if you can't, and it's the same exact sort of, you know, results nine and eight, eight, nine, miss the playoffs. Then what you're going to get is, okay, I guess it wasn't all Zimmer's fault, but you guys are the right guys for the rebuild. And unless it's a total disaster and everybody's at each other's throats and they go four and

13, and it's just a total mess. Then I think there would be instant pressure from ownership on Kevin O'Connell because that's the exact thing that they were trying so hard to avoid by keeping Kirk Cousins. But that seems like pretty unlikely as long as Cousins plays that they'll win between seven and 10 games. And if that's the case and they win, let's say they win eight and they miss the playoffs. They'll probably look at it and say, all right, now we're drafting a quarterback. And now it be begins officially the O'Connell and Adolfo Mensah era that once they draft this quarterback, the team will be built more in their vision than it would have been before,

where they're mostly inheriting a lot of the Spielman and Zimmer players and trying to get better results. Um, yeah, you're right that if they get better results, then we can all go, Oh, okay. Well, I guess it was Zimmer. I guess the team did just need someone to be nicer to them and offensive scheme a little better and Bing. Now they're going to compete, you know, for the next couple of years, try to win a super bowl. But if it is kind of the, at least by the Vegas odds, the most likely outcome, which is eight or nine wins, then I think that they're just looking at it and doing the year zero thing. That's in the eyes of ownership. I don't think that should be in the eyes of fans or in the eyes of media because of the way that they handled of fans or in the eyes of media because of the

way that they handled their salary cap in the off season, because they did not set themselves up for the future to be able to dump these contracts and move on and hit the reset and rebuild button. Since they didn't do any part of the rebuild when Kwesi said competitive rebuild, I think the expectation should be you have to outperform what your predecessors did. But that's the expectation I think from fans who have sat around and watched enough seven, eight, nine win seasons and want better than that and are more or less by the moves being told that it should be better than that. I think that's where fan expectation should be that, Hey, if, if you bought all into this, then it better be better. But from an ownership perspective, I think they're giving them more time than that and probably

running it up all the way through the third or fourth year of that contract. Like they're not going to want to have this go sideways and then have to pay several coaches, not to coach. They're going to have some patience with this. And if it's another mediocre season, then the green light gets pushed, uh, to draft a quarterback in a very good, allegedly quarterback draft. I think it probably will be much better than last year, low bar to beat last year, which would be one first rounder being picked 20th overall so it's bound to be a better quarterback draft class and that's what more likely than not they'll do and then that starts kind of a new timeline for them

where you bring in the next quarterback and then you either play cousins out his contract or you move on from cousins and then it's going to take at least a rookie year for that quarterback to have any idea what he's going to be. And then really it's year two, year three of the next quarterback before we even start talking about, is there pressure on Kevin O'Connell? So I don't think that from his job perspective or ownership perspective, there's really any pressure on Kevin O'Connell, but it is from the people who have sat here and watch this team run it back and run it back and run it back. And every off season, they tell you it's something different, right?

Like every off season it's, oh, uh, we just needed a new scheme. That was the problem. The last scheme wasn't good enough. Okay. So we got a new offensive coordinator, but Oh no, there was a, an injury, a guard. So now all we need is this new guard that we drafted Ezra Cleveland. He'll fix it. Um, now, you know, it's, it's last year. All we needed to do was spend this money in free agency and get more defensive talent that will do it and this year it's all we need is bringing a lot of defensive talent in to fit a new system but also

on the offensive side a new offensive mind in Kevin O'Connell and so I think that there is a gap between what you in terms of Vikings fans have been dealing with to a new group that's going to get more time and a lot of patience. And I also just think that look how long they gave Mike Zimmer. I mean, they could have fired Mike Zimmer after 2018 and it would not have been unusual considering they missed the playoffs and where the expectations were. Usually, if you are way short of expectations, you're out in the NFL, unless you're one of the legendary coaches. But they gave Zimmer three more seasons after that, right? 19, 20, 21.

Yeah, three more seasons after he severely went under expectations in 2018. So I would not expect, even though the contracts are shorter for Adolfo Mensah and presumably Kevin O'Connell tied into him than it usually is for a GM. I don't think that we're going to start talking about, they didn't meet expectations and ownership might be considering doing something. I don't think we're having that conversation at least for several more years, almost no matter the outcome, unless it is completely the building is burning down to the ground.

Okay, let me get a sip here. I'm going on the next question. Go to sodastick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, our loyal sponsor. Check out all of their great Minnesota themed gear for your playoff run in hockey or for baseball season if you're headed out in the nice weather to a baseball game. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, Sotastick.com.

Hats, T-shirts, hoodies if you need them for a cool evening in the summer. Sotastick.com has you covered. All right. This from at D Shepik on Twitter. Guys like Kirk Cousins make me wonder about, quote, the ultimate team game in regards to money. Should people that are excessively selfish at the expense of the quality of their team feel guilty for holding their team back? It's a job and you should try to make your money while you can, but we're not talking

about normal wages. Like why these guys, especially overpaid leaders, don't want to sacrifice 10 to 20% of their wages to build a better team to reach the ultimate goal. Is this oversimplifying something I don't, uh, I know nothing about maybe, but imagine how many Superbowls would be won by teams that were really only in it for winning. Yeah. I mean, so one thing that comes to mind for me is that like Kirk didn't offer himself these contracts. I mean, that that's where I always hesitate to point the finger at Kirk cousins for signing contracts that have been put in front of

him for lots of money. Now you could say that Tom Brady has done this. Like Tom Brady has worked his contract to make sure that he has lower cap hits. And that is sometimes true. Uh, we could take a look at what Tom Brady has done over his career and the percentage of the cap that he's made up. It's not always like a really low percentage, but considering how good Tom Brady is, it's probably way below what he's actually worth. So let's see here. Yeah. I mean, when we look through, like, for example, Tom Brady has never been as high in terms of cap percentage as Kirk Cousins is right now. So he was at 12% in 2018. I think that's about the highest. 2080 was 12, 12.6, 2006,

he was 13.6. And if I'm not mistaken, Kirk right now is I think like 15% of the total cap. I'll call that up to get it. Uh, let's see here. He is. Yeah, he is 15% was 17% last year and 16% next year projected on what the cap is expected to be. So he is always in recent years had a higher percentage of the cap than Tom Brady did. And so you can always point to Tom Brady and say, Hey, like that guy is the greatest quarterback of all time, but it probably was part of it that he never took up a huge percentage of the cap but what i would counter with here is how unique of a situation tom brady really is so when we go to uh like look at the top quarterback contracts i mean jared goff is making 31 million dollars this year um patrick mahomes may have

taken a little bit less than he's worth but his salary cap hit is still 36 million. Ryan Tannehill's is 38 million. And as far as I know, Ryan Tannehill hasn't done anything to change that and make himself worth less money. Carson Wentz, 28 million. These are guys who are not good. Like Jimmy Garoppolo, 26 million. Russell Wilson reportedly wants 250 million. Like if your peers, aside from one dude are largely pushing for as much as they can possibly get at the position. I don't really think we can look at one guy in Kirk cousins and say, you're a bad leader. You're a bad teammate for taking the contract that the team offered you. And if they didn't want to hurt themselves by giving that much money, then they should have traded Kirk cousins. I mean, like they've made this decision. Like, I don't think

that if it's you and I know Kirk is very wealthy, he's made a lot of money. In fact, I think he's in the top 10 ever for the amount of money that he's made. And so it's very easy for us to say, Hey bro, don't you have your 200 bills? Like, why aren't you just taking a, a lower cap hit and not that much money. But at the same time, every other quarterback in the league would be like, ah, Kirk, thanks for screwing us like for our future and what we're worth. And the reality is that great quarterback play and even good quarterback play is worth probably more or just as much as Kirk Cousins is getting paid. Definitely in Patrick Mahomes' case, it's worth more. company and your own company was a little bit in financial straits, but they offered you, let's say a regular person salary, like, you know, I don't know, $90,000 or something. I wouldn't tell you, Hey man, your company doesn't have the cash take 68,000. So I don't think I can do it with cousins. If you don't want to have a contract that's restrictive for a quarterback that has not been able to push your roster over the top, there are other options.

They're called lots of other quarterbacks. I mean, I they've really been stuck on this idea for years that they can only have Kerr cousins as, as other quarterbacks get signed and drafted and other quarterbacks win. It's like, I don't know. I mean, if you don't want to pay him that much, don't pay him that much. If you can't build the roster around him, that's good enough. Then don't pay him that much. I don't look at it as how dare you Kirk sign that contract. That's my perspective on, I get what you're saying because the greatest quarterback ever has done that.

Although if you look at how much actual cash he made last year, there's a little salary cap manipulation that's been, you know, pushed money down the road, which they're in a spot to do it. The Vikings aren't, but Tampa Bay really is. And so last year's cap hit was really low for Tom Brady, but his cash was like 44 million. So, you know, he was a pretty happy man, but it's an interesting question it certainly is but i think that um if it's also a little bit myth that you can't ever win with an expensive quarterback it's just that the quarterback has to reach a certain level or the surrounding roster has to reach a certain level like we're going on three years in a row of aaron rogers being

really expensive and winning 13 games. They drafted really well. They rebuilt really well after McCarthy. They were coached really well. And, you know, of course he plays at an MVP level. Like it can be done. It just has not been done with this particular quarterback, which means what? That you stay with it?

I mean, I don't know. I look at it as just much more of a team thing than I do, um, you know, as, as a player thing. So not, I'm not disrespecting the way that you're looking at it. Uh, it's just, that's kind of how more I view it is if you don't want somebody to make that much money, don't offer them the contract. Okay. Uh, this one comes from Travis via the email heard some interesting things about the coach and QB relationship being such a different thing so far this year. There was hot gossip that O'Connell and Cousins actually were hanging out at the Thielen softball game. trembling typing this, but is it nuts to think that if cousins feels 10% more comfortable, maybe that 10% is the 10% that convinces him to go for the lower percentage home run play more than he has in the past. A few of those maybe make this offense a winner in the playoffs,

right? Um, you know, I think that the most possible optimistic view is that they can be a better offense because there's more belief in Kirk Cousins. I have a lot of trouble believing that a friendlier coach who is tighter with Kirk Cousins suddenly means the man is 10% different. Like 10% is a lot. I don't know. I don't think that he's going to be 10% different because they were chatting it up at a softball game. I mean, first of all, here's another thing too.

It's always easy to be Kirk Cousins' best friend until he lets you down against Buffalo. I'm just saying. Like we all think Mike Zimmer was a nut and never wanted it from the first word go right from the first day of the signing that Zimmer never wanted him and that might be true but they brought in their first offensive coordinator in 2018 a guy to build the offense around Kirk and he did and they just ended up disappointed I mean did he not get along with Kevin Stefanski, with Gary Kubiak, with Clint

Kubiak? Like, I think that it's not like no person in the organization was working closely with Kirk Cousins and was in his corner. If anything, it seemed like Mike Zimmer more ignored him and the fact that they didn't watch film together until the very last year. But, you know, the funny thing about Cousins and the whole, you know, being conservative thing is last year, he's playing some of his best football early in the season when he's not taking sacks and throwing interceptions. And then Zimmer kind of pushes him to be more aggressive. And that's when some of the problems came about. And in 2018, I think he wanted to be more aggressive and push the ball down the field. And you know, that resulted in a lot of interceptions and a lot of

sacks. I don't, I don't have really any confidence at all that being nicer to cousins is the answer. I think that if you're asking, how can this not, not that I'm saying Kevin O'Connell shouldn't be nice to him or work closely with, I'm not saying that. Okay. What I'm saying though, is that the answer to how this team can be better is, are they a little more savvy in the way that they set up their offense when they pass? Do they put the gas pedal down a little bit more in certain times of the game do they manage the clock better do they mitigate some of the problems that cousins can cause when he's given too much responsibility but also give him enough responsibility to let him air it out sometimes to justin jefferson can they find a way defensively which is a really big part of this defensively to work

through the ice cold sections of Kirk cousins play? Because I don't think, I mean, he's had Jay Gruden offensive mind who had success previously, Sean McVay, Mike Shanahan, and Kyle Shanahan is where the guy started his career. It's not like no one has ever liked Kirk cousins. I mean, he's had support at different times from different coaches and has worked with some very good coaches who I'm sure were nice to him the way that Kevin O'Connell is going to be. This is not a complete wildly different circumstance for him because it's the head coach. I don't think, um, now usually he

didn't get called out by his coach for vaccination status from day one, like he did last year. But that's kind of the point is that cousins came out and played really well to start the season. And it was like all that, all that stuff in training camp, all the drama didn't really seem to affect him one way or another. And as Zimmer was saying, he was leading better and was meeting with him before games, everything else. Um, there's, there seemed to be a deterioration is play throughout the season. So I don't know that there's a magic formula like that. That's going to make him 10% better. I mean, 10% better. I looked at this the other day for an article that cousins is the sixth highest rated quarterback since he got here, like in the NFL, uh, or is it since 2019 since 2019 in

the NFL, like 10% better is like an MVP season. I don't know that that's really possible. What they need is that sometimes there's going to be full halves where the offense can't get it figured out because the defense is doing something to cousins that he can't overcome pressuring, playing a certain coverage, whatever that might be. And their defense needs to hold like, and keep them in the game until cousins can get it figured out. Because oftentimes he does in the second half of a game. It's just, you're always playing from behind. Uh, I saw a chart today from one of the PFF guys about, uh, when plays are really well covered versus when they're not. And you won't be surprised that cousins when they're not is doing really well. And cousins, when the other team is covering is not doing really well. I mean, no surprise. So there will

be portions of time, no matter what, because of who he is fundamentally that their offense goes cold. But if they have a better defense, that was always supposed to be the deal. And I think that was the deal in 2019 where the defense played pretty well at certain times. And especially,, et cetera, then we'll all say that it was Kevin O'Connell being nicer to him, even if he's the same quarterback in the same way that Matthew Stafford has the same PFF grade last year as he did the previous two seasons in Detroit. But the rest of his team was way better. And I don't even know if like he even played way better. They leaned into him a little more. He threw picks, he threw touchdowns and had big games. He had ice cold games, but their team overall was better than what Detroit had put on the field. That's what the Vikings need to bank on here. All right. This comes from Chris F book on Twitter fans. Only question. Have you ever

thought about expanding your coverage to the division or even going with national? Would that endanger your credentials? Follow up, if the athletic or PFF or another national outfit approached you, would that be attractive? Or does it make more sense to stay focused on one team and fill a niche? That's a great question. I guess Purple Insider has, I don't want to say taken up cause that sounds like a bad thing, but makes up such a high percentage writing and podcasting of my life that I haven't really thought about that first part at all about expanding or, you

know, doing different types of coverage. I've had some ideas about just for the podcast feed of maybe bringing on a national guest every week to talk about like the NFL at large, that maybe that might be a good idea. I've definitely considered that and might end up doing that. Um, I think if I started, uh, whatever Matt's NFL blog and podcast, I think that I would be lucky enough to have some of you come along, but there, there is another part of it though, that there are so many national NFL podcasts. Like you could listen to Robert Mays or Greg Rosenthal on nfl.com or Steve Palazzolo and Sam Monson on PFF or like, there's so many people who have been doing that broader NFL thing for so

long at, at, that are very good. It would kind of be like, well, what, what is it that I'm going to tell you about the New York jets this year, that either a jets podcast or guys who have been doing that at a national level, aren't already saying or doing better. And that's not to say that I could never do anything like that or talk about the NFL at large. And cause we, I think do it in a unique way, but where I feel like I can bring you the most is where I can be at everything that the Vikings ever do. I can be at every game. I can be at every practice and every press conference and thank God now every locker room that it's going to be open again. And so I can get to know the people inside the team

and the players, and I can bring you something here covering football that I would not be able to bring you if I was trying to do it on a national level. So I would have to do it on a different, I would have to do it like differently somehow. I'm not sure how that would be, but I would have to like create a different kind of niche. Like the PFF guys have that analytics football stuff kind of cornered. So how would I do it differently? I don't know. Like maybe, I mean, maybe at some point it would be cool to build a bigger team, like a purple insider, bigger team of this person does that. And this person does that. Um, so keep downloading the show and maybe I can pay people to do that, I guess. No, I mean, really, I think that that for a long-term goal, it might be an interesting idea

to build kind of more of a team to talk about different things. Um, you know, that go beyond the Vikings. But I really think that like when you look at the charts for the top 50 football podcasts, which today I think we were 32nd on iTunes, what you see a lot is a handful of shows that cover the National Football League at a whole. But most of the shows are like a Pittsburgh Steelers podcast, Vikings podcast, Bengals podcast. Like that's, that's what you see there for the, for the ones where the fans really, um, want to actually listen. And there's a lot of people who, you know, who are popular, who you see on ESPN or NFL

network who have podcasts that nobody listens to. Um, because just being like, just doing that doesn't mean it's going to be different. It doesn't mean it's going to be unique or worth listening to. So I would have to do it in that kind of way. Now, as far as your other question, if somebody else, the athletic and PFF or whoever wanted to hire me, I mean, I think that like it's, this is, this is hard to just be like, I don't know, man, but like, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Like this has been such an incredible experience to be able to do this, how I want to do it and not have to answer to anybody and to succeed this way is

something I'm very proud of. And I'm very grateful, very, very grateful for all of you that listen and that support the show and that subscribe to the newsletter and everything else, everybody who reads what we're doing and listens to what we're doing here. Uh, it amazes me the amount of support that I've been able to get. And I love that part of it. Uh, and I, and I love doing it in this way and being independent and not having to kind of clear things by editors and everything else. But, you know, of course there is always that part that, you know, offer you can't refuse kind of thing probably exists somewhere in the world. But I live in Minnesota. I have a house.

I'm putting in a new bathroom. Um, our porch step is falling apart. And so we're having to do that, but like, this is, this is a place that is very, very special to me and that I want to stay. So it would be really hard to top what we're doing here, uh, at the moment. So I guess that's the best way I can answer it is if I, cause if I say, Oh no, never. And then something happens, then I look like a jerk, but at least for the foreseeable future, uh, purple insider is going nowhere. So appreciate that question. Uh, let's see here. Foss dude ball got another question in here, but I'll, I'll go with it. So this will be the first time somebody has had two on one fans only pod, but you can appreciate that Mr. Foss. Um, how much, cause this is a,

this is a quick and easy one to answer. How much does a coach or GM talk to reporters off the record and tell plans or things the public doesn't know? Do reporters burn that off the record rule? Do coaches or GMs give fake info off the record at times to see who they can trust? Yeah. So like coaches and GMs are not coming up to the local media very often and saying, Hey, we're going to trade Kirk nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Um, I do think that there are certain times when coaches or general managers have agendas and things that they want known by the public that they will go to certain people. Locally, I'm sure it's different from market to market for what certain coaches say to certain people.

That was probably the case with the last administration that there were certain people here that they wanted certain water carried and messages carried out. But there's also, you know, not that many opportunities really to talk with the coach and the GM off the record all that much. Like they really try to kind of just keep you away from them except for when it's on the record. But I kind of understand why. And from my own personal perspective, I don't think that I would want to have an off the record relationship with the GM or coach because you open yourself up to exactly what you're talking about. Like feeling like you have to defend that person because you know them or they've told you what

they were thinking. Like, I don't want that. For me, getting off the record information to kind of shape the way that I talk, and I'm obviously not going to say anybody who I talk to, but it's kind of better to have some insight into how other people inside of a team are seeing things than it is to hear it directly from that person. Now, if you're Adam Schefter or Ian Rappaport, and you're going to tweet out whatever any GM tells you, well, yeah, then those guys are going to go right to those people. I'll give you an example, like how this works sometimes is last year when Justin Jefferson got hurt in practice, all of us were standing right there. He goes down, he gets hurt.

And it's an AC joint or something. He goes into the locker room and within five minutes, Adam Schefter is tweeting out what his injury is and how long he's going to be out and that it's not serious. Now, if it was serious, do you think that anyone would have told Adam Schefter? And also, it would have been pretty easy for Rick Spielman to walk out and just say, Hey guys, this is what happened. It's not serious. And you guys are, you know, go ahead and report that. But a lot of times what they look for not here, I don't think, but especially, you know, throughout the league. And so, you know, they look for national favorable coverage and they give

those guys information. And then like, that's fine. I, you know, that's not really something that is bothersome to me. It's just kind of how the game works. So there's not too many times. No, I wouldn't say that we're all kind of just hanging out and, you know, Kevin O'Connell leans over and says, guys, let me tell you the truth. We're not actually going to use CJ Ham. Wink, wink. Like, no, that doesn't, that's not really how it ends up going. It's usually that you, over the number of years, get to know people who are, the best I can tell you is familiar with the situation and you kind of get a sense for what's going on inside of an organization. That's, that's the best that I can kind of do there. GM and head coach are kind of

on a different level from that. And I'm sure it also, you know, really depends on situation to situation. Okay. Jeff in Tokyo, who my understanding is actually in Tokyo. So shout out to Jeff, how much of player enthusiasm this year seems to be boilerplate rah-rah every year and how much of it seems to be actual excitement from your point of view? Let me take a little sip here. Well, I would say that I think that the players, when they're talking about having a different vibe, are being genuine. You can't get a whole lot different from Kevin O'Connell and Mike Zimmer. Mike Zimmer is a 65 year old defensive coordinator who has a permanent case of PO with his team and his players and was always on eight

or nine, like whatever it is, DEFCON. I don't know. Someone explained DEFCONs to me. Let's say if there were only five DEFCONs, Mike Zimmer started at four. I don't know how many there actually are. Someone can tell me. But with Kevin O'Connell, it is much more of a relaxed atmosphere. And I think it is more comfortable for players, but it's also June. I mean, this is the easiest time in the entire world to talk positively about you and your friends and what they're going to do this fall. I mean, like, should we take it seriously? Of course not. I mean, of course not like because every single team is doing the same thing. Uh, Myron Metcalf that from ESPN and I were joking around the other day about these headlines that are in June. Let me see if I can find the one he shared with me. Cause I mean,

they're just, it's just a comedy act sometimes about like the most absurd things being painted. It's like, this is great. Um, let's see. Uh, let's see. Oh, here we go. Jarvis Landry dominating saints. OTAs was an NBC Sports Edge headline. Like what? How does one dominate OTAs? How is that even possible? They're running around in shorts. They're not even going full speed and the man is dominating OTA. Like it's enough to drive you crazy. I think that what I'm trying to do at like OTAs is sort of setting the stage for training camp or just bringing things that I think are notable or interesting, but everybody is always going to say nice things about their team in June and how much this whole like vibe vibes only as opposed

to fans only vibes only team actually ends up working out better than the previous group is going to be determined. And that's when it will matter. Like none of this matters. It's nice that they feel better about the vibes. I think it was necessary. See, sometimes my defenses of Mike Zimmer make it sound like I don't think anything was his fault or don't think he should have been fired. Like, no, I think they made the right decision. I think they made the right decision at head coach in Kevin O'Connell. I just question how much one coach is going to impact things over another guy that was competent. So I think that they've gone the right direction with having better vibes and

having players get along better and not having quite as much tension going into the season. Uh, but it, what's going to matter is whether when Kirk Cousins gets the ball and needs to go win a game, that's important if he does it. And like, I don't see how there's much connection. Maybe you could reach and say, he's going to feel more confident in that spot. I don't think so. I think that who they are is who they're going to be and what will determine and what almost always determines success or failure is whether you can scheme it up, whether you can game plan it, whether you can adjust, whether you can teach and all those things are very far from being determined. So appreciate

the question, Jeff, and always thankful for you listening in Japan. Let's get in one more, maybe one or two more. Let's see. This comes from Mac Jack, a 68 says, why does some fans think that you can slide guard to center side note? If you could have Jeremiah Searles address that at some point, in addition to your own insights, that would be great. Love the show. Yeah, no, and Jeremiah taking the summer off, but he'll be back for sure. And those of you missing Courtney Cronin, she'll be back in a few weeks as well.

But, you know, I'm not going to push the team hard through June here. We're going to focus on what you guys are thinking about for that. And we'll push them to the max when it comes to football season. But yeah, I think that, uh, if you, maybe you're referring to Chris Reed, it really is really a person to person type of thing. I mean, Jeremiah Searles is a great example of a guy who came into the league with a full understanding that he would have to do absolutely everything he could to have a life in the NFL. And so he made it his biggest priority in the world to learn every position, every

assignment, every check, every call, how to read every blitz. Like he is one of the smartest players I've been around. And it's not even like IQ smart as is he wants to understand everything about football and worked extremely, extremely hard at that. Um, and I think if you're a guard who has spent your entire life at guard with no plans to move to center, and you've only ever focused on the guard position is pretty darn hard to just slide over to center. If you're somebody who like has a broader view of this whole thing, like, I mean, if you're a top draft pick or something, and they tell you from day one, you're going to be a guard like Ezra Cleveland. I think you can do that because they're telling you you're not playing tackle.

So good luck at guard. You have to understand like those assignments. You have to learn that and work at it for a couple of years to be really good. That's way different than someone who's more of a backup, more of a Joe Berger type who had to fight to stay in the league, had to be ready to play any position. I think it's really very much person to person when it comes to that. Um, but I, I don't think that it's necessarily easy, but it's all about how much you, you have, uh have put work into that and how much you care about understanding that. I think if you just say, Hey, lifetime guard, go play center. Uh, that can be

pretty hard. Uh, maybe you're referring to Wyatt Davis. I don't know. I maybe he'll get some reps at center this year. It seems like they think that bus has already gone and left the station. So, you know, I don't know. Let's fit in one more question here. Um, let's see. Okay. This is from at ad plus verb. Hopefully Mr. Ad plus verb is still listening all the way to the end of the show. So you can hear his question. I'm sorry if, um, if, if not, because I really enjoy these and I tend to just always try to fit in one more question, but I also understand that the longer I go, the more likely it is that whoever asked the question is going to miss theirs getting asked.

So, you know, it's a hard life, you know, folks, it's tough. All right, let's see. He says, I'm thinking of how Mike Zimmer had to move away from the double A gap blitz since teams uncovered the blueprint to counter it, what are the odds that after an offseason of 32 teams dissecting the scheme du jour, the too high, the Donatello scheme, is one year too late to the party? Oh, that's a great question. Well, you're right.

You're right that these things are always changing and advancing for sure. I mean, even think about like the Seattle an adjustment for some players to go to a completely different defense. So that's going to be something that we watch too. How much is the league figuring things out versus how much is it if they struggle just the players? I think what this is really going to come down to is just the coverage unit. Like, can they cover? I think that they'll be able to pressure the quarterback a little with Hunter and Zedaria Smith. Uh, maybe not like they did when they had four great defensive linemen, but you know, cause Phillips and Tomlinson, like those guys are just not really pass rushers. So it's going to largely come from the edge or they're going to be moving Zedaria Smith around, but I think they'll pressure the quarterback enough when it comes to the coverage, the safeties, the corners,

that's where there's just a lot of questions. Cam Dantzler, we've seen him have his up and downs the last couple of years. Harrison Smith will be great, but Louis scene is in his first year. The guy's never played before. He looks really exciting, but that doesn't mean in the first year, he's going to come out and snap his fingers like when i was in buffalo they drafted stefan gilmore and there were fans who who thought that gilmore was bad through like year two because his first three games were bad but his first three games were really bad adjusting to the nfl so even somebody who became a defensive mvp had a tough time to start. So Lewis seen and

relying on him from day one, it could offer some adjustments. I think that that's going to be hard to pick apart from how much the league has figured out the scheme. Also, Ed Donatell has not only run this one scheme for his entire career. He's probably done, well, I know he's done a lot of things throughout his career, which might help a little bit. But every year we come out in the first few weeks, there's a ton of scoring because of exactly what you said. Everybody figures out everybody. And then what matters is how well you adapt to what teams are doing. And this is where Mike Zimmer at his best was tremendous at adapting his defense.

Think about after they played against the Rams and Jared Goff had that huge game and then Zimmer came back and it was like the next five weeks, they were really good on defense and teams were trying some of the same things as the Rams were doing and they weren't getting beat on it. I don't know if Ed Donatell is that guy. Like Ed Donatell has had a good career as a defensive coordinator, but I don't know how he's going to adapt to the things that you're talking about, but you are a hundred percent right to say that. Is it possible that this super popular defensive scheme starts to get figured out? And if you don't stay ahead and continue to adjust and adapt some of the most important parts of it, then it's not going to be

a huge improvement. I think that that is correct. And I think about even like, just to even make this point, like Brandon Staley, Brandon Staley was talked about as, oh, well, this guy, like he's a defensive genius and he was running the number one defense and look how brilliant he was. The Los Angeles Chargers defense last year was, you know, just not good at all. I mean, they were 30th and points allowed. Is that right? 30th Brandon Staley's defense, the guy who the

year before had the number one defense and was really brilliant 30th in points allowed. So yeah, I do think that there is going to be an element of having to adapt his scheme. And it's the first year covering Ed Donatel. I don't know how, how well he's going to do it. I don't know how often he's had to do it in recent years because he's been working, you know, for Fangio and so forth.

So, um, that will be, yeah. I mean, that's, that's a major story for this year that with so many new people coming in on defense is a tough one to pin down. I wish I had

a better answer for you, but like your, your idea that the league always is adjusting on offense and always winning that way on offense and having to go away from things that weren't worked, um, too high safety though. The one point I would, would make is like too high safety is the right way to play against the pass. I mean, against teams, they're going to throw all the time. And the more confusion that you can offer the quarterback, because what the Vikings are going to do is they're going to show too high. And they're either going to use a robber or a rat. They'll call it sometimes, but a robber is where they start with too high. And then that person comes down as opposed to that, like two guys going deep, like those

things are always used and like our long staples of the NFL that I don't think are going to be much different. And they offer a little bit of extra confusion for the quarterback. So I think that that's the right overall philosophy, but the it's really in the NFL, it comes down to so much detail. Like, does this guy cover this guy and how are they going to attack that guy on this assignment and so forth? And you know, the teams, if Daniil Hunter's playing outside linebacker are going to try to find a way to see if they can motion or load up on one side of the offense to force Daniel Hunter into some sort of coverage thing, if they possibly can or get an

advantage on the other side of the field if the Vikings have to adjust for that so like those little games that teams play within each other um throughout a season within the league uh top five most fun things about football I think for me so that will be a really good one to watch thank you all for the questions really really them. Great stuff in this fans only episode. And I appreciate if you made it all this way, bless you. And thank you very much for listening. We will talk to you soon.