Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How will Brian Flores' defense be different?

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about an interesting potential option for a Justin Jefferson contract extension and then discusses where the Vikings' pass rush will rank after losing Za'Darius Smith, whether winning 13 games last year hurt the Vikings long term and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and we continue to roll along with a mostly fans only week. We did mix in Trevor Sycamore the other day, so if you missed that conversation, that was really fun talking about the opener against the Bucs, but we'll get back to all of your questions.

And usually I open up with some sort of topic that's on my mind before I get to what you guys want to talk about, but the Vikings have let us rest for a couple of days here without dominating the news cycle. So they've got OTAs next week though. And of course I'll be out there as always, and we'll see what they have to discuss. We'll also see importantly who shows up will Daniil Hunter be there will Delvin Cook be there will Delvin Cook be gone by then I guess we'll have a lot to find out when we get to OTAs and then we'll actually get a little bit more

of a look than we got at rookie minicamp at how Jordan Addison mixes in is he going to be moving around how's he look running out there with the first team offense for whatever we can pick up on in OTAs? It's always a bit of a challenge to have major takeaways, but we'll try our best. And there will be press conferences and so forth. I guess the only thing that I've been writing about for today was Justin Jefferson's extension. Of course, we have talked about that quite a bit and whether he will sign an extension before the start of the season. And I had a thought that I don't know

that I've brought up on the show before, and I ran this by our buddy at PFF, Brad Spielberger, because he is the leader in knowledge of salary cap, just, I don't know, in the world, him and Jason Fitzgerald from over the cap.com so i ran this idea by him what if justin jefferson did something similar to dk metcalf who signed a three-year and i believe it was 72 million dollar deal with something in the 30 million dollar guaranteed and then it was uh potentially 50 30 million million fully guaranteed and 50 for injury.

There's two different there. Fully guaranteed is really the number that you usually focus on. But with somebody signing a three-year deal of DK Metcalf status be fifth year option and it would be franchise tag into one contract extension. But that extension would not keep Justin Jefferson under contract long, long term. twice from a money perspective, also give the Vikings an opportunity to mess around with the salary cap a little bit and not take the big hits of a fifth year option or of a franchise tag, maybe that could potentially be some middle ground. But I will be very interested to see if an extension happens, how long that term is, because I think Metcalf may have set a little bit of a precedent for players to sign

shorter deals if you're fairly certain that it's going to go in a really good way, get a lot of bonus money up front, and then have another opportunity to get a big contract. Because what often happens, and because Jefferson was so young, this isn't the case for him. What often happens if a player comes into the league it's a 22 23 they are 27 28 by the time they are really getting that big uh second contract and if that contract is five years long they are not often hitting the lottery multiple times it's the one big contract and maybe one other one if you're a really, really good player. And not that I think that Justin Jefferson is ever going to struggle to make money, but I think that's a strategy that could potentially work for him.

It could also give him the flexibility to, after a couple of years, have that contract come up and be in his prime and be able to look around and say, do I like where this franchise stands? Do I like who's playing quarterback? Do I like the culture we've created? Are we going in the right direction or do I want to do something else? So that would be kind of kicking it down the road to somewhere around like 2026 where he would be scheduled to be a free agent. And I think that would be an okay outcome for the Vikings. Clearly they would want him to sign a 10-year contract and be a Viking for life, especially with what we know about wide receivers.

There aren't that many flash-in-the-pan, one- or two-year-wonder wide receivers. A lot of times, if they're good, they stay good for a very long time. And Justin Jefferson is in that same Larry Fitzgerald type of category where you could see him many, many years being an excellent wide receiver. So they would rather have him for a long time. But I could also see that happening as an option on the table. So I don't think it's five-year mega deal or no deal at all. There might be some middle ground.

And whether they can work that out, I'm not sure. It also remains interesting to me because the dollar figures are going to be discussed, but it's really whatever his side wants, they're going to get. The Vikings have a blank check out for Justin Jefferson, and Kweisi Adafomensa has made that quite clear. He said he never wants to be the GM of the Vikings without Jefferson there. Maybe a little bit on the hyperbolic side for Duffel Mensah. Life could go on if there was a trade or something like that. But I think that when you put your cards on the table like that, then the other side pretty much has carte blanche to write their own check

for what his extension is going to be. And whether Justin Jefferson actually does that, we'll find out. But at the moment, there hasn't been any buzz or any rumors or any reports that they are close in discussions, anything like that. And that, I would guess, if it's going to happen, would start to ramp up as we go throughout the summer and into training camp. If it does not happen by the start of training camp, maybe an eyebrow gets raised. If it doesn't happen by week one, then it probably won't happen all year. More likely than not, players really don't like that negotiating contracts in the middle of

a season. So we've seen Stefan Diggs was kind of early middle of training camp. I think we've seen other guys sign right the very first day that they arrive at camp. And Delvin Cook, if I remember correctly, it was the Saturday right before the opener that Delvin Cook signed his extension. So these can happen over a span. But if it's going to go on, it's likely going to go on before week one. Or we're going to go into another offseason next year wondering, OK, what's the deal? Does Justin Jefferson buy into this franchise? So that was kind of the one thing that was on my mind and we'll see if anything else

pops up. And of course, keep your eyes out for any emergency podcasts if there is big news. So let us get into your questions. Got a ton of them. Thank you all so much for all the questions you always have for me, whether it's mailbags on the written side or if it's when we go live on YouTube. You guys are so clever and smart with what you're looking to have answered that I love doing it. And I love doing these fans only episodes. So keep sending them purpleinsider.com or hit me with a DM on Twitter at Matthew Collar. All right. The first question comes from Fire Celis. Sorry for any pronunciations if they go bad.

I'm sorry about that. Let's see. How vastly different are Ed Donatell and Brian Flores' schemes? Who needs to step up on the defense to maximize the potential that our defense has? Yeah, I think that the biggest difference is really vibes. The vibes are very different. The mentality is very different. So what Ed Donatel wanted to do, and this has worked for Vic Fangio, so I don't think that the general idea is bad. He wanted to line up the same way every time and then run different coverages that

would confuse the offense. So imagine that you're running a play action. And this is why I think Fangio stuff has worked so well against a lot of these heavy play action offenses. You run a play action as quarterback. And when you turn around, that's when you find out as the quarterback, what the safeties are doing and what the coverage is doing. So instead of being able to read it at the line of scrimmage, you're finding out kind of then, are they playing a single high? Are they playing too deep? The problem was that they were usually just playing it too deep and they were playing, I think, way too soft and way too far off. And then another part of it was personnel. The weaknesses from some of the players just did

not fit what they wanted. Some players were really good in this defense. Zedarius Smith, Daniil Hunter, Patrick Peterson, Harrison Smith could probably be good in just about any defense, but there were a lot of other players who I think could not handle all the things they were asked to do in Ed Donatell's defense. And then, I mean, clearly they should have had tighter coverage. They should have been more aggressive and so forth. But I think that the main idea was to play kind of that umbrella where you are going to have to complete seven, eight passes to get down the field to score. And part of that theory is if you're going to have to pass that many times in a row, you're going to mess up at some point. And they did cause a fair amount of

interceptions from doing this. So it's not like it didn't work at all. And some of them were in really big spots, but they dared teams to complete passes over and over again. And other teams said, okay, we will. And I think they gave up the second most passing yards in the entire NFL. And that was a major reason why, because the lack of aggressiveness and the amount of cushion that they were giving to the wide receivers, sort of daring them to complete pass after pass. Well, if you don't have guys who can read route combinations exceptionally well, get in the right spots or attack the football, you're going to have confusion.

You're going to have a lot of wide open space for wide receivers. And that is what happened last year. I think that Donatello's defense and the Fangio system does work, but it needs the right people to work. And as far as Brian Flores goes, it is flip that on its head.

So there's going to be a lot more players who are in the box that are moving up to the line of scrimmage. It's not going to be two deep safeties and then they shift after the snap. It's going to be showing a lot of pre-snap stuff. Who's going to blitz? Who's going to rush? Who's going to drop back? The quarterback never really knows.

Both theories are based on the quarterback not being able to identify the defense, but it's different in how they get to that same place. And again, both of those theories work. It just, one of them did not work for the Vikings at all last year. And I think that, you know, Donatello not following along with some of the things that his head coach clearly wanted was part of that. But also still, we have to look at personnel. And that's with Brian Flores. So even though they're playing sort of the same things rooted in a 3-4 defense, that there is a different theory here.

And I think with Flores, what he's looking for is taking some of these players and just allowing them to play man coverage, one-on-one, a little bit less of reading all these route combinations and things like that. And just, hey, you're getting up on this guy, press coverage. We're going to blitz a bunch of people. And if you cover them, great. Then the play is going to work. And if you don't, it's not.

And that is the thing with Brian Flores' defense. If you guys remember, intern Haley did work on this. And there is something too when you blitz you give up bigger plays and i mean there is like that happens you give up more explosive plays but you also create more so instead of this kind of play it safe hit the four iron down the on the you know the the fairway which is kind of donatelle way we're going to play it safe we're going to keep everything in front of us this is much way, we're going to play it safe. We're going to keep everything in front of us. This is much more of, we're going to pull the driver. We're going to try to hit it across the lake every time. And when we do, we're going to get a birdie. And when we

don't, we're going to get a bogey because we hit it in the water. If that makes sense, that it's kind of like going for the big plays. If you're a three point NBA shooting team, you kind of have this trying to hit those big threes over and over again. And sometimes if you go cold, you're a three-point NBA shooting team. You kind of have this trying to hit those big threes over and over again. And sometimes if you go cold, you miss a bunch and you lose. And that does happen to the defense with Brian Flores. I remember looking at opposing quarterbacks, quarterback rating against Flores' blitzes, and it was either really good or really bad.

And I think what you're looking for is more bad than good. But that's, that to me is like the major overarching defensive philosophy. And as far as who that depends on, well, Harrison Smith is at the center of this. He's going to be used, I think, in the most versatile role where it's up at the line of scrimmage. It might be playing deep back. It might be lining up at the line of scrimmage and then dropping back. He's going to be used in a lot of different ways. I think with the corners, you can't go too crazy, but this is one of the reasons they drafted guys who have positional flexibility. Byron Murphy is one of those guys who can play outside, can play inside. And I think Brian Asamoah, excuse me, is going to be a huge part of this, where Asamoah is a lightning bolt.

That's his thing, is that he is one of the quickest, first step, quick twitch, all that. And we saw it last year when he was in, how explosive he can be. Also, that sometimes goes along with somebody making mistakes because they're kind of jumping at the first thing they see. So I think that a lot of these games this year are going to be boom or bust for the Brian Flores defense. But last year was mostly bust for the Donatello defense. I think it was the right change to make, especially with a lot of younger players. You got a lot of athletes out there going after the passer, covering one-on-one, things like that. I do think it might have been somewhat of a factor last year,

how they played, that it was a lot of veterans. And the speed of the defense had faded from what it once was. So that might be why it fit really, really well for a Patrick Peterson, but didn't for guys who maybe rely on their athleticism more. So I think that that's kind of the overarching way to look at the differences. All right, from DraftGuy09, Makai Blackman, where do you think the Vikings see him in that made them choose him

over other higher ranked consensus wise options? Oh, what do I think they see in him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think I have a really good I think they see in him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think I have a really good idea what they see in him. One is he was a really excellent player in college. I mean, you don't have to go far or work very hard to see last year how good he was. He graded by PFF elite overall, tremendous in man coverage, tremendous in zone coverage as a great tackler. I mean, he played great football. So that's one thing. I mean, that's, you know, all these things

we try to correlate to success. Weirdly, guys who play great in college often play good in the NFL, right? And that doesn't mean it's a guarantee because there are high rated PFF guys that do not succeed, but that's a place to start that he had really good numbers when it came to his actual performance. I think that what Brian Flores also is looking for in a cornerback is someone who can stay what they call in phase with the wide receiver. And what that means is stay in his hip pocket, read the movements that he has, read the routes that he has, run the route for him. You will hear on TV all the time. And when you watch Makai Blackman, that's what he's doing. There are times where he looks like he's a wide receiver out there and not even the cornerback who's supposed to be covering him.

He's also very aggressive. And we were just talking about how Brian Flores needs an aggressive player. It resulted in some flags, but it always does in college. Every single one of those guys gets penalized all the time. I mean, that's just college football that you're allowed to beat up the receivers a lot more than you are in the NFL. But he was very aggressive, very aggressive tackle or very aggressive getting upfield when he was asked to do that or blitzer or blowing up screens like this guy played really well and so i think that what the consensus folks looked at was all right is he the biggest guy no so they're gonna rank someone who is really big

and you're talking about you know some of the consensus players, well, what do they usually have? Great athletic scores, stuff like that. They have height, they have length. That's, that is something, of course, the NFL is looking at, but they're going to look, I think a lot closer than that for someone and how they fit. So if you have great athletic scores, you have an incredible 40 and you're six foot two, but you're not very good at staying in phase with receivers and you have a tightness to your game or a lack of flexibility or a lack of toughness or any of these things. I mean, they're going to look really, really close. They're going to have scouts looking really close at every element that might or might not fit. So I think what it had really to do with is just that

they believe that this player was a perfect fit for what their defensive coordinator wants. And I have no arguments against that. I don't, when it comes to the middle round players, I don't have a lot of opinions as opposed to a consensus ranking, because I think that the things, those consensus rankings are built on for middle to late round players are very flimsy. It's a lot of just complete guesswork when it gets past the first start of it, where you have hundreds of draft analysts looking at film and breaking down everything else. But how many get to number 175 and are spending that much time? There's only 365 days in the year. So are these draft analysts breaking down like a scout would and breaking it down by team fit, like probably not. So that's a draft

pick where I don't really think too much about what the consensus is and makes a lot of sense to me for what the fit is. Now we are talking about the last pick in the third round. So let's not judge this one as some referendum on whether the consensus was right or the Vikings. Because if you're picking someone there, a lot of times you're picking a fringe starter, a backup, somebody that you hope kind of becomes something in your defense. It's not like they spent a first round pick on him. If they spent a first or second round pick on Blackman, I would have been very confused. But I think as far as the fit goes and what they see in him makes a lot of sense. I think if you go look at some of his game, you're going to come away with like, this guy's a ball player. This guy can play. And

whether that completely translates to the NFL, I don't know. But if that's how they did it, if they just looked at fit and sort of his natural ability to track receivers and his aggressiveness and his intelligence, they would know much better than anybody from the outside maturity. They would know processing information. They would know like a lot goes into this, that the outside can't tell. And so, you know, that's why I think the consensus board is relevant at the top for sure makes a lot of difference. And then after that I think it consensus board is relevant at the top for sure. Makes a lot of difference. And then after that, I think it loses its power after probably the second round. So I am totally comfortable with the Vikings picking him, especially because of his positional value.

I mean, if you could play outside or inside corner and he ends up having any type of job there, as maybe he's a nickel starter or something, that would be a great find for them. And I think that was a big part of it. Folks, I'm super excited to announce a new sponsor to the show that just made us a whole lot cooler. Oakley, express yourself and build a look that's made for you. You guys know that I spend my summers on the golf course, and while my golf game will remain the same, Oakleys will do two things for me.

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and give us a game that they'll win that few expect them to. Oh, okay. Schedule question here. Well, I think that there are, I'll tell you what my pick was for the game that they should win that they won't, which is at Denver. I think it's not easy to play at Denver. Their coach is really good now. They have a lot of players on defense. They have an elite shutdown corner, not just a guy who plays against the best receiver, but Patrick Sertan is a elite shutdown corner. They can rush the passer. And even if Russell Wilson's not having this bounce back revolutionary year,

let's say he's just okay. I still think going out on the road, the way that the schedule is set up where they could get a big win at home against New Orleans right before that and then go out to Denver. You're talking about the whole Rocky Mountain thing and the elevation and everything else that goes along with that. That does make that kind of a difficult place to play. So that's one where I think a lot of us wrote in a W where I could see an L. I would also include.

I mean, do we count Chicago for this? Probably not. Division probably doesn't count for this, but I could also see two other ones. I mean, one would be Tampa Bay in week one, because you just never know what's going to happen in week one. They have receivers, they have pass rushers. And if this defense is not really ready to go, Baker Mayfield can deliver the ball to open players. He didn't the last time the Vikings saw him, but he can. He's capable of doing that, and I'm assuming he's going to be the starter. If it's Kyle Trask, then that one becomes very, very unlikely

that I could see the Bucs winning. But it's not like Baker Mayfield never wins football games. He has enough talent that if you give him time to throw, which they might based on their pass rush, and he can deliver passes if Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are healthy, their offensive line when healthy is very good. There is a potential to lose a game in kind of a shocker in week one at home if they're not careful. As far as the one that they will win that few people expect them to. Hmm. That is a good question. I mean, there's a, there's only a few that come to mind that I would say no one

would expect them to win. And it's the ones that are against the teams that were in championship weekend last year. It's Philadelphia, it's Kansas city, it's San Francisco and it's Cincinnati. So out of those four teams, I think I would say San Francisco would be the one that right now, just based on their priors, we're all saying, all right, the Vikings have lost to this Shanahan San Francisco team. Their defense is stacked. Doesn't matter who's playing quarterback. They're just going to get it to their playmakers. But if it's like Sam Darnold or something, you could see a couple of interceptions. What if their defense has some injuries? What if their defense fades? What if they are less effective coming to U.S. Bank Stadium?

I think if I'm picking any of them, it's probably that one. Going to Philadelphia in week two, this did not work out for the Vikings last year, but you are still talking about very early in the season. And I think the randomness of what happens in the NFL early in the season is higher than from when the teams kind of get it together and know their identities. I still wouldn't pick that one out of the group. I wouldn't really pick Cincinnati out of the group either, because I'm pretty sure at the point they play them Cincinnati's going to be right in the driver's seat to you know be another top seed in the AFC Kansas City I'm not even discussing and if they win it then great but that's not one I'm going

to try to hot take you on I mean that's not only is Patrick Mahomes the best quarterback as far as the start to a career in history he He's also better on the road statistically than he is at home. How crazy is that? I mean, he just defies all logic, but I think San Francisco is probably the one. The only other game I could think of that I would pick for a surprising outcome is maybe Vegas. At that point in the season, I'm guessing, and we all laugh at Vegas that they're going to be in not the best shape or mediocre or whatever. You go out to Vegas. I don't know. It's going to be a home game. Maybe that, maybe that's too hot of a take, but they do have, even if he's unhappy Devante Adams. And that's the only reason I would say it is they have Devante Adams,

but I think the Vikings should, should win that that one. But that's probably the only one outside of the division where you would say like, oh, maybe that would be a pretty shocking upset. I won't put that one on my list, but I think you probably could if you wanted to. This one comes from at Skull Doc. Which away stadium has the best and worst accommodations? Well, from my perspective,

I really actually like going to Philadelphia. I mean, they generally have good food and really, I really like how you can see where I sit usually in the press box at Philadelphia. It's not hard to get into one of the tough things and I'm not crying. okay? I'm just saying that this is a challenge, is finding where the media gate is. There have been times where I have walked the entire circumference of an NFL stadium, which is a long way, just looking for one gate. And a lot of times they don't tell security where it is.

So you go to security guards and go, hey, can you show me where the media gate is? And they're like, I don't know. I just keep walking around. Uh, the most lost I've ever been two places, Kansas city and Los Angeles, their new stadium, Kansas city was one where it was just not marked at all. And I had a very tough time finding it and walk. That was when I walked all the way around arrowhead, which was cool because it was in the middle of the tailgate, but at the same time, that's a long way to walk. And I got in just, I think is the national anthem was being sung, even though I had gotten there like, you know, 45 minutes early. So that one was a little bit

tricky. Los Angeles was a nightmare. I mean, it, that trying to find where it was, how to get in there, how to get out of there. It was late at night and I was in the basement, but actually you leave out of the top of it. It was very confusing. A little scary there in Los Angeles. Good food in Los Angeles. So, you know, it's most stadiums are great. Most stadiums are totally fine. But there are times that is the worst part of it is when you can get lost. We gave Chicago a hard time about their food, and they did upgrade the last time we were there. So I can't name Chicago, but they do need a new stadium as well at some point. And as far as best accommodations, I mean, U.S. Bank Stadium,

every reporter who comes in will tell you, I mean, this is great. The way that you can see the pregame food, everything else. Like, it's a nice setup outside. They could use a bigger elevator, but I'm not going to spend too much time complaining about that. So yeah, no, I mean, most at this point are pretty good. It only is frustrating if you just can't find that media gate. Let's see from jmoreland77.

Did we do a disservice by winning 13 games last year and not proving we need more rebuild than competitive rebuild? Disservice is hard. It's a hard word to use for a 13 win season. Did you do your franchise a disservice? Because the culture got turned around and the season was exciting and what are we here for right we're here now there are some people who would say they didn't win a

championship i forgot about the season immediately and go jump off a bridge but most people are not like that so i think most would look at last season as having been actually very fun. Game in and game out. It was like edge of your seat, crazy plays, comebacks, 60-yard field goals, largest comeback ever, a very, very memorable season. And Kevin O'Connell established himself from day one as a guy who knows what he's doing as a head coach of a team. And let us not forget all of the NFL coaches who have been hired along the way that had no idea what they were doing. Like this happens all the time. Does it not that coaches come in and are absolutely clueless and it comes

apart at the seams really quickly and they get fired within two years and the franchises and shambles. I mean, Matt, Patricia, Joe Judge, you could go on for a million years naming all the coaches who have destroyed franchises. It is not a disservice to have found out that Kevin O'Connell is good at coaching. I think that's a good thing. Or not only that, but operating a locker room, running a franchise. These are important things that you came away with that matter toward the future so i can't say disservice too many good things happened to say disservice however are you in a

tougher spot now because you won 13 games than if you had won six the carolina panthers traded up for the number one pick and got b Young. That could have been you maybe. So yeah, probably. I mean, depending on if they could have actually traded up to get a quarterback or not, even if they couldn't have, you still might've been talking about a top 10 draft pick. And if you're rebuilding and you had got a top 10 pick, that's a heck of a good place to start. Not only that, if they had moved on from a lot of pick, that's a heck of a good place to start. Not only that, if they had moved on from a lot of players, they could have had more cap space to work with. They could have been more active in free agency as opposed to just getting Marcus Davenport and Byron Murphy. So yes, if they had taken it all down last year and won five or six games,

they might have the future franchise quarterback and have brought in some other free agents to work with and build around as well. And yeah, would that be a better spot than they are in right now where we're still unsure? We don't really know what this season is going to be. We don't know who the future quarterback is. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, if you could, if you could just zap back and say, would you rather win? And I think we actually had this discussion last year at some point, would you rather win 13 games or would you rather just get the number one overall pick? I think at this point today, everyone would say the number one overall pick. Now, if I asked you before week one, you would have said 13 wins.

So I don't know. There are some regrets to be had with, it made the road harder to competitive rebuild to the next quarterback. They're still in a position to be good this year and win eight to 12 games. So if you do that in that range, you're not getting that number one pick next year.

So yes, I totally see what you're getting at. It's just that I don't know if, I mean, would you send that season back for a top pick? Probably. You probably would. All the fun to have a chance to actually aim for the Super Bowl. Yeah, you probably would. Was it a disservice to the franchise long-term? I don't think it was. It's complicated. It's complicated. And I mean, I've always wanted them to take the long-term outlook

and have a season that was down or two and bounce back quickly like we've seen other franchises do. But I also know the entertainment value of last year and the value of building a stable culture for your franchise as we saw what it was like when it became unstable under Mike Zimmer. All right, back to your questions in just a second, but first let's get into our more than meets the eye stats focus presented by Oakley. One thing that we have talked about quite a bit is Daniil Hunter

and his status for the future, but I don't think we fully realize how consistently excellent Daniil Hunter has been because he had those injury seasons. He missed all of 2020. He missed half of 2021, but if you go back and look through in his last 56 games, since he signed the contract coming out of 2017, he has 45 and a half sacks just last year, eighth best PFF grade and 70 pressures, which was tied for sixth. Now, I mean, you've heard me give you those stats before when we were talking about how excellent Daniil Hunter was, but even in that first half of the 2021 season he only played seven games had six sacks still had an 80.8 pff grade which was in the top 12

of players with at least 300 snaps go back to 2019 he made a case for defensive MVP at that point sixth in pff grade second in quarterback pressures and then his true breakout season in the NFL 2018 he did not actually grade as high as some years later in his career but he was still top 20 in grade eighth in pressures fourth in sacks that season. It is incredible how year after year after year Daniil Hunter has produced. So when we talk about this Daniil Hunter debate over whether to pay him, how much to pay him, you could see from his perspective and his agent's perspective, why they would be asking for elite money. Now there are people who have looked closer in depth at some of the numbers about how often he is double teamed and how quickly he gets to the quarterback and so forth but the results kind of

speak for themselves here with pressures and sacks which are making a difference against how the quarterback plays so i think daniel hunter has a very reasonable argument to say, look, year after year after year, I have been the exact same player. I have not changed in many seasons from what I do on a week to week basis. But of course, if you're the Vikings, there's more to it. There's the price tag, what they think they can afford in the future and a lot of other factors including his health they would know better about his health situation and the neck injury that kept him out in 2020 and whether that's going to impact him long term they would know more about that than us but i think when they're formulating that price all the stats would say you should give him elite pass rusher

money and i think it has to be part of his argument as well, that last season he moved out to an outside linebacker, more of a wide pass rush than he had done before, more standup rushing than he had done before and still put up the same numbers. So the defensive coordinator didn't matter. The year doesn't matter. His age so far has not mattered. And going into the future you would guess that he would continue to put up these type of numbers if he is at 100 health so that has been

our more than meets the eye stat focus presented by oakley all right next question from n matt 71 with With Zedarius, our pass rushing duo off the edge has been slated to be near the best in the NFL. Since he left, where could we expect Hunter and Davenport to rank? Yeah, it was Mike Clay of ESPN who put the Vikings, I believe, at number one as far as their edge rushing duo. Of course, that was with Zedarius Smith. So with him, they were at the top top and they were last year production wise one of the best edge rushing duos in the NFL

and then since he left now at least for right now they have Daniil Hunter and Marcus Davenport and we'll see where it goes from there I think that it's gotta it can't just be Marcus Davenport gets named here. It's got to be Marcus Davenport and friends because the highest snap total Marcus Davenport has ever taken in the NFL, I think is 544 or somewhere in that range. It's not over 550. Everson Griffin would push 900 to 1,000 snaps per season playing every single down.

Maybe Mike Zimmer could have taken the gas back a little bit with him, but that wasn't Zimmer's way. But the point just being that you need about a thousand plus snaps out of your edge rusher. And if he's not going to be able to do that, if he's going to be more like a 500 snap guy, then Patrick Jones, DJ Wanham, Andre Carter, if he can play Luigi Villain, whoever emerges, someone usually does as a potential rotational rusher. You know, they're going to need other people to fill that in. So Hunter and Davenport slash friends, where they rank also depends on how Marcus Davenport bounces back from last year. He was

still pressuring the quarterback, but he only got a half a sack. And he had one season where he was very good at sacking the quarterback, but most of them have been good PFF grades, good pressures, but not really finishing the job. And that kind of reminds me of Jadavia and Clowney who had the same thing, was able to get after the passer, move the quarterback off his spot a lot of times, but didn't really have whatever gene it is that Yannick Ngakwe, for example, has where he doesn't pressure consistently, but just gets sacks. So there's different kinds of rushers. Hunter is one of the best in the league, but he's not, in my mind, a top five rusher.

And again, this is nitpicking. I think he's one of the best of the best. I don't know that I would put him top five, but I would probably put him just outside of that. So just by having one guy who's in the top six to 10, well, that makes you in the top half of the league. And I think Davenport and friends projecting the mid outcome, let's say it's 500 snaps, six sacks for Davenport, and then Wanham throws in a handful. Patrick Jones throws in a handful. I mean, you could end up totaling with a healthy Daniil Hunter. That's if he's here, a healthy Daniil Hunter, you could end up totaling, say, you know,

maybe like 15 to 20 sacks from the edge rushers pretty good and maybe it's a little more in the best best case scenario i think that probably puts them in the top half of the league i don't think that it puts them in the top 10 i mean that's only if you have two elite rushers like the vik. But top half of the league, I think for sure, it's the totality of the defensive line where you worry about the overall ability to create pressure. Because Dean Lowery did not do a lot of that last year. He did two years ago, but how he's going to change that up, I'm not sure. In the middle of the D line, is Ross Blacklock going to play a role? Didn't really last year. Who else do you really have to create sacks and create pressure? Harrison Phillips is much more of a kind of a stout run

stuffer in the middle. So as a D line, how many sacks can you really create? How much pressure can you really create as a D line? As far as pass rush goes, I would put them in the middle of the league as opposed to toward the top 10, just on the edge rushers. I still think they're outside the top 10 or, or right, right there, right in that fringe. If they trade Hunter, then we're talking about like 23rd probably. So we'll see if they do and what happens with Hunter, but it's a big change. And we saw that, I mean, the two years where he didn't play a lot uh 2020 and 2021 when he was out it was a completely different look for them as far as getting after the quarterback

from uh head coach 21 if the vikings struggle this year do you think quacey and koc have built up enough goodwill with ownership to have another year to turn it around. So this reminds me of something that Kweisi Adafomensis said to us at the Combine. This is why Purple Insider goes to the Combine, is because there's always interesting things said. And I asked actually Kweisi directly about the relationship with ownership and how different or how much the communication has grown since last year or their understanding of each other. And he gave some anecdotes and talked about the Wilfs vision and all those things. But he dropped one thing that I thought really stuck out. He said that his job with

ownership as the general manager was to set expectations. And I thought that's interesting. Why bring that up if you're not saying set them reasonably for this year? And I think that what you look for is ownership. And think about this, if you are a business owner or just put yourself in a business owner's shoes, if you have a manager who tells you, look, profits, records, we're gonna go through the roof to the moon

this year. It's going to be the best year you've ever had owning this business. And then you have an average year. You're going to be like, dude, what was that? What happened? Why did you tell me that this was going to be the case? And we made all these decisions in our marketing and our investments based on this big year, and you were wrong. That's what gets you in trouble, I think, with management in the NFL as well. If, and I'm just, this is hypothetically, because I don't know that this happened, but let's say that at the very beginning of Kweisi Adafo-Mensah's tenure, he said, look, this year we can be very competitive, meaning 2022. Bring me a couple of free agents

and look at the NFC. It's not that good. The Packers are going to fall off and we can win the division. And then he would have been right. And they would have been very pleased. So he's right. They could win the division. What a great year. And yeah, they would have liked to be more, you know, successful in the playoffs and all that. But overall, they would have been right that, yes, you can be right there in the NFC because it's not that good and the schedule is not that hard. Now, if they go into this year and say, look, we are in transition. We have all these new players on defense. We don't really know what Jordan Addison is going to bring year one.

We hope it's great, but we don't really know. We're not sure of the progress of some of the offensive linemen. Life without Delvin is going to be different, all this stuff. So we might, and our schedule is going to be way harder. So we might be closer to a 500 team, but here's the reasons why we're going to go in the right direction long-term. If that's how he presented it to ownership and they won seven games, then I don't think that that has an impact because also I know it comes up all the time with the NFLPA survey, but I just can't tell you how important that is. It's so important for them to have created a training staff, for them to have created an environment where players want to be. That's something I think is very important to this ownership.

So if you go from winning a bunch of games to dropping back, but they had already prepared themselves for that, then a hundred percent, I think that they have enough goodwill from last year and just straightforwardness with who they are. Now, if Kweisi Daffelmensa told them, look, we're going to be back. We're going to win 13 more games. I mean, it's hard to see that actually happening, right? But if that's what he told them, then I think it changes things quite a bit for how they would view a bad season. But I doubt it, right?

I mean, I think based on their moves, they've moved on from a bunch of players that the Wilfs surely love. And there's still maybe more to come. And I think that everyone can kind of see what's happening here. So if they win eight games, but the defensive guys really make progress and it's a fun season and they're competitive survives that. I mean, not as in fired. I mean, everybody who has a four win season is on the hot seat. There's just no way around.

I don't care what the NFLPA says or how fun it was because every losing season like that, I mean, remember some of the seasons, the seven win season with Mike Zimmer, it was burning to the ground. And you can be as player friendly and everything else as you want to be. It will burn to the ground. If your team, if your team is horrible, we just can't really see it happening because they have Justin Jefferson and Kirk cousins. And these guys have

always been able to get them to a certain point. So I think that as far as a GM and head coach right now, they should feel very good about where they're at and that there is a plan because that's how it's looked this off season early on little, little confusing. But now as we're seeing later in the off season, someone like Zedaria Smith go and Delvin Cook seemed like he's on his way out. Now we're seeing kind of the bigger picture and the fact that they have not extended Kirk Cousins, all of it's coming together much more conducively and thematically than it looked like it was early in the season. Okay, one more here. No fast and the furious questions for this episode. Sorry, guys.

This is from Kruger West on Twitter. How come Kenny Wong Wu doesn't get more playing time at running back? It's a good question because I would have thought last year that he would have at least gotten a handful of end arounds or something. I mean, just a handful of plays that would have highlighted him. And yet he didn't even touch the ball at all. That was confusing. I mean, he's one of the most explosive players in the entire NFL, one of the fastest players in the NFL. I don't know why they didn't use him at least a little. If I had to guess, I would say he missed training camp, not all of it, but some of it. And it may have set him back in the offense and they see him every day in practice. So there'd be a reason if they can't trust him with the offense, can't trust them to pass block, things like that,

you're probably not working in a whole lot of plays that are built for him. And when you have Jefferson, Delvin Cook, all these other talents, TJ Hawkinson, you're not spending a lot of your time saying we have to make sure we work in the number three or four running back. I still think that they should from time to time. And he's going to have his chance here though, that I think that the starting line, if they move on from Cook is going to be Madison number one, and then everybody else at the same spot. And it's start your engines for Ty Chandler, Kenny Wong Wu and Dwayne McBride. And that'll be a fun competition to watch. But they may not feel like he has the details of

being an actual running back and part of it he didn't play a lot in college at running back and there may have been a reason for that as well so i don't know why they wouldn't mix it in from time to time because there's a home run threat there but i also understand that if something's not happening it's probably not because they just forgot about it or they just didn't know. Cordero Patterson probably has scarred a lot of you because they were dead wrong about not giving him the ball. So it's not that we're always wrong and they're always right. It's just that usually there is an explanation for that. And that might be part of it. It's just the understanding of the offense, the trust factor, factor the blocking factor because you can't just go out there put somebody in and hand them the ball every time they go out

there so maybe it's a little more complicated than we think but it will be interesting to see if he could play a full uh training camp if he could make some noise in that race um thanks everybody for all the great questions i still have a lot more to work with so i hope you're enjoying these types of episodes because there will be more to come very soon thanks so much for all the great questions. I still have a lot more to work with. So I hope you're enjoying these types of episodes because there will be more to come very soon. Thanks so much for all the questions. Again, purpleinsider.com or on Twitter at Matthew Collar. Great places to send me your fans only questions. Thanks again.

We'll catch you next time.