Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - If J.J. McCarthy starts next year, how much will be on his shoulders?

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

Matthew Coller answers your questions in the long awaited return of FansOnly! He answers questions regarding how much will be put on McCarthy's shoulder next year if he starts, free agent spending and much, much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a fans-only episode, which means everything is all you. All your questions, comments, thoughts, and opinions. And if you want to be a part of our fans-only shows, Matthew Collar at Gmail. You can send me an email there on Twitter at Matthew Collar or sign up for the newsletter over at purple insider.football. That also helps support the show. So make sure you check that out along with my future of the Vikings series,

which is going on right now. Let's not waste any time. We'll get right into your questions. We'll start with at SKL 605 says KOC is going to have jj throwing 35 times a game isn't he well yes the answer is yes skl605 because that's the minnesota vikings offense and philosophically i agree with kevin o'connell in the way that he approaches offense. I, of course, think that you have to have a better run game than the Vikings have over the last three years. You have to be able to lean on opponents when you get a lead.

They struggled with that a lot this year, letting teams back into games, not being able to convert on short yardage. The fundamentals of the run game have to be better than they've been. But as an overall overarching, what do you want to be as a team hitting on explosive plays, throwing the football down the field? These are things that are proven. The more explosive plays you can have, the more you're

going to win most of the time, as long as you're not turning it over on the other side or say taking nine sacks in a game. And I know there has been a lot of emphasis from myself and others on the short passing game. It was pretty good down the stretch. Once Sam Darnold acclimated himself to the Vikings offense, it just didn't show up in those last two games, but we can't take away from the bigger picture, which was when they did use the underneath passing game, it was pretty effective. But JJ McCarthy, this has been one of the reasons that I've talked about the development curve for McCarthy. And if there's any reason the Vikings could bring back Sam

Darnold, it's exactly this question. It's you're putting so much on the shoulders of somebody who didn't play for his entire first year and didn't even get to practice throwing and practice the footwork and having to relearn football and then went through the entire combine process and all that. And so he was in that mode already, whereas now he's having to recover from a major injury and then put all of that on top of him, learning the offense again, commanding all the different moving parts that Kevin O'Connell has in this passing game. We even saw it took a while for Sam Darnold. It took a while for Kirk Cousins and those quarterbacks have been around a long time. Whereas JJ McCarthy is 22 years old. Now that doesn't mean that I want to put them in a glass box and I want to be delicate with McCarthy. If he's ready to go, he's ready to go. And it's on Kevin O'Connell to adapt, but Kevin O'Connell is going to run his offense.

I mean, I think we really learned that when Josh Dobbs was the quarterback and they were still running downfield passes and Dobbs was getting them intercepted, but they didn't change a whole heck of a lot. I'm sure the details will change for what throws work for McCarthy. I know they did that for Sam Darnold to push the ball down the field more often. Maybe there is more quick game. Maybe there is a little more rollout and things like that because it's good for McCarthy, but he's going to have to command a lot and throw the football and mentally handle a lot of load. And that's why he drafted him in the first round.

So if he's ready to do all that, then by all means, move on from Sam Darnold. There is a huge benefit to having all that cap space, but also if he needs a little more time, I would just suggest that people be patient with that because that's the most important thing for the Vikings long-term. And I even mean the next two to three years is how ready JJ McCarthy is to go. And even look at the first half of Jordan Love after he had several years to develop, he still needed eight, nine games before he really was who he was going to be in the NFL. So it's not an easy process. Somebody like Jaden Daniels has made it look way easier than it actually is. And if McCarthy needs more time to develop,

then give him the time to be 100% ready to go when it is time. But once it is time, yes, that man is throwing 35 times a game. For sure. Joe says, do you think there is a fetish? I'll keep reading the question. A fetish with drafting young players i maybe i'm that's not the right word uh maybe a focus would be the better word but uh does uh this dilutes the value of a rookie scale given the development time we saw jared verse bo nicks and jayden daniels that

older players can contribute immediately well Well, that depends on the older players, right? I mean, Jaden Daniels had to be ready to go and the same with Bo Nix. And there was a lot of learning curve with Bo Nix, no matter how old he was. He had a game where he threw for what, 60 yards or something. He had his ups and downs as well. Jared verse is a real outlier with pass rushers, especially drafted in that area of the draft. It just so happens to be the guy they took right after Dallas Turner. But most of the times that we've ever seen pass rushers get off to that hot of a start in their rookie year, they've always been a top five miles Garrett type of guy. but even some of the guys who are at the very top khalil mac had four

sacks his first year they're everybody's a little bit different when it comes to this and for the longest time all the data pointed to do not draft older players but then the entire earth shifted with covid and covid years and college football got more talented and better because so many players were staying longer and it became a little bit closer to minor league for the NFL than it ever was before. And I think that that helped some of those guys. But I also think, you know, look, Jane Daniels, again, extreme outlier to make it where he's at. Rookie quarterbacks almost never get to this point. They almost never even make the playoffs like Bo Nix did. So I don't think we can look at the couple of guys who worked out this year and

say, ah, should have done that other thing. Uh, because I look at Dallas Turner and JJ McCarthy as both guys that over the next couple of years can develop into top notch players. And yes, the, the rookie wage scale thing, it does matter. But my point is how many rookies ever, even just look at the last five years came in, totally moved the needle in their first season. And can we really tie that to their age would be my question because there's young guys who have come in at 21 years old and had an impact right away. And then there's plenty of 24 year olds who come in and do not. I don't think that we could just say one-to-one if you're older, you will definitely have an impact right away. I think we all know the

Jared verse and Dallas Turner thing by now, but with Dallas Turner, if he develops over his next two years and you still get two more years on the rookie wage scale, and then he could sign an extension. So he's still cheap. I mean, now we're talking about three, four years down the road here before you have to pay him. I think that when it comes to quarterbacks, this is a bigger conversation, but everyone loves the rookie wage scale. Of course you do. You want to hit on these draft picks. It helps you. But I also think that I would happily sacrifice the rookie season for the guy to develop and then be 23 years old and starting to hit his prime. And so then you can have it for

seven, eight more years. And it's always been looked at. And again, throw out Jared verse for this. It's always been looked at that. The younger you are, the higher you can go with your ceiling, the more you can develop. So Bo Nix might be what Bo Nix is, and that might be a 10-win quarterback on a team with a really good defense where he can game manage and make a couple of plays a game and then get them into the playoffs and lose to Mahomes or Allen or whoever, right? Whereas with McCarthy, the idea was you're drafting for the upside you can reach over a number of years. You don't draft players like this to just say, oh, we want to get a couple years out of them and then move on. You draft players like this to sign a second contract

down the road and to be franchise players long-term. And if J.J. McCarthy continues to grow way above what his college numbers were or what he was in college, then you're talking about someone you are thrilled to eventually sign as your franchise quarterback. So the philosophy that was always agreed upon with age was that these players can grow more than the players who are older. So no, I don't think that it's a fetish so much as they've looked at these things over the years the landscape changed a little bit and and i will say with daniels though daniels and nicks would be also my examples for hey don't be

too worried if they do end up waiting another year with jj mccarthy because at the age of 22 jayden daniels threw 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for Arizona State. Was not remotely a draft prospect at the point he was 22 years old. And then he grew and grew over those next couple years. And you're right. It certainly benefits them to have him right away this good. But traditionally, that's not really how it's gone. And they didn't also have a choice to pick Jaden Daniels, right?

And I know they did with Knicks and Burse, but if they had gotten Bo Knicks this year, he's not playing in front of Sam Darnold anyway. So I don't know. I would rather have McCarthy than Knicks long-term because the ceiling is higher on J.J. McCarthy. So I get what you're saying. You want to maximize every second of that rookie wage scale.

I also think that it might be a little bit on the overstated side because of the height you're looking to reach with these types of players. So you usually don't go into drafts and we'll talk about this a lot when we get to draft season. A lot of people will want to guard. Well, you better be willing to be patient with that guard because a lot of times, and that's why verse and Daniels are outliers. It does take time for anybody coming into the NFL. Just look across this entire draft, any entire draft guys.

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consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See the website for full details and important safety information uh js says uh how big of an impact will it have on detroit's season next year to lose ben johnson and aaron glenn that is a great question that is hard to answer i do know that when you have a lot of success in the NFL, people take your coordinators. It's very common and it's not always the same. And maybe it's just because it came up on the show the other day. I was thinking about the Atlanta Falcons 2016 and what a juggernaut that team was.

And their offensive coordinator was Kyle Shanahan, head coach now of the San Francisco 49ers. They had a defensive coach in Dan Quinn, and so his offensive coordinator got poached. And it's sort of similar with Dan Campbell, where, yeah, it's not, he's more of an offensive guy, but he was really the manager of the whole thing. And it was Ben Johnson's offense. So you're going to lose your guy. Now, this has also happened to Sean McVay a bunch of times with a bunch of different people. And if you are good at stocking up your pen of coaches, and I saw that Kelvin Shepard is going to become their defensive coordinator. So he's probably going to run the

same system. He's already their linebacker coach that it might not be exactly the same, but it also might not change a ton. It was kind of like if Brian Flores had gotten a head coaching job, I was looking at Durante Jones, the defensive back coach as somebody who would step in to run a very similar system. The concern though, is what happened with that 2016 Atlanta offense where Matt Ryan is an MVP, they're elite. And then the next year they're just good, but it's not quite the same. And I think it was, it might've been Steve Sarkeesian as the office of coordinator. You can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but it was somebody else and it wasn't Shanahan and it wasn't quite the

same. And with McVay in Los Angeles, he's so in control and this is different from Dan Campbell. He's so in control of that offense that they can have different guys come in and be offensive coordinators because they're working for McVay. But ultimately, at the end of the day, he's the guy. That's not the case with Dan Campbell.

So I would say that my answer would be yes, but so yes, as in, I don't think that they'll be the best offense of the last, well, how many was it? Five years or something like they were this year. I do think they'll be really good though. I mean, Jared Goff has succeeded with multiple offensive minds. Yes, they're good offensive minds, but he has succeeded with a lot of talent around him. Unless Jameer Gibbs forgets how to run or Amin Ross St.

Brown can't catch anymore or the offensive line struggles which they haven't in several years whoever is taking over as their offensive coordinator is getting a throne of gold to sit down in and it's kind of like don't screw it up but will it hurt I mean it's not the. It's definitely not the same as how interlocked all those players and Jared Goff were with Ben Johnson. And the same goes for Aaron Glenn, where I was not always the biggest believer in the way that he played defense with so much man coverage. I felt like it was a little bit old school.

I thought that teams kind of figured it out. But of course, they crushed the Vikings in week 18. So there is that but aaron glenn from all reports is a tremendous leader of people and that usually matters a little bit more than a lot of the x's and o's so the replacement maybe can add a couple of wrinkles they could even be a little better there maybe uh and may be having aiden hutchinson also is going to help. So whoever is taking over these spots will have a ton of talent to work with. I doubt they're a 15 win team, but what would I put them at right now?

12 or 13? They should still be right in the mix as one of the best teams in the league. Andrew says, based on what we've seen from Washington, do you think that the Vikings would have beat the commanders at home in the second round had we gotten the number one seed? Well, it's hard to say, uh, philosophically, uh, I usually think we have no idea going into games, which is why I play underdog fantasy with the promo code purple, but I don't bet on football games because they are so hard to guess how it would have gone. Because if you look at

even commanders and lions, we can now say, well, if they beat the lions, then they would have come into us bank stadium and beat the Vikings. But the lions threw a pick six and they got a strip sack and then threw another pick in the end zone and their defense was all hurt and yada yada right the Tampa Bay Bucks came this close a handoff from Baker Mayfield and they might be Washington that's the razor's edge of the playoffs which makes it so compelling and awesome and infuriating at times to try to figure out because one thing we know is that Jayden daniels would not be thrown off by us bank stadium because he is so cool and calm and it seems that their offense makes things and i'm not saying easy for him i mean straightforward for him it doesn't seem

complex to me and they're good in the short passing game the screen game he's great at scrambling when things go wrong the vikings would have been the stronger team in the short passing game the screen game he's great at scrambling when things go wrong the Vikings would have been the stronger team in the game though and if they could have contained him if they could have made a play on the football here or there then we're talking about a Vikings win I mean I just it's so hard to figure out right because the Vikings defense is better than the Lions defense but Sam Darnold also did make big mistakes in the playoffs would he have done it at home he seemed so comfortable at home and yet on the road in the playoffs it was not the case so you win 14 games you still go on the road like i don't know uh but that's also

when we write the playoff narratives we sit here and say well o'connell did everything wrong you know darnold is bad the defense needs all this and that and a lot of this is is true criticisms of the last two games of the season but then you go you know had Green Bay won in Philly and the commanders came to Minnesota and Sam Darnold played really well at US Bank Stadium where he was great all season long. Are we talking about a different conversation? It's so interesting to me, the tangled webs that are weaved by the NFL and the playoffs and the nature of small sample sizes.

I will say this. I would have picked the Vikings in that game in major part because Washington's defense is not special and because Brian Flores has wreaked havoc on young quarterbacks. He really has over the last two years of him being defensive coordinator. If you're a young quarterback, your likelihood of playing well against him is not great. Also, maybe one of the reasons why Matthew Stafford was good because he could pick some of it apart, but could Jadenaden Daniels I don't know uh the blitz is less effective I mean this is a thing you go on all day about this the blitz is less effective when the guy can run like that so I don't know I really like what I've seen from Jaden Daniels so hard to say if you if they

win that game or not Mike says uh KOC has said that he draws up the plan and then has a red pen day where the quarterback can get rid of plays. Then KOC is at fault for not choosing plays from his huge playbook that emphasized the quick passing game. Well, this is, I think a reach is the way that I would put it, Mike. This is a stretch.

And this is why sometimes I think, like, let's not just look at everything and think that they did it wrong all season long because of the way it ended. And this is going to be a motif of the show, I think, going through the off season is let's not treat it like Kevin O'Connell screwed up the whole season, Okay. They won 14 games when

their over under was six and a half. So let me explain the red pen thing. All now I'll suggest a book to you. Uh, Bruce Arians quarterback whisperer, check it out. It's a great book. I read it a couple off seasons ago i got tom moore's book for this offseason uh mike silver's book as well and one about john madden so i've got some offseason reading to do but bruce arians in this book talked about every thursday i think it was thursday and this might be saturday for koc but i think it's thursday for bruce arians that he would have a meeting with carson palmer Palmer or Andrew Luck or whichever quarterback he was working with. And they would go over all the third down plays. I think he

talked about specifically, and it was this exact same thing. This is not new. It's not unique to Kevin O'Connell. It's entirely how it's done in the league is the offensive coordinator or the head coach gets together with the quarterback. They go through things and say, what are you most comfortable with after practice? What are you not comfortable with after practice? Show me what you feel like we need to keep, what we need to take out. And Bruce Arian says in his book, you always want to make sure that you are giving the quarterback things that he's comfortable with, that you're not forcing him to do stuff that he doesn't want to do. And sometimes that's a back and forth,

but that's just how it's done. That's pretty standard practice. And the second part of that is in an individual contest, the Rams game, because think about the Detroit game guys were open plays should have been made. They should have scored points. Like I don't look at that as a game plan issue as much as a Sam Darnold issue. A week 18 is, is Sam Darnold. And the playoff game is of course also Sam Darnold, but it was blocking. It was more blocking than even Detroit. It was more, they didn't have a counter punch. They didn't have options. I think for Sam Darnold, the way that maybe they needed to, which the ball needed to

come out a lot quicker than it was. And they were still taking some deep shots and chasing mistakes and so forth. But Sam Darnold in terms of passer rating was a top five quarterback this year in quick game. I think they could have used it more. They were not one of the top teams in terms of percentage of quick game because they threw it down the field a lot. And I think Jefferson and Addison getting the ball faster is something that needs to happen.

TJ Hawkinson was not quite used the same way that he was in the past. And that's part pushing down the field. Also, what does Sam Darnold do best all season long? Push the ball down the field. So I don't think that they did anything wrong with red pens. That's again, standard practice in the NFL. But I do think that in an individual game,

in the Rams game, when you realize their D line is eating alive your O line, there has to be an answer there. And you can look at the quarterback, you can look at the linemen, the blocking, whatever it might be, but there has to be an answer or you're going to lose playoff games like that. And I think it's a learning type of experience that we've seen from a lot of different coaches through the years, including Sean McVay. Sean McVay was not maybe prepared enough that Bill Belichick in the 2018 Super Bowl was going to throw a completely

different defense that he hadn't run all year at him. Well, that's Belichick, right? And so he kind of learned the hard way. And the next time he ends up winning the Super Bowl when he got a chance at that against a very good Cincinnati pass rush and defense at that time so for Kevin O'Connell he's not even 40 years old yet he's still in this process of learning how to win those football games and it doesn't excuse it or it doesn't make me go like it's okay pal no big. It's bad. It's a bad loss, but it also doesn't make me think, gosh, he's just calling. He's got all these bad plays. Why is he using all the bad plays? He should use the good plays. That's my opinion. Robert says, I see the Dallas Turner is listed around the same height and weight as Andrew Van Ginkle, a little heavier. In fact, he's also

pretty much the same height and weight as Micah Parsons is bulking up really the answer. Well, here's a little secret. It's the dirty secret of the National Football League, Robert. And because you and I are here together right now, I will tell you this dirty secret. Heights and weights are not that accurate on websites. They're not. And they're not that accurate at the NFL combine either.

I mean, they are in that moment, but those guys spend months trying to make sure they get certain numbers to sell themselves best to teams. So Dallas Turner, I absolutely guarantee you without a shadow of a doubt does not weigh what Micah Parsons and Andrew Van Ginkle weigh. There is no question. There's no doubt about it. Zero, zero. Their lockers were right next to each other. I mean, that's, there's a, there's a difference. And here's the difference. One dude is a grown man who has put on man muscle over a number of years,

off seasons, workout programs. Van Ginkle was a fifth round pick that developed and developed. And Micah Parsons is also just an absolute freak of nature, but you can't tell me that that guy only weighs like 240 something. No way. He is much bigger than that

after a couple of years in the NFL. It's actually the point about Turner is okay. At the combine, he weighed something. What did he weigh week 18? It was not what it said at the combine. I'd probably guess maybe 15 to 20 pounds lighter than that, which means you go into your first off season and probably Jared verse,

by the way, has already learned stuff like this or has already seen his body develop. Every player doesn't develop their body on the same timeline. If Dallas Turner goes into the off season and he gets to that weight, you're talking about where he could keep it on throughout a 17 game season, which is a real challenge for a lot of players. That's where you'll start to see him grow up. And yeah, he needs to get stronger to take on tackles. He did not succeed one-on-one with offensive tackles. He had a few splash sacks, and he definitely made a great play on the interception. I thought he set the edge well on some run plays, but he needs to be able to go into

a tackle's chest and push him back in the NFL. He could do that in college. It's a different breed. So he needs the same thing all young players need. Just time, experience, development. It is the answer. It is the answer. It's just I think it really tells you how some of those heights and weights are just not exactly what they say they are.

Baseball Norm says, this is football norm, wrong podcast. What Vikings free agents do you bring back and what's the number they'd have to take for you to be on board? So in terms of the free agents, I think what we could talk about the big ones. Well, let me, let me give you the ones that I would bring back that aren't big names. It's only two for me. That's Jonathan Bullard and Trent Shurfield. Trent Shurfield was a great gunner. He was really good in the run blocking game.

And honestly, I think he could catch the ball. He's got a history of catching the football. They don't have to always run when he's in the game. I think that they could throw it to him a little bit more and that's, you know, and play actions and stuff like that. And Bullard did a great job against the run. He was a gap stuffer and I am very much into the idea of a defensive tackle, but you got to have guys like that. You got to have situational type of players who rotate in. And I think he costs 1.7 million or 2.2 million or something like that last year. If he comes back at $3 million, great. That's a guy who played a lot of snaps for you

the last two years and was really effective in his role. As far as the other guys, let's see. You have Byron Murphy Jr., Cam Bynum are really the two biggest names here. Stephon Gilmore, Shaq Griffin. I don't really expect either one of those guys to be back, but the difficult thing about Byron Murphy and Cam Bynum is what is the price tag out in the market? If teams are desperate for a really good corner, well, Cam Bynum had a great year and it was

not just picks. It was not just picks. We've seen that before where a guy gets five or six picks, but he just wasn't even good. The ball just kind of showed up. That was not the case for a Byron Murphy Jr. He was a top quarter of the league cornerback this year. And I think we really saw how good he was when he went out last year. And they had to play Caleb Evans, and it just sort of came apart at the seams. Well, from my perspective, I think they would want Byron Murphy Jr. back,

that he has become a vital part of this defense. Cam Bynum is a little bit harder because Bynum is a hundred percent a guy you want back, but he's also a guy that a lot of people might want and then just overpay. And what we know from Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, and I'll give you an example of this, Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, his superpower as a GM is putting a value on a player and sticking to it. Like that's what he's done a very good job of. There doesn't seem to be a real emotional attachment from this GM to somebody like Daniil Hunter, for example. We got a number, you're over that number.

We're going to find somebody else at the number we want to pay. And that was Jonathan Grenard. And the same goes for the running back position with Delvin Cook. We got a number, you're not at that number. We're moving on. And we've seen him do that for a bunch of different players since he's been here. That might happen to combine him

as good as he is. There's a number that's maybe 15 or 16 million that if someone's offering him that that's hard to do when you have a system that's always worked really well for safeties. And we saw Theo Jackson step right in, make some plays. Bobby McCain was able to come in and play against Seattle. Where this gets a little tricky is if Harrison Smith retires, then, okay, are you losing both starting safeties off of a top five defense? Do you want to overpay for Cam Bynum to make sure that you have someone who's carrying this on with him and Theo Jackson? Do you want to move Josh Metellus

back to a traditional spot where he plays with Bynum and Metellus instead of the dynamic box guy, he's the dynamic safety, strong safety coming up to the box. So it might be worth it. I mean, if you can keep both of them, you want to keep both of them. They played enormous roles on this team over the last two years on a good defense in 2023 and on a great defense in 2024. What the market says is really going to determine that and what they want to do. I mean, if a guy like Cam Bynum loves Minnesota, as he really truly seems to and wants to stay, well then maybe he structures his contract. So it's not an enormous cap hit,

or it's not top of market. So he can stay in Minnesota, but I am certain he's going to have a lot of interest in the same with Byron Murphy jr. Uh, at CJ McCauley says a pie chart. What percentage of available cap and draft capital cap space and draft capital should the Vikings be spending on improving the O-line D-line corner and other let's see, what would other be running back running back? That's a part of it. Maybe a while draft capital for sure. They're going to have to have running backs.

They don't have any. So running back would be another one. I will go with offensive line gets the highest percentage here. I'll start with 40% of the offensive line. If you're going to play that system we talked about off the top and you're going to have your quarterback in the shotgun or dropping deep back and looking to throw down the field, you have to have a better interior of your pocket and also you just have to be able to get two yards on third and two or fourth and

two you have to be able to hand the ball off to somebody in the red zone and have them plow forward for a touchdown they can't just always get beat immediately on the o-line uh and i think two or three positions need to be changed there for certain left guard. I really liked the way Dalton Reisner played in pass protection, but I think you try to look for that guy who can get a push up front a little bit more. And as much as I respect Garrett Bradbury, and I think that he improved pretty significantly from his early years, if this is how you're going to play, then that's just not your type of player. There's probably teams in the league, maybe like a San Francisco,

who would not prioritize that the same. But if that's how you're going to play, then you probably need a better pass blocking center. And I also think it's great to draft these guys, but free agency is often where a lot of the good old lines are built. They've built it through the draft at the tackle positions. So I think they need to go into free agency and spend a huge amount of their money on the offensive line. I will go 20%, well, 40% of all the drafts.

And maybe that's a little too high. Maybe I should go 30%. I'll go 30%. That was a little much, but I was just trying to give every free agent lineman all the money. So we don't have to talk about it anymore. And then we can see the full potential of the offense. Uh, let's see D line. So I'll go 30, the D line. I would go another 20 because there's fewer players that are needed. It's really one or two. I might even be just one that they need. Oso Degasuya is a guy from Dallas. I'm going to have to get that down if they sign him, but he had 60 quarterback pressures this year. He's probably going to demand upwards of $20 million, but that's worth it. If you could get a guy that consistently is pressuring

quarterback. I was also just looking at first round defensive tackles today. And there's a couple that the Vikings could. And if you're talking about all that, like if we just assigned points to cap space and draft capital out of a hundred to make a pie chart, I mean, you want to push some chips to the middle of the table. If you're spending a first round pick, that would be very valuable. So I think defensive tackle, if I'm doing a draft SIM, which there, there will be, there will be draft SIMs. If I'm doing that today, DT is the position I probably pick rather than spending the 20 million in free agency. I would rather maybe get a role player there, a Sebastian Joseph Joseph day or a Mario Edwards or somebody who's kind of bounced around and then also draft somebody that you can have for years.

And part of that equation is like the question earlier, the rookie wage scale. Well, these guys are making 30. These guys are making wide receiver money. Now, If you're a great defensive tackle, you want to draft one because the difference between hitting on that guy, that, that, that difference between what you'd pay for him in free agency and what you get on the rookie contract, that's now a premium position. And so the Vikings need to focus on that. So I'll go 20% because they really only need one and maybe two corner would be another 30%. So we got 30, 60, 80. Uh, so they need corners, Dwight McClother and Mackay Blackman. Those are the only two guys in the roster. And if you bring back Murphy, that's probably $14 million, $12 million right

there. So that's a good chunk. I don't love drafting a corner in the first round. I like experienced corners playing for Brian Flores or the guys that have developed under Brian Flores. That makes a lot of sense to me. So going into the free agent market, they did a good job of finding guys who would fit this year, but you're looking for one again, like one kind of big swing there and then develop the other guys and get some free agents to fill it out. Like a Fabian Morrow who came in and played a couple of games. But I think what you're looking for is the DJ read type. You cover that guy today. That's your job. You don't shadow every game all the time, but can you shadow occasionally?

Can you play man occasionally to mix it up, to lock down one really good wide receiver? They just haven't had that guy in a very long time and they need to spend on that. But I don't think that they need to sign like 100 of them. Maybe it's higher than 20. No, did I say 20 or 30? I said 30. So it's a big chunk,

a big chunk of the cap space needs and draft capital. If they do draft one, I'm not going to say it's a bad idea. I just like the idea of defensive tackle a little bit better. And as far as other goes, I think a third round running back makes sense. And then maybe bring back Aaron Jones for $8 million or sign Rico Dowdle for eight to $10 million. It's significant,

but it's not quite as much. So I think it's probably like 20% will go there. And the rest of the roster is in really good shape. I mean, they've got the edge rusher position. They've got the receiver position. They've got the quarterback position. Like those are the most valuable positions in the sport. And they're pretty much set and tackle and they're pretty much set. tackle and they're pretty much set. So now you're looking around the edges and going, where can you get X percentage better? Uh, let's go to one more for this episode, Matthew K foot on Twitter. What is your, uh, who is your favorite running back in the draft that would be available for the Vikings to select. Well, I will say this. I have only just

begun since we're in the second week of the Vikings not playing. I have only just begun looking at this, but I think I got a guy. Now the two at the top are going to be Ashton Gentry and Omari and Hampton. Those guys could go high because I'm sure teams are looking around the league, just like what we've talked about and saying, man, if we got everything else, that one position can really be maximized. And it could be a freak like Saquon Barkley. We've been over it. Defenses are playing too deep safeties and empty boxes and whatever light boxes. So the running back position is, is resurging in the NFL in these recent years. So those guys might go too high, but Caleb Johnson from Iowa, I saw a few games of his this year, just, you know, big 10. And I was very impressed contact balance. He's a pretty big guy. Like, I don't know his height and weight, but just like looks big in football pads and he is

very hard to take down looks like he's got the strength he's played against players that we can say like this is a high level of competition very high level of competition and he had to be more or less their whole offense I could catch the ball on the backfield I mean just this is a very brief start of and I know people like Cam Sc scataboo from arizona state he was really fun to watch he was great in that college playoff game i guess he could throw maybe uh koc will want him for the trick plays uh maybe but i normally in the past have been the guy who says uh draft a running back i don't't know. Give me a fifth rounder. Give me a seventh rounder.

Give me a free agent, whatever. It's about the offensive line. I am changing the tune now because of the way the league is. And that's what I always say about the show. When more information is presented, we change our minds. And that goes for the 14 win Vikings.

They couldn't get to 15 or it goes to the quarterback position. If Kevin O'Connell is good to go with JJ McCarthy, then I'm good to go with JJ McCarthy. I'm not going to go back and say, how dare you KOC? You're screwing up. It's like when new information comes along, we change our minds, not being rigid.

So I'm not rigid on this. I think drafting a running back in the third round makes the most sense because I've already seen Daniel Jeremiah say that day two is going to be big for the running back position. There's going to be a lot of guys who are available in the second and third round. So that might be a spot that the Vikings target. I also saw that the draft is more than 80 days away. So I'll have a lot of time and I'll be at the combine as always to prepare for just that. So thanks everybody for watching slash listening to this fans only episode. There will be plenty more with your questions and comments and a reminder, go check out

purpleinsider.football. That is where I've worked on the future of the Viking series. Every player, every position, stats, cap hits, free agent options, draft options. Got everything for you there. And if you want to reach out through an email at Matthew Collar at Gmail to just send me a note and I'll see it for the show for the fans only. And on Twitter, you can shoot me a DM. Those are open as well. So thanks so much, everybody, for watching and listening.

And we'll catch you next time. Football.