Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Introducing a new intern, her blazing Justin Fields take and Brian Flores blitz data

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Matthew Coller welcomes Haley English to Purple Insider as our new intern. She talks about her background and asks Matthew questions about the Vikings... and then they talk about her study on Justin Fields that revealed serious red flags about his passing ability and breaks down her data study on Brian Flores's blitzing (which may be even more risky than you think). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a very special episode of the show where we announce and welcome our new intern, intern Haley English from Villanova. And we're going to get into who you are, what you're doing here. But first of all, you're replacing Paul Hodowanek, who's legendary. So the bar is very high. Great to have you.

Very excited. Welcome to Purple Insider. Thank you. Great to be here. I'm very excited to start. So you published your first article on Purple Insider. And what you're going to be doing is the same thing that Paul did for us on a weekly basis, which is you're going to write an article and you're much better at math than

Paul was. And we're going to get into that, like your data science background, that you're not a journalism dweeb like he and I. You are much smarter than us. And so you're majoring in statistics. But I do want you to tell everybody just a little bit about, you know, your your work at Pro Football Focus, data science and the connection with football. Because, you know, I think that that's really such a great industry or side of the industry that is growing for opportunities for people who didn't necessarily play football to contribute on the data side? Yeah, I grew up actually doing gymnastics my whole life, so competed all the way throughout senior year of high school. But I always loved and watched football ever since I was little. I grew up a big Jets fan, so the Vikings aren't the Jets, but I'm very excited to get a new perspective on a new team. But yeah, I just grew up watching it. I grew up in a family who

all played football and everything. So watching it every Sunday, I remember writing down in my old notebooks, like the score of every game when I was in like first grade, like when we got back to school on Monday. So yeah, I'm very, I've been surrounded, I've been surrounded by it my whole life. And ultimately interned at Pro Football Focus over the summer. I worked mostly with defensive coverages. So that's where I'm like most skilled in my data science-ness, but majoring in statistics, I've done data science for like three-ish years now and I love it. Yeah. And this is why we need you because the defense is such a disaster that we're going to work our way through how exactly they're going to fix it

with Brian Flores. But I want to start out by just, you know, I wrote down a bunch of questions that I thought were a good way to get to know somebody, right? So you mentioned that you grew up rooting for the New York Jets. And I think that this is actually important to our audience because, so you're there at Villanova and if you were cheering for the Eagles this would be a little dicey with Vikings fans not only are they jealous but they're also mad that Eagles fans threw full beers at them in the parking lot of the 2017 NFC championship so you're not you're not a an Eagles person but with the Jets they have such a history of heartbreaks and bad quarterbacks and all sorts of things that like you get it like you get you get the ethos of what it is to be a Vikings fan just by growing up around the Jets quarterback. Who is your favorite Jets quarterback that failed? Which, side note, they all failed, except for Vinny Testaverde.

He was great. Yeah, pretty much every quarterback in my lifetime that I've watched on the Jets has not done well. They've all failed and everything. So I'd probably have to say Josh McCown, though. It's been so tough being a Jets fan, but Josh McCown, I don't know. He was just like a likable guy. They called him uncle Josh on the team. I know he was like kind of mentoring Sam Darnold and he's not even on the team anymore, but I think Josh McCown was a,

he was a decent quarterback. He was solid, but obviously not up to the level that you need for like starting caliber to like win games and get to the playoffs. But I don't know. He was a, he was a good guy. This is. This was not pre-prepared. I want everyone to know that because anyone who's listened to the show understands my appreciation for journeyman quarterbacks. And if we had a museum of journeyman quarterbacks, the statue in the middle would probably be Josh McCown.

I mean, not only is Josh McCown like the perfect guy to have as your backup quarterback, who can come in, help you out, but his hot streak as a member of the Bears was just like something to behold. If you remember that, he had like this five-game stretch where he was unbelievable, and then Tampa Bay gave him a huge contract, and then he went like 1-10, which is the most journeyman quarterback thing I've ever heard. But also like Josh McCown has a wholesomeness element to him.

That is amazing. Where like, if you ever saw the picture of his daughters wearing all of his jerseys with their friends, like for every team that he's played for the guy played in the UFL, like he, he's battled to keep a career going. And my favorite Josh McCown factoid is that

in a game where he was playing for detroit he played receiver for a couple plays and actually caught a pass i mean that's like an amazing journeyman backup story yeah he's awesome like him and ryan fitzpatrick like have been the two most like almost entertaining quarterbacks that i've seen in my lifetime for the jets uh and i and I covered Ryan Fitzpatrick in Buffalo and he's the real deal, but, uh, unfortunately for your jets, uh, Ryan Fitzpatrick, as they often do journeyman quarterbacks, let you down at the end of the season when he needed to beat the bills. And, uh, that, that, that's just what they do. So here's a side question, though, related. Vikings fans are always afraid of becoming the Jets,

which is funny because you kind of like are in a lot of ways. But like the falling into complete disrepair because you bust on a bunch of high draft pick quarterbacks. Like statistically, it should be almost impossible to bust on as many first-round quarterbacks as the Jets have, but here you are. What say you about that, about the fears that Vikings fans have? Because when they talk about drafting a quarterback and moving on from Kirk, they go like, we don't want to become those Jets. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't understand how the Jets could have possibly busted on so many first-round quarterbacks, like especially Darnold and Zach Wilson being picked three and two, like three years apart in the draft. I think you guys made the right move, like getting Kirk Cousins instead of drafting a quarterback when you had the opportunity. So I would advise maybe try to get a veteran quarterback or if you're going to keep Kirk, draft someone later in the draft, maybe become like a Dak Prescott type of guy. But yeah, I don't ever want to see the Jets kind of pick a quarterback in the first round for a while now,

and they're going to be getting a veteran this year who is hopefully going to take them a little bit further. See, it's really sort of the opposite of the Vikings who never do that. And the last time that they did was Christian Ponder. That didn't exactly work out. Dante Culpepper and Teddy Bridgewater, not in order, obviously, both had knee problems and were in route to actually working out. And then, you know, things sort of fell apart there.

That's where I think that most Vikings fans would probably tell you, just like you want to try something different, like they want to try something different, that we've sort of run this course. Look, I think we all know this. If the Jets get Derek Carr, it's going to work out the same way that Kirk Cousins did for the Vikings, right? Exactly. Yeah, probably. Probably. It's going to be like you know 10 wins maybe some first round outs Josh Allen's still going to be better than you like be careful what you wish for Haley uh all right so uh next thing for you is not football related uh you are

a fan of the office that is um a lot of people are but i think that i have an opinion about the office that sometimes ruffles some feathers and it's the first time i've ruffled any feathers with an opinion so we'll see how this works out on the show uh my least favorite characters on the office are pam and jim they are tied for number one for my least favorite. And every time they're on the screen, I want them not on the screen. And here's why I think, and I wrote this down. I think they are directionless sociopaths whose relationship seems to be as much about boredom as it is controlling each other. And I think that Roy did not deserve the treatment he got from Pam, even if he wasn't a great

boyfriend, your thoughts. Um, I will agree about this stuff with Roy because I did kind of feel bad for him in the end. But I do not agree that Jim and Pam are like the worst two characters on The Office. Like I'd say that Phyllis is probably my least favorite. I really don't like watching her. I think she's just like kind of mean

and no one really sees it until like they kind of, it kind of clicks with them. I kind of get where you're coming from when you say that they're kind of boring. Yeah, they kind of, it kind of clicks with them. I kind of get where you're coming from when you, like, when you say that they're kind of boring. Yeah, they kind of are, but I feel like that's the office's like mentality as a show. Like it's not supposed to be this like in your face type of comedy. It's just like the subtle comedy there. So I don't know. They're okay. I think I like Dwight better because he's the most entertaining and Michael, obviously. But I see where you're coming from. Yeah. I think that, I mean, the show basically has two really funny characters and

that's Dwight and Michael, and they are so funny that the show is great, but everything else just sort of exists around them and is unspectacular. But one thing that I think that the writers knew, and this is just like a theory fan theory is like that that Jim was actually like not a cool guy like Jim you'll meet in your life Jim's for sure I I worked at you know McDonald's and a grocery store when I was in college and things there's a lot of Jim's there's like people who think that they're better than everybody else there but you're like i don't know man dwight's the one actually doing all the selling and it's also like just not that funny like bullying your co-worker is like there's some clever gags but it's just not that funny to me it's just like dwight actually can sell you can't even sell

what do you do here and then also like you know Pam goes to art school or whatever and Jim's basically like oh it didn't work out for you just come back and I'll like buy a house without telling you what like what is this like oh I don't really want you to thrive I would prefer that you just like stay here and not really succeed just like me that That's true, I guess. I loved like the little pranks that he pulled on Dwight. Like when he put his stapler in the jello, like I lost it, even though it was like what the first episode or something. Like I was like, that's the best thing in the entire world.

I want to do that to someone because I like little pranks like that. But yeah. Just maybe it's a little much for me. At least I can get you halfway to the gym and Pam hates. But it sounds like you haven't thought of it maybe as, as, as on a, like a level of like a weird relationship dynamic that I just can't stand. Uh, so you mentioned, well, so you already kind of answered this a little bit, but the next question was going to be like, are you good at sports?

And did you play sports and are you better than the population at anything regarding sports um yeah so I did basically one sport my entire life which was gymnastics I tried about everything when I was in like kindergarten first grade but like I wasn't good at soccer I'm not that tall so obviously I'm not good at basketball softball wasn't my thing because I didn't like hitting or fielding or anything so I just stuck with gymnastics like like ever since I was little. And I did it all the way up until senior high school. I had two like pretty big concussions that kind of took me out after that. But yeah, I loved every second of it. And I still go and play around at the gym and visit my old coaches and everything. Yeah. So like that was kind of my life before college. So what did, did you just do everything?

I don't know a lot about gymnastics. Did you just do everything? Yeah. Like I competed all four events. My favorite was bars. I just thought it was the funnest one. But yeah. Is there like a crazy level of commitment when it comes to gymnastics? Yeah. So we practiced like six or five to six days a week for like four hours at a time. So it was over 20 hours a week. It was a lot of practice. And I'd go like after school, I'd have like an hour to do whatever homework I did, eat dinner, go to practice and then go home and like go to bed. So I've gotten really good at multitasking and like getting all my work done in my other classes when I have like downtime. So I don't know. I liked it. Can you still do gymnastic stuff or do you lose that immediately?

I still actually still have most of the stuff that I used to compete and train, which is kind of fun. I don't have anything on beam anymore. That just kind of scares me. Like I don't want to tumble on something that's four inches wide, so I can still do floor. I can still do bars and it's just, yeah, it's fun to get back out there. Okay. That's awesome. I can shoot a basketball better than most people, but that doesn't, I mean, not like an NBA star, but just like if we both stood at the three point line and we shot baskets, I'd probably make more. That's, that would be my athletic, you know, prowess, I guess, is that, that is the total limit of it. I'm not good at anything else really in basketball. Not a great dribbler.

I can't dunk, but I can stand there and make threes. How about this one? What is the first Super Bowl you remember? The first one that I remember is the Saints versus Colts. I don't remember what year that was actually. Oh no, that is some wounds for Vikings fans right there. We know what year it was, 2009. 2009, yeah. So I was eight years old at that time. I was the biggest Drew Brees fan growing up. I still think he's arguably maybe the best quarterback

and most accurate quarterback of all time. So watching him win a Super Bowl was awesome. But yeah, that's the first one I remember. Yeah, that one is definitely one where Vikings fans believe it should have been Brett Favre in the Super Bowl playing against Peyton Manning and winning that Super Bowl. But this shows you the gap. It's like the interns are going to stay the same age and I'm going to keep getting older because your first Super Bowl that you watch is in 2009 when I was already graduated from college. And that was actually probably when I was first starting in media was 2009. I think that was the year that I got my first job working in radio. So like thinking about the gap there and the first Superbowl that I remember happened, it was the 1990 season Superbowl where Scott Norwood kicked the field goal wide, right.

And I was five. So yeah, one of the, one of the themes of the show with any of the youths is that I am old. And so that's just, that's how it's going to be. But luckily we have a lot of other listeners who grew up in the nineties who don't mind me being like, remember these old players? You don't remember Tom Tupa playing quarterback for the Jets, but I do. So we'll we'll have kind of more than that than you're going to want. One question I've really liked asking people recently is about Aaron Rodgers darkness retreat. That's future jets quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, maybe, and his darkness retreat. No one, no reasonable person like you or I would do this because it's just psychotic. But if you were to create your own

retreat, what would it be? Um, so every summer me and my family go up to like Georgia, New York. So it's like three hours ish north of New York city. I'm like from right outside of New York city. So it's not a far drive for us, but if I can stay there the entire summer that I would, but if I could go on some retreat there for, I don't care how long I take that opportunity every second. This, this is just, this is like way too normal. I mean, with, you know, Aaron Rodgers, he's got cleanses and he's hiding in a closet and just all sorts of things.

Going up to a beautiful location and hanging out. Now, actually, I mean, that's a much better way to make a decision in your life than Aaron Rodgers is making his. But for me, it's video games and pizza retreat for sure. There's not that many opportunities, although I would say this last week was one of them in the NFL schedule to just hang out and do nothing. Like normally there's lots of stuff going on and that's sure going to be the case for the next three weeks here on the show for sure.

But we're just kind of waiting for stuff to happen. Was it hard for you to choose colleges or did you always want to go to Villanova? That wasn't on the list, but I'm just curious. I was thinking of big life decisions that you would have when you haven't lived that much life yet. Yeah. So I didn't have the most direct college decision process. So I had visited a bunch of schools and I didn't really know where I wanted to go. I just applied places. And Villanova actually had denied me like out of high school. And I was like, okay, whatever, like, I don't care. So I ended up going to the College of New Jersey for my freshman year, which is kind of like right outside of Trenton, New Jersey. It's very, it's like the same size as Villanova, but like 95% of the kids are from New Jersey. So

it's a lot different aspect. And then I was a freshman when COVID hit. So they sent us all home and then I spent my first half of sophomore year at home. And I was like, this is annoying because they weren't going to send us back for the spring. So I was like, let me just like put in applications to transfer. Like, why not? And also I knew I wanted to be in sports. I needed to go to like a school that had more connections to sports. I know like Villanova is a big basketball school and I'm not the biggest basketball fan or know much about basketball, but it's a good school to like go to. I applied to two colleges. One of them was Villanova and they sent me an acceptance like three weeks before I would have to go in the spring semester. And I was like, well, that was a quick decision, but I was

like, I guess I'll just go. Like, why not? And yeah, I've been here ever since. I like it. And I graduate in May. That's awesome. And well, you're not a basketball fan, but they do have one of college basketball's best players, Maddie Segrist. I don't know if you've become aware of that at all, but she scored like 50 points in a game the other day. So she's a good one to watch. Okay, how about this? I would like to know what you want to know about the Vikings from me.

You know, you're just sort of being dropped into our universe and you'll adapt quickly. Again, with the Jets thing you get you get like 90 of it but uh what are you what are your vikings related questions you can ask past future metaphysical like what uh what's uh what's on your mind about the vikings as you join purple insider um probably my first question was like did you see the Minneapolis Miracle in person like what was your immediate reaction to that play like I know like I didn't love seeing the Saints lose but I was like I don't really care who wins because this is the best game I've ever watched

and I was like jumping it like off my couch I was like this is insane that's the coolest play ever so yeah what's your opinion on that whole play and everything leading up to it? Your point is actually right on about the whole game. The whole game is so well played and classic NFL playoffs where the smallest mistakes lead to other things like, you know, a long snapper blocking the wrong way and a punt block and, you know, things like that, that set up the Minneapolis miracle to happen. But yeah, I was covering it in the press box. And you know what's funny about that is when they got the ball back, so they get a stop where really, I mean, New Orleans runs right up the middle at the best defense in the league at third and short. So they ran right into Linval Joseph,

who was an elite nose tackle. And it just gets and then like I don't know what like Sean Payton the the play calling genius calls the worst the worst play against the Vikings that they stopped all season long I started writing at that moment Case Keenum leads a game-winning drive to win the playoffs because I just had seen the whole season go down. And so many times Case Keenum had just thrown the ball up to Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen. And as I was writing it, in my mind, I was doing the math on a field goal. Well, they don't have to really get – like their field goal kicker's decent. They don't have to get that far to get a field goal here.

And I think that Thielen and Diggs are going to do it. I also figured if they lost, it would have been a 17 point blown lead from a team that was 13 and 3 and no one was going to read it anyway so i'm going to just start writing the story about the comeback because if they don't i don't have to really worry about it i'm just not even going to write this um because people will be crushed so that that was uh that was part of it. And then the other part is I always, because of the press box view is so good of the field. I always look at where the safeties are in the coverage and you'll appreciate this as a defensive aficionado. I'm always looking, is it middle field open?

Is it middle field closed? Like how is the, the coverage playing? So Case Keenum takes the snap. And I remember looking at the coverage wait why don't they have like more people back like normally you think it would be like a like a deep cover whatever how many other people you can get back there and there was only two and so when the throw went up my eye went to marcus williams and i watched him the whole way more than i saw digs run and then jump out of bounds and digs go all the way and the other thing i remember too

is that digs threw his helmet and one of the vikings practice squad receivers caleb jones ran on the field and grabbed him and i was like when did he run on the field was it could they get flagged and have this play you know negated or something and then the other part was after it happened it took forever for the game to actually end because, and they changed this rule because they had to attempt the extra point. So they like what's going on, you know, and it was 20 minutes or something, or it felt like that before the actual game came to an end after the Minneapolis miracle. I remember seeing digs right below us standing up on the bench and there's a

famous picture of that. So that, yeah, I mean, that was, that was something. And then in the locker room, everybody was just in tears except for Harrison Smith, who said we really have a game next week, so we need to stop celebrating this. And I was like, you're a sociopath, but that's probably what makes you good. That's yeah. That's that. What else you got? I can answer all of them.

I won't, I won't be that long winded, but I'm sure you have other questions. Um, I'll go on the same line. That's like your favorite Vikings quarterback that kind of didn't succeed as well. Like maybe like favorite, I don't want to say backup, but like favorite quarterback that hasn't played a ton for the vikings well there's there is a great history of random quarterbacks playing for the vikings as far as that didn't play that much that one uh i i think that what i would go with here is probably just jeff george because he only played i think he started 10 games for them or nine games for them in 1999.

But Randall Cunningham, after the 98 season where they had the best offense in history at the time, they brought in George and they drafted Dante Culpepper. And if it was today, they would have just played Dante Culpepper. But, you know, they actually thought it was probably better to leave him on the bench for a year. So Jeff George came in after Randall Cunningham struggled and just threw bombs. And Jeff George didn't have a good career. He only had two seasons that he was even above 500, but he just threw laser beams. Like he was a number one overall pick and he had one of the craziest arms of all time. And Randy Moss bombs 70 yards down the field to Randy Moss moss and i think that that short

run of games is one of the most fun that has ever happened as far as quarterback and wide receiver combinations because george had one of the five best arms in nfl history and randy moss is at the best deep receiver in nfl history i mean there's a bunch of them that are great sean salisbury shows up jim mcmahon again, this is way back. But there's also random ones that didn't work out at all. Like Spurgeon Wynn, Josh Freeman was very briefly a Viking, which is, they traded for Josh Freeman thinking he was going to save their season. And then he played like worst game ever against the New York Giants. He went like 19 for 54 throwing or something. It was absurd. There's a lot of

them. There was the Kyle Slaughter debates of 2020 or 2019. If you watch the XFL, you'll see Kyle Slaughter as a XFL backup, but people got really worked up about Kyle Slaughter. And the other one would be, I mean, just really Teddy Bridgewater. The thing about me covering the team in Teddy Bridgewater was when I got the job, it was three weeks or two weeks before the season started to move to Minnesota and cover the Vikings. And Bridgewater was the guy. Everyone was excited about Bridgewater. I mean, the team was improving, and he was on the rookie quarterback contract, which maybe people have heard about on the show from time to time.

This is a big year for them. You know, Bridgewater is going to take a step forward. He had been great in training camp. And the day I arrived here, Bridgewater got hurt in his knee and he didn't play for two years. And it just sent it into complete madness. So I guess it would probably be Teddy Bridgewater because there's always the idea of

what that could have been and then you think about a less talented quarterback Case Keenum taking them to the NFC championship maybe with Bridgewater and Bradford was kind of expensive like they would have had 20 million dollars to spend if Bridgewater had been healthy and you know what ifs are kind of a big deal in Viking land? Yeah, definitely. Teddy Bridgewater, Jets legend, too. Yeah, that's right. Well, you know what?

And I remember watching his first preseason game with the Jets. And that was kind of a big deal here because he's actually playing football. I can't believe this. Do you have any more before we get into your article and before we get into how you made Bears fans upset? I've got believe this. Do you have any more before we get into your article? And before we get into how you made Bears fans upset? I've got one more. So you guys have a history of being great at wide receiver with like, obviously Randy Moss, Stefan Diggs, now Justin Jefferson. So out of all of the receivers that the Vikings have had,

which one is your favorite? And when the draft happened with Justin Jefferson and you saw that the Eagles drafted Jalen Rager before him, like we've all seen the video of the Vikings war room being like, Oh my God, they actually like drafted Jalen Rager. Like Justin Jefferson's on the board right now. Like what was your reaction when that happened? One of the things that we know,

and you know, being a statistician, is how random the draft is. I would never think, oh my God, they got the next best receiver in the NFL. I remember actually after they traded Diggs, talking about in the lead up to the draft, how they weren't drafting high enough to get Justin Jefferson. That was my impression because he was being mocked in like the top 15. So that was one thing is that people would tweet me and be like, well, you know, you think that Jefferson drops? I was like, I don't know. It doesn't look like it. You know, I don't think they'll be able to get somebody that good. Cause I had watched him at LSU like everyone else. And he was just a monster. But when they, when the order happened,

I did think like, i can't believe that they landed this level of a prospect at this point because i didn't think that they would have any chance at that i didn't know about jalen rager and you know the thing about jalen rager is dk metcalf had hardly any catches in college and was a physical specimen and it's turned out to be a superstar and that was Jalen Rager so I like I didn't think oh man I can't believe they just drafted this guy how stupid are they obviously the Vikings thought that but the Vikings also have their fair share Laquan Treadwell of picks that didn't work out either so but that I was very surprised that

they ended up getting Jefferson and then we really didn't know how great Jefferson was until probably the last week of 2020 training camp, because there was the COVID thing and he actually got COVID early in that camp. So he missed practice to start training camp. And so he's behind from the start and we were just like, I don't know, you know, whatever. And then he started to emerge. He started to see it, but he didn't even start until his third week and then went for 175 yards in his first game.

But yeah, that's probably, it was really surprised that he dropped in general. As far as my favorite receiver goes, like there's a lot of sort of funny, sarcastic answers of guys who were down the depth chart that got like amir smith marset like hours spent on the show talking about receivers who didn't make it they were like laquan treadwell is definitely one of them but if we're going back as i often do in the history

it's probably jake reed is probably my favorite one because i mean i look i mean every person in america loved watching randy moss and i bought a sega dreamcast recently to go back and play with dante call pepper and randy moss because they're so dominant on the video game but uh jake reed was an incredible receiver and he got relegated to a number three role because of randy moss and chris carter this guy this guy could have been a number one receiver on any team in the league and when when he was a number two with Chris Carter, they put up historic numbers. And yeah, again, this you're looking at me like I'm talking about the civil war here, but it is, it's, it's, it's like a guy to know, you know, if you're like doing a list of

Vikings that someone who doesn't know the Vikings needs to know. I would put Jake Reed on that because he was really important to that 1998 season and those offenses that were just incredible with the three deep with him, Chris Carter and Randy Moss. I'd probably put him up there. I really enjoyed covering Stefan Diggs because I thought that he was just a really interesting guy. He had a super tough childhood. His father passed away when he was young, and his dad, he was like really close with his dad. And he kind of took over the role of, you know, being the man of the house, raising his brothers. His mom was working all the time and everything else.

And, you know, you see what a player Trayvon is too. I mean, that was a lot. That was just a lot for somebody to take on. I think he was like 12 or 13 years old at the time. And you sort of saw that as part of his personality, I think. One of the reasons that he was so competitive and maybe also so emotional as well. But talking to him from time to time, just on the side or whatever, I think people don't understand, or maybe Vikings fans do, but he's just a really, really intelligent guy, like really,

really intelligent. And I think that his burning fire to win sometimes goes a little too far, but also can we really tell pro athletes, you know what? It seems like your fire to win is a little too much there, sir. So I always thought that he was a really interesting guy to cover. Yeah, I would say that this this team just has the most unbelievable group of wide receivers. Every time I watch Jefferson, I think this team had Moss, Diggs and Jefferson. What? So, yeah, it's it's interesting. And I've and I've enjoyed covering Justin as well, because he is the most sort of nonchalant superstar that we talk about digs and being emotional and like the fire to win where Jefferson, you just think he was just a guy like, Oh, you know, I'm just, you know, just here and whatever else. And then he goes out and steals people's souls on a day on a weekly basis. So it's, yeah, it's really something if you like receivers.

Yeah. They're all insane. And I'm a big Stefan Diggs fan. He's been the rock of my fantasy team for a couple of years. So yeah. Well, that was that was really the main controversy was that Diggs thought that he should be the centerpiece of the offense. And so for the entire 2020 season, Diggs was right, was a tweet from a lot of people because

he was right. I mean mean he did deserve to be the centerpiece uh before we talk about your brian floris article uh why was it that you upset um bears fans so i wrote an article with um amelia probes from pff and we had basically kind of said that justin fields like he really can't throw he's not great at throwing the football like obviously he has all this running talent and he's like keeping the Bears in games because he can run you need to be able to throw the ball like accurately if you want to be a successful quarterback in the NFL and we didn't see that jump from year one to year two so like if we look at something called perfectly covered plays like where every coverage

defender is doing their job essentially locking up their receiver um Justin Fields was dead last in EPA on perfectly covered plays and on plays where there's a receiver still open he was still dead last so he's not finding the open receiver he's not finding the covered receiver but he's just good at running so I don't know if I was the Bears organization, I'd highly consider taking Bryce Young one first overall, but I don't think they will. But yeah, just overall, like Bears fans didn't like that. And like to this day, I still get random tweets, random DMs being like, yeah, no, like you're dumb. Like the, like Justin Fields is good. I'm like, okay, like we'll see in a couple of years, but I don't really

think he can improve much throwing. I mean, they did give him Chase Claypool, but obviously that didn't really work out and for what they kind of paid for him, but we'll see how that goes. I still don't think he's the best passer in the NFL. I don't think he'll ever be that caliber of passer in the NFL just because we didn't see that jump from year one to year two at all so who knows yeah I mean how much can we factor because I think this is if you're a Bears fan this is the argument you're making is well he didn't have great receivers or a great offensive line but you know I don't think the offensive line by the numbers was so horrific that you would say it sounds sort of sounds like Josh Rosenyene where's oh well you know the situation

was bad and everything else that is true but a lot of times with a bad situation if you can at least be serviceable then there's potential there and i would say that about like trevor lawrence in his rookie year there was no worse situation in the universe than trevor lawrence being coached by urban meyer with no receivers and a bad offensive line and a bad defense and everything else. But yet you could still see it. You could be like, OK, I get it. Like whether it's the tape people breaking it down or even in the numbers, you're like, OK, this was bad, but it was not horrific. So you could still sort of keep hope alive. And then he did take that step this year with fields, though. His PFF passing grade, I think, got worse and his big time throw rate which

is what everybody rested on for the first year it like cut in half this year so he was even taking less risks with his big arm and i think what you pointed out really demonstrates i don't know that he sees things very well like i don't know if he's they call it processing but i think it's just seeing it seeing the coverage reading it being able to react really quickly i think he's they call it processing but I think it's just seeing it seeing the coverage reading it being able to react really quickly I think he's a guy that needs somebody right in front of his face to come wide open before he throws the ball and that's why he gets sacked a ton exactly and like as much as Zach Wilson was god awful and he should never take a snap for the Jets ever again like he was ahead of fields in those stats. So I, as a Jets fan,

am willing to let Zach Wilson go, but for some reason, Bears fans aren't willing to let Justin Fields go yet. So I think that's kind of holding them back. And I don't know, I think if you're a Vikings fan or any other fan in the AFC North, you're kind of happy to see Justin Fields stick around. How much is it worth to be a great running quarterback? Here's a question. How bad at passing could you be if you're the best running quarterback, basically? I mean, as of last year, like he was one of the best ever. He was in the Mike Vick, sort of Vince Young, or maybe even better than Vince Young running category. How bad can you be if you're the best running quarterback?

Yeah, I think that's the way to put it. Yeah, that's a really like deep question because a lot of injuries can come from running and you kind of saw that with lamar jacks in the past two years so like that's why i don't know if he's going to get all the money that he wants just because he's been injured for the past two like the end of the past two years and kind of took the ravens out of playoff contention and out of the playoffs because he's not the one playing um so yeah you definitely need to be able to throw the ball. I think you need to be more skilled at throwing the ball than running the ball.

Like you see Patrick Mahomes like has both of them and he's the best passer in the NFL and one of the best rushers in the NFL. So yeah, it's definitely a very deep question and I don't know how much you can quantify that. Yeah. Well, maybe that's maybe that's an off-season article at some point but yeah i mean i think i think uh vince young is probably below the level uh some of those titans teams had really good uh defenses but like mike vick was for the time mike vick

was a serviceable passer and might have even been better had he studied film and stuff because he sort of admitted later like i really should have should have been, like, grinding more tape. So, I mean, if Justin, I don't know. Like, Justin just has this thing that I think is maybe too hard to overcome. But we'll see with a better situation. And that's the hard thing that the Bears have to deal with is that he showed so much. And now everybody likes him. So if you're

the gm that trades him away but i think your injury point is valid i mean he's been injured multiple times and there was a study maybe like seven years ago about how running quarterbacks didn't get hurt more than pocket quarterbacks but i think if we did that study again that would change a little bit because uh the the running quarterbacks are running so much more than they were before that i think that you know the bumps and bruises are going to happen a lot even with jalen hurts i mean he was playing in the super bowl injured on a run and lamar and justin fields got hurt several times so i i think that that is definitely a factor and i agree with you if i had the number one pick i would just just take Bryce Young and trade Justin Fields to somebody else and move on. So let's talk about Brian Flores. You wrote about this purpleinsider.com. And one of the things that Brian Flores talked about in his introductory press conference was

the risk versus reward of blitzing. And I think that's like, it makes a lot of sense intuitively to people that there is, but what you looked into that was really awesome for the site is the exact risk versus reward. So explain, explain how risky blitzing all the time actually is. It is actually like more risky than you may think because it does increase the sack rate. It does increase the pressure rate, increases the pressure rate about 10, 11% and increases the sack rate about two percent when you're blitzing than when you're not but it does open the door for the big explosive plays to come on um and if we look at in 2022 the league as a whole they ran blitzes on 25 percent of 25 percent of defensive snaps and succeeded at holding the offense to negative EPA on 55% of those plays.

So it is more than half, so they are holding the offense to negative EPA on over half of all blitzes. But even though the defense was successful on them, it resulted in an average of negative 0.37 EPA per play or EPA per game. So blitzing, yeah, it may set the offense back, but the explosive players are much more likely to come from that scenario. And it may not be as advantageous to blitz when you're in a position where you don't have the strength at secondary to trust the one-on-one matchups. So yeah, it might not be the best option to blitz when you're in a position where you don't have the strength and secondary to trust the one-on-one matchups. So yeah, it might not be the best option to blitz if you don't have that strength. Yeah, I found that to be very interesting. So it's almost like saying if a defensive coordinator blitz every time, you would get smoked overall. You would be a worse defense than you

would be if you didn't blitz at all which means you really have to pick your your spots and Brian Flores said not being reckless but I almost think that there's no way to do it without being reckless and in your article you kind of compared it to gymnastics in a way you kind of have to be but you have to be very good at picking your spots what I noticed though from your data that really stuck out to me was that Brian Flores blitzed like a madman in 2019 and his defense in Miami got absolutely demolished. And then the next two years, it was much, much better, which I just think may have correlated slightly with them having way better players and not tanking in those seasons. I think what this really comes down to is you can play almost any way you want if you've got great corners and you can cover, but if you can't, then you really almost, it's almost like craps table stuff, right?

Like it's almost like just rolling the dice and hoping that you're hitting and that they're not getting an explosive play. If you don't have Xavier Xavier Howard and Byron Jones and people who can shut down the opposing wide receivers one-on-one. Exactly. Brian Flores' first year with the Dolphins, he raised their blitz rate 3.5% to about 30%. That's not the highest he blitzed when he was the head coach of the Dolphins. But yeah, that defensive EPA in 2019 on Blitz plays was negative 51.64. That's, I want to say like second worst or third worst in the league that year. So yeah, that was not the best strategy for him as a first year head coach. But yeah, as he

gained like time with the defense and like time with the Dolphins he raised their blitz rate like almost about 10 percent more um throughout his time there but they got much more successful on blitzes so they ultimately uh got successful on 58.6 percent of blitzes so that's three percent above the league average and they had so much strength in the secondary at quarterback at safety he loved blitzing the safeties uh Javon Holland and Brandon Jones, and they were both successful. I want to say like 60 and then John Holland was successful on 70% of his blitzes. So yeah, if you have the strength at safety and corner that it's going to make your life a lot easier, you're going to be blitzing. I think this is really important to lewis scene's future um because he's really fast and explosive and seems

to me like a guy that would be perfect for a heavy blitz situation and that maybe last year it just talks about like or or i guess connects to how so many players didn't fit with what ed donatel wanted to do like asking lewis scene to be this deep safety who has to read all these route combinations right away as a rookie might have been a little bit tricky for him as opposed to like why don't we line it line you up in the box and like let's go uh go after quarterbacks i think brian floris is going to work out way better for lewis scene there and you know harrison smith obviously as well you pointed out in the article that Harrison Smith's been a very successful blitzer and that's you know matches up with the eye test for sure and yet uh last year all the safeties only blitz

I counted this up 19 times the whole season 19 snaps not 19 percent 19 total snaps for the safeties blitzing so this is going to look way different than it did last year. Oh, definitely. Like Harrison Smith didn't blitz that often. In fact, I want to say he was below every linebacker on the team in terms of blitzing, but he was successful the second most only behind Eric Kendricks, who was successful on 62% of blitzes and Harrison Smith was successful on nearly 60% of them. So I think he's going to be a good option to bliss in the future in this upcoming year. But again, you need to get that help in safety and you need to get the help on cornerback to be successful at that. Yeah, I think this is why cornerback has shot up

to the top of the list as far as potential for the draft. So I'm really looking forward Haley to all the things to come with your data studies. And we're going to do a weekly podcast where we go through what you wrote about. Maybe we will talk about more sitcoms and get more of your hot takes on those. And maybe my Jim Pam take just is for people that I'm just getting to know, maybe like I shouldn't just pour that on you. It's like maybe too deep.

I don't know. But this is a really strong debut for you here. And I'm looking forward to you getting really fully immersed in Viking land as we go forward and have these discussions on a weekly basis. And of course, your articles are going to be absolute must read over at purpleinsider.com. So great to have you on board, intern Haley, and we will talk again soon. Awesome. Thank you so much. Very excited for it.