Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Irv Smith Jr. is ready for the Vikings, Za'Darius is healthy and ready for his revenge game

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

After the first Minnesota Vikings open locker room of the year we learned that Za'Darius Smith appreciated the Vikings keeping him healthy and that is kind of a big deal going into Packers week. Plus Irv Smith Jr. sounds like he is ready to return. Will he be all the way back? Then fan questions: Was Rick Spielman bad at drafting? Will Adam Thielen stay good into his 30s? And how good do the VIkings have to be for Kirk Cousins to win the Super Bowl?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. We have a lot of fan questions to get to as it is officially Packers week, but I want to bring you an update first from TCO Performance Center, where we were let back in the locker room for the first time since 2019. We were in the Minnesota Vikings locker room. And you know what? It wasn't any different, but it certainly felt good to be there for a Monday,

interviewing players about the upcoming week and feeling like it is finally back to normalcy. And I was thinking about how there are certain players on the team that are pretty important to what's going on who have never met a lot of us up close aside from coming off the field in training camp and have never had reporters coming in the locker room to do what we call a scrum where a bunch of us run over to a player and things like that. So there are lots of veterans who have been through this many times before 2020, but there are also young players in the league who are kind of seeing how this works for the first time. So that was a little strange, but we had a chance to talk with Irv Smith Jr. and with Zedariusrius Smith. And Z'Darrius Smith obviously did not want to get too deep

into the weeds of the revenge game. But something that stuck out that he said that I thought was probably more relevant than any revenge game angle was just the fact that this training camp worked out really well for him health-wise. He talked about how when it came to getting those veteran days, getting the reps off, because a lot of times we saw DJ Wanham and Patrick Jones taking those first team reps while Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter were on the sideline. He said that it was the best that he's felt, that it was way different from when he was in Baltimore, where he would get worn down a lot by training camp. And he said in Green Bay, they took care of them.

And here they even took it to a different level, which is something that has really caught my eye throughout this process of the Vikings focusing on keeping their players healthy and no one is more important to that process than Zedarius Smith as also some news coming out just as I was sitting down to record this which is that David Bakhtiari for the Packers says that he's going to play and all of you are in luck because Tuesday morning left guard is coming back with Jeremiah Searle so we're going to break down that matchup in depth of David Bakhtiari versus Zedarius Smith, two guys who missed last year and now are returning. But that is one heck of a matchup to watch and not a great break for the Vikings, honestly, because Bakhtiari, even though he's been out of the game for a while, is a premier left tackle,

but Zed smith has looked great throughout training camp so we are now into that mode of this is the matchup of the week and for me that one is the one to watch uh with irv smith jr he says that he is a lock to come back now the question was are you a lock and he said yeah i'm a lock to come back week one so take that for what it is but kevin o'connell also expressed a lot of confidence in the idea that uh irv smith jr would be back and said that he's felt as confident as ever that he's going to play in week one now wednesday is going to be a much more telling day for that. If Irv Smith Jr. is a full participant in practice, then we will be almost certain that

he is going to play against the Green Bay Packers. But it doesn't feel like, and I know this is a new coaching staff, it doesn't feel like Kevin O'Connell has led us down any paths that have been like when Mike Zimmer called Daniil Hunter's neck injury a tweak and then he missed the whole year. Zimmer was always very defensive about giving out injury information, but at least so far, Kevin O'Connell has been pretty straightforward about it. At this moment, there's reason to believe Irv Smith will be back. And I asked Irv particularly, like, how are you able to get ready to play? And I mean, he's been, you know, challenged here for sure to take on this offense. But he was also still working in, you know, running some routes and things like that toward the end of training camp. And he was able to be out there for practice taking the quote mental reps. But I think it is a good question. How many plays is he going to be prepared to play? How much will they need Johnny Munt? And will Irv Smith Jr. feel super comfortable with what he's asked to do with this offense when he missed a really big chunk of training camp

that goes under the category of another thing to watch for the Vikings for week one. So those were kind of the two biggest takeaways. Uh, there are revenge game angles. Of course, David Blau was there. He is your new quarterback three. Uh, I'll tell you the truth. I was talking to someone else as David Blau was talking to the media, but, uh but he is a Minnesota Viking now, is QB3. And, you know, so that's kind of where we're at with that. But, all right, so let's get into some of your fan questions. And as the week goes along, we'll talk a lot more about these matchups. Going to talk about backup quarterbacks as well with Kalen Kaler from the Defector as

well as the quarterbacks who matter to the NFL. But that'll be a fun episode that we're planning this week. And then, of course, like a hardcore breakdown with Will Raggetts, other guests as well. So I am extremely excited to now be bringing you actual NFL game week analysis and the lead up to the game. But one thing real quick, if you're interested, we just launched Hot Routes as a separate podcast. So if you're a longtime listener to this podcast, you've probably heard Hot Routes many times. Well, we're moving it to its own podcast feed to talk about the entire NFL. So if you like this and you also want to hear conversations

about the rest of the league, every Tuesday, I am going to record a Hot Routes podcast with five unique questions about what we saw from the NFL. And we just did a week one preview episode that is up now. So wherever you get your podcast,

type in Hot Routes, spell it with a Z. Hot R-O-U-T-E-Z. Don't ask me why. We just always did that for fun. So Hot Routes, and it should come up as a podcast, and you can download that and enjoy that show as well if you have time. Would greatly appreciate that.

All right, let's get into your fans only questions this from john in vancouver says i used to be one of those people that yelled at the tv because my expectations were well above what they should have been i'm much more realistic and zen now that i expect the vikings to be in the middle of the pack. I don't want to drag up the past, but it's hard not to. With what just transpired on cut down day, my question is this. Was Rick Spielman really bad at drafting or was he more average to what other GMs have experienced? With most of the 2021 class being shown the door, it felt like he was getting worse as he got older. What are your thoughts?

Thank you, John. And being Zen is good, but also being a lunatic and setting the bar really high for your team is it's healthy as well. It's football. I think probably 30 fan bases. There are maybe two that think now we're going to be real bad this year. And all the rest of them all think that they are one break away or staying healthy away from going deep in the playoffs if things go right. And that's just what makes this league so incredibly entertaining is because sometimes they're right, even if we didn't expect it from the beginning of the season. So to your question, was Rick Spielman getting worse at drafting? Well, I don't think that that is a

real thing. So when we look at historically what happens over long periods of time for every franchise, no matter how long the people have been in charge is we see stretches of really good and really bad and average drafting. So you might have average drafting for years, or you might have really, really good drafting for a couple of years, or it could bounce back and forth. Like there's no real pattern based on who the general manager is or who the person is calling the shots or the different process or whatever else. And a good example of this is the 2015 draft being the best probably of the entire decade, save for say getting Patrick Mahomes for Kansas City. But in terms of like how many great players were hits in a single draft, the Vikings 2015 has a case for being the best draft of the 2010s in the entire NFL with Stefan Diggs, Daniil Hunter, Eric Hendricks,

and Trey Waynes. And then the 2016 draft where nothing would have changed, no process would have changed, and you end up with one of the worst drafts of the entire Spielman era where they get almost nothing out of that what was David Morgan the best player Jaron curse maybe for another team is is the best player out of that draft class in 2016 I think it speaks to the how challenging it is and how random it can be and if you go cold as the Vikings did and miss a few, it might cost you

your job. If you are reliant on hitting on draft picks, which the Vikings were because they were spending so much money on all of their stars, not just Kirk cousins, but all of their veteran star players. And I think that we do need to, when we have the Kirk Cousins dialogue about how much he makes, you also have to mention that the Vikings are paying an extremely high salary to a linebacker, an extremely high salary to a running back, one of the highest salaries in the league to an older safety, to an older wide receiver. Now these players are good and these players help them win games, but are they the most absolutely efficient use of the money? Probably not when it comes, especially to a running back in Delvin cook. And again, he's terrific. But when you look at the cap hit versus how much a lot of teams are paying at their running back position. It's like, you can't have all of these positions be that highly paid unless you nail a bunch of draft picks. And they just simply did not nail a bunch of draft picks. Um, you look at though, I mean, 2020 is probably a good example where there are things individually where you can question, like,

what were they thinking? So you have in the first round, they take Jeff Gladney. Uh, you know, of course it's uncomfortable now to talk about that pick going sideways because of what happened with Jeff Gladney. But just if we focus on that pick, there was other players who were available that had a better case to be picked where he was. And they said, no, this is our guy. We've spotted him. We want him. We don't want Antoine Winfield Jr. for example. And they franchise tagged Anthony Harris. So they needed to take a corner instead of a safety. They were desperate to fill the cornerback room. So they had to take corner. Like that's a thing that you can question and say, was that really the best process? But then they also get Justin Jefferson, who's one of the best players in the league.

So it's like, wait, was he brilliant or insane? Like, I don't know. Uh, 2019 taking Garrett Bradbury and Irv Smith jr. those are two non-premium positions. That's really bad process. Even if both players had turned out to be unbelievable, they probably don't drive the success of winning games. Taking a running back in the third round, like Alexander Madison, going back, taking a linebacker like Ben Gedeon. I think that their process was pretty much always similar and always had some pretty big holes in it.

So I would say that there's a lot of randomness and luck to it, but there's also like teams that have had similar process of taking non-premium positions with high draft picks. Like Indianapolis has a really good roster. They picked a great running back,

an amazing guard, an incredible linebacker, and they didn't get good quarterback play and miss the playoffs. Right. And so you wonder, like, did you do enough there at the premium positions that matter the most? And I think that they lost sight of some of that when they were looking for, we have to fill this position. And no matter how many times you could say, we're just going to take the best player available. That was just not true for this team. And had it been, maybe they would have done better in the draft.

I don't think it was getting worse necessarily. It was, they had holes in their process to begin with. And then they tried desperately to draft for need. And the other thing too is if you don't draft super high, it's harder to draft for need. And the other thing too, is if you don't draft super high, it's harder to draft great players. It's just the fact of the matter. If you draft in the top 10, you got a better chance to get a superstar than if you're drafting it, you know, 15th, 18th, 23rd, 22nd, and they've just lived in that area for a while. And I think it hurt them. And I also think the idea that you should keep trading down and trading down and trading

down, I think that hurt them. The idea that you could draft the next Daniel Hunter hurt them. So yeah, I think that there were a lot of holes in their ideas or ideology and that Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, Kevin O'Connell, this front office have a chance to be sharper when it comes to the draft. But I would also say, let us not judge Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and the front office based on this most recent draft, because your first round pick doesn't look like he's going to be starting week one. Your second round pick doesn't look like he's going to be starting. Your right guard, we'll see. We'll see on the right guard

that might end up being a good pick, but it's a non-premium position. You, it might just be luck good or bad for how this works out. We're going to need a sample size. That's greater than just one draft, uh, as we continue to judge them. But I think it was a myriad of factors that went into the drafting which has left them with some holes in the depth like when we talk about hey this team's depth they're short on it and having to cut the whole 2021 draft class like that doesn't help your depth you miss on those picks you have some some, some, you know, inefficient ways of going about things. And that's how you end up with a roster. That's kind of teetering a little bit and doesn't, you know, have the money to add a bunch of free agents to fill those holes with an expensive

quarterback. So it's a, uh, very much a tight rope to walk because they didn't get lucky on those picks. Okay. This is a, this is a quick one here from at Connor M 511. Do you think that Keenan McArdle could be a big reason why they think Jalen Rager could turn around and be better than Amir Smith, Mar set? I don't know. I don't know how much Kena McCardle has to do with that. I think that his opinion would matter a ton to cutting Amir Smith something where I could hear what he was saying to Smith-Marset. But body language-wise, quarterbacks, the receivers coach, there were a lot of times where it looked like he didn't have the details to something right. And I think that that would factor really heavily. And with Jalen Rager, at least you have someone who's been in these games

and who has made plays and who has made catches. He hasn't gotten a hundred catches or 1500 yards. He's not Justin Jefferson, but he was a depth wide receiver on an NFL team. And Kevin O'Connell even alluded to, they're trying to win this year. Like the idea after the cuts of the competitive rebuild was not mentioned. It was, we're trying to get better right now. And we got a better fit defensive tackle. I think they think that in Ross Blacklock, it was mentioned with Blacklock that, you know, some future considerations might be there. The fact that he's under contract, if that is the case, that's a little strange, but it might just be that he's a better fit in this defense with the way they want to play. But with this move,

I mean, you're not going to sit around and give Smith-Marset five years if by year two, he can't get the details and he couldn't get them last year. Remember, McArdle coached him last year. He has a huge sample size on Amir Smith-Marset. So he would know, is he going to be someone we can trust? Is he going to be someone that can come in and take over KJ Osborne's spot and be relied upon? And if he's not, you're just going to throw interceptions and lose games. You have to have players out there who run the right routes and are on the same page with the quarterback. It's like, we always kind of look at someone who might have physical potential and say,

oh yeah, well, they're, they're going to be better than this other guy. And there's no reason we shouldn't be playing him. But when you dial up a play as a coach, the plays work. If you execute them correctly, if you can't execute them correctly, then you really can't get on the field. And so I suspect that that had a lot to do with it. And they believe that Rager, if called upon, is going to be able to execute what they call once he becomes a little more comfortable with what they're doing. I mean, he's going to have to learn the playbook pretty fast here. So I wouldn't guess that we would see a whole lot of them early on, but maybe he could be a role player as we go into the future a little bit.

But yeah, I mean, I don't think it's, I saw some people on the internet making it very mysterious that they cut Smith-Marset. Not a mystery, not really a mystery. You get two years with a player, you're going to know. Does he have future potential? Can he get it or not? And maybe he'll have his revenge game with the bears.

I don't know. We'll see. Uh, all right. This comes from Mark via the email says, so it seems that people, uh, always write at the start, how long they've waited for Superbowl victory. Yes, they do. Yes, they do, Mark. So 64 years, uh, I've listened to you for years. Thank you very much. And in none of those have they won a Superbowl. So, uh, I've listened to you for years. Thank you very much. And in none of those have they won a Superbowl. So, uh, let's see the one question my son asked me, uh, that finally got me to write you and maybe you could do a show on it on which of the 32 teams could cousins likely win a Superbowl.

I struggled with an answer. Green Bay, Tampa Bay, the Rams, Bills. I have to say tough answer. Okay. So if you took Kirk Cousins and you plopped him on team X, could he win a Super Bowl with team X? I mean, that to me is a question of who has the strongest roster in the NFL, because I think that Kirk Cousins and winning a Superbowl is just always so hard to say, because you're talking about like luck in the playoffs and things going right. With Matthew Stafford, I always thought that the reason Matthew Stafford couldn't win a Superbowl is because he would throw too many interceptions. And you know what? He kind of did throw all those

interceptions and they were able to get good bounces and they overcame it. It's kind of how I used to feel about Joe Flacco, that he was just a little too wild, but they landed on the right side of the variance with him. I think with Cousins, you would have to start with who can set them up with the best offensive line. Like who's got the best blocking in the league. And then it would have to be who's got great coaching. Like the question is really, could you have a top elite passing game with Kirk cousins that could give you a chance once you got to the playoffs to take that deep in the playoffs? I think that's maybe the question. So that really starts with who has the best offensive line. Well, let's find out PFF. Let's see who they think has the best offensive line. Let's see. PFF ranks offensive line 2022. Who do they think has

the best line? All right, let's pull this up. Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a good one. That's interesting because you think about how strong Philadelphia is with AJ Brown there and Jalen Hurts might not be that good, but I think there's a really good case for Philadelphia winning that division just because of how strong their roster is particularly, uh, along the offensive line. So they have a great line Cleveland, probably not. I don't know if they have the receivers in Cleveland, Detroit, probably not. I'm not sure that they have the receivers yet. Although I like Aminra St. Brown and Jamison Williams will see.

The coaching, I'm not ready to go absolutely crazy on the coaching. Some injuries on Tampa Bay's offensive line would make that difficult. The Cowboys just had a major injury on theirs. Their receivers are a little shoddy. Cincinnati is an interesting one because they are ranked eighth on this after big improvements. It is possible to improve your offensive line in an off season. If you have the rookie quarterback contract, he says for the 10 millionth time, um, Cincinnati is an interesting one because the receivers are just absolutely nuts, uh, in Cincinnati. And then if they have a much better offensive line than the Vikings,

I think that would make a difference. And so that's what it really comes down to. The Vikings on this list, by the way, 19th by PFF is where they think, which would be an improvement, but that's what it comes down to for me is could Kirk Cousins lead a passing game that ranked in the top five by expected points added because not just the yardage yardage is so goofy sometimes you're down in games um it was brought up by eric eager of pff the other day that the best offense they had kirk didn't have as many passing yards because they were winning games and running with delvin a lot so it's not just passing yards it's how do you perform versus what is expected out of a given situation?

That's where the Rams were number one in the entire NFL last year, despite throwing a lot of picks. I mean, maybe the Rams are part of this, too. Part of this answer, too, because even though they lost Whitworth, they still have the great wide receivers. But I don't know if just having one is going to be enough for cousins. So yeah, I mean, is it possible that he could be put in a position where you could build a strong enough team to win 12 or 13 games and cover up some of the deficiencies and what's the biggest deficiency that when he gets pressured, his numbers just drop off the face of a cliff. So I think you could say that even though he'll still have some Kirky and moments where just no matter how well you block, it's just not there that day. If you gave him a top 10 offensive line, the top receivers in the game like Cincinnati has

that. Yeah. I think, I think he's good enough to do that. It's never been for me about the idea that Kirk could not lead top passing games or be good at football. It's always been how far he could take you versus the sacrifice with the salary cap and the rest of the roster. And look, you know, we were just talking about Rick Spielman. If Rick Spielman's draft picks, if he had had another 2015, I mean, Mike Zimmer's probably still coaching the team, right? The last two years they're in the playoffs. They might be thought of as one of the best young teams in the NFL. So it's not just entirely that Kirk can't do X and can't do Y. It's when things have gone wrong with the draft or with injuries,

there's no parachute because you're paying the quarterback so much. So it's always this complicated thing. And then you do ask the question, when you talk about going to the Super Bowl, what you usually need, and this has to be said, is a great player at quarterback to make an unbelievable play. Usually now, Jimmy Garoppolo got there with not that many unbelievable plays once. So I want to leave the door open that sometimes you can get there without that. Usually winning, it takes an

unbelievable play. But when you're talking about some of the plays that Joe Burrow made on the way there, the no look throw from Matt Stafford. That's where I do wonder, even with a super, super strong roster, because he had those in Washington. He had a top offensive line. He had Pierre Garcon. He had Deshaun Jackson. I think he's a better quarterback now though, than he was then. If you give him that group again, does he take it a little farther than he did the first time through? Or you give them a better defense than they had in Washington. Can they take it a little farther? The answer is probably, but when you get in those big games, there's always going to be pass rush. There's always going to be receivers that get clamped

down. Like they've studied this even with number one receivers and they get often clamped down when it comes to the playoffs because the opponent puts so much effort into stopping them. Can he get them over the hump when that happens? That would, uh, it will forever remain a question if, if we don't see it, but that's the one where I would stop. But I think that there are teams strong enough in this league to give him the infrastructure to win 12 games and set them up to have a top five offense. I just don't know if this is quite it with the offensive line they have that really, really swings on just the right guard in the center. I mean, I think it swings a lot because they clearly have the receivers and they clearly

have the running back. But do they have the defense also to set them up? Like those are, those are big questions, but yeah, no, I don't think it's totally impossible that there's no team in the league that you could drop him into where they would have a chance. All right. Next question here. This from Zach via email, Big fan of the show.

Been listening for a year now. Thanks, Zach. Great to have you along. Question for fans only. I've been hearing that Adam Thielen looks great in camp. Indeed. I recently was comparing his career to that of the great Chris Carter and was surprised by the longevity of Carter's career

and how similar his stats are to Thielen's at the same age. What's your prediction about Thielen's late career? Will he have a drop off like most older receivers or continue to be productive? How old can you see him playing until? So the comparison there is in part that Chris Carter never needed insane speed. Like Chris Carter always was able to do it with his route running and the goat hands. In my opinion, Chris Carter has the best hands of all time. Like just the most improbable catches, the most high difficulty receptions, the most sure hands on every throw. We don't have drop statistics from then, but if we did, I guarantee you you he would be one of the best in the league route running separation and and really though part of it with minnesota into his later years was the fact that he had randy moss helping him as well which adam thielen is benefiting from that

also the thing about chris carter versus adam thielen when you look at them statistically is in terms of their yards per reception, Adam Thielen's is kind of faded a bit where Carter's remained very, very stable late into his career. And even at age 34, 35, and we are talking about with Chris Carter, one of the true goats of football history. I don't know that Adam Thielen is one of the true goats of football history. I think he's one of the Vikings best receivers ever. And he is a pro bowl caliber player. We're talking about the difference between dudes who wear gold jackets and are, you know, just on this completely different level. That's Chris Carter. When you name

all time, great receivers, you don't get that far down the list before you say Chris Carter, you'd have to go pretty far down the list before you got to Adam Thielen, but he would be more in that sort of second tier of very good players for his era is where he would be. So I think he's more apt to slide. The other thing is too, that Chris Carter just never got injured. It's unbelievable. He never got injured. From 1993 to 2001, Chris Carter played 16 games every single season. That is just astonishing, right? And that's not something that's happened for Thielen. I do think though, for the next two seasons, that there's no reason he can't be effective because of the way he plays. He is a great route runner. He has incredible hands. And even if he becomes your possession wide receiver into his thirties, that's still good. Like that's something you need. Let Justin Jefferson stretch the defense and go downfield

and make the big contested catches and hit Adam Thielen once every three games on a big throw, but hit him underneath a lot. Like those are completions. Those are moving the chains. So I think that Thielen will continue to be good so long as he stays healthy. What Chris Carter did health-wise is just, I mean, I don't know of any player who has gone from 93 to 2001. What is that? Like nine seasons without missing a game. I that's just, um, astonishing. Uh, so Thielen has not had that kind of injury luck and he gets banged up a little bit more. And I think that has slowed him down a bit at times throughout seasons where he's playing through an injury.

So if that ends up happening, that he gets banged up, it's going to affect his play. But if he ends up with 75 catches and averages 11 yards of reception, catches eight to 10 touchdowns, that's fantastic. That's exactly what you're looking for. It's worth the money that, you know, he still brings a lot to the table and he did look really good in training camp. I'm not ready to compare him to someone like Chris Carter, who is the all-time great or one of the all-time greats, but I think that he's set up with his particular skill set. It's not like he has to run a 4-3 out there to be successful. So I think that if you're drafting him in fantasy, you're a little nervous about the injuries. But aside from that, and last year's injury was just totally bad luck.

Aside from that, you should feel pretty confident about where Adam Thielen is going into the season. Okay, next question we have here. This from at Orange Suds. Random fans only question for you. What's your Mount rushmore for goat play by play announcers mine are vince scully al michaels kevin harlan and brent musburger how much do you pay attention to the tv feed when you're in the press box thanks again enjoy the season thank you uh in the press box it is a very valuable tool because what happens is the tv broadcast is behind so it's on a delay. So

I'm in the stadium in the press box. I see it eight seconds before you do. And it's really helpful because when you're watching from up top, you're usually looking at the ball, first of all, and maybe something else catches your eye on a play. So there have been times, I'll give you an example, the Minneapolis miracle when case Keenum rolled out, this is one thing seared in my memory. I looked where he was going to throw before he let it go. And it went through my mind, like there's one guy back there. Like there's, why aren't they playing really deep? And then I saw the whole thing develop with Stefan dig. So I could kind of look there,

but a lot of times you're looking at one spot and you don't see something. You don't see how the play was blocked, who made the tackle, who got the sack, why there was a penalty or something like that. So I'll watch the play and then I'll look up at the monitor right above me. And that will give me a second look at what happened. So I can kind of better understand every play. And then, you know, I've got my notes up and

taking notes and different things like that. So that's how I use it as far as play by play. Well, see, I'm, I'm a little bit not great at this because, you know, like I loved football as a kid and I enjoy Al Michaels and football now and broadcasting, but I'm more focused on the game than I am the broadcasters. A lot of times, like some of my colleagues, Sam Ekstrom, old friend, Sam Ekstrom, absolutely like loves breaking down announcers. He's got details on these guys. Here's what I love. Here's what I don't love. Uh, for me, I I'm more just focused on what's happening on the field and I'll hear it, but I'm not like, oh man, this guy's calling a game and that's who I want to see.

When I was a kid, it was Dick Enberg and Pat Summerall. And those guys to me are just like the best. I purposefully go back and watch games from 1996 or whatever, 1998, just to hear Madden and Summerall, just to hear Dick Enberg and the old NBC games. I grew up with so many of those Don Crickey. That's when I think that I cared about who was calling the game more than anything. Like I could tell you that I think Al Michaels sounds fine. I mean, it sounds great. He's a legend in his industry play by play. He is one of the goats, but if you're asking me to say which guy was better, like technically or which I liked better, it's kind of like, well, I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, they're pretty good. Like I wish I had a better, like more detailed answer for you about play by play. Um, but for me, the ones that have those sort of moments that echo in your mind are probably Enberg. And of course, I mean, Madden was everyone's favorite. So it's like not a hot take to say John Madden was my favorite color guy. So naturally, Summerall would be my favorite play by play. But yeah, I mean, but look, I see on Twitter all the time, people getting super upset over announcers. This guy's annoying. Can't stand that guy. And

I'm like, I don't know. I mean, you have to go pretty far to drive me crazy more than anything. It's when they can't get names, right? That when I don't go to every single away game because some just aren't worth it. And there are a handful of announcing crews that seem to have not looked at the pronunciation guide. And it just like that, that to me is unforgivable because as a lot of, you know, my wife is a play-by-play broadcaster and I know how much work she puts into getting all of those right so when you can't there are mistakes of like mispronouncing something and then fixing it but if you're mispronouncing someone's name for an entire game like please man you could ask anybody so um sorry to rant about that it's just that's the only time I ever really noticed the play-by-play

broadcaster so I'd be interested in what other people think of that. Kevin Harlan's great. I have a lot of fun with Kevin Harlan. Brent Musburger. I'm sort of like, I don't know, take him or leave him. Give me Keith Jackson. Keith Jackson from back in the day. So that's when I used to really care about it a lot was when I was a little kid.

And I used to do play-by-play for my video games, right? So I would pretend to be this guy or that guy and play video games and announce it. That's probably when I focused on it more than now. Um, so it's, it's guys from back in the day. Uh, there are probably people growing up and I know this would drive Vikings fans crazy who love listening to Joe Buck call games. It's like, well, that's yeah. I mean, whoever you grow up with calling games is probably who you love the most. All right. Uh, onto the next question from 76 specter 76 on Twitter over under six completed home quarters before the offense is booed off the field. Oh man.

Uh, Kirk is still Kirk. It tends to go through slumps and have inexplicable no-shows. The second home game is against the likely improved Lions team. And, uh, going into the second half with two scores seems possible down to score. It seems possible. So does the offense click out of the gate or do they stumble early and look like the same old Kirk Cousins offense? Yeah, that's a great question. Because I think there's a very distinct possibility that against Green Bay, the first half of the game, or maybe even when they start to get out of the game script that they've practiced all week and they're just sort of flying on the offense out of their preparation, that they have some sputters because they're still trying to master the offense.

That certainly happened in 2018 at times where they were learning John D. Filippo's offense, going from Pat Shermer for a lot of the players. And, you know, it just, there were times where that didn't work out. And I also think that, you know, you know, he really didn't, um, you know, like have, uh, maybe, uh, quite the offense that fit Kirk cousins very well, but we've seen this even with the best, like even at the beginning of the 2020 season with, um, you know, Kevin, uh, no, wait, was it, it was, uh, Gary Kubiak, sorry. In the beginning of 2020, the beginning of 19 with Kevin Stefanski, where they went to

Chicago and lost 16 to six. Like there, when you're having to constantly adjust systems and play callers and everything else, there are moments where it's going to be slow and do Vikings fans have patience for that is really the question here, because I don't doubt that there will be sections of time. There'll be a quarter, there'll be three, four drives in a row where it's just not clicking, where the thing that they really need to hope is that they can come out really well prepared against Green Bay, crush the first couple of drives, get into the game, play well, and then go to Philly feeling like they've kind of got it. And then as the season goes along,

master that offense more and more and more, right? Like that's the ideal situation. But if they were to start 0-2 and come back home against Detroit, if they don't, I mean, you're talking first drive. If they don't score on the first drive that the Boo Birds are coming out. I do wonder though, like what is the patience level for the Kevin O'Connell era from Vikings fans? Because inside us bank stadium last year, you could really feel it. People were frustrated. They have just been through this

for so long with Zimmer. They knew it was a media, a mediocre, uh, you know, product that they were putting out there is like, it just, there was a tension in the building where everything, the first thing that went wrong, it was like, boo, this is the same as before. And is that Kirk related? Is that, was that Alzheimer related is part of the question? Because if you rewind and you go look at how a lot of people felt after the extension, there was a lot of questioning. Is that the right move? And throughout the summer, as does happen in the NFL, you get a new coach, you get the training camp hype. Everybody gets excited for the new season. We kind of forget that, but it crops up pretty quickly if things don't go well. So I think that it's entirely based on this game, like this starts this game against green Bay. If you win against green Bay, then there's going to

be a lot of leeway from fans. And if you put up, let's say 38 points against green Bay and you win 38 31 in just a phenomenal opening game, then even if they lose and have some struggles in Philly, it's still going to be the first impression that like, wow, they've really got it. And there will be patience, I think. If they lose to Green Bay by Detroit, yes. Even if they win in Philly by Detroit, there could be some booing. I think. I just, you know, I really am interested to find out because i'm not sure i i don't know yet like i i need to kind of get the feel for the crowd you know it's going to be crazy in against green bay that right from the very beginning the crowd's going to be through

the roof u.s bank stadium classic stuff and then it's going to depend i think it just is going to depend on the scenario but with how long k Kirk has been around with the expectations that have been set by hiring an offensive head coach, I think people have every right to feel like this should be great right away. This shouldn't look like before, but I also agree with what you're saying that those, those natural stretches of struggles are probably not like totally disappearing. But man, that's a really good question. It's a really good question.

And I, and I'm interested to find out because I think that people want to have patience with Kevin O'Connell and they should, I don't know if they want to have patience with Kirk cousins. And if you played to win, which they really did this year, then if you struggle in the first game and by the third game, it's not happening and you're losing to Detroit. And here's another thing too. Detroit could end up turning out to be pretty good,

just like Cincinnati did last year, really good. But if your feeling on a team is that it's Detroit, come on, it's Detroit. Last year they won three games. Come on. Then you're probably more apt to be like, what is going on? It's Detroit. Even if they turn out to be good in the long run, you're going to feel like that is one that we wrote down as a W.

But yeah, there will be stretches where the offense sputters. And I want to know the answer to that question. If people start to get antsy and if they boo, or if they kind of wait it out a little bit more because this isn't the Mike Zimmer era. Great question. Okay, one more. This comes from at Dempdolf on Twitter. Just flicking through the PFF QB manual and something stood out from

Kirk last year. QB manual for PFF is amazing, by the way. On deep throws, turnover worthy plays 8.5%. Interception percentage was 2.8%. Seems like he got a lot of turnover luck down the field last year. Do you think we should expect big regression or is it explainable by JJ and Thielen being so good? Yeah. Uh, now that's another hard question because I think that from training camp, it was pretty clear that Kevin O'Connell wants this man to let it rip. And that's going to be a big story is like pushing Kirk to let it rip, throw it deep, go after it. Right. But I also believe that you're right to say that when you have a Justin Jefferson or Adam Thielen, their biggest asset and as you know, Jefferson is really fast, but like

their biggest asset is that they catch everything. It's unbelievable. The number of times where the ball has gone up and I've looked for the receiver and thought, no way. And one of those guys catches it and digs too. I mean, this is not normal. This is not what every fan base has from these receivers. So I think that that number could sustain because of that, because you can throw it and they'll break it up or they'll catch it or, you know, something like that. But could he throw more interceptions this year? I mean, last year it was, this is actually a really good point. Last year, they were one of the best in the league at not turning the ball over. Let me get this number for you. I haven't thought about this in quite a while, but I think

this is a reasonable point. And this is why the offense has to execute better and be more aggressive is because you probably do get some regression here. Let's look turnover percentage last year in the NFL. The Vikings had the second best turnover percentage in the league last year. And there's a given take to lean into the Kirk. We say lean into the Kirk because of variance We don't say it because he won't throw any picks if you do it or have any strip sacks we do we say that because the high end of it can be really good, but One of the things about running Delvin all the time is you don't turn the ball over One of the things about check downs is you don't turn the ball over and they certainly did not last year

Second lowest turnover percentage and it was was only by 0.2 from green Bay in the entire league last year that could regress. Yes, that could regress. So you have to be that much better. And I think what the smart numbers would say is, look, you can't throw 30 picks like Jameis Winston did. If you throw 30 picks, it's a big problem. You can throw 15. If you throw 15 picks and you're more aggressive and you're firing the ball down the field and you're getting explosive plays, you're going to be okay with a few mistakes. And, and I think that that's Kevin O'Connell's philosophy. And I agree with it. I think that's the right thing to do. And so if they have more turnovers, that's okay. Let me, let me look here. What was the Rams turnover percentage last year? Sorry. I closed the window.

Everyone just be patient. You've been here for, uh, 45 minutes. Just, uh, just settle in while I look at pro football reference. Sorry. Okay, let's see. Where were the Rams last year? The Rams were 17th in turnover percentage. So the Bengals were 12th. You can be in the middle of the league.

You could turn the ball over a little. You can't turn the ball over a lot. And that's what maybe they have a little fear over. And in 2018, they turned the ball over a lot. And that's what maybe they have a little fear over. And in 2018, they turned the ball over a lot and that was a problem. So it is a delicate balance trying to get it right. And if O'Connell is going for broke, I will support it all the way. If they go for broke and Cousins throws 20 picks and they're like, well, we need to draft Anthony Richardson after that. I would say, look, they did the right thing. Because they took the shot that could land you as a top five offense.

As opposed to settling for the 12th or 14th or 18th. So I would support it. Great questions, guys. Great questions. Love to continue to do fans only into the season. Send your questions. The file is a little low. I'm sorry if some of the training camp questions went by the wayside.

I feel bad about that. I apologize if your question didn't get mentioned during camp. I got a little overloaded because you guys are awesome. But send your questions, purpleinsider.com to contact us or hit me up on Twitter. Send me a DM and I'll throw it in the file. Thanks so much, everybody, for listening. Tuesday morning, Left Guard. Will Raggett's going to be on the show. We're breaking down things hardcore and go subscribe to that Hot Routes with AZ podcast. We're going to talk about the whole NFL. It's going to be a lot of fun all season long. So thanks everybody.