Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is Akayleb Evans a top corner in the making? (A Fans Only pod)

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Matthew Coller answers fan questions, from whether the Vikings can franchise tag TJ Hockenson to Akayleb Evans's outlook for this season to whether Rick Spielman could have done the same rebuild as the Vikings have this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Inside. I'm Matthew Collar here and this is another fans-only episode. If you missed the show, Breaking Down Quarterback, the Netflix special, or I've got an article coming out as well, talking to Vikings fans about their reactions to the show. So make sure you go check those things out. We are just a handful of days now until the Rookies report, which is, I believe, the 23rd, and then the 26th, the Vikings get out there for actual practices. Three days after that,

fans will be back at TCO Performance Center. So for me, summer is kind of coming to a close and should be a very, very exciting start to training camp to see kind of where everybody stands to begin camp. And then of course, we'll chronicle it all the way through. So what's going to be coming up on the show is we will be doing positional previews going through each position in depth andrew kramer from the star tribune is going to kick us off by doing an episode i asked him to pick whatever he thought was the most interesting position so i'm not actually sure what position he's going to pick yet but we'll go through every position on the show have different guests come on and talk about their perspectives and we'll go through every position on the show, have different guests come on and talk about their perspectives.

And we'll have some other fun things going on as well as we lead into Vikings training camp. And let me tell you, nobody's more excited than this guy because the middle of the summer, we have done our best to have a lot of fun here on the show. But it's a lot easier when there's things changing all the time and, you know, then we'll lead up to preseason games and have all those things going on. So I am absolutely ready to go for football, especially with some football news, which I guess we'll kind of touch on as we go through. But DeAndre Hopkins is a Titan. Okay, that's a choice, I guess. And Evan Ingram signed a big contract. That's kind of where we're going to start with Jason who asks collar, what's the franchise tag number for the tight end position. And do you think the Vikings would actually go that route

with Hawkinson? So the current franchise tag number is going to be different from the one that they would be able to use next year if they don't sign Hawkinson to an extension but right now it's only a little over 11 million dollars which kind of is mind-blowing when you think about what receivers make versus what tight ends make and if you're TJ Hawkinson or even Travis Kelsey, you probably have that same problem that, you know, the fight Jimmy Graham was in years ago where he was trying to argue, hey, you guys line me up at wide receiver all the time. Why am I paid like a tight end? And I'm sure that some tight ends could still make that argument. So just today, Evan Ingram signed a three-year, $41 million deal. And I asked Brad Spielberger of PFF, their salary cap expert, just kind of what he thought of that in comparison to TJ Hawkinson.

And he said the minimum Hawkinson should be looking for is about $15 million a year. So that would be like a three-year 45. We all good with that? I would be. I think that's a very reasonable contract extension for him because the franchise tag will go up next year with these new contracts that tight ends are signing. So let's say it goes up to $13, $14 million. If you're Hawkinson, you want to beat the franchise tag.

If you're the Vikings, you don't want to stray too far past the franchise tag. But also, if you're Hawkinson, you've got to be thinking, hey, even if I bet on myself and try to hit free agency and the Vikings tag me, then I'm going to get paid a heck of a lot less. And this is where it just makes sense to sign extension. The league is set up, and we've said this for for Jefferson and it's also true for Hawkinson to give the team kind of an advantage here to signing players not that you know TJ Hawkinson is going to get screwed or anything if he makes three years 45 million dollars because that's 45

mil he could actually make and play out that entire contract so that's that's a pretty good penny that's not a bad job to have but but the way that, you know, the franchise tag is set up, I am actually surprised that the players have never tried. Well, I'm sure they've tried, but have never been able to rid themselves of franchise tags because it does limit how much someone like TJ Hawkinson can make where the team can always say okay bet on yourself for this year and next year go ahead go ahead that's a lot of football you got to play in order for you to hit actual free agency and oh by the way the franchise tag for your position maybe it's 13 mil for next year or 14 mil that's not a lot in comparison to what he would get for the guaranteed money on a contract like the one that Evan Ingram signed.

Now, the Vikings usually look for a little longer, though. So Ingram signs a three-year extension. The Vikings usually like to go five, like to give themselves a little more control, a little more flexibility, a little more ability to spread out the cap number and things like that, the way that they like to design it. But usually, for all intents and purposes, their extensions are three years, and then they can move

on based on the dead money and that kind of thing. So the franchise tag does loom as part of this. And yes, I do think that what the Vikings would do if Hawkinson said, you know what, I'm just not signing an extension. I'm going to play this out. I'm going to take it all the way to next year. Let's say he has 110 catches or something, or even 80 would be a good season. Let's just say he has a good season for the Vikings. I mean, they're probably just going to tag him, right? But the thing that I don't like about the franchise tag is, and look, if Hawkinson's going to bet bet on himself they have no real other option and then maybe if he forgets franchise tagged and played on that he can still sign an extension but i like

the idea of hockinson being a viking for a long time because he's good at football and you know what really helps a young quarterback say down the road when they eventually get another one someone who's good at football to catch the ball and run with it. It's not complicated. He's one of the better guys at his position, and he probably will be for five years or more depending on his health. But this is a position where I think players can go into their 30s and still be very effective. So you want him in place.

You don't want to have to replace TJ Hawkinson. You want him in place for the future quarterback. And when you have somebody who really is a security blanket, is a highly intelligent player at a very difficult position, somebody who can line up in a lot of different spots, there's just a lot of advantages there. So yes, the franchise tag is a part of this. Yes, it is kind of a bailout for them if Hawkinson will not sign at their price.

But I think now we kind of have the price. I don't think he's getting to quite Darren Waller money, but I do think that $15 million is reasonable for both sides. He's a better player than Evan Ingram. He's younger than evan ingram so it makes sense to get a little bit more and probably not on the same level as a george kittle or a travis kelsey there's a good spot for you and kelsey i think his contract was signed maybe a year or two ago so he's making a little less than guys will for now and into the future but yeah using that as kind of a baseline of saying, okay, here's a player

that's comparable, but you're clearly better than find a place in the middle, get this thing done. Don't make it have to go into the franchise tag territory, but yes, that very much could happen. Jason. Next question comes from Stephanie with a Caleb Evans. Talk me into why he could become or is a legitimate starter, not just a guy we have to start because we have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And then there's been a lot of those guys that they've had to start just because they've had to. In recent years at corner, you can really trace these struggles

with the defense as a whole because they have not found those guys since Xavier Rhodes, Trey Wayans, and Terrence Newman were starting. Even in 2018, it wasn't quite the same as it was when Newman was the starter, even though I think Mackenzie Alexander was decent that year and in 2019, but not quite the same level. And the secondary often dictates a lot of this i mean you know pass rush is great but you're getting pressure 30 40 percent of the time the other 60 percent quarterback can throw where he wants to on time if you have great coverage it's really hard to succeed as a quarterback if you have terrible coverage you call it the 2022 vikings defense and everyone's wide open and even daniel

jones can make a ton of money off of playing against your defense. That aside, that's not your question. Your question is about Caleb Evans. It's not hard to talk you into it. So I was looking this up with Caleb Evans, just going back to his NFL combine. He is a rare combination of size and speed and explosiveness. Even when you just look at his regular physical profile and when you go back if you watch him in college at all and he went to Missouri so it's not like there's a lot of people who were sharing his highlights when he was coming out but one thing that really stands out and I know you guys have heard me say this about Makai

Blackman but you can kind of tell what type of player that they're trying to look for is guys who are really good at mirroring which is just you know can you stay in front of the receiver can you match what the receiver is doing with his footwork with his movements and you can see that from mccaleb evans and then he has the size and the length and the explosiveness which if you go back to that washington game there was a third down where Taylor Heineke had an open receiver coming across the middle of the field and Evans stayed with him and kind of exploded right at the last second to break up a pass you just got a little bit of that like oh okay the one-on-one coverage the man-to-man is really a Caleb Evans's

thing and this is similar to Makai Blackman that there are kind of zone corners there's man-to-man is really a Caleb Evans's thing. And this is similar to Makai Blackman, that there are kind of zone corners, there's man-to-man corners. And what Ed Donatell was doing, I don't know, was a really good fit for someone like a Caleb Evans. And he didn't play that much last year. So our sample size is pretty small. But I think what we're going to see from Brian Flores is lots of blitzing, lots of attacking, which means lots of man-to-man one-on-one coverage where the cornerback gets to play up. He gets to play aggressively because he knows the ball is coming out quickly. And I just think that this matches up really well for Caleb Evans. Like the other guys, you have to be concerned about his injury history from last

season. He will argue it was only two concussions. Officially, it was three. It makes you nervous about anybody's future, anybody, any player, anywhere about their future when they get injuries like that. But it's hard to deny, I mean, how good his physical skills look and how much it could match up with Brian Flores. And that's why when I've talked about the defense and I'll probably talk about it this way for a long time until we actually see them play is I don't want to declare this defense is going to be bad because the cornerback group is so up in the air. I think Byron Murphy is going to be a very good fit and Caleb Evans has a lot of potential there. And then there's that other battle between Andrew Booth Jr. and Makai Blackman.

It could go sideways, and we've seen that before. But I also think that these guys are just a good fit for what Brian Flores wants to do. And Caleb Evans is at the top of that list. I don't know if that's talked you into it. I'm looking to do maybe another talk me into episode at some point soon. So hopefully I did well on that one. You'll have to let me know. All right. Adam asks if the Wilfs were to offer extended medical coverage to players who spent X amount of years with the club, would that help lure free agents? It's an interesting idea, but I don't believe that

you can do that. I don't think that any NFL team can just go rogue and start doing things for their players that other teams aren't doing. Now, you can get advantages in other ways. You can hire more staff, which the Wilfs have absolutely done. And this is where when people say, oh, the Wilfs, they just want, you know, people in seats and they don't care about whether they win. They've certainly invested a lot into many different areas of this thing to try to win. So I will say that I don't think that they just want people to show up. I think when you invest as much into the facility, the people behind the scenes, the nutrition, the medical, the, you know, all sorts of different things from top to bottom,

this huge coaching staff that they have. That says something. And then when you see the NFLPA survey and you realize, oh, okay, actually it's not like this around the league. There are a lot of teams around the league who do kind of have cheap ownership or rat problems, I guess, in Jacksonville. But they've invested that way, and there's no limit to that. So the Vikings are right up there with teams like Dallas for spending the most money to

try to get every ounce of this thing in every other area. But there is a collective bargaining agreement that has very specific outlines for how this stuff works. You can't just kind of go around that if you're an ownership and say, actually, we'll just give you health care. Like, it doesn't really work that way. But I think from a lot of other perspectives, where it shows up on that NFLPA survey is their massive investment on giving the players everything they want to have happy players and part of it could be too that I mean look talk about luring free agents I don't know that they've ever had a lot of trouble luring free agents I mean I think that the reason they haven't signed

some guys is the salary cap but you know Kirk Cousins came here he was the biggest free agent that offseason uh and and they've been able to get other guys as long as they offer the money. I think that the reputation, and not only that, but they've also been able to keep their guys who are in the building. I think their reputation around the league is extremely good. I don't think that there's anything that really holds them back from signing free agents. And I also think that, like, markets don't really matter

when we're talking about football. I mean, maybe Jacksonville and maybe there's a couple of teams where you go like, I don't know, maybe, but even Buffalo, do they have trouble? Like they got Vaughn Miller. When, if you're good and you've got the money, people will come. And you know, Buffalo has that old stadium and everything else, but Vaugh saw potential for a super bowl saw a big dollar figure and went there that's what it really comes down to when we're talking about free agencies can you pay up and can you win a lot of times we're talking about really good free agents unless you're paying way more which again we'll talk about the deandre hopkins thing uh eventually

here on the show uh this question comes from Eric Vikes fan 28. If Rick Spielman was given the leash to fully rebuild this roster and pick one more coach of his liking with a long-term view of things, do you think he could have done as good or better? I assume that you mean than Casey. I really have no idea, but I do know that, I mean, because I can't ask, I guess I could ask him. He's like, does media stuff. Hey, Rick, would you do everything differently? Uh, well, one thing I think of is you couldn't actually do better than quasi did last year

for getting a 13 win team. I mean, you really couldn't, they brought in Patrick Peterson, who was great or brought him back. They brought in Zedaria Smith, who was great. They hired a coach that worked excellently with Kirk Cousins and got every ounce out of that thing. So, I mean, maybe Rick Spielman would have had a better defensive coordinator than they had last year.

I don't know. But you can't do better than 13 wins in the first year when your goal was to win, when you were told in the offseason, hey, you've got to win. So, he couldn't do better than 13 wins in the first year when your goal was to win, when you were told in the offseason, hey, you got to win. So he couldn't do better then. But you're talking about rebuilding the way that they've torn it down. And so I think that we don't actually know what Kweisi Adafomenta is going to do to rebuild. Could Rick Spielman have gotten rid of all the old players?

Yeah. With no draft capital, could he have picked a receiver and a couple defensive backs like yeah i mean i guess so uh i don't know how he felt about will levis i think he didn't like him i i was actually citing a couple times where spielman was on top of the idea uh for some media that he did that the league wasn't going to like levis as much as people thought. And he was saying that in the media and that turned out to be true. So I think that they had the same opinion of Will Levis. I don't think that would have gone differently. I don't think he would have drafted Levis. I don't think he could have traded up to get another quarterback. I'm struggling to think about what he would have done at this moment that would have been different

aside from move on from those guys the problem was that with him in charge they didn't move on from those guys and i guess i mean if we're saying that the wilfs run this whole thing well maybe that's a little different then but even if they told them to rebuild it still seems like there was always this issue with taking a long-term view of things like isn't that the problem is that they never wanted to they never wanted to take a long-term view they always found ways uh to work things out with those veteran players and then made some downright silly moves when they were under pressure to try to win uh so yeah i mean any gm you you could have done it you could have

been the gm and gotten rid of Adam Thiel and Eric Hendricks. It's the easiest thing in sports to tear down. That's the easiest thing to do. Not extending Cousins, though. Are you telling me Rick was going to not extend Cousins? I don't know about that. I don't know about that. That might have been different.

They seem to continue to extend him every time. But if the whole goal was rebuilding, they'd be at the same point right now because they've just torn down and that's all they've done. I'm going to have to see the rebuild to give you an answer on that, because I know that we do give Spielman a hard time and a lot of the criticism is much deserved. But if you go back to the beginning of Zimmer and how they rebuilt, it was really entirely through the draft, building up the secondary through the draft, hitting on a pass rusher in Daniil Hunter, hitting on a star receiver. And they built that team up pretty well with actually some smart moves where they found good

free agents like Linval Joseph was a good one. Tom Johnson was a great find for them. Some undrafted free agents who they developed quite well and then they actually had the rookie quarterback contract thing going on with teddy bridgewater and were not able to fully take advantage of it because teddy got hurt so i think that spielman probably generally knows how to do this uh i think that quacey is probably a little sharper in terms of being modern and dialed in and understand like positional value which he started to show in this year's draft where they really focused on on high value positions and things like that but until quesadilla fomenta actually rebuilds this from where it is

now we're not going to know how to compare it so i i guess this answer has to be given later in the future it has to be given a year the future. It has to be given a year from now, two years from now, where we're constantly assessing how he has moved on from this point. Because to me, the minute that they cut, who was first? Was it Eric Hendricks was first? The minute that that ax dropped and they cut Eric Hendricks, it was like, okay, this is now the Kweisi Adafo Mensah era. This is where it begins because this is him taking apart the roster to build his own roster. And that's what it's going to be judged on.

But, you know, Spielman is like a lot of other people in football where there's a lot of good you could point to. The man drafted Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw. And there's a lot of mistakes that you could point to. you know yanni kingakwe cory vedvik like we've brought them up on the show chris herndon like desperate moves michael pierce does never get brought up as a signing that blew up but it totally did you know so things like that like there's there's good and there's bad and so far with quacey there's been some that we've liked and some that we haven't liked. But we are going to need a much bigger sample to judge what he does with this rebuild.

And at this moment, going forward, considering where the NFL is going with analytics, I've noticed a lot of analytics hires this year. The Cowboys are just rebuilding up there, or I guess completely building up their analytics department with a couple of big hires and things like that. I mean, I'd rather have the guy that understands what the cutting edge is as opposed to kind of the older school scout. But, you know, I think they're in a better position going forward

with Kweisi, but history is going to show us that. This one comes from Rat Trappen. You mentioned the scoring effects last season, artificially bumping up the offense into the top 10 in scoring. Could you go into a little detail on that? Yeah, so this is something that fantasy players and gamblers have known for a long time. If you have a good offense and a bad defense, the good offense is going to put up stats because you're constantly having to match.

So think about it this way. Like if you have a number one defense in the NFL, yeah, you can certainly have a number one offense as well because you're getting the ball all the time. But you're not always like running out the clock. If you're 28th in defense, you're often in these shootouts where you go back and forth. So think about it this way. I mean, look at the end of the season against, you know,

the giants and Indianapolis, for example, neither one of those teams has good defenses, both teams offenses, or I guess they blocked the punt and got an interception for Indianapolis, but look at those two games specifically and how the Vikings offense had to play in order to win those two games. Against Indianapolis, if you're, and this is talking about just points scored total,

if you are, say, playing a normal game against the Jeff Saturday coached Indianapolis team, you get up 21 to three, you run the football, you win 24 to three, you go home, right? But if they score the first 30 points of the game or whatever, then you have to come back. Then you have to throw. Then you have to get a bunch of touchdowns. You got to go deep down the field. You got to push, push, push for explosive plays. And the overall stats count it all the same they count a play in the first quarter like a play in the fourth quarter without any regard for what the context of that play or that touchdown really was so it's not that the Vikings wouldn't have scored points against

Indianapolis had it not gone horribly wrong it's that the context of that game forced them to put up a ton of yards and a ton of points. And I remember like, this is something that football outsiders DVOA has always been good at parsing out. They don't give you a lot of credit in that stat if you're down 20, because they know the defense is going to be playing back. And that's a big part of it too. So it's not only how you're playing but it's also how the defense is playing and nobody has slaughtered prevent defenses like kirk cousins in the entire nfl i swear i mean the guy is the best against prevent defenses if you're going to sit back he is going to just complete pass after pass and i think that's why he has these comebacks

all the time because teams think like, ah, it's over. You know, we're just going to play prevent, shut him down. And then it's Justin Jefferson out there. It's Kirk delivering a bunch of passes and marching down the field. So that's a big part of it, that when you play in all those shootouts. But when you look at the stats that are a little more telling about your efficiency expected points added which is just the situation versus your performance like how you're expected to perform based on the rest of the league so uh like for example if it's first and 10 at the 50 yard line there's sort of an

expectation of what that's worth and if you get above that you get a plus and if you get below that it's a minus that is about the most rudimentary way. It's more mathematical than that. But how you perform versus the situation on the field, the down, the distance, and where you are on the field, that says a lot about how powerful you are as an offense. And the one that I like that gets brought up on the show all the time is scoring percentage. The reason I like it is how often is your drive ending with a kick, an extra point or a field goal? How often is your offense producing points? And the Vikings were just mid pack in that.

But they have a bunch of situations where they've got to put up points in order to stay in these games. And, you know, they're going back and forth and they're getting possessions and things like that. So I think that that kind of tells a little bit of a different story when you say they were a top 10 offense because it's top 10 in points, but not necessarily in a lot of other metrics. And the other thing is that these can be like small margins. So for example, you might be the eighth

best offense but you're like two field goals away from being 14th or something i mean this is kind of how it works on a year-to-year basis where the difference between being in just inside the top 10 and number one is way greater than being just inside the top 10 and being 20th usually that's how it works on a year- year basis. So what I'm saying is they need to be a better offense than they were last year to put up. It's not just about the numbers. It's also about like winning games, winning games is scoring on a lot of, a lot of drives and not having to win on the last moment of every type of game. But I hope that explains it, that the game is not played the same way when you're down 14 in the fourth quarter as it is when you're tied in the first quarter.

Right. And so you have to try to factor that in. And that's what DVLA has always tried to do. This one comes from Sven. If the number of one score games is 11 again and the Vikings go five and six, then you could have an outcome of a losing season just by reverting back to the mean. Yeah. It's really interesting to talk about that. The one score game thing. And I was looking it up and Kirk cousins after last year, no surprise wins about 60% of his one score games that could swing back the other way. One score games are not completely random. I don't think, uh, because I looked up what Peyton Manning did in one score games, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, and you'll be shocked about this. They win most of them. So it's not a perfect metric where everyone is on the same playing field. Zach Wilson is going to

probably lose. If he were to play a hundred one score games, he'd probably lose way more than he would win or whoever. Right. And so just by having Kirk cousins and Justin Jefferson, they are weighted a little bit in your favor. That being said, uh, they were, I believe 12 and 14 in the two previous years. So, you know, that, that, yeah, I mean, you have a good enough offense where you can wait that a little bit in your favor. And I think Kevin O'Connell really emphasizing game situations and stuff like that, keeping Kirk Cousins calm, dialed in, in his headset. I think that all plays in their favor.

But last year they also had a lot of veterans who made big plays, and this year they have a lot of inexperience. So last year it's Patrick Peterson, it's Zedarius Smith, Eric Hendricks, Harrison Smith. You still have Harrison but the rest of the guys are gone so it could be more difficult I think in those one score games than it was last year so it wouldn't be shocking to see them drop back and it can be random year to year and uh if they do it really depends on what happens in the rest of the games for them

having a losing season like who they have those games against. Right. And, and just to point this out to all one score games are not the same. If you're winning the whole game and then the other team cuts it to one score right at the end, which is probably a lot of Tom Brady's one score games. It's a little different than if it's a back and forth, back and forth, and then one fumble or one flag, like those things can change entirely. Like what happens in the outcome of the game. So it's something that I thought about a lot last year, just in general of like,

what, what is, what does it mean to say that one score games are random? Cause I don't think it's random that they want a lot of them. I think it's pretty random. They want all of them though. So how the team is made up will determine some of this, but yeah, I mean, if they do regress in that area, even by a little, even if they regress instead of 11 and oh, if they

have 11, which it seems like just by having Kirk, you get like at least eight, nine, one score games just by having Kirk cousins, because he's always keeping you in games, but never really running away from other teams. So if you even go eight and three, that's still a three game regression and you're a 10 win team. So, yeah, I mean, there's definitely something to that for them regressing. But I also think that we all understand that it's not going to be quite the same as last year, and it is going to be a harder road for them to win the division than it was last year

because everything really did go their way. And they really weren't a very injured team either. And it's been kind of a couple of years since they've had, I think 2020 was a year where just everybody got hurt. That does happen sometimes. It's that whole regression thing, luck thing. It's always really tricky to try and predict but if you had to guess you'd guess it would be much more close to like you said like a 500 record than it

is winning all the games uh that's why i think the expectation this year from vegas is eight and a half and where are we putting it like 10 compete for the division be a good team like i think that's where we're setting the bar for this year because in part we know losing all that talent and the luck factor does not always uh play in your favor year after year so i think that your observation is correct that there should be some expectation that they do drift back because of those one score games so it comes from john hot take for 2023 the jets will finish dead last in the AFC East. And number 12, Aaron Rodgers, ends his career injured on the sideline in a Jets baseball cap. Well, that is a harsh prediction for Mr. Rodgers.

Yeah. I mean, you know the rule of the show. The rule of the show is that we never doubt legends because, you know, when Tom Brady went to Tampa Bay, he did not have a good year the previous season and there was conflict and him and Belichick maybe weren't getting along. And, you know, it was not, not a real great situation. And then he inherited a great team, had a good coach for offense and then found it and was great. So I don't want to count that out.

But I don't feel super confident that Aaron Rodgers is going to be a wildly different player than he was last year. There are things that have been happening with Aaron Rodgers at times throughout last year that I thought, this might be kind of who he is now. So he has the two MVP seasons and he was just like breathtakingly good for those two years. Unbelievable, typical Aaron Rodgers stuff. But there is like a little bit less of his mobility. There's a little bit less of, you know, the playmaking that has made him so famous. And I, you know, I guess, I don't know.

It's hard to predict. Does he get injured? I mean, I don't know how to predict if he gets injured. The one thing that he has going for him, again, that makes me not want to doubt him, is Garrett Wilson, who we saw last year, just a phenomenal talent who you could see making like Devontae Adams type of catches for Aaron Rodgers this year.

And Aaron is pretty motivated in comparison to last year. The big difference though, is this is the AFC East, AKA the AFC beast. Feel free to use that at parties when it comes up. It's a really difficult division. I think even the Patriots are going to be pretty tough. Buffalo is great team miami's a great team i don't know like he could win 10 games and miss the playoffs or nine games and miss the playoffs just based on how difficult that conference is in

general but i am not ready to say aaron rogers is going down in flames just to have him come back because I once joked on the show little tongue-in-cheek about him being washed back in like 2018 look what happened so I won't do that again and I wasn't even really serious but it you know even then it was like very close to being old takes exposed uh this one is from Abhi I assume is how it's pronounced uh harrison smith not making the top 10 safety lists by nfl executives and coaches he didn't even get a vote how do we uh excuse me how do we feel about that uh i feel nothing i really feel nothing i feel nothing about that uh you're talking about the espn jeremy fowler where he talks to executives and they rank players. And I don't know.

I got nothing for you. I just, what am I supposed to make of these lists? I don't know who the people are that are doing them. And I don't know how much they watch Harrison Smith. I'm sure that they looked at what the Vikings did defensively last year and said, okay, well, if you're going to finish 27th in defense, then you probably weren't that good. And that's probably it.

There's also a lot of good safeties in the league. So maybe it's just, well, he's on the older side. Their defense isn't good anymore. I don't know that every NFL executive is like grinding tape. And you have scouting departments, pro scouts who are doing this, pro scouting directors who are doing this pro scouting directors who are doing this not every executive is watching every single player every single year this is why pff exists right because they do they do watch it and the pro scouts do too they watch every player or

at least like they have people assigned to watch you know all these players but every exactly just being an executive doesn't mean that you watch all of harrison smith's reps last year so i don't really i mean it doesn't change the fact that you know harrison made a lot of plays on the ball last year when he had a chance he was wildly misused and did have his lowest pff grade i think since his second year in the league which may also i know they'll tell you they don't care about the pff grades they do uh that might be another thing they looked at it's like well who graded well last year you know because it's just hard to ask somebody's safeties like when you read mike sandoz piece

about quarterbacks and he put and they put him in tears now sometimes there are some funny like like bizarre hot takes or funny quotes in there weird quotes that don't make a lot of sense. But mostly everybody knows what the quarterbacks are doing and knows the strengths and weaknesses of the quarterbacks. But like every safety in the league, that's a that's a tough ask. So it's a fun exercise and credit to him for the work he puts into it. Also, the aggregators who just steal the list and tweet it out without even linking to it are just like, get a life. I don't know why you would do that to somebody

who's put a lot of work into their effort. So if you're just tweeting that out, what is wrong with you? But yeah, whatever. At least link to the work. Don't just steal the list and put it out there. And so then no one's going to read it. But not the point, not the point. Social so then no one's going to read it, but not, not the point, not the

point. Uh, social media, what are you going to do? I just think that those lists are like for entertainment purposes. It's kind of like the NFL 100 where you'll go through it and you'll be like, Hmm, what? And I've been in the locker room when they're handing those things out. And the players are asking away, who's that guy who plays for whatever team? Like it's very hard for people inside the game to be focused on what every single player is doing every single year. So that that's what I would say, take it for what it is.

But what I'm watching for Harrison Smith this year is I looked up the defensive backs with seven career pro bowls and it's like Darrell Revis, Daryl green, like some of the real best ever. So when you guys ask all the time about the Hall of Fame chances for Harrison Smith, if he makes the Pro Bowl with Brian Flores this year, then I think that he's got a much better chance if he gets another Pro Bowl, which is, I know, a very silly way to look at it,

but it matters. Like these historical comparisons, there's a number of guys like Dennis Smith or Tim McDonald who have six, but there's not many who have seven. So that's something to watch with Harrison Smith. A couple more questions from Head Coach 21. Does it feel like the Titans are doing what the Vikings did a few years ago under Rick and Mike where they made lots of short-term moves does it feel like the titans are doing what the vikings did a few years ago under rick and mike where they made lots of short-term moves even though they aren't a good roster yes yes it does

yes it does i kind of get it though with deandre hopkins where so you have ryan tanhill probably for just this year right you have a division that weirdly is in the afc but is not a lock it's not a guarantee by any means they have a good number of defensive players and this this might be it for derrick henry for years of where he's good he's already started to drift off a little started to get banged up a little but i mean he could still be great, right? For one more year. You might view it as this. We've got a chance. Like they were within a Josh Dobbs and Malik Willis game of making the playoffs last year, not the Jaguars.

So you got a good chance to win the division and then see what happens in the playoffs. They're probably not going to be able to compete with the Buffalo and the Kansas City and the Cincinnati. But if you're them and you didn't get rid of ryan tannahill like they might be kind of going through a little bit with this what the vikings did last year when they got zadarius smith late in the game where we went oh you got zadarius so you're competing then like oh you got the deandre hopkins you're competing then and it would you be shocked if the Jaguars aren't as good as people think? And then those other two teams are just not good at all. And they win the division. I

wouldn't be, um, not with a very good coach in Mike Vrabel, who I don't think wants to tank ever, but if this year they're not good, or even if they are good, like what do they do then? What do they do at quarterback? Is it Will Levis? I don't know. Like, what are they really doing there after this year? But, yeah, I think that to your overall observation, that probably after they missed their chance when they won the AFC, they needed to just kind of take a step back after that. But that was only 2021.

You can't really do that. Or at least, they trade away aj brown and then tried to not do that and yet sort of the forces of nature took them down but i think that they think of themselves still as the team that can be right there on the doorstep and win the conference and everything else uh and you know so they're going to try to do that and when a great receiver comes to you and says i want to play for you yeah but i understand so i understand that this year why they're doing it but another year after this if they keep ryan tannahill or something or make some desperate move a quarterback uh yeah they they will probably eventually need to rebuild it but i don't think that roster is garbage by any means i mean i think you think, you know, Traylon Burks is there. They've got a good offensive line. Like they,

they don't have to be, they don't have to be bad, but they are in the middle. You're right. They are in the middle of just this. You're not quite a Superbowl contender, but you're definitely not a tanking team at now that you've added Deandre Hopkins. So what really are you? So, yeah, I mean, I think that, I think that you're right in pointing that out, uh, from at big Dan on Twitter. I'm curious on the subject of Bradbury. Uh, they bet on continued improvement from him from last year with no real solid backup. If he reverts back to his old self, it changes the game. Well, that is absolutely true. If he is not as good as he was last year, then it doesn't really matter how much better the guards are. I do think he was a better fit for a shotgun offense

than an under center offense. But when you look at the nose tackles, they're going to face in defensive tackles this year. There's some dudes. Right away, Vita Vea is one of the best in the league. That is an immediate challenge for Garrett Bradbury. And in the past, that would have been immediate destruction for Garrett Bradbury so we'll see on on that on that improvement but the thing about the bet that you bring up if you look at his

contract it's not much of a bet it's it's low cap hits low dead cap hits uh and go back and look uh at just you know the free agents the centers that were out there there wasn't really many good options and he wanted to come back he wanted to be a part of this he's got chemistry with the rest of the offensive line but it was not like a 15 million dollar a year five-year extension it was a short-term short commitment small money type of extension that they gave Bradbury. And I think that they're probably looking at it similarly to you. Let's kind of see how this plays out with Bradbury.

And if he struggles and can't keep it up for another year, then they may look for another option at some point. So I think it is kind of a make-or-break year. But you've got Chris Jones, Kenny Clark, Grady Jarrett. There's a lot of fellas who are going to be coming after the quarterback up the middle. And we'll see also, you know, do they attack Bradbury? Do they attack the guards? Like how things work out? Hard for me to predict.

It is an outlier season from his career. At the same time, we have seen guys have a couple of struggle seasons and then become good players in the NFL. I tend to think with Bradbury's diligence and his professionalism as a player that he's reached a plateau that he in quarterback on Netflix, his players are not telling you what they're going through injury wise. And I don't know if there's any lingering effects of what he dealt with, with that back injury last year, where the center back injury is not really something you want to hear. But it'll be something to watch because it'll be a heck of a challenge. Two more questions from Chris Warren warren sharp ranks the vikings offensive line 10th gonna need a reaction well pff had them finishing 13th because they graded very well i mean last year they graded very well in the run which is one of the reasons they're changing running backs

and they uh i mean i don't think it's like the pff grade is the reason but i think that their run blocking was better than their run performance which which is why they're changing running back. And in the past blocking, I mean, just elite tackles, a good center, and it really comes down to those guards. I mean, it's really as simple as that. They can be the 10th best offensive line in the NFL. He could be right. It's just how much progress are they going to make and how much better are they going to deal with teams, blitzes, rushes, uh, stunt or different, you know, games upfront stunts, twists, all those types of things, because if it's not better and how are they going to deal with those beasts on the interior? Cause if it's not better than the results will be exactly the same and they'll get

sacked 40 times and it'll be a mixed bag. I'm sure they'll still be good in the run games. The screen game could definitely improve from where they were last year, but it's possible. I think that's about the peak of what they can be. I mean, unless it's massive jumps forward from anybody, but I think that's about the peak of what they can be. It's a very optimistic ranking, but I don't think he's being absurd by putting them at 10th. Last question from Josh. Adrian's 296-yard single-game record might stand for many years, if not decades. I know the game changes, but it's hard to see anyone nearing it.

Totally agree. Totally agree. 100%. There's always that sort of random pop-up, like who knows where the hell that came from type of game that happens all the time uh it might stand for many years that is true but yeah i mean i don't want to say for sure that it will just because the league has gone away from rushing because if one guy in one game who knows where is going off early in the game and then the funny thing about his 296 yard game is that he didn't go off early in that game he was kind of good and then in the

second half is when he went completely nuts if i'm remembering this correctly i don't want to count it out entirely just because the league is more away from running because it only kind of takes one crazy day for somebody to be going nuts. And then if you're running for 200 yards, they're going to keep giving you the ball late in the game, right? Like if you've got a couple of breakaways every once in a while, it's very, very hard to run for 200 yards and 296 is so preposterous. Let's say though, that you got into a game where you were up like 21-0 right away. You get a big run for a touchdown, a kick return for touchdown, pick six or something, and it's 21-0.

And a really good running back. The other team's kind of downtrodden. Really good running back. Has a couple of big breakouts. I mean, out of all the hundreds of games that get played, somebody could do it. Somebody could approach it, I think. But would I be surprised if it was 2035 and still no one had done it? No, I wouldn't.

I mean, Flipper Anderson, look at that. Flipper Anderson still has that single game receiving record. All these years later, I'm sure that they were saying when that happened, oh, this record is going to be the norm in the future when receivers are catching 300 yards worth all the time and nope flipper anderson still got that record so i do agree with you that it's one that's going to stand for a long time i don't know if that's just because there are fewer bell cow backs i i mean that could be part of it adrian is a super special all-time great talent so it would take someone who's really good i mean that could be part of it Adrian is a super special All time great talent so it would take Someone who's really good I mean that record

Was what I mean it was Who had it before was it Corey Dylan had it before so usually It takes a really good running back but I just think when we if you put All the games into kind of the algorithm Or something there's always Going to be weird spikes and strange things

and weird records that happen i mean boomer esiason was it boomer esiason who threw for the most yards in nfl history like in a single game one time he threw for like 500 yards or if somebody really random like elvis gerback or someone it just it's a weird league matt flynn will tell you it's a weird league with pop-up things that happen. And I wouldn't be totally shocked either if somebody just someday went completely crazy and was close to the record and then they made sure they got it. But that one is going to be very, very hard to top in history. So I wouldn't be surprised if it stands for a long time either. That's not really a definitive answer because I have no idea whether someone's going to break it or not, but it could stand for a really, really long time

for Adrian. He was pretty good. He was pretty good. Yeah. One of the all-time greats. Now, another Adrian question is, will he be the last running back to go into the Hall of Fame for a very long time? Like, who's after him? Is Derrick Henry a Hall of Famer? No, not right now. Who's going to run enough to get into those numbers that the greats from the previous years were in to make the Hall of Fame as a running back,

especially with how short these careers are? Now, that's one to think about they get hurt so much that could it be Christian McCaffrey if in San Francisco he kind of has this reinvention of his career and plays until he's 34 or something McCaffrey might be the best bet actually despite all the injuries he's had and getting it together and having such an impact on the passing game but if not not, if he has a shorter career, then it's Adrian. And then I don't even know who's next on the list.

I just like Frank Gore is still from that era, but of like this era, the last five, six, seven years, who's making the hall of fame? Alvin Kamara? Like, no, I don't think so. I don't know. Delvin Cook, if you ask a lot of the mainstream media, I'll wait till 40 something minutes in to take a little jab there. So anyway, great questions, guys. Great stuff.

And appreciate all the great questions. Continue to send them, purpleinsider.com or at Matthew Collar on Twitter. Slide into my DMs and feel free to drop any question there. Positional previews coming up this week. Very excited for that. And we will talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody.