Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is Derek Stingley Jr. the perfect fit for the Vikings in the draft?

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Matthew Coller talks with Hunt Palmer, the LSU football pre and postgame host about Derek Stingley Jr., the concerns about him going into the draft and why he might be the best corner in the draft. They also look back at Justin Jefferson's draft year and Patrick Peterson's legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matt DiPaolo here, and before we get into some fans only questions, let's start out the show with a conversation with Hunt Palmer, who hosts pre and post game for the LSU Tigers football team. Had a lot of questions for him about Derek Stingley Jr. And then after that, we'll get to some more of your questions. Off we go. What's going on Hunt? Nice to meet you slash talk to you. How are you? Yeah, great to talk to you matthew everything's good down here hope all is well yeah no it's doing well uh so we have lots of uh lsu and minnesota connections justin jefferson of course simone augustus who i hear they are putting

up a statue of that is much deserved and we actually need one here in minnesota as well simone augustus uh but i wanted to talk to you first for, oh, I didn't even mention Patrick Peterson either. Before we get into maybe some of that, I want to ask you about Derek Stingley Jr. That is why you are here because ESPN created this tool that shows the percentage, the most likely place that all these players are going to get drafted. And guess what? Derek Stingley Jr Vikings, is the most mocked place. So let me just ask you about what you think of Derrick Stingley Jr. as an NFL prospect.

I think a lot of him as a prospect. I'm fascinated to see where his career takes him. Look, DBU has been something that has been cultivated in Baton Rouge for over a decade now. It kind of started in the Saban era with Corey Webster, who went on with a long career with the Giants over in New York. And it went through in Patrick Peterson and Morris Claiborne and Tyron Matthew and Eric Reid, and it's gone on for Greedy Williams.

And in this past few years, you've seen Christian Fulton and now Derek Stingley. And I will say of those guys, which were unbelievable college players, Derek Stingley Jr. was significantly better than all of them as a freshman. His freshman season in Baton Rouge, which, of course, that storybook 19 season at LSU went on to win the national championship, was unbelievable to watch. He was a first-team All-American. He led the team in interceptions.

He made huge plays in huge games. He stepped on the field as a freshman, absolutely ready to go, and was one of the best players on the field immediately. And then for two years, we just about never saw him. The COVID year, you come out defending a national championship in 2020. You're facing Mississippi State. It's Mike Leach's first game. You know they're going to throw it 70 times. And we find out the night before that Derek Stingley's in the hospital and he was sick and then he got hurt and then he missed the last two games and it was COVID and half the team had opted out and this past year went out there and played a little bit against UCLA and then we really didn't see him again because of that Liz Frank injury which we understand he's recovered from so you

know for two years we haven't seen much but seen much, but in terms of size, in terms of physicality, in terms of ball skills, which are absolutely out of this world, instincts, bloodlines, his grandfather played in the NFL. His dad's been a coach. He's the entire package at corner. I think, I think the world of him. Well, and that's the difficult part, right? Is that you see a small sample size of him being absolutely phenomenal phenomenal and then you don't get to see it but i also kind of draw a comparison to another lsu guy in jamar chase not that he was injured he just decided not to play but what he put on tape early on in terms of his traits and his nfl ability translated instantly into the nfl even though he didn't play and i

feel like this is what teams should be drafting off of is what your traits are and how those compare to NFL prospects rather than, well, look, his numbers when he was targeted in a very small sample size last year, aren't very good, but I don't know what to really make of those in terms of how they would translate. It's really more about how the guy plays in terms of his natural skill and what you have a chance to develop as an NFL team. Well, we know what he can do, what he's capable of doing. This is a guy who graduated from high school in December of his senior year, which was in 2019 and in 2018, sorry, and went into bowl prep with LSU and immediately

went onto the practice field with Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, Terrace Marshall, who was a second round pick of the Panthers and was ready to go. And Joe Burrow has been on record saying he's the best freshman corner I have ever seen. I kept throwing at him just to kind of see, and he was up to the task every single time. Those were the guys he was matched up against immediately out of his high school classroom and held his own. And then he went out there and did it on the biggest stage. So, you know, you can find some tape where Devontae Smith got after him a little bit in Tuscaloosa.

A couple of those plays were not his fault. One time he was looking at the sidelines. They were trying to put an audible in. But he has shown against the elite level players in college football, he is up to the task. Now, I don't know what his body's gone through over the last two years. I would bet on him. I'll tell you that. I think he's going to be a star in the NFL. What do you think his best trait is? I mean, I know for corners, it's like stops the receivers from doing things is usually what you're looking for there. But I also think

that the transition is pretty tough. I mean, I remember we all talked about Jeff Okuda as if he was just this built in a lab type of perfect prospect coming out. And then he's had a tough time and the NFL wide receivers, they're just everywhere now, great elites, highly paid wide receivers. So I think life has never been tougher for corners than it is now. You add the rules part of that. So I guess I just wonder how you see it translating and sort of what his best trait would be coming into the NFL. Sure, it comes right to mind. He's plenty big.

He's plenty fast. His best trait is when the ball's in the air, he'll go catch it. I mean, he's got unbelievable ball skills. I can see the play in my head. You notice in 2020 when COVID happened, I watched a lot of LSU football highlights because what else was there to do? And we were coming off the greatest year ever. There's a throw. I can't remember the game, but he's running with the corner.

And he turns around and, I mean, he gets his hands from his waist up to catch the football in absolutely no time. He can high point it. He can jump. He can make plays with those NFL wide receivers who are freak athletes there are a lot of corners Dante Jackson comes to mind who played at LSU was a second round pick of the the Panthers who was a track star I mean he he's his his gifts in terms of his length and speed are unbelievable he can't catch a cold and so there are a lot of guys like that but the corners that play defense that can go catch it that's a different breed and that's

what he's got. Yeah, we had that with Trey Waynes here where he could run with absolutely anybody and he was six foot, six foot one, but could not get his body turned around, couldn't play the ball in the air. And even though he was good, it sort of puts a cap on how good you can be.

And I was thinking of even just like Trayvon Diggs and what he did last year where there was this big fight on the internet all the time. Like, well, you know, he's getting burned on this and he's getting picks. And so is he a lead? Is he not elite and all those sorts of things. But I think that life is so hard on corners that almost everybody's getting roasted outside of Jalen Ramsey.

Sometimes it often comes down to, can you make a game changing play? And this is why I think not only the Vikings situation at corner, which is pretty much a barren wasteland, but also I think that it makes sense if you're getting a game changer. I think if you're getting a corner who can just run with wide receivers, maybe it's not worth a pick that's that high, but for somebody who can change the game, create turnovers in a league where nobody's really stopping anybody on offense, I think the value of that is even higher than ever. Yeah, there's no doubt. And I'm confident there's not a better corner in this draft than him.

If he would have played at the level that he played at his freshman year for two more years and never gotten hurt, there's not a chance he gets out of the top five. But because of the uncertainty, you know, you've seen people slip him down towards the teens into 20. I don't see it. I think somebody's going to, somebody's going to make that decision pretty early, just based on what, like we said, the style of play that is prevalent in the NFL, you've got to have guys on the edges that can go out there and make plays and cover. Well, and that's what I was going to ask you is what the expectation and what the buzz, I mean, everybody goes, what are you hearing? And like, I don't know, nobody tells me

like, I don't think they tell anybody based on how inaccurate mock drafts are, but I guess what's your, what's your feeling? Like, do you think that he does? I mean, because like you said, you've seen them almost everywhere from being much higher than the Vikings and being the first corner off the board or getting past the Vikings. I think if he's there, they have to do it with the caliber of prospect and the upside. But I'm not convinced after that pro day that he's going to be there. I think he's going to go in the top 10. That's just in a draft where the quarterbacks are not, there's not a likely quarterback run in the first 15 picks because the quarterbacks aren't that highly thought of.

I think he stayed, I don't think it's out of the top 10. Now, it would change if there were three quarterbacks that everybody had to have and it kicked everybody back, but it just doesn't seem to be the case. Well, that's the end of our interview then. No, I'm just kidding. But no, I mean, I tend to agree with you that what everybody wanted to see

and what we don't know is the medicals and you know what uh i don't know what scans they did to his body to make sure that he's going to come in healthy but assuming that the medicals are okay that pro day probably put him up over the top if he had run a four five or something then or four six maybe it would have been different but you know he was still blazing fast and all those things. So, but I did want to ask you about your view on what Justin Jefferson has done in the NFL. And if we could kind of throw back to when he landed with the Vikings, I wrote a whole story as I'm not the first person to do this about just going through that draft and how he ended up dropping to where he was and interviewed a bunch of draft analysts, things like that to get a feeling for it. But I'm still kind of amazed that the only criticism that seemed to

come back to Jefferson was the guy played in the slot all the time. And that was where he fit best in his offense. And of course he's become an NFL superstar. So I guess, what do you remember about that lead up to that draft process? And were you surprised that he ended up falling to the Vikings? Well, it's a whole story around here with Justin because I'm not sure how familiar Vikings fans are, but his older brothers played at LSU. His oldest brother was the quarterback in an area in the last miles offense that was just in the stone ages. And some of it was his fault, some of it wasn't, but it wasn't a very good offense. And then his older, the middle brother, Ricky, was a safety at LSU.

He was just a nice player. And nobody was really recruiting Justin, but obviously he had been around the program a long time. The staff knew who he was. And he's one in this line of players that were the last into their signing class of 25 guys. It was Duke Riley, who became a really good player for the Falcons. It was Deion Jones, who also became a really good player for the Falcons. It was Justin Jefferson. These guys

that were from Louisiana, they didn't really have anybody else in the class. All right, just come on in. And Justin comes in. No one thought twice about him. And he was okay for his first couple of years. And then the offense kind of picked up and he exploded. And that's just one of those deals that you just cannot foresee when the stars align the way it did for that 2019 offense with Jefferson and Chase and Marshall and Edward Ziller and Burrow. And it was just, it's just something that may not ever happen again around here. And so his production was off the charts.

He was in an offense where you could not focus on him because Chase and Marshall would eat you alive. The Ed Moss had a really good year that year as well. Burrow was just so accurate, so decisive. It was just a clinic every single time out. And so his production was unbelievable. But you never knew exactly what he was going to be in the NFL because LSU looked like a cheat code out there on offense,

and there's just no one that could deal with them. And I'm thrilled that he was every bit that good. And it validates that team. Every time one of these guys goes to the NFL and does the things that they're doing, whether it's Jefferson doing what he's doing, Jamar and Joe going to the Super Bowl, I mean, the guys off that team

are making the legend of that team grow even more when they show up. And leading up to that draft thing, I'm going, yeah, he looked really good in purple and gold in this offense, but he's not the biggest, he's not the fastest. What you can see in him is it's just changed his directions in his hands. And he just knows how to get open. He knows how to make guys miss and he always catches it. And that's obviously shown up to be awesome. I think that's something that people who listen to the show are probably tired of at this point is also talking about his

personality. And somebody said to me, I think it was his high school receivers coach that I interviewed for a story said to me, he's used to celebrity because he's a bigger celebrity in the state of Louisiana than he'll ever be nationally. And that's so it doesn't like move him to be recognized and to have people think of him as a star, because that's kind of the standard he set for himself and got used to that at

LSU. But I wonder what you made of it there, because I've been kind of amazed at his transition into going from, Hey, you're the mid to late first round pick. And then you don't even start the first couple of games and you're an instant superstar. Sometimes that can get in guys' heads. And it's sort of in the exact opposite for him where he's one pass away from setting the Vikings all-time single season record last year in his second season after knowing that everybody was coming after him. I mean, it's just, that's a very hard thing to do in the NFL. When you win, everything is okay. And that team was winning at such a clip and created such a frenzy in this, in this state that doing the gritty after every touchdown, doing the get the gat, creating the hype videos that they did,

going to the White House and dancing and doing get the gat, the whole place just ate it all up. And the spotlight was so bright, and they kept showing up and kept doing it. I mean, he goes out in the national semifinal and he catches five touchdowns in the first half. I mean, it's, they were, they could do no wrong. So yeah, it was brazen and it was flashy and it was obnoxious to probably a lot of people, but LSU was doing things down here. It didn't matter what they did. We were going to love them. So it was, it was just, again, it's hard to put into words what that what that four or five months was down here.

We've won two national championships prior to that. Nothing ever felt like that did. And he was right in the middle of it and was doing all the dancing with Jamar and all that. And it's kind of continued. And again, you're setting records with the Vikings. You can do kind of whatever you want. If you're dropping third down passes and red zone passes and your team's four and 13, probably doesn't look as good just for the way it goes. Yeah. No, I also think to hear people very much accept a flashy wide receiver because

Randy Moss is the guy who just took this franchise to an entirely different place with its fan base. And I mean, you know, Randy did everything flashy anyway. So that's what you're always looking for. And it's a, it's amazing when you see a guy who's putting his name in record books next to Randy Moss, where you think that is not possible for somebody considering Randy Moss's track record. And yet that's been what he is. So let me ask you about Patrick Peterson. Like how old were you when Patrick Peterson was drafted?

I feel like we make fun of Patrick Peterson constantly for just being the old guy. Harrison Smith said the other day that he Harrison was like, I'm older than Patrick, but I feel like I've been watching him since he was in high school. So it's kind of crazy to see his career winding down and not being with Arizona now, but also still continuing to be a good corner in the NFL. Yeah, he was he's he was a year behind me at LSU. So we were, I was in school when he was on the team. And so you were the second biggest star there next to him. Exactly. That's exactly right. And the bank accounts look similar too. But he, I remember distinctly, I mean, he was a

five-star recruit. He was, he was actually Patrick Johnson when he was recruited at LSU. He was a five-star and they got him out of Pompano Beach, Florida. And it was a huge deal. And he came in and was an impact immediately at corner. And I remember entering his sophomore season, they put him back in the spring game to return kicks. And it wasn't even a full speed deal. They kicked off.

The coverage team went down there. The guy caught it. No one touched him. You just blow the whistle, start at the 20 but he took off and I watched and I went that might be the fastest I've ever seen an LSU player run on a field and it was a spring game and I noticed it and then he went out there against North Carolina and started running kick I mean he ran two kickbacks and that kicks back in that game and he's locked up with Julio Jones and AJ Green. And now he was just he was the best athlete on the field all the time. Now he's a little bit older now, but he's certainly been an

unbelievable player. Unbelievable pro is just so well thought of down here. And, you know, obviously he's been such a great representative of whatever organization in college because he's such a great guy. And so, yeah, he's always thought of as – I think most people would tell you he's the best cover corner they've ever seen here. I actually thought Moe Claiborne was every bit as good. He won the Thorpe as well. And I thought that Derek Stingley could have been better than both of them

if he would have played for three years. But, yeah, I mean, a lasting legacy down here for sure, Peterson. Is Peterson – okay, so I guess I'd have to think about this before I ask. Who is the best, like is he in the top five LSU players to ever play and go to the NFL in terms of success? That's a tough question. I mean, in terms of decoration in college, Joe Burrow and Billy Cannon are the two Heisman winners.

Billy Cannon won the Heisman in 1959, so that's a long time ago. Glenn Dorsey is the most decorated defensive player. He won every defensive award he was eligible for in 2007. He won the national championship. But Peterson certainly won the Thorpe and was thought of as a potential Heisman guy early on when he was running all the kicks back. That's tough to say at this point. He's in the discussion, certainly in this golden era of LSU football.

It's been since 2003, that first national championship, to now also 20 years. He's right there towards the top five. But, you know, not in the Burrow. I mean, Burrow is by himself. I mean, because my dad wasn't even alive for Billy Cannon. So you've got to be in your 80s to really have a good grip on Billy Cannon and the type of impact he had on the state. But Burroughs alone, and then he's in that discussion with Glenn Dorsey

and Leonard Fournette and some of those guys. And somewhere along the line is Rohan Davey, who when I was a kid. Bro. Rohan Davey, man. He was one of my favorite college quarterbacks growing up. And I used to be a weird kid that would watch college football and write down legal a you know legal pad players that I thought would make it in the NFL and then get draft guides and stuff like that and

try to like see what they were saying about those players and Rohan Davey was a guy I was like telling my dad as a kid you keep an eye on this guy well you know he didn't turn out really in the NFL but he was a great LSU quarterback though he's still around here he's got a Jamaican uh like jerk chicken like food truck thing going on he's a great LSU quarterback, though. He's still around here. He's got a Jamaican jerk chicken food truck thing going on. He's a great guy. He's still around a bunch. I see him every once in a while. He was an awesome player at LSU in an era where they were trying to kind of

rediscover things after an awful 90s. But it's funny that you say that about finding guys that you thought were going to make it in the NFL. I turn the TV on between NAFs on Sunday and see an NFL game and go, oh, that guy played at Georgia. It's the exact opposite for me. My results deal on Sundays is that's a golf and nap day for me. I'm full feet ahead on, on, on LSU. And yeah, we are living in alternate realities because Saturday is that day for me now where people will ask me in the middle of the season, like, do you see this guy? He's supposed to be a top draft prospect. I'm like, Whoa, I'll watch the draft prospects in like

March because, uh, this is the only day off we have in the NFL slate. So, um, well, okay. Let me ask you to rank one more thing before I let you go. Louisiana in terms of food States, I would put it in my personal. Now I've only, I haven't been to Baton Rouge. I've only been to New Orleans. But I would put it in my personal top three states that I have ever been to in terms of food. Look, I'll be biased and say it's the best. It's certainly unique. And I think that word, I mean, being a journalism major and someone who tries to choose words carefully and a kind of a nerd about that, unique means one of a kind. There's nowhere else like, like Louisiana in terms of, of the food. Um, there's certainly great food everywhere. And I'd love to go try some of the things that I have in terms of like doing the stuff up in with

the lobster and the Northeast and all that kind of stuff. And, um, but down here it's, it's, it's unique and it's awesome. I would put it, I would put it at the top, but I would, I would listen to others for sure. Well, I mean, you have some that are like Chicago, L.A., where there's just absolutely everything from all over the universe, New York. But in terms of uniqueness, I will agree with you. It is easily number one. And the best food that I think I've ever had in my life was when I went there for Saints Vikings in 2019.

So anyway. See, I had a note for one more thing there because it Vikings in, uh, in 2019. So anyway, I had a, uh, no, for one more thing there. Cause it ties in. I was a covering LSU back in about 2013. And, you know, you know, everybody that's on the beat and one guy who worked for a different website was like, Hey, I got this intern coming down from Bemidji state up in Minnesota, which I had never heard of. He was like, Hey, can he, you have any room in like your house? I know your law students like are getting Clarkships. I was like, yeah, I was living with some guys who were taking internships out of state. So he came down and lived with me for, for three months,

just kind of seeing the lay of the land. Apparently he left in like may and it was like 11 degrees up there and he came down here and it was like 91. He came down, I took him to new Orleans. We did the French quarter and I took him to get a po' boy at Parkway. And he said it was the best sandwich he had ever had. So, you know, there's there's one point from Minnesota. Love it in the food down here. Yeah. I mean, look, it's fine up here. It's fine. We're we are famous for a burger that someone cooked cheese inside of Lucy. I love the Food Network and stuff. I would love that. OK, it's it's good.

It's good. It's fine. But it's not like that. It's a burger. Okay. And I love burgers and it's fine, but it's a burger. I'm just going to turn my phone around and show you the degrees as we speak right now. Uh, that's what's going on. It is windy. There was snow on the ground this morning. So your photo on your Twitter is you playing golf. And I was just mad at you. I think that's you playing golf or it's someone playing golf. Okay. Well, I was mad at you because it's just like, what do you got there? Okay. I can't quite see it. Uh, 80, 80. Yeah. Okay. I would, that is that third, that makes me so uncomfortable. That is unfit for human life. I just cannot, I cannot endorse that. Well, that's about 50 degrees warmer than it was, uh, year. So but not with golf, it's got to be at least probably like 57 for me to even give it a shot.

But, you know, 40 is my cutoff for golf. I play golf in shorts on Christmas almost every year. It's a beautiful thing. So I can I will stretch out the season into almost where there's snow on the ground. But when it's spring you just can't get me out of the house to go until it gets warm so it's like that okay one more round one more round i'll do that thing but when it's 36 and someone says why don't we go play it'll be fine just bundle up no you pass on that well uh i hope to someday come to baton rouge maybe for a

feature story on all the LSU connections if they draft Derek Stingley Jr. But you live in a wonderful state, sir. And this has been a wonderful time speaking with you as well. So thanks for coming on. And hey, if they draft Derek Stingley Jr. or other LSU likes, we'll do it again. I'd be happy to, Matthew. Thanks so much for having me.

Yep. Thanks for coming on. Hunt, you can follow him on Twitter for all your LSU needs at HuntPalmer88. Folks, Minnesota sports teams are in the playoffs. Yes, that's right. Playoffs. Minnesota sports teams is happening. And for all your Minnesota sports inspired gear, go to SodaStick.com.

That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. They have hockey, basketball, all sorts of great designs on hoodies, on shirts, on hats, everything you need. Go there. Use the promo code Purple Insider for 15% off your purchase. Again, that is SodaStick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, 15% off with the promo code PurpleInsider. All right, in an attempt to make sure that I don't fall so far behind with questions that I never catch up, half of this episode is fans only, so I have a lot of great questions to get to here. And then, of course, we'll continue to do longer fans-only episodes as we go along. And we'll have some great stuff coming up leading into the draft next week and the next two weeks as well.

So let's get started here and open a Diet Dr. Pepper, as always, and jump right in. So this came from Mike through email, which you can go to purpleinsider.com and send an email or a tweet and just tell me it's for fans only. And then I'll put it in the file here. So Mike asks, will Anthony Barr get signed somewhere? Are you surprised that he has not been signed because I think teams have a serious concern about his health. And last year when he missed almost all of training camp and then had to miss different parts of the season with his knee injury, that's a pretty big red flag for a guy of his age where you're getting up there into your thirties and you're having to miss games when it's not something that like you just fell wrong or just got hurt or got tackled or something where it's an injury that keeps cropping up i think teams are not going to be very willing to sign him to be a starter somewhere or a key piece

that looks like more of a signing that you make right before training camp where you're a team trying to fill out the depth and you go, should we pay a million dollars for Anthony Barr to come in and just be a rotational piece? Yeah, I think that's kind of what he is right now. Now, I thought that last year he played well, and in some ways the Vikings lucked out that he played as much as he did and as well as he did. But if you're assessing the possible risk of signing Anthony Barr, you're not signing him in the first wave of free agency and saying, all right, you go start at inside linebacker or off ball linebacker, or you're

an edge rusher now or whatever. No, I mean, we've gotten to the point where if his career goes a couple more years with the injury that he had, I think that's a pretty big win for him and whoever gets him. If you're a contender though, and you're looking for one more piece to throw on your defense for cheap, then Anthony Barr is probably your guy, but not somebody that you're saying, let's sign him to a three-year long-term deal. And I think what that tells you is just how fast players get old in the NFL. It will never cease to amaze me that you can go back two, three years from any season where you're at and go, yeah, remember how that guy was a really big player for this team or that team. And all of a sudden he's just not anymore. That's probably

Anthony Barr. Uh, though, you know, if somebody signs him for cheap for a one-year deal worth $4 million or something, and they get a lot out of him, then it could end up being a steal, but I am not surprised based on his health that he hasn't been signed yet. Um, and you know, the question popped up, uh up on the Friday mailbag for the written side as well about whether the Vikings should have, or could still, you know, re-sign him and then deal with that void year. And they can't now, because once you've passed the start of the league year, you can't do that. You can't give them an extension and then eliminate the void year. And before, you know, I don't think that. You can't give them an extension and then eliminate the void year.

And before, you know, I don't think that they should have for the same exact reason, because it's probably better to fill that spot short term with a healthy player like Jordan Hicks, who has played almost every snap over the last few years for Arizona. So he's been totally healthy. Fill that spot with that player and then develop the other guys and give them a chance. Your Chaz Surratt, Blake Lynch, and Troy Dye and see if anything's there. Give those guys the opportunity to develop and maybe take over those roles in the future. I think that's better. And the train for Anthony Barr becoming an edge rusher went away several years ago.

The Vikings tried it a little bit in mini camp, a little bit in training camp, and he just didn't have that quick twitch to be very football-y about it. Also, it takes a lifetime to develop pass rush moves. And if you're a guy that's more of a great blitzer like he was, that's not the same as having pass rush moves that you use to beat NFL offensive tackles with. So that was never something that I thought, you know, I didn't think that Ed Donatel was going to come in and say,

Oh yeah, edge rusher. I think we're kind of, we're kind of past that with Anthony bars career. All right. This is from Joe through email. Do you think the teams would be better off spending zero resources on sending scouts to college games slash grinding tape and instead build their draft boards off the consensus board and an equation that factors in production and athleticism?

With the latter, they could focus on more resources on deeper background, psychological, and health evaluations. And it seems like when teams make dumb draft choices, it's usually a reach on the consensus board. Reaches also happen because a position coach or scout falls in love with the tape and when they saw a guy in person. Yeah, Joe, I mean, it's a really interesting thought because it would be relying on the consensus of the draft analysis world and not the NFL scouting world. And oftentimes

the NFL scouts are much better at assessing players than people who watch them from the outside, especially on TV tape or something like that. And so here's what Scott Studwell told me about the scouting process of going to see players. He said that he would go to a place, let's just say Alabama, and sit down with a coach from Alabama and go through tape on players that they were interested in. So that's intel that you absolutely can't get by sitting at home and using the draft board. Now the background stuff and psychological stuff is important, but there's also, I think a pretty good question of how, how can you really assess that? Is there a way that you can spot certain traits based on things people say or how they act? But I've also had scouts tell me in the past that they watch how a player acts all over the field

when they go to a game. It isn't just how they act when they're out on the field and the tape. It's also how they act on the sideline, how they interact with their teammates, that they're keeping an eye on all of these things. And I would say that the NFL is pretty darn good at assessing where players should land. Like they don't get it right all the time with their draft picks. They get it wrong probably still more often, but there are things at play. Like you mentioned, the position coaches making draft picks, a head coach deciding on a player, even if that's not what the scouting department wanted. And we even heard stories of Daniel Snyder making the first round picks for

Washington and just letting all that other work that the front office did go to complete waste. So there's dynamics that are involved like that that make it more difficult, but I think it's still valuable to have those scouts going in person and getting as much intel as they possibly could. Now, do I think that if you and I were drafting based on the consensus board and we just sort of let it fall where it may and had a general idea of team needs and then circled the guy and took him, would we draft in the same ballpark as NFL teams? Yeah, we probably would. I mean, because of the nature of drafting and how difficult it is to pick out who's

going to succeed and who isn't, I think we have probably gotten to the point where the consensus board does tell us a lot, just maybe not quite as much as real scouts do. But another part of this too is, I mean, you have to try to get an understanding of who the player is and how he's going to be able to fit with what you want to do. And I think scouts are good at that. And there's also the element of, you know, owners want to spend their money on doing as much as they can to succeed, right? So somebody said to me not too long ago that half the analytics departments in the NFL are just because the owner knows they should have an analytics department and the general manager might not even be using it.

I mean, coaching staffs are using these things to make game plans and look at tendencies and stuff like that. But you might have front offices who are not using the analytics at all to sign players or to assess value or anything like that. But the analytics are being done because the owner knows that's the right thing to do. And so, you know, tying all these things together, it's like if you have your scouting reports from your trained people who have played in the NFL and have connections and have gone out to Alabama and Clemson and met with other coaching staffs and met the players and all that sort of stuff, that's going to do better than us kind of guessing off of a consensus board, I think.

But you can't predict all those other things that go into it when we go, why did they make that draft pick? What were they thinking? And sometimes you'll hear later on, oh yeah, that was so-and-so's pick and they just kind of did what they want. So yeah, I think it's always easier for us on the outside to say that we could do that. oh yeah that was so-and-so's pick and they just kind of did what they want so um yeah i think it's always easier for us on the outside to say that we could do that but um i think you should use all of it they should teams should use the consensus board to cross-check their own people

and when there's a difference when the consensus of the mock scouting world and the draft writers who are often tied in and know what's going on. If it's very different from your scouts and what they're saying, you have to ask why. And I think that's probably how I would use it. But, you know, I think that when it comes to spending resources was sort of the start of the question. A lot of these teams have endless resources. They have as much money as you could possibly believe. I mean, Cincinnati, now Cincinnati has kind of done this. They only have a handful of scouts and they've still drafted Joe Burrow and that changed everything, right?

So, you know, maybe some of it is unnecessary, but we're also talking about look at these owners, like the Wilfs paying 10 more scouts is, I mean, it's doing no, no damage to their bottom line. Right. And I guess I would say it's probably better to have them than to not, but that's a really good question, Joe. And I appreciate that. So, but yes, use it, use it and find better ways to assess background and psychological and health stuff, because there's probably an edge there much more than there's an edge in terms of scouting where every team's scouting is probably similar. This comes from Jeff via email as well. Convince me that the Vikings undeniably poor defensive

stats at the end of games and halves in 2021 is not a specific and crushing negative reflection of Mike Zimmer as a head coach and an NFL defensive guru. My question is not intended to trample on Zim's overall coaching legacy, but merely unveil and study the magnitude of these repetitive and season-long non-random game-deciding poor defensive performances and to understand how and why it happened and why coach Zimmer was never able to fix it it's one thing to have a bad game or bad luck on a play or have an opposing player make an OBJ like amazing one-handed catch but quite another to have it happen week in and week out with no explanation or analysis of how or why it happened finishing 32nd out of 32 teams in this

category means something in my opinion. I hope we can do better in this coming year. So that's a great question, Jeff. And yeah, Warren Sharp put out a stat about how the Vikings performed in the clutch situations. And none of you would be surprised to know that they were last when it came to playing defense at the end of halves. Now there's two parts to this. Part number one is offense and defense cannot be separated as in you're either good at offense, you're good at defense. They have nothing to do with each other. The defense and the offense are their own entities.

I don't believe that because I feel like if you watch any game, you can really see it, how offense affects defense. And one of the parts of the Vikings offense last year was they did not finish teams when they had a chance. So, so many of those situations that you're describing, they had opportunities to put a nail in a coffin. I don't know how many times and didn't do it. And they were 20, it was either 24th or 26th in third down percentage. They had one of the lowest numbers of plays per drive in the entire NFL. They were 17th in scoring percentage, like the percentage of drives in which they produced

points. There were so many chances to just end teams and they didn't do it. And so one of the reasons the Vikings are the worst in those situations you're describing is because they were put in those situations so many times. The other part of it was that, I mean, some was bad luck. I mean, there's a throw that what bounces off Bashad Breland's hands and Amari Cooper catches it in the Cooper or Cooper rush game that they lost to Dallas. So there was some things like that that just didn't really go their way. But the other part of it is that they had no pass rush with four rushers. And that's where I feel like, and you could see this really in the Super Bowl and in the playoff

run from the Rams, that we ignored everything else except for Matthew Stafford in the playoff run to the Superbowl, but pay attention to the clutch moments of the Tampa Bay defense. I I'm sorry, the Los Angeles defense, the Tampa Bay game is the only one where it was a little different, but they kept turning the ball over the key moments in the NFC championship and the Superbowl from the Los Angeles defense are what Aaron Donald getting after the quarterback. And last year they just did not do that. They couldn't create pass rush with four rushers. And that left corners that were either inexperienced or not great. Aside from Patrick Peterson, uh, you know, Breland and Mackenzie Alexander and cam Dantzler left those

guys to have to guard some of the best wide receivers in the NFL with time to throw in the pocket. I mean, that that's what it came down to is in those situations. It's not often that you really feel confident sending a bunch of blitzers because Hey, at the Tampa Bay and Los Angeles game is a good example. You can get burned big time and give up big explosive plays. So Zimmer in the past would just sit back and play his normal defense and rush for an Everson and Tom Johnson and Brian Robison and Daniel Hunter. Like those guys would get after the quarterback on their own. That just was not happening. Now there were situations where he made mistakes in Detroit

on the last drive, letting Jared Goff sit back there was crazy. And I think that Zimmer, in a lot of ways last year, was trying to push so many buttons. Like, there's a Simpsons episode where the power plant is having a meltdown, and Homer just tries pushing every single button. That was Mike Zimmer last year. He was just pushing every button. Like, early in the season, he's being very, very conservative with his, you know, clock management and punting and, you know, settling for field goals.

Then later in the season, he gets super aggressive and just kind of seemed at random. And early in the season, you know, he's talking about how Kirk Cousins can't make mistakes and cost them games. And then later it's Kirk, you need to throw the ball deep down the field, like just lots of different messages. And I always felt that, you know, we talked about psychologically with draft picks.

There was something psychological to Zimmer's lack of trust in his players or the atmosphere that was created of not wanting to make a mistake. And what, what is it? Anybody who plays golf knows this. What are you thinking for the three foot putt? I'm going to miss it. And what do you do? You miss it, even though you should be able to make a three foot putt. But when there's that pressure on you, uh, I think that even can affect pro athletes. That said, I always go back to,

it's the players, it's the players, it's the players, It's the players. It's the players. It's the players. It's always been the players. It will always be the players. And that's not to say that no coaches have an impact. I think the top 10 coaches probably have a very significant impact and the bottom 10 coaches do, but everybody else is probably around even.

And it's your roster. If the Vikings had a great defensive line last year and could rush for and pressure those quarterbacks, we wouldn't have had that. And if the offense had done their job and finished off teams and put up one extra touchdown or one extra field goal in those big moments, then you're not talking about so many clutch spots. So I think it's a lot of different factors. Like Zimmer is responsible. The roster is responsible.

The offense is responsible. And if you're making a pie chart, it's probably the roster 50%, 60%, and then the rest. But it's one of the reasons that it was also time for Zimmer to go because his defenses were not performing in the same way that they used to in the past. This is from underscore RO28. Let's get crazy and assume Vikings management sees the light on the benefit of taking a first round wide receiver of which they may have the pick of the crop. Can you please make a pie chart of wide receivers, not in terms of who's best,

but who's best for Minnesota? I think I've settled on Jamison Williams because of the way that he would compliment Justin Jefferson's skillset. I'd like to hear your take. I'm not sure exactly how to make a pie chart out of this. I think I'll just probably rank them for you. I see the best by far fit for being across from Justin Jefferson as Jamison Williams. I was watching a play that Mike Tannenbaum, the former GM, tweeted out from Jamison Williams. And I know this is highlight season where it's, look at this guy's fastest run or his best play or his biggest sack. And that's what he really is. And it's not always the case, but the explosiveness and the quickness, that extra jet speed when Jameson Williams gets

the ball, I mean, that is just perfect to put across from Justin Jefferson. I also think that it raises the floor for him. So even if he can't master route running perfectly, you could still use him in a lot of ways to get the football in his hands. And I think that I would have much more confidence in Kevin O'Connell to do that than I would maybe in the past where they didn't always maximize players like Cordero Patterson. But Jamison Williams, I think, has that potential, that big play, gets the ball in his hands, jetpack behind him. You know, that Percy Harvin. Everyone's comparing all these players to Tyreek Hill, but I always think of that with Percy Harvin.

As soon as the football touches his hands, he's just off and he's gone. And that's something Jamison Williams has that I don't see with anybody else in this draft. But, you know, the next wave is kind of your Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave. I think I prefer Olave a little bit to Garrett Wilson. There's one criticism of Wilson that concerns me a bit, which is just that when defensive backs get their hands on him, he struggles. And trust me, defensive backs will be getting their hands on you as an NFL wide receiver. So Olave is a little bit ahead of my mind.

And then after that, Drake London is less for me. Uh, I, I I'm sure that he's a better route runner than someone like Laquan Treadwell, but the giant guy who needs contested catches feels a little antiquated for me. But I mean, who knows? Like if they draft a wide receiver in that spot, I think we're going to give them a thumbs up regardless of who they take. But that's just my feeling of how those specific first round guys might fit along with the Vikings. And if Drake London has to be an outside wide receiver, who's making contested catches, I don't know that that's as good as someone who's blazing fast, who you can line up all over the field and who can make big plays

after the catch and draw attention away from Justin Jefferson. Okay. So I've got plenty more fans only questions to work my way through. We'll have more episodes next week, but I figured I would run through a few of these now, since you guys have been sending just really thoughtful stuff and really great questions. And, uh, I'm glad we decided to do this and you guys have encouraged me to continue to do it. So, uh, so to do this and you guys have encouraged me to continue to do it. So, so we will, and we'll have fun with it. So thanks so much for listening. And we'll talk to you next time.