Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is the Vikings' arrow pointing toward the Super Bowl? (A Fans Only pod)

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, starting with how Minnesota Vikings fans feel in comparison to other fanbases going into the season, particularly teams that seemingly have nothing to root for. Would be looking at Justin Jefferson differently if he was paid quarterback-level money? Will players improve because the culture is better? Will Ihmir Smith-Marsette be one of the best Vikings ever from Iowa? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is another fans only on my quest to clear out all the pre-camp questions so we can do consistent camp focused episodes. Although your strange or unique questions are still very much open for business here. If you have something that isn't necessarily about training camp and just is about the Vikings or football in general or football reporting, feel free to send them by. I just want to be ready to get all the camp questions. So you can give me your questions at purpleinsider.com. Go there, top right corner, contact hit that feel free to send me a message there or at Twitter at my app mentions at Matthew collar or you can send them via DM if it's a little bit longer and you want a direct

Message go ahead and do that so we can crack one open and get right to it here And If you're wondering, yes, before Wednesday, before they practice going to stock up and then I will be ready. And I mean, during the draft, I actually brought a 12 pack to TCO performance center so I could just pound them through all the days. And, uh, we were only out there for the first two days and then did zoom and the third day but i crushed the entire 12 pack in the first two days so there is commitment to this bit uh all right into the questions we go all right this comes from tommy via email he says i feel like every year at this time i have optimism

and doubt even before the kirk cousins era it always felt like 10 or 11 wins, make the playoffs and see what happens. As of recently, I've changed my view to Super Bowl or bust. If we aren't aiming the needle toward the Super Bowl, then I think we might as well tank. Sorry for the long follow-up, but how do you think in general other fan bases see their teams?

Does every other fan think like I do? Do you say the Lions or Browns fans prior to the Stefanski era think, yeah, maybe we can get to six wins and see it as a success. What do Texans fans feel like seeing their organization take, you know, the homes and the Chiefs to the wire in the playoffs and now be a laughingstock? Do the Patriots just assume they'll be in the conference championship every year? You get my point. Love your content.

Keep it up. Thank you very much, Tommy. Appreciate that. That is a great question. I think that it's all about expectations, right? For the way that different fan bases look at it. So try to remember yourself back in, say, 2014. Going into 2014, the Vikings were a pretty much disaster, right?

And you hire a new coach and you're thinking, all right, steps forward. You draft a quarterback, steps forward. The expectations are don't have a hideous, atrocious season. Have the coach looks like he generally knows what he's doing. Have the quarterback show potential. And then let's have a lot of fun, right? Those would be the things that you're talking about as a team that has gone to the bottom and has struggled being a success story for you.

Something that points the needle toward an eventual great season, right? I think that football fans are incredibly good at understanding timelines and understanding expectations of if you're the New York Jets, for example, and you're their fans, they're pretty excited about this because it's year two of Zach Wilson. They knew it was going to be a really difficult year. They knew that the years prior were very ugly and very disappointing, but you can still go into it saying if Zach Wilson wins eight or nine games and shows that he could be the quarterback of the future and Robert Sala knows how to coach, then this is pointing in this

direction that you're talking about. It's not just tanking that points in the direction of the Super Bowl or being a team that has Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. I think it's just understanding where the roster is and setting your expectations there and then looking if the needle is going toward that direction or not. And with the Vikings, the needle has just not been moving. And there might be some things this year that could move closer to the direction of the Super Bowl. And what I mean is a modern approach, like modern approach to sports science, modern approach to culture, and eventually the analytics approach that, you know, we heard about a lot when Kweisi Adafo-Mensa got hired. But, you know, maybe you

could say, look, uh, they decided to just keep the team together rather than blow it all up. So they could see what they have and evaluate for the future. And then when Kwesi Adafo-Mensah has a full, full off season, then he can decide which direction to go. Now I, you know, you know, where I stand on this, that I think that trying to reset the cap and trying to refresh the roster would have been a better approach this year. Um, but there are some things that they did

that could help you go that way in the future, even if it's a nine or 10 win season. Um, but it also feels like when you stay with the same quarterback and you know, that quarterback is not your long-term answer and yet he's very expensive and he's let you down many times it's really hard to get ramped up to say okay uh this is going to be progress for this year and there are going to be signs that the arrow is pointed towards someday legitimately competing for a super bowl instead of having to say, well, look, maybe if Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers both quit midway through the season to be professional golfers, then you've got a chance. And oh, by the way, maybe the Los Angeles Rams move their team

back to St. Louis or something like that, right? You need a bunch of things to go wrong for the real contenders. That's not a place you really want to be when you can't argue, hey, I'm watching for X, Y, and Z to see if it's a Super Bowl team. So I think that's the frustration. But a lot of other fan bases are at the point, even when things are miserable, where they're saying, let's find out. Like, let's find out if Davis Mills is good. I don't think he is, but they're going to find out. Like, let's find out if Davis Mills is good. I don't think he is, but they're going to find out.

Let's find out if the young players that we've drafted have a chance to build something for the future. And I think there's a lot of fan bases that get there that have teams that have gone to the bottom recently. Now, Cleveland, of course, had no hope, Priest, Stefanski, but when they draft Baker Mayfield and he shows signs in that first year, you can talk yourself into, Hey, this is a guy who can develop over the next few years and give us a chance to win a Superbowl. And by my, uh, really unanalytic metric, 11 wins is the standard for you actually compete for a Superbowl. And because, you know,

just doing a little research, it usually takes 11 or 12 wins somewhere in between to be a legitimate Superbowl contender. And so if you're getting to 11, you've got one season out of Baker Mayfield that actually did that. And he gave them a real chance. So them setting expectations, maybe as when,

you know, Baker's just getting there that first year, let's show signs that could eventually lead us to seasons that are competitive. Uh, I think you get my point that a lot of fan bases are there and you can't be there, but also because Vegas thinks you're winning nine games, you can't really make a reasoned argument that you're one of the Super Bowl contenders. Now, Vegas isn't always right, and things do go wrong, and nobody knows this better than Minnesota Vikings fans. But I think when you play the game of how do fans talk themselves into excitement, it's

always about the expectations and where the general overall direction of the franchise is headed. And when you're stuck in that middle of not believing that you've either laid the foundation to point the arrow toward the Super Bowl, and you also haven't been placed by any prognosticators with the Rams, the Bucks, the Packers, even the Cowboys. It's just hard. I think it's just hard for a lot of people this offseason and even fans that I talk to on a regular basis on social media and things like that. I mean, I really get that vibe of like everyone's excited for football,

but in order to get really into what they decided to do and the direction and everything, you're kind of going to have to see it first. You're going to have to go to an old right out of the gate and say, this team is doing things different. They are better. And of course, you know,

we'll see how that progresses through training camp and what our feelings are about that through training camp. But when you go through the league and I did this exercise just kind of to myself, um, not too long ago, cause I was thinking about like covering the team this year and what, you know, how it compares to other teams in terms of excitement. And you go through and you can almost all you like the whole league, you can almost categorize them into this team believes it can legitimately compete for a super bowl or this team believes that it's going in the real like the direction of someday down the road and the only teams that

you can't really talk yourself into that are like washington no right carson wentz probably not uh you know seattle i mean is gonna tank but that should be at least a wild season for them if they're starting Gino Smith, uh, and then drafting like number one or number two. So that, you know, they're in that tank. Detroit believes they're going to be a lot better and head toward a Superbowl. Uh, Chicago is tanking. Atlanta is tanking.

Carolina is pretty hopeless. Um, now they could win like nine or 10 games with Baker Mayfield, but in terms of the long-term, what they're going to do at quarterback, they've probably set themselves up to not draft high. New Orleans, I would say New Orleans and the Vikings are the teams and Carolina that are that stuck in the middle. Their quarterbacks are talented and they can have good moments and they'll probably have bad moments and um you know probably aren't really gonna be considered contenders unless they prove it throughout the season um and and so you're not alone but most teams try to be in that place

where you're talking about and i think that that uh i think it's worn on people being like this year after year and doing this dance each year where you go, well, if everybody stays healthy and so forth, then, you know, we might be good and people get hurt and all that. But I, you know, from my perspective, it's let's see and let's find out. But I totally understand where you're coming from in not being able to put yourself into one of those two categories of believing that this is going to be a road that takes you somewhere for a tank or being a team that it can legitimately compete. The only thing about this team tanking is it's hard to do when you have the

number of talented players that they do, even if they had moved on from someone like Adam Thielen or someone like Harrison Smith, or even Kirk Cousins, if they had, you know, say picked up a veteran quarterback, it would have been hard to win like three games. They were probably always going to be in the middle. It's just, were you doing things with the salary cap, with the draft and so forth to set yourself up to be that team in the future where you could talk about competing for a super bowl so a great question but the more i go along and

the vikings have really sharpened my eye to this the more i think about how everything every move every thought process every expectation from fans is always about expectations. It's what you want to see, what you think they should be doing versus what they're doing. And if you set your expectations at everything should be pointed toward the Super Bowl, then it's hard to say that this team did that this off season. All right, on to our next question. And I will try to keep it shorter winded. I looked at the how long I was talking there and realized it was too long, so sorry about that. I got to cut down on that.

Okay, this comes from Michael via email. Obviously, Justin Jefferson is going to get paid in the next year or two. What would people be saying about this team if Jefferson had Kirk Cousins' contract and Kirk Cousins was on Justin Jefferson's rookie deal would we look at the records from the past two seasons any differently and would we be calling for Justin Jefferson to be traded uh well I mean if you gave Justin Jefferson Kirk Cousins deal it would be the worst contract in professional sports like it would be the biggest overpay for any player in, in sports because wide receivers simply do not cost $35 million on the salary cap.

Like if we go to wide receivers at over the cap.com, which if you have not toyed with it, uh, you really should. And we go to this year's salary cap hits for wide receivers. There is one player, one over $20 million. Every other player at wide receiver is under that. And there's only a handful that are even over $10 million. Just, this is just the cap hits. Now this is not the future where guys are going to get paid more, but the salary cap is also going to go up. This is just for this year right now. Here is the list of guys who are over $10 million. All right. Robert Woods, Tyler Lockett,

Tyler Boyd, Brandon Cooks, Mike Evans, Robbie Anderson, Adam Thielen, Stefan Diggs, Devante Adams, Curtis Samuel, Michael Thomas, Corey Davis, Mike Williams, Nelson Aguilar, Cooper cup, Deandre Hopkins, and Keenan Allen. And then Kenny Galladay has the highest cap hit in the league, but that's it. That's less than one dude per team. Who's making more than $10 million on the salary cap. So if they were to sign Justin Jefferson today to a contract extension, it wouldn't kick in for a few years and it wouldn't have it anywhere

near what a quarterback's going to get paid. Like at some point, quarterbacks are going to end up getting paid like 50 million a year. But the thing about the short-term deals for cousins is that there's no way to manipulate that. So you don't have a high cap hit when it's a short deal. You can't spread the money out over what did Mahomes do 10 years. And then you're just reworking it every couple of years to lower the cap hit again. When you sign a one or two year extension, you can't do that. So let's just say that, I mean, if Justin Jefferson was making $17 million on the cap and Kirk cousins was on a rookie contract, they'd be better. They wouldn't have

this record. They would have more wins because they would have more cap space. They would get better players. And the things that went wrong for them to be a seven and eight win team over the last two years, what were they? They were often about, well, we don't have anybody behind Daniil Hunter. We don't have anybody to play right guard that wasn't recently a developmental tackle we don't have any depth we don't have a third wide receiver we don't have this we don't have that and i mean mike zimmer said it numerous times and we knew what he was getting at when he was like yeah if anybody gets hurt on this team we're in big trouble and you know it's sort of like stares at Rick Spielman and Kirk Cousins,

right? But it's not wrong that when you have to pay a quarterback that much where he's third this year in cap hit, you're not going to be able to do a lot else. And he's always been at that top in cap hit since he got here. I think 2020 might've been the only year where they lowered it. Maybe outside of the top five was, I mean, it's always been up there. So if Kirk Cousins was on a rookie quarterback contract, you and Jefferson was paid at the top of the receiver market in terms of cap hit, you'd still be talking about 15, $20 million difference from having Kirk at the top of the league and Jefferson on a rookie contract. So they would have won more. I think you'd also probably be talking about the big question of whether to sign cousins long-term if they were in the same spots, because if you have a quarterback

on a rookie contract and you end up with seven or eight wins, but the guy has good stats, like you're still having that same conversation. Should we pay him? I mean, think about this, like even Dak Prescott and Lamar Jackson. Now Kyler Murray just got paid, but there's even questions with those guys of like, was it a right idea to pay Dak Prescott went at the time? Like everyone I think believes it was now, but at the time, was it a good idea to sign him? Lamar Jackson, he doesn't have a contract extension yet. When's that going to happen? And I think that teams know how dicey it can get. And those are great quarterbacks and anything below that. That's where we've seen teams really struggle

when they sign those players. So I think Kirk exists very much on the line of, do you pay this player or not? But if he was coming off a rookie contract, it might be less of a debate because you could make it a longer term deal and you could spread out that cost where they have not been able to do it now. So hopefully that answers the question, but that's a creative way to talk about it. I like it. Folks, training camp is here and there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to sodastick.com and checking out all their Minnesota sports inspired goods.

The best football designs, in my opinion, are Randy Moss's disgusting act and the purple people eaters look, but look, there's lots more for you to check out at sodastick.com S O T A S T I C K.com t-shirts, hoodies, hats, whatever you're looking for. Use the promo code purple insider at checkout for 15% off your purchase. On to the next question here. This comes from Matt via email. Let's see. Well, I'm in Philly right now. I'm still a season ticket holder and make at least one to two games a year.

And I've seen over the past few years when Kirk has a clearly tightly wound demeanor on the sidelines, even early in games like the Kansas City game. And as you know, he doesn't feel like the offense has answers. You can book it. Um, let's see, you can book it, that it's a guaranteed loss. And last year after the scripted plays, it was like Kubiak was shaking the magic eight ball and everyone knew it. Um, let's see. So as an optimist, I'm wondering if the new regime is taking a scheme against the opponent instead of work harder on our own execution philosophy and almost the belichickian adapt every week instead of the zimmeristic this is what we do approach that will be even more game

changing than we estimate even the defense at times last year didn't give up but looked like they were reluctantly sticking to the play calls. And finally, the new question, or the question, is with the new culture and a hint of intelligence beyond technique, is it possible that for the players, this is a much bigger reboot than it appears from a pure personnel standpoint? And if the shackles are taken off, some very talented, albeit aging players, might that inspire them for a much higher performance? Well, that's a good email that I did not read as well as I should, Matt, but thank you

very much for that. You know, I think that what you're describing, I mean, part one, I don't think is ever going to change. Like Kirk Cousins, who he is, his demeanor, how he acts. He stands away from the rest of the players a lot of times. He's not the type to come over to the sideline and rile everybody up and get in somebody's face and throw something or whatever Tom Brady-esque. And I don't believe there's any changing that early in games you'll be able to see it, whether something's wrong or not.

I think the opening script situation, we put a lot of that on Clint Kubiak not being able to adapt. And I would agree, but I also think there's somebody else with the football in his hands who doesn't adapt well when things are different than he expects. And there are numbers for this, like Kirk Cousins, when the coverage is different from what it looks like pre-snap, his performance goes way down. PFF looked at this not that long ago. And I think that that matches up with what we've seen. If he's pressured early in games, we know that it's going to throw him off. Like these are fundamental things that somebody telling him, you know, that they believe in him, I don't think really changed because,

you know, Washington, though the top of their organization may not have believed in him. He certainly had coaches that did. And I don't think that this organization has shown, um, the new regime that they believe in him either from the top signing him to a short-term contract extension. Uh, so I do think, you know, that there's, there's something to the idea that somebody who has cousins in mind with everything they do with the scheme, as opposed to run first could help to some extent. And that a coach who's more positive could help to some extent, but we're asking a tiger to change his stripes and the other players you're saying, well, can you maximize their

performance? Well, who are we talking about? Like, are we expecting Justin Jefferson to be better that that to me is like a bridge too far because he's already the best receiver in the league or top three. Um, and if you're talking about like Adam Thielen, well, those years have kind of passed us by where he could still be good. But if you're saying, well, the new coach is going to get more out of him. I'm skeptical of that. Irv Smith is back. That's helpful. But who else are we talking about here? Like Delvin cook, you're not getting more out of Delvin cook than anybody else has in the past, except for maybe in the screen game where they could be a little smarter. And as we talk about like the game

planning, I think that almost every team these days has taken the Belichickian approach because they are able to put so much on their players plates as far as adjusting each game. And there are times where we've seen this and, you know, look at Arizona, for example, where they ran some three, four stuff on defense last year in week two. Uh, they did a lot of interesting things offensively that they put in that they usually don't. I mean, this is a team that, you know, adjusted to playing three wide receivers. Like I do think they can be good, uh, at some of the things that you're describing and percentage points better, but I don't know that like everything about the previous regime was wrong in their approach to the point where, oh, well now we're scheming for the opponent. Like, no, they always scheme for

the opponent for sure. Um, but I think that what they try to do is give, uh, Kirk cousins, the best possible things that he could do, which was run play actions and throw down the field. That's what they felt he could do. Now, if O'Connell says, I think he's better at throwing quick short passes to slot receivers, and we're going to put Jefferson there, then we'll study that approach. And that might be really interesting too, to find out if it's a little more effective or not. But as far as players fundamentally changing who they are at this point in the game is probably not going to happen. I think the most optimistic view of this is that players have more of a say in what works for them. And that's an area where Kevin O'Connell can be a lot different

is just giving players more of a voice and more of a say in what they're doing. And so if they feel more comfortable and more have more ownership over what they're doing, then maybe there's a little bit better performance. And so that's, you know, one of those things that goes under the category of, we're going to be watching that all year long, how the players react and respond to Kevin O'Connell. And now when Kevin O'Connell last called plays, he was in Washington and they ranked 32nd in offense. Now that's not his fault. They had bad quarterback play, but we'll see if he's better than Clint Kubiak at calling plays. Like that's something that's not guaranteed, but we'll see.

Would it be hard to be worse as far as past the opening script? Maybe, but you know, that's a, that is an area though. If you're looking for space where they can improve, I agree with you past the opening script play calling is, is one of those places. So if you add up all the percentage points and all those things kind of click together, then they could perform better. Yeah. But a lot of it comes down to whether they're performing better comes down to who they're playing when they're playing them and having, having things go right, like being healthy, you know, having the right types of matchups and stuff like that. And then having O'Connell click on some of those small things. So great question, Matt. Appreciate that. Uh, let's, let me see if there's

a shorter one here. I've got another long email, but since I, the longer the email, the more I have a chance to screw up words. Uh, okay. Which doesn't mean don't send a long one. I'm just saying, forgive me. Uh, so this one comes from at McNeil, Jared on Twitter, a friend of the show here. Oh, great to see you friend. This is for the fans only podcasts. I was born and raised in Iowa as a Hawkeyes fan and went on to graduate from Iowa. Who are the best Hawkeyes to play for the Vikings? And where do you think Amir Smith-Marset ends up on that list? Well, this is going to have to take a Google search. Let's see. Iowa Hawkeyes Vikings. Let's try that because I do not have a list.

Let's see. Oh, here we go. Look at this. From Hawkeyes to Vikings. There's an actual. Oh, no, it's not about actual players. Darn. It's about people who have gone on to work for the Vikings who went to Iowa.

Well, you know, former Hawkeyes in the NFL. How about this one? This is, this is going to be a hard question to know all the Iowa Hawkeyes who have ever played for the Minnesota Vikings. But, um, I wonder if we can, if we can actually find that, like, is there a list there has to be right um so let's just go off of this i think amir smith marset i think this is probably a better way to answer the question oh do we got this nfl hawks here we go nfl hawks let's see is this all time or just current no i think this is all time all right let's see riley reef nate, Jaleel Johnson. Oh, this was current recently. All right. Well, Riley Reif is going to be a tough one to match He's a good player Alright, let's see 10 greatest Iowa Hawkeye players in NFL history Let's see if there's any Vikings

I am not the I'm not the like I know like the trivia person Who knows where everyone went to college So I'm sorry for that And I'm sure that this has been like super compelling radio Of me just googling stuff But

Oh, Paul Krause. Paul Krause. This is an easy question then. There you have it. Paul Krause. You know what? I bet some of you were sitting there yelling Paul Krause at me going, come on, man. Figure it out.

You're going to end up with it on Google at some point. Reggie Roby. There's another one. Bob Sanders. Got some good players from Iowa. Oh, Nate Cading. He does Nate Cading count as a Viking because he assisted helping the kickers. Uh, all right. So we've got Riley reef and Paul Krause are kind of the two best Amir Smith. Marset does not have an insanely high bar to reach Riley reef. He would just have to

catch a few touchdowns and be exciting. And, um, he has an unbelievably high bar to reach for Paul Krause, which is almost impossible and super unlikely. But I think your real question here is, and I've screwed around a lot, trying to find it. Your real question is, is a mere Smith Marsat going to be good? And the answer is I'll be able to tell you after this camp. The first year is so hard for everybody. When you're a rookie, you come in and you're trying to learn the playbook. You're going up against players who are better than you. It's a really overwhelming experience. And trying to master an offense in a short period of time for players who

did not have anything like this in college is very, very tough. But I saw some raw skill from Amir Smith-Marset that I was impressed by. And here's one ball tracking that if you go through all the players in the league who are good at being downfield threats, which is what he projects as, can you track the ball in the air and make a play? And I see that from him. Speed is talked about all the time because it's big on Madden. Can your little character run past their little character? But for me, it's, can you track the ball down the field is probably the top skill route running is of course a big deal, but if

he wants to be a deep threat, that's what it's going to be. And I see that with him. So if through this camp, he looks like he's mastered the offense. He's making plays in camp. He's roasting, you know, backup corners with the second team and things like that. Then I think you might have a weapon there. Like maybe not a guy who becomes the next Adam Thielen or Justin Jefferson, but somebody who could be a legitimate contributor to this offense this year and someone who rotates in and challenges KJ Osborne for wide receiver three. But if he doesn't, then we're going to kind of know that it's not necessarily physical, but it's really just an inability to master the offense. So there you go. A lot of Googling, but I think we found the answer that, uh, if he has a decent career as a wide receiver, he could pass Riley reef who was good, was a good Viking.

Uh, all right. Onto our next email here. This comes from Tony. I think the offseason is a great time to dive into the nuts and bolts of football. That being said, can you explain the roster to me more? Specifically, out of 53, how many pad up and how many actually play in an average regular season game? How does injured reserve and the practice squad work in regards to keeping players from being released and whatever. Okay. The 53, let me think how many are active on a game day. Is it 46? Let's see. Let me think.

I'm going to search this just in case. I think it's 46. Yep. Oh, it increased. See, I knew it increased with COVID. So it's 48. 48 out of the 53 players on the roster are active. And they also made a rule of being able to elevate a couple of times practice squad players, which I think is a really good rule. Having

veterans on the practice squad is a really good rule. So that's kind of where we'll start with that for how many are actually playing. The injured reserve used to work very differently where if you put someone on IR, they were just done for the season. Now you can put them on IR with a designation to return. Also a good idea. You put them with a designation to return and it's a few weeks later. I think, what is it? Is it six weeks later? You're making me look up all the NFL rules here. Um, but you're able to bring that player back after they've been hurt and on IR. And what you can do is you can replace that player. The reason for IR is you can replace that player on the 53 with someone from your practice squad or someone that you sign. So

that's kind of how that works. Um, practice squad players can be signed by other teams. Uh, I think that the team has a chance, like if the player wants to stay with his team, they can match for like increasing their pay or something, but, um, they can sign, you could sign anybody you want off of other teams, practice squads. Uh, this happened with Rashad Hill. He was on the practice squad of the Jaguars and they were able to sign him, but you have to put them on the active roster. You can't just put them on your practice squad. Um, let's see. So that's kind of how it all works is as far as the roster goes, it's, it's pretty simple. Um, they have to, I just said, it's pretty simple after needing to Google rules, but, um, you know, with the 53,

the interesting thing to me is more of how many players at each position they decide to have. So I was just making a 53 man roster, which, you know, I'll do an episode about, or maybe by the time you listen to this, I'll already have done an episode previewing the 53 man roster. Uh, but you know, is it 10 defensive linemen? Is it five receivers? Is it six receivers? Is it, you know, and so forth. Um, so, you know, those are kind of interesting discussions to have, but the roster in and outs have recently added a lot of rules to make it easier for teams to keep players easier to replace them and bring them back when they're hurt opportunities for a lot more veteran players to be able to put them on the practice squad, which I really like, because that means that more veteran players are not just forced

out of the league just because of their contract situations. So thanks for that question. Let's go to Austin. And this is an email here. Thanks for the pod. I work at 4 a.m. every day. And it's nice to have a consistent listen before the sun comes up. Though as a Vikings fan, sometimes it feels like the sunrise will never come. Oh, that's dark. That's dark, Austin. That's deep. But well, this is a great compliment though, because if you can stand listening to me before the sun even comes up, which I used to have to wake up to produce a morning show when I was in Buffalo, I couldn't listen to anything at that point because everything gave me a headache.

So if I don't give you a headache at four o'clock in the morning, that is a huge compliment. So I appreciate that. Uh, my question as a longtime Madden player, if you could change any attribute of a Vikings player to 99, what would you think would have the greatest impact on the team changing cousins speeds and 99 aside, my three choices would be changing Garrett Bradbury strength to 99 to Neil Hunter's durability 99, and Greg Joseph's accuracy to 99. Now this is a question of a person who really understands fans only. Like I love answering the nuts and bolts and what players came from what colleges, so I love all the questions.

But if you're asking me something this creative, I really like it. So feel free everybody. When you send your questions to do stuff like this, that is a fun one. So, yeah, I mean like naturally it would be something to do with the quarterback. If you could make, you know what it would be maybe is like with cousins. If he had a, if he had a toughness of 99 or something not that i'm saying he's soft when he gets hit he takes hits and he gets back up and he has great durability

he has 99 durability i just mean if that's sort of all encompassing to a fearlessness if that was a rating if we could if we could amp up a fearlessness or even how about this? How about just awareness? Awareness. Does that include self-awareness? But like awareness in general for cousins, awareness of open receivers, awareness of when he can tell or when he can throw passes into contested situations. That might be pretty helpful if I was going to tweak one slider, but I couldn't do the physical attributes for him. Durability for Delvin Cook might be one,

if that included staying at the high level he starts every year with, because the first couple of weeks of the season, that man is just exploding when he gets the football. But as the season goes on, he wears down as most running backs do, but specifically the injuries tend to take their toll. How about this? How about this? What if we gave one of the corners like 99 catch?

So every time they got in a contested catch situation or were near the football, they would intercept it. Because when you look at what turnovers do, I was looking at this recently, I think for another fans only of starting field position after a turnover and the average starting field position is like midfield. So getting the ball at on average midfield, when you create a turnover, and this is where Dallas might regress this year. If Trayvon Diggs doesn't continue to pick off passes like crazy. But that was one of the reasons they led the league in scoring last year for Dallas, because they were causing tons of turnovers and they were picking off passes all the time with

Trayvon Diggs. That is one that I would definitely consider would be if you could give a corner 99 hands. Um, let me think. I mean, what would another one be for, for 99 something? I mean, 90, 99 speed for almost anybody's pretty attractive. Would you go, would you go 99 kick power for your punter? And like, listen to my case here for this, that flipping the field, still a thing, still a thing. But if I only get three, like genie in a bottle, it's kind of hard to pick the punter as one of them. But if you can go from a three and out at your 25-yard line and coffin corner that thing from your own side of the field,

like that's going to have an effect. That's going to have an impact. Let's see. Is there any other ones? I mean, maybe like, I mean, break tackle. Delvin Cook might already have 99 break tackle. I mean, you already said the center one with the strength. I think that's a great nomination.

Maybe it would be, can I mess with height? Can I make Justin Jefferson seven feet tall? This is a fun one. This is a fun one. Tweet me your answers to this because I really like that. But those are some good ones. You know, I think, I mean, if we're talking about one player's speed, imagine if Adam Thielen had like 99 speed with his technique or 99 jumping ability or something.

That would be one. How about, okay, I've got one. I've got the funniest one. Then we'll move on. 99 jumping ability for Armond Watts and have him block punts all the time and kicks field goals, block field goals with 99 jumping ability. The Auburn Tigers football team once tried to get Charles Barkley to line up and block field goals. I think maybe that's a myth, but I thought I read that somewhere once.

That their coach asked, could we use Charles to try to block kicks? Imagine 6'6 Armond Watts just leaping up like he's Michael Jordan and swatting field goals away. Think about how many points you'd save. If you blocked five field goals over a season, I mean, that's a lot of points. All right, next question here. This has been a fun one. You guys are great today.

This comes from Shane via the email. Fans only question for you. Every year there's several teams that made the playoffs the year before that did not make it back. Looking at the teams from last year, can you pick three in each conference that won't be there this year? Ooh, okay, this is fun. conference that won't be there this year? Ooh, okay. This is fun.

Let's see. Teams from last year. Let me look at the standings here. Let me look at the playoffs last year and see what we're looking at. Okay. So teams that made the playoffs. All right, we'll start with the AFC that will not make it this year. I think the Tennessee Titans could fall off and go from 12 to like seven wins.

Their quarterback doesn't seem very happy. Derrick Henry did not have a great year last year and he's slowing down. They lost AJ Brown. They have kind of been bleeding talent a little bit. It's remarkable that they went 12 and five last year, but I just don't see it considering the talent level of the AFC. I don't see them repeating that. So I'll start with, I'll go a little bold there and say that they're going to go from one seat to out of the playoffs. Uh, I will also pick the Las Vegas Raiders because of their division. I think they have a strong team overall. And if they're in the NFC, they're in the playoffs, but not in the AFC West and the Pittsburgh Steelers, uh, you know, they could still be competitive, but it's again about the

caliber of competition. I think more than can they still be a decent team if they are playing Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett, either one. I mean, they're probably going to win like eight games because they have a good defense mike tomlin's a great coach but anything more than that especially with the teams behind them probably not going to make the playoffs you could see them be replaced these the replacement teams are kind of right there denver broncos with russell wilson indianapolis with matt ryan miami los angeles the chargers uh and then maybe there's a surprise one like the jets or the the jaguars baltimore could make the playoffs like i think

that um there is a very good possibility of an overhaul there for the playoffs in the afc and in the nfc this one might be a little harder um Yes, it is a little harder. I mean, this is where you'd make a case for the Vikings making it, but the teams that could be out. San Francisco, if Trey Lance is bad. Philadelphia should make it. The NFC is so much harder. I just, like, do we see Dallas falling off? Probably not.

Arizona, I guess, but they still have a lot of talent. Who's replacing them? Like Washington could replace somebody. Maybe Washington replaces Philly. This one is very hard on the NFC. The AFC is super easy. The only thing you could say is like, maybe tom brady just made the wrong choice and he like peyton manning's this thing but he's still gonna find a way to win some games even when he had bad seasons with new england he still found ways to win games so i don't know i mean that's hard i guess if you force me to pick i would say philadelphia san francisco arizona because i just think those other teams green bay tampa bay d, Los Angeles, I just think they're all good. Maybe you would go Dallas, but I still think they have a ton of talent and replacing them

would have to be Washington, Minnesota, and New Orleans. But the NFC is kind of super top heavy and it's hard to see any of those people getting knocked off. All right. Uh, thank you very much, Shane, for that. Let's do, let's see, can we get in one more or is that going to have to kind of be it? Do I have a, do I have a quick one? Let's see. Oh, how about this? Um, this is from, Oh gosh, did I lose who this is from? Okay. I've got it. It was, uh, at Leonard 0 6 1 on Twitter. Quick fans only question. I recently re-listened to your interview with Sam Bradford from a few, from a few years ago. Have you had any contact with him since then? And what

is he up to? No, I haven't. Uh, honestly, I don't remember any other interview that Sam Bradford has done since then. I don't know that he's the type of guy that wants to do a lot of interviews. He did that one because he's friends with Alex Boone and the same for a few other ones. You know, we interviewed Carson Palmer, Patrick Willis. We had a bunch of guys, Terrence Newman. And those guys don't do a lot of interviews. Like I haven't heard a lot of interviews from Terrence Newman or Sam Bradford. I think that Bradford's a guy who is probably just playing golf and living the life, right? I know he's a huge golfer and a great golfer, which is not surprising considering his athletic prowess, but that interview was great.

It really was. He was super open It really was. He was super open, really interesting. And I think that one thing that Sam Bradford never had a chance to do was really let people know who he was. I mean, he showed up in Minnesota right before the season and it was just like, this is your quarterback now. And that season was so crazy and he had such a tough go. I mean, like he played well, but just the offensive line and all the other issues and the things that happened to them that season. But it was during the 2017 off season that we started to really get the feeling for

like him becoming the leader of the team. And I just, you know, I always, and he felt this way too, in that interview, I just thought that the guy could have really got his due after that year, right. That he could have come out and played extremely well under those really good circumstances, taking the team a long way, gone deep into the playoffs, who knows about maybe even more than that. Um, and then really changed the narrative about Sam Bradford and who he was. And I think what he did still prove in Minnesota was that he was a better quarterback than people gave him credit for. And he wasn't just the guy who got a lot of money, but couldn't play.

Like there was a reason why he kept getting opportunities because he was a good quarterback. Uh, that also has gone away now with just the pay structure of rookies too, because he got so much money right off the bat. But that was a very insightful interview. He's an interesting guy and I would love to have him on this show at some point. So I guess I'll have to ask Alex or Jeremiah if he'd be interested in doing another interview, but I don't think he wants to be like a media guy. So we'll see, but that was one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done because he's just, you know, got a really interesting career and very interesting perspective. And I think what we didn't know that he really revealed was that him and Zimmer were kind of boys like, and Alex told me that, that Bradford was just a really, really smart football mind and had a ton of

respect from his teammates. Um, so, you know, that those were things that we just didn't really get to know until he was already done playing with the team. So, um, hopefully when people think of Sam Bradford, they remember that he showed he could play, uh, at the end and don't think of just like, Oh, this was an injured former top pick who never really made good on that draft selection because you know, how much of that was ever his fault. He didn't pay himself. We say this about Kirk all the time. He didn't sign himself to these contracts. And with Sam Bradford, he didn't get injured on purpose. He didn't go to a terrible, brutal St. Louis team on purpose. He just got selected there as that team was really not in a good place. So thanks for the question. I appreciate everybody listening

and we will have lots more fans only questions. I've got lots of questions to get to. And I really have this goal of continuing this as we get into the season, bringing you the interviews you guys like. But since the feedback has been so positive on these and the questions have kept rolling in, I want to keep doing them and keep answering all your questions. So thanks so much for listening and we will catch you next time.