Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jalen Nailor health update via ESPN, Thielen takes pay cut (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the news from ESPN's Jeremy Fowler that the Vikings are optimistic about Jalen Nailor and the re-working of Adam Thielen's contract. Plus Maggie Robinson talks with NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Inside or Matthew Collar here. And I wasn't sure whether to pop on the live machine or not tonight. And I decided, you know what? Here's what I'm going to do. I'm very excited to break down every single element of Vikings, bears, and dive deep into everything. Got a ton of guests coming up this week. But I thought, let me allow the news football gods to tell me whether I should be here tonight or not. I thought if there's any Vikings news, then we'll stay on top of it and we'll jump on.

And if there's not, then we'll just enjoy the rest of the weekend. And well, lo and behold, there was some news today. From ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, he reported earlier today that the Vikings are, quote, optimistic about wide receiver Jalen Naylor with a hand injury playing week one versus the Chicago Bears barring a setback per sources have told Fowler that and he says Minnesota envisions a key role for Nailer especially with Jordan Addison out via suspension. So there is our news update from ESPN's Jeremy Fowler that the Vikings are optimistic about Jalen Naylor and I'm this far out I'm sure that it would be difficult for Fowler to say for sure that Nailer is going to be in against Chicago.

But that sounds like probably will practice and at least be out there this week with Adam Thiel and Justin Jefferson. And there's a few different things that came to my mind right away when I saw this news. Number one is that the receiver starting on Monday night with J.J. McCarthy, who has caught the most passes from J.J. McCarthy. And it's actually not even close in practice. Of the three starting wide receivers is actually Jalen Naylor. So he's thrown with Justin Jefferson.

He's thrown with Adam Thielen. But he only had a couple of practices in the beginning of training camp with Jefferson. And he's never had a practice until this week with Adam Thielen. And when they acquired Jalen Naylor or when they acquired Adam Thielen, And my thought was, well, if Nailer is out, then that's a lot of pressure on Adam Thielen to come in here within two weeks. And then, hey, buddy, can you play like 60 or 70 snaps as wide receiver two across from Justin Jefferson? And then, well, who's going to pop up into the wide receiver three role? Like, is that Ty Felton?

Are they just going to play two tight ends for the entire game? Like, how is this going to work? Are they going to elevate Lucky Jackson because he was the most knowledgeable? But if Jalen Naylor is back, there is an element of, well, this is still the three wide receivers, essentially, that you would have hoped for, someone who was from the outside that they acquired in Adam Thielen, and it is about as good as you can do at the very last minute that has familiarity with KOC and with J.J. McCarthy. Justin Jefferson, we're going to assume that he is back to full practices and 100 percent. and he's ready to be just to Jefferson again, despite missing a lot of that camp. But Naylor is the guy that actually has chemistry with McCarthy throughout training camp. Now, I didn't think it was the greatest camp that I've ever seen from Naylor.

But he did have to kind of mix and match with the positions that he was in because Jefferson was out. And then, you know, they were preparing for when is Addison going to be out and so forth. But they're on the same page, to some extent, having worked together. before. And with Naylor, my question is, how good does Jalen Naylor have to be now? So you've got Adam Thielen and you have Jordan Addison coming back after three games. And is Jalen Naylor going to be still a major part of this mix once Jordan Addison comes back? So here is the fan duel question of the day on Jalen Naylor. Then I want to get more into just him this season and his outlook and so forth. But the Fandul question of the day ties into this, which is you could play

a weekly special on Fandul, including Justin Jefferson catching a 10-yard pass in every quarter. Now that we know that Nailer is likely to be back, what percentage of the targets should go to Jefferson against Chicago? Or would you like to see the ball get distributed? Would you like to see Jefferson still get pumped the football a ton, knowing that Nailer is coming off of an injury and that Adam Thielen is just ramping up as a Minnesota Viking. I do think that it takes a lot of pressure off of Adam Thelan if they have Jalen Naylor back because then Naylor can fit back into that number two type of wide receiver role. Thelan can play more of the slot role, which he's been doing over the last couple of years

with the Carolina Panthers. And there you go. You have at least a good bevy of weapons aside from Justin Jefferson. and it doesn't have to be fully the Justin Jefferson show, which my fan duel question of the day answer would be about 30% of the targets should go to Jefferson, and I think they have enough weapons with Hawkinson and now Naylor back and Thielen in the mix

for J.J. McCarthy to go where things take him against the Chicago Bears. So let's just circle back to Jalen Naylor in general, though, because his entire sort of journey as the, remaining 20-22 draft pick other than Ty Chandler that's still here. But the only 20-22 draft pick that actually plays Jalen Naylor, he is carrying an entire draft class there on his shoulders. When he gets to Minnesota, he immediately flashed and has had the attention of Kevin

O'Connell since then. And last year, I was reviewing what he did last year. And it's kind of an interesting season because he starts out with playing against the New Giants, Addison gets banged up in that game, and Naylor catches a 20-yard touchdown the next two weeks, which have been talked about a lot by Kevin O'Connell of, hey, we were able to survive against San Francisco, against Houston when Jordan Addison was out. And Naylor in those games caught six passes on eight targets for two touchdowns and a total of 85 yards. And my feeling is that if Naylor can do something similar to that, if he can have six catches for 85 yards

and a touchdown or two in the first three games of the season, that that's going to be enough because they have so many other players who get a lot of targets. Jefferson and Hawkinson, I think will be one and two on this football team at the end of the day. And now the fact that you can mix in Adam Thielen, Aaron Jones is going to get the ball a lot, I think. And the article is coming out tomorrow that I've been mentioning for a while about Josh Oliver, and I think he's going to be thrown in the mix quite a bit as well, because even though you have three wide receivers and this system is rooted in three wide receivers, Oliver, they gave him a big extension, they gave him a big contract, like they're going to play him. He's going to be out there at times, and I wouldn't

be surprised if he played about half of the snaps in this game, because I don't think you want Adam Thielen to have to walk right in and have to play 60 or 70 or 7. He'd much rather have him play 30 snaps as wide receiver three, and you can use two guys who have been in this system for the entire time, Jalen Naylor and Justin Jefferson, and then the rest of the group, including Josh Oliver. But, you know, Naylor last year, after those couple of games, where it seemed like he kind of put his name on the map, the rest of the season only had two games that you'd really want to write home about.

that was against Detroit in week seven where he had four catches for 76 yards and then late in the season against Green Bay, probably his best game of the year, where he had five receptions for 81 yards, 16 yards a catch and a touchdown, finished with 28 receptions and six touchdowns. And I think that this is a big year for Jalen Naylor for his career in general because he is going to be a free agent after this season. and we've reached a point here, going into September 1st, going into the few days away from the season, the week of the season, and I've seen, I don't know how many camps now, what is this, four camps of Jalen Naylor,

I've seen, I don't know how many games now, and I still don't fully feel comfortable saying exactly what he is, because he's kind of been as much of a concept as he has been a player for this team. I mean, when you go through his season, And this was a guy who got on the plane and flew all the way to London to play against the Jets last year to get zero targets against the Jets. He had one against the Colts. He had two against Tennessee. One of them was a drop that should have been a touchdown. And the drops are certainly an issue at times. He had four last year, which is 12% of his targets.

Now, they don't make those relative to your depth of target. Clearly, if the ball is traveling farther, it's harder. catch it than it is if you're getting a dink and dunk type of thing, but dropping almost 13% of your passes is not good for any wide receiver. You think about that number of four drops. Adam Thielen had that last year and had 60-something, or no, he had that two years ago when he had 100-something targets and 100 catches. That was the same number of drops. Like, that's just way too much for Naylor. And what I wonder about him is this year when he got to OTAs and mini camp everybody was talking about hey this guy looks bigger this guy looks stronger and it seems that he had gone into the off season probably realizing there's a big contract out there for you

at least a sizable contract out there for you if you can prove that you are more than just this occasional deep threat who could catch 20 passes that the numbers for guys like that are still decent like a two to at well or a josh palmer that very clear number three wide receiver is still getting $10 million. That's the reason you draft Ty Felton is because you're not figuring on resigning someone like Naylor. But if he has a bigger season than that and becomes a favorite target of J.J. McCarthy, unlike last year of Sam Darnold, then he could make even more millions.

Or it could be just like a KJ. Osborne case where at the end of the season, we're looking back and going, remember when we were talking about Naylor and his potential breakout season and it just never happened? And that's the other thing I wonder about for these first three games is will Jalen Naylor prove that he still belongs in the Vikings lineup? We have a really good idea of what Adam Thielen is going to bring to the table. He is going to be reliable. He's going to be open underneath. They'll probably sneak a couple of throws in the intermediate or downfield areas to with Adam Thielen, he's going to catch everything, he's going to be in the right spots.

Like we know exactly what that looks like with Adam Thielen. But with Naylor, I still don't know exactly what that looks like. Does it look like the occasional, oh my gosh, they forgot about Jalen Naylor and he's wide open and caught a touchdown. And that's pretty much it because that's kind of how it felt like last year. Now, he did have a great catch against San Francisco. Darno kind of threw it behind him. They needed a dagger drive and he reached back and he made a great play.

and at that point, I was thinking, well, maybe they've got another one. I mean, you know, Keena McCartle has done such a good job with developing these wide receivers. Maybe they've got another one. And then he just sort of disappeared into the background as the season went along. And he was running clear-out routes time and time and time again. But they need more than just clear-out routes from Jalen Naylor. They need over these first three games, serious wide-receiver play. and he needs serious wide receiver play because otherwise when Jordan Addison comes back,

it will be Adam Thielen and Jalen Naylor will be watching from the sideline or just mixing in from time to time the same way it was in 2022. It'll kind of be just right back to that where we didn't see a whole lot of Naylor in his first year and then his second year he ends up getting banged up and last year he's in from time to time. But they are now leaning on Jalen Naylor going into this first game against the Chicago Bears. So I am curious about your answers to that Fanduil question of the day of, well, what percentage do you want to see of the targets go toward Justin Jefferson in this first game? But what are your thoughts on all of that? Your thoughts on, okay, Jalen Naylor coming back

is clearly enormous news for the Minnesota Vikings because otherwise they would have had to run a lot of two tight ends or a rookie out there or an undrafted free agent out there or or whoever. Like I don't need, I'm not sure exactly what their answer would have been for wide receiver three if Jalen Naylor wasn't there. I'm assuming it would have been maybe 20 plays of Ty Felton and a lot, a lot, a lot of plays of Josh Oliver. And they also can't really mix big personnel without CJ Ham for the first couple of weeks of the season either.

So they would be pretty limited without him. him. But where should we set the bar for Naylor? Is he just the guy? Is there more there? He didn't have a camp that made me think, oh my gosh, this guy is coming, but that doesn't always predict exactly how it's going to go. And certainly McCarthy found him a number of times. I do have some concerns about the hands because there were more than a few drops in practice that made me go, that's a ball. You got to catch, man. And what's the long term for J.L. and nailer. I mean, is he, is he a guy that throughout the rest of this season remains in the mix, gives them four wide receivers to work with, extra dynamic element where now if it's stealing,

if it's nailer, you can give Justin Jefferson, not too much of a rest, but an occasional rest. You can give Jordan Addison an occasional rest. Maybe you're working matchups with, it's not, it's not going well for Addison against this guy. So try Naylor. Or is it just, all right, Well, thanks for the first three games. Now you're going to go over there and watch Adam Thieland play. So what are the expectations for Jalen Naylor now that it looks like he is back in, according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler. And let me get to one other thing real quick because I don't have a lot to say about it.

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Tom Palisero reported that Adam Thielen agreed to a revised contract, reducing his salary by $2 million and removing $4 million in incentives. It wasn't about the money. Pelliserro tweeted Thelan wanted to come home and volunteered to help the team's salary cap to make it happen. So that's kind of interesting way of framing that because I asked somebody, not connected with Adam Thielen or the Vikings, just an outside person that I know is very knowledgeable about the salary cap. And I just said, did they need to do this?

Like, am I missing something on overthecap.com? Did they need to make cap space here? And the answer was that, no, not really, but it's nice if you can. And I think that when they made the deal, that there were not two parties involved, there were three parties involved and I think that Dan Morgan in an interview said the word like adamant about coming back or something like that like Thielen really wanted to be a Minnesota Viking this season right now and I mean that's you know good for him to be back here in Minnesota but that may have been part of the concession for Thelan from the Viking side of okay like if you're going

to come back we can't pay you that much money between him the team and his represent representative may have been like we we need to carry over cap space for next year and also the cash spending has been enormous from this ownership and they also may have said that's a lot to spend for Adam Thielen right now can we work something out to reduce the amount that we have to throw his way and carrying over the cap space into next year is a big deal for the Vikings. And every dollar counts there because if you go to over thecap.com, if you look at next year's salary cap situation, it's not good for the Vikings. Stuff's going to have to happen there. More cash is going to have to get thrown down to restructure deals and things

like that. So every dollar is going to be helpful when it comes to making that happen. But I think it also does speak to what Tom Pelliserro said, just how badly Adam Thielen wanted to come back to Minnesota. And he's made his dollars over his career. And you can't replace being back here at home with a team that has extremely high expectations. I think it also speaks to like you and I have not caught passes from J.J. McCarthy. But Adam Thielen has. You and I, if we caught passes from JJ McCarthy, wouldn't know the difference between him and, you know, I don't know. I don't want to say Sam Howell. We could probably tell the difference. Carson Wentz. But Adam Thielen can. And Adam Thielen's been around a lot of quarterback.

So I think it says a lot about just what he thought of what was happening here and how much he wanted to be back that he was willing to, you know, deal with that. But, you know, I think that, you know, that's pretty much really all that it says. I mean, it's not like they made a huge change to this contract. But a notable small item there of just housekeeping for the vice. for all of us who keep a really close eye on the salary cap every second and every dollar that goes in and out over there on over the cap.com. So all right, let me get your thoughts here on Jalen Naylor, expectations for him, what you think that he should do over these first

three games, what it means long term takes on Justin or on Jalen Naylor and how much they need him to do this. And how about this? Here's a good way to frame it. It's like, what's your confidence in him right now? Like, give me, if you want to give me like a one out of 10, what's your confidence that Naylor can take care of business over these first three weeks? He doesn't have to be Jordan Addison, but good enough. Confidence in Jalen Naylor right now. What is it? And I'll answer, of course, any other questions that you have. Is it Lucky Jackson time finally? I don't think it's going to be Lucky Jackson time, probably unless there's injuries. It won't be. If there are, if Jalen Naylor were to get hurt, I would be very curious to

see, would they move up Lucky Jackson from the practice squad to play, or are they confident enough in Ty Felton? Because throughout training camp, it certainly looks like Lucky Jackson was ahead of Ty Felton on the depth chart, but it's not a perfect way to do it. It's not a perfect way of, I mean, think about this. Lucky took those first team reps all offseason, and then he gets cut on cut down day. And then he ends up back on the practice squad, whereas Ty Felton makes the team, as he would as a third round pick, but he makes the team. And he took, you know, five first team reps all summer long.

They might look at Felton as someone that they could slot in to a particular role, whereas elevating a Lucky Jackson is probably not going to be much of a game changer for you. I don't know. That's an interesting, it's an interesting question of if somebody gets hurt, then how exactly is that going to work out? Scott, he says, thoughts on the Packers now being the favorite to win the North. Overreaction, overreaction, I think. I mean, look, they're good with Micah Parsons,

and there's no downplaying how good that is for them. They just got a very legitimate defensive player of the year candidate. But I think that making them the favorite over the Lions and the Vikings, is pushing it a little too far off of one move that does elevate a defense that was very good last year. I would also suggest you go back and look at the opposing quarterback schedule they had last year. Spencer Rattler being shut out by the Packers certainly helped them a little bit with some of their statistics, but and so did the AFC South. But I mean, here's what I think with now the North, I would have had it clearly Vikings and Lions and then a step down Packers. Now I

have all three as being equal and then the bear's chasing. I would have had all three being equal. Vegas Patriot says Panthers resign Hunter Renfro after placing Jalen Coker on IR. Good timing for the Vikings. Yeah, that was unfortunate. I mean, all fantasy players who play in deep leagues were aware of Coker being a guy that was going to go into the slot for the Carolina Panthers and him getting hurt. It is unfortunate timing for them, but you're right. If that had happened, one day earlier than things or two days earlier, then things are very different, very

different. Then you're talking about the Panthers not being able to trade Adam Thieland. So the timing did end up fortuitous for the Vikings. I don't think, you know, people like to try to keep score on who won, what trade or whatever. We're going to find that out in the long run, I guess.

But it was a bad break for Carolina and having the fact that Thelan was already here, you can't take it back. But they, you know, they liked Renfro the entire time. The way that it sounded to me was that Thielen had already kind of been, like we're going to move on from him throughout camp. And it was just where?

Because, you know, you listen to my interview with Mike Kay the other day. And he was talking about how like the other receivers were just getting a lot more attention and that the team had been very high on Hunter Renfro. So I think they wanted that outcome. And maybe the reason they cut Renfro was just the time. that they couldn't get the trade finished. So they had to cut him with plans of bringing him back. That's at least how it reads because Renfro, at least according to their reporters,

had a very good camp. So maybe they would have done it anyway if the timing was a little bit different. Aaron says Jets, Nailer Thielen for week one is the best news. Predicted score. I'm going with 2713. Have you got your score yet? I don't. I don't.

Usually try to do that in the last show of the week, which is going to be Saturday with Andrew Kramer from the Star Tribune. We are bringing back our hardcore previews, which will normally be on Friday night. But, you know, of course, with this week, it's going to be Saturday night. But I have not thought about score yet. I did notice that you're right in the ballpark of the fan duel over under, which I think is 43 and a half. A 2713, I would probably go under on that because a 2713 score sounds very reasonable to me.

uh let's see fanny sorry if i'm saying that wrong i think the vikings did a great job keeping this under wraps until the thieland trade you mean with uh jalen nayler's health well they may not have known where jalen nayler's health was at least the way that kevin o'connell talked about it you actually i would have thought of it the other way i i would have thought about if jelan nayler and his hand injury was totally fine that that would have helped them with the thieland trade so they would have wanted that out there. I would have thought that they would have wanted him out there. In fact, the, the fact that they did not say definitively that he was okay, kind of made me wonder, like, is he going to be? And even the language there is a little couched with optimistic

that he can play, not a, it's a dead lock that he's absolutely going to play, which also makes me think that they didn't have that sense until recently. And then that's when they told Jeremy Fowler what's going on. And then we'll see when we actually get out there for practice. George says, only wide receiver I'm worried about is, I assume you mean Jefferson, hope that KOC eases him back in with running emphasis on intermediate passing. We can also give JJ time to adjust to the NFL, let, okay, you're using JJ for both. And I've made this mistake, too, because then it's confusing.

So letting Jefferson's hamstring get back to shape in order to not be, you know, pushing the gas pedal to all the way down and letting J.J. McCarthy ease into it. I don't know if you could do that, but what they did with Justin Jefferson is they played it as safe as they possibly could for week one. I am expecting the full Justin Jefferson. I'm not expecting, hey, let's try to make sure that his hamstring doesn't get tweaked on certain types of or something like that, I am expecting Justin Jefferson full speed 100%. I mean, what was supposed to be a mild hamstring injury turned into a lot of time missed. For me, that's, all right, if you're going to take that much time to ramp up out of an abundance of caution, then by the time you get to the season, you better be ready to go.

Jay says, would Adam still be number two if Naylor is ready? So that is the big question right there, Jay. That is the big question for me is how does this sort itself out? And look, there is number one and there's everybody else with how this offense works. It's Justin Jefferson is the first look on a lot of plays for the Minnesota Vikings. And then the second look is whomever is around. Okay, it's Hawkinson underneath because they've tripled Jefferson or, you know, Jefferson doesn't get off the line of scrimmage against somebody.

They get physical with them and they're rotating a safety over. So the backside of the play is going to have a one-on-one. Let me go over there. Where the Reed takes you is the number two wide receiver. But in sort of fantasy-ish terms with who's getting the most targets, ranking it target-wise, it is a great question. Will Adam Thielen immediately be the guy that ends up getting more targets than Naylor, despite how long Naylor's been here,

I would think that the answer is yes, that Adam Thielen would get more targets, but it's not because I think Naylor can't do his job. It's just that the jobs are going to be different in an ideal world. In an ideal offensive situation, Justin Jefferson does absolutely everything and where I think they could be even a little better, you know, when we mentioned the Fandul question of the day

and the percentage of targets you'd like to see against Chicago, go to Justin Jefferson. I think that they can get him involved earlier than they did sometimes last year. We still ended up with great numbers, but sometimes it felt like, A, was Jefferson a primary target in that quarter? And that was the bet there was, can he catch a 10 or more yard pass in every quarter? He certainly can because he's not defendable by anybody, any team, any defense. No one is consistently shut down Justin Jefferson.

so you should be able to do that. But I think that they could get him a bucket a little bit better, get him involved earlier a little bit better than they've done at times in the past with KOC. But circling back to the Naylor and Thieland thing, I think Thelan gets more targets because he is at this point in his career, more of a underneath sense where the zones are. This is what the Panthers reporter the other day talked a lot about,

where it's running slants, running hooks, running curls, all that sort of stuff, hooks and curls might be the same thing, and hitches, all those little comeback routes where maybe when you take off from the line of scrimmage, you're not exactly sure what the defense is playing, you settle into his own, Jefferson's not there, lean on Adam Thieland, lean on T.J. Hawkinson, whereas Jalen Naylor, that's a deep shot most of the time. And I think for me, that's where I really want to see Jalen Naylor become a different version of himself. Last year, it was kind of all or nothing. There were a handful of under, you know, underneath throws to him.

I can look up the average depth of target for Naylor. Overall, he averaged almost 15 yards of reception. Average depth of target was 12.5. So it wasn't, I guess it wasn't all just deep bombs. But, you know, that's what they want to do. They want to go downfield to Jalen Naylor. Can he be in this role with Addison out? Can he be more of a complete wide receiver?

That's what you want to see for him. Chris says, fully expecting a competition between Naylor and Thielen once Addison comes back. Is it, so is it, this is a good question. Is it a competition or is it a rotation? because if you have a competition that would sort of insinuate that it's either going to be Naylor or Thielen and that's just it for the rest of the season. So Addison comes back and hey, you know, Thielen, you won. You're in, you're playing 50% and 60% of the snaps and then Naylor like you watch

from the sideline. Or is it going to be for this look, Naylor's in. For that look, Thelan's in. Hey, Jefferson just ran four. 14 go routes in a row. Let's get a play in there for Naylor, playing the role of Jefferson and feeling on the field. In the best case scenario for the Vikings,

what this becomes is the single most dynamic group of weapons in the NFL, where you can shape shift and you can kind of be anything you want to be. Last year, I felt like they were not super dynamic. They were kind of one-trick ponyish, which was downfield. It was Naylor's a deep receiver. It was Addison catching deep balls. I mean, think about that Chicago game where it's like throwing it up for grabs for Addison, ripping a pass over the middle where he's going on a deep crosser and that kind of thing.

Like, it was a lot of downfield stuff to Jordan Addison. It was a lot of intermediate and downfield stuff to Justin Jefferson. And Hawkinson was watching the ball fly over his head time and time again. But when you think about having all three levels of, receivers who specialize in certain areas. So Aaron Jones, who can run out of the wide receiver spot if he wants to. He's that good at it. But you don't typically want him to be a receiver.

He's more of the underneath guy. So your checkdown underneath option is one of the better receiving backs of the last 10 years, Aaron Jones. The underneath area is Hocketson and Thielen, two guys who have been Pro Bowl caliber players a lot on underneath type stuff. and then you have your over-the-top guys and, you know, Jefferson could do anything you want, but you're trying to create explosive plays with Jefferson.

That's the best case scenario is that you would have Nailer mixed in there is another guy who can go deep down the field and then the underneath options and then sort of the screen option. If they have all those different areas, I mean, J.J. McCarthy, anything you want to do, man, on a given play that you could give it to somebody

who could get open. And if Naylor struggles out of the gate and doesn't have a very good first couple games, then it feels a lot more, like, how could you call it? Like, a lot more uneven, a lot more reliant on Jefferson, reliant on Addison and Hawkinson underneath, and then you don't really have another option. You know, that's, that's kind of how I would feel about it. And it would still be excellent, of course, but you're leaning a lot on a 35-year-old wide receiver who I think should have 30 or 40 catches is what you want in an ideal world and then

it's 20 or 30 to Jalen Naylor and then you know 90 to Jefferson 60 to Addison 75 to Hawkinson and then you're feeling like wow this is going really well and that's where you almost can't even find enough targets for all of those guys we were talking the other night about Mike Clay from ESPN having projected J.J. McCarthy to throw 600 passes and when I put it that way because I remember saying like hey I don't know that's a lot but then when you put it that way and like oh maybe maybe um mr mayor says Jefferson Thielen and Naylor in that order feels like a very quality wide receiver room for week one so is it is that the order or is it nailer or is it not really even it's probably not even really how it works with a number

two and a three it's just probably one and then everybody else that's how it probably works. But in terms of target share, if Thielen got the second most targets and Nailer made a couple of plays, then you are in very good shape, I think. Uh, Rob says, I honestly think that Thielen is a bigger upgrade for the Vikes than Parsons and losing Clark for the Packers. Uh, Rob, I appreciate and respect how big of an addition you think Thelan is. I can't go there with you on the Micah Parsons thing. Clark just hasn't been that good, uh, or wasn't that good last year. but that might that's pretty aggressive. That's probably a little bit too far.

But I think that there is a domino effect to Adam Thielen being acquired by the Vikings, which is that no longer do you have to look at Jalen Naylor and go, why aren't you just like the other guys? You know, why aren't you just like Addison and just like Jefferson when this is a fifth round pick who is a very good player? But I mean, he showed that last year. He's a better player than the practice squad guys. He's a better player than, you know, guys who don't make it.

But he's not on the level of the others where Adam Thielen has been there. Thelan has been maybe not quite Jefferson's level, but he's been on the level of a Jordan Addison. He's been higher than that than a Jordan Addison before, whereas Naylor is kind of a typical number three or four. Thelan is a unique number three or four as someone who formerly was a one A or one B, depending on which order that given week with him and digs. Chris says Jefferson should still get a ton of targets, need to see Naylor not drop the catchable passes in order to trust him. I agree with that.

It's really the hands, I think, that are the most concerning with Jalen Naylor. And not only just because last year, a 12%, 13% drop rate is much too high. In fact, I'm curious, I'm going to go check here, where that is among wide receivers, like what's typical for a PFF drop rate, because there are different definitions of drops in the NFL. So I'm going to work on that with that drop rate. But that seems pretty high to me.

And then you have a hand injury that is also in the mix here. That like, what is he going to look like coming off of the hand injury and are the hands going to be reliable even when they weren't when he was 100%. let me see what's a good drop rate yeah so nailer's drop rate was the 11th highest in the league last year in a bad way and you had guys like bald as scantling Xavier legate Keon Coleman a Donnie Mitchell what do these guys have in common a lot of unproven receivers Alan Lazard David Moore like yeah that's that is a that is a drop rate that is, that is too high for Jalen Naylor. He cannot have that drop rate if he's going to be a guy that becomes fully reliable for them. Rob says, just need Naylor to be what he was last

season. We do need to consider that at 35, the injury risk of Thielen is higher. No, that's definitely true with Thielen. I mean, the hamstrings have been problematic for him a couple of times throughout his career, and you're right. I do think that they need Naylor to be what he was last season. I mean, if he catches 28 passes on 42 targets and, I mean, six touchdowns is kind of lofty, but if he does something in that ballpark, it should be pretty darn good. But I really wonder about these first three weeks. Like, that's good for a season total.

Do they need six, seven, eight catches from him? Is Thielen's role going to be? because it's Adam Thielen, you know, everyone's going to want, all right, he should be getting, you know, the 1B targets to Justin Jefferson. And, I mean, I don't think that they wanted to be that way. Like, what's the snap count going to be? Is it going to be a snap count where Jalen Naylor is more of the number two receiver? And he's out there a ton because he has been practicing with JJ the entire summer. So that is different.

And maybe Thelan's playing 30, 35 snaps. But, you know, I'm going back and forth here because T.J. Hawkinson, showed up in a week and then played 60 snaps and Thielen is on that level of experience and on that level of ability, football IQ-wise. Mr. Mayor says to the Fandule question of the day, depends on if Ben Johnson decides that he wants to go Iber flusen quadruple Jefferson. If he does that, Thielen should take a lot of targets. The question was percentage of targets that Jefferson is going to get in the first week against the Chicago Bears. No, that's a good point. And how did that work out for Iber Flus terribly? It worked out terribly. He gave up

huge plays downfield. But this might be a little different. They, if I'm Chicago and I'm seeing the news today that Jalen Naylor is optimistic or the Vikings are optimistic for Jalen Naylor to play. So I'm going to say likely to play as of right now barring a setback. What I'm thinking is if I'm Chicago, well, let's make Jalen Naylor beat us. And when I see the Vikings trade for Adam Thielen, I'm thinking, let's see Adam Thielen beat us because last year Jordan Addison beat them. It's a lot harder to just say, let Jordan Addison beat us because Addison can as a former first round pick in his prime. If you want to make, if you want to play defense in a way that Addison is going to be the guy that you sort of give up opportunities to,

well, he's going to roast you and he did last year. I shot you 99. The Vikings try to trade for Trayvon Diggs to add to the cornerback depth. coming off of an injury. I don't, I mean, as far as the way that Brian Flores plays football, he does want guys going for the ball. He does want guys who can turn over the football. But I just don't know that there's, if they're having, think of it this way, if they're having Adam Thielen take a pay cut to be here,

I just don't see a lot more from money bags of the ownership who has spent this. is not the twins we're talking about. They've spent like crazy this off season to get Hardgrave and Allen and Will Fries and those are all signing bonuses. I mean, you better have some dollars hidden underneath the couch cushions in terms of paying out actual cash. So they may have run up to a point where you're like, all right, that's a, that's enough. That's a lot of millions of dollars that they've handed out this year in deals. And maybe they don't want to push it any farther. or, I mean, is there really a deal there to be had with Trayvon Diggs? I haven't seen anyone say, maybe I'm wrong.

I just haven't seen anyone say that he is on the trade market. And I think once we reach Monday, everybody's playing. Like, there's no more trade options. If, you know, Stefan Gilmore hasn't even visited or I haven't seen any reports that he has, I think this is your cornerback unit. And they're going to play a lot of big nickel. This is where Harrison Smith's availability will be something to watch. this week. Like, can they play three

safeties? Are we going to see Jay Ward out there playing to start the season with three safeties? Or is it Jeff Okuda playing 50, 60 snaps? I mean, there's a lot of questions to be answered with the cornerback group for sure. Jason, what about Pepper's safety cornerback? You know, I think that Jibril Peppers,

who was released by the Patriots, I mean, I think he is the type of fit that you'd be looking for. But why did they release? release him. That is a question for me. Why did they release Julius Peppers when he's had such good numbers the last couple years? As he fallen off, is it there was some off field concerns, I think with him most recently. I don't know. I don't know if they want to get into that. That would only be if Harrison Smith was out for the year, my understanding is this is not something

that's going to keep him out for the season. If he was out for the year, then I would say, yeah, I mean, go get Trebreel Peppers if you can. As of right now, I don't know. Ron says, as long as JJ doesn't start forcing the ball to Jefferson, that will be certainly one of the things to watch in this first week. Because if you're a quarterback and we always talk about, hey, Jefferson makes these guys easier. Or makes life easier for these guys.

Makes life easier. Nick Mullins, right? Nick Mullins was able to come in, force the ball to Jefferson. and it was great to force the ball to Jefferson. There were a bunch of times where Sam Darnold forced the ball to Jefferson and worked out wonderfully. But you also want to understand if you're J.J. McCarthy, like, there's a lot of weapons here to go around.

Like, you don't have to force it to him every time, but that's delicate because you also don't want to stay away from him because he's getting double covered. Like, oh, he's double covered. Let me just go to Thielen underneath. Oh, he's double covered. Let me just, you know, try Naylor instead. Well, the problem is that he's always going to be double covered and there's only so much KOC can do. Sometimes you just got to fit it in there. And that's where the arm strength does come

into it is, like, can you just, can you fit it in to those tight windows? I think he can, but that chemistry might take some time to come around with JJ and Jefferson with the fact that, you know, he just hasn't been there in training camp. And Mr. Mayor says, doesn't feel like McCarthy is going to feel forced to go to Jefferson after barely throwing to him. him in camp. I don't know how that will impact it. Will it impact the timing? Will there be no impact whatsoever? Because he's Justin Freakin Jefferson and he's just that good and it's not going to matter. Will he, you know, look at other receivers? Now, Addison being suspended might matter to this because if Addison was still there, he and Addison had tremendous chemistry. So,

he might have started leaning on Addison a little bit more early on, but not having Addison either. I don't know how he's going to distribute the ball. I really don't. Because historically, most of the quarterbacks for the Minnesota Vikings have just thrown to Justin Jefferson. It's been fine. But you have more. I mean, this is the most in terms of weapons that they, I think, have ever had since I've

been covering the team. Probably, I mean, is it, maybe it's just too much. You shouldn't ever mention 1998 because it's just so ridiculous and so impossible to recreate with the 3-deep and with Robert Smith and just the offensive line that they had and everything else is impossible to recreate that with the Hall of Famers and Jake Reed, you know, as good as he was. But this many options with Adam Thielen here now included, that's a lot to work with for J.J. McCarthy, but I imagine it could be a little bit overwhelming at times.

Jeff says run the ball and screenplays, but that really depends on how it's going, I think. just how it's going. If it's going really well, throwing the football, then just keep doing it. I do think that setting up him for play action is really, really important. The play action stats from Sam Darnold last year were so incredibly good. He was, I think, the second highest QB rating in the league when running play action. Like Kevin O'Connell, he comes from that world of play actions and bootlegs and all that sort of stuff.

that starts, you know, a long time ago with the West Coast offense and sprint outs and stuff like that, but really became incredibly popular after Mike Shanahan used it to help John Elway win his two Super Bowls. And then Gary Kubiak gets some incredible seasons out of Matt Schaub, run and play actions and bootlegs. And it's gone from there. And it's grown out to Sean McVeigh and Kyle Shanahan because Mike Shanahan was in Washington and Matt LaFleur is on his coaching staff. And what do they do? They build the pass off the run with play action. Then Kevin O'Connell was on the staff with Jay Gruden in Washington where they were good at that too. And then goes out and is with Sean McVeigh and ends up, you know, they win the Super Bowl

there with Sean McVeigh and Matthew Stafford and the, you know, the whole thing, right? And then he gets to Kirk. And I thought in 2022 at times, I thought that they were asking Kirk to be a little too much Matthew Stafford from the shotgun, like, not under center quite enough. And then in 2023, they found a good balance for it. And last year, Sam Darnold under center was a really good quarterback. I think pro football reference has those stats under splits that I used at some point. And J.J. McCarthy comes from Jim Harbaugh, loves to be under center. Like, setting up those play actions will be very important to lean on the run.

I don't think that the run has to be. the driving force of this team, though, with everybody in the mix. Now, if Naylor was hurt and they couldn't trade for Thielen and they had gotten Trey Palmer or something, then I think I'd be saying, Jordan Mason strap up your cleats pretty darn tight because you're going to need to run the football a lot. So I do think that it is a little bit different now with Jalen Naylor being back in action or at least we suppose that he is based on the report. Things could change.

George says Adam Thielen will benefit in the red zone with his route running. His precise routes will mask his 35-year-old speed deficit. The red zone should be big there. I don't need touchdowns to go to Justin Jefferson as much as you just need touchdowns, right? I think Jefferson would like to catch some more, but the opportunities for other wide receivers are robust when Justin Jefferson is getting so much attention.

And Thielen's always been great. Those short area type of plays, a little in and out quick. As you mentioned, I thought that if you missed the Mike K interview the other day, guy who covers the Panthers, he had such great details on what Adam Thielen still is a couple years later. And he's very, very technically sound. And that is what drives him to be a good 35-year-old wide receiver, is that he's technically very good and has the same, you know, maybe even better vision for defenses than he

had earlier in his career. But he always had that. The route running is not going to slump. And in the red zone, you're right. He's huge because Naylor was just a non-factor there. And that's where I talk about being dynamic. He was more or less a non-factor. J.P. says with Thielen being more suited to short and intermediate routes, does that limit his use given the system requires wide receivers to know and be prepared for every route. I think off the bat for week one, I would say yes. That's not questioning whether Thielen can put in the work

and get the playbook, you know, under his feet or whatever. But it's just the reality. For wide receivers, this has to be one of the deeper and more difficult playbooks in the NFL. And you go back to 2022, Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson and Kirk Cousins. They were all at times looking at each other like, whew, this is more challenging than it was with Gary Kubiak or Clint Kubiak or Kevin

Stefansky. This is asking a lot more out of us as wide receivers. So you drop it back into this environment. I'm sure he remembers a lot of it. But I made this comparison to if you took Spanish in fifth grade and then you got to seventh grade and they told you had to go back and learn and you didn't take any more Spanish. Oh yeah, you got to go back and learn it again.

You'd pick it up eventually. But right off the bat, you're going to be like, now how does this? this go. So I do think that that is correct, that it might limit the snap count. And that's why Nailor coming back is really important. It might limit it to some extent. And I don't mean limit it to five, but it might not be 50 for Adam Thielen right off the bat. It's probably going to be more of, as you mentioned, in the red zone, underneath opportunities, things like that. Exposet says, can you answer a lot of media predicting the Vikings will be last in the division? Am I wearing rose-tinted glasses to think this team will be even better with JJ?

Or did this team actually get better? Well, I think that they're a better team overall, like a better overall team from top to bottom. But circumstances change every year in the NFL. I think they have, if we just go through it, I think they have a much. stronger offensive line, much stronger than last year. I mean, that thing was taped together. Garrett Bradbury, as much as I thought he could have used more help at Guard. And I didn't think he was as bad as some of the internet.

But, you know, that's a big upgrade to Ryan Kelly, who's been a top 10 guy for his entire career, including late career. And Will Fry's, that's a huge upgrade. And Donovan Jackson, talent-wise, talent-wise, is a big upgrade from Blake Brand. handle. The defensive line, much better, much, much better. And I saw some data today on, you know, run stopping and Harrison Phillips that maybe insinuated that he wasn't the same as he was earlier in his career for some of the numbers. And the PFF grades kind of looked that way. And Jalen Redmond had great PFF grades against the run. Maybe you even upgrade there. He

won the battle in camp. And you have much more interior pressure. I mean, the cornerback position we of hemmed and hauled over it a lot. But is Jeff Okuda different than Shaq Griffin was last year arriving here? Probably not. I think Isaiah Rogers is better than where Stefan Gilmore was last year. Byron Murphy's still here. So I think overall, and then Jordan Mason, the backfield, they are more talented football team from top to bottom. Circumstances are different. The Packers have Micah Parsons now. The bears are better. I mean, they can't be worse than where they were last year with Iber flus. I mean, I guess they're the bears, so they could always be worse. but I think logically speaking, they've invested a lot of money.

And Ben Johnson is a better offensive mind than Shane Waldron and Iber Fluse was just lost when it came to dealing with his quarterback. So everything, they're better. And the divisions you play are better. The NFC East is a beast. It's good. The AFC North, it's good outside of Cleveland. So, you know, I understand why, though, because, all right, picking them to be behind the

bears to me, all right. that they do that every year because all the national folk love Chicago that's always been the case it's a huge market it's an enormous fan base like they know it moves the needle with Chicago so if anybody's putting the Vikings behind Chicago I don't understand that at all if they're saying well it's unclear if McCarthy is any good uh it's pretty unclear if Caleb Williams is any good as well and the Vikings defense is a lot better than what Chicago's is talent wise so I would have a tough time putting Chicago ahead of the Vikings. The other three, pick your order.

I think three of them make the playoffs. I think all three of those, I think the Lions Packers and Vikings, again, make the playoffs. If things go right, if there's no quarterback injury, the best versions of those teams all make the playoffs, I think. So whatever order you put them in, you can make a pretty good argument for it. I would not have said that about the Packers before Micah Parsons, but he's, he's really good. confidence in Jalen Naylor. I'm getting to that part of the chat.

Five out of 10 from Fannie. Five and a half out of 10 from Chris. Three and a half from not completely insane. Three from Steve. Five from Gizincad. Four from Mr. Mayor. And if the hand is fully healed, maybe a six from Gizincad.

I think I'm about in the same, I'm in the same ballpark. It's probably more like a four and a half for me, where we've seen him do it. we have seen him perform pretty well, but we've also seen some of the downsides that made him a fifth round draft pick and that have not developed. And we've even seen some of that still in training camp with the drops and how much does it matter that his calves are thicker now? Well, that's another question as well. It helps for Naylor, maybe to be a little stronger

through contact, maybe a little stronger blocking. Does that fundamentally change it? And if the hand is not 100% healed. That would be a pretty, pretty big concern. Brian's up to a six. I think that that's where you probably live is somewhere between a four and a six in confidence in Jalen Naylor. Richard says,

who has more production, game one, Thielen or Naylor? So production, are we going, we go in yards or are we going receptions? It really depends on how the Bears play, I think. think because there's the potential for some deep shots to Naylor, but I'm, I would go, I would go Thielen in terms of receptions. Nailer, it's possible that it could be more yardage

because the, you're looking at more intermediate or downfield. I think the, I probably think feeling just in part because he is so much of a quarterback's best friend. And you heard it and you saw those numbers or heard the numbers from Bryce Young throwing to Thielan. I reference. them time and time again is like isn't this exactly what you want for j j mccarthy so if the elyleyn becomes another security blanket that is open a lot and that he can throw to five or six times in the game that's hard to see naylor being that guy nailer seems to be like a little bit more of boomer bust from week to week and when we look at his production from last year that was really the case it was really the case that it was

it was Naylor getting five catches for 80 yards or zero a lot of times. Not completely insane. Says, question for you. What do you think of the odds? Percentage wise are that Micah Parsons finishes the season healthy and having not missed any games. Parsons missed some games last year, still played 700

snaps. Previous years, he was almost at 900. I don't think he's an injury prone player. I think that NFL players get banged up. What I think is that Vikings fans are hoping and trying to speak these things into existence, trying to speak into existence, like maybe he'll ruin their locker room. Maybe he'll get hurt. Maybe the Packers will have given up Kenny Clark, who is the key to their run defense,

and now they'll be bad. Like, I do think they're going to be a little more vulnerable against the run, but there's no downplaying the impact. of that guy. There's nothing on the stat sheet that you can find where you'd go, oh, that's the secret to Micah Parsons being a bust in Green Bay. More likely than not, Michael Parsons will be amazing in Green Bay, and you're going to have to work around it, and you're going to have to beat them. But last time I checked, you have to beat good teams if you want to be a champion. So you're going to have to earn it in the NFC North. All of the money spent, all of the

the planning, all the drafting that has gone right or wrong, all of the work that's been put into J.J. McCarthy, all that stuff. It's all going to be tested. It's all going to be tested. Let's see. I got you the Fandual question the day, but I also want to remind you of one of our other sponsors, which is ZipRecruiter. I know that a lot of you out there either own your own businesses or you are in a management position where you hire people. And boy, it can be a headache. You have to sort through all sorts of resumes for people who aren't qualified and end up looking overlooking the best candidates sometimes. It could be tough, but it is not tough with ZipRecruiter for all of your hiring needs. ZipRecruiter finds amazing candidates for you

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So there you go. The Vikings don't have to recruit more wide receivers because Naylor looks like he's back. Am I right? DS says only if Naylor had Thelan's hands and Adam had Naylor's speed. You're right. That would be a super receiver.

Well, you know, Adam was fast early in his career. And I don't think that he's dreadfully slow now. It's just not like it used to be. But a lot of times is how often for Adam Thelan does he have to burn somebody not very often it's more of and what they need nailer to do is nailer can burn somebody but what they need him to do is to be open in all areas of the field and then make the plays when it's there he can't just be a they know what is going to happen here i thought at times the viking's offense and all credit to everyone involved last year

14 win season, we can't tear down too much. I thought that there was some predictable nature to certain guys' roles, certain guys' routes, you know, certain situational type stuff, when they were going to run the football, what they wanted Jalen Naylor to do. And that's why being more dynamic is important. Andrew says if Thielen is 100%, he beats out Naylor every time on skill alone. They call him speedy, not catchy. that's good that's good uh Andrew if he is catchy though then the speed is going to matter

I do agree that Thielen's hands are going to be such a big factor for the offense of being able to stay on the field get a third and six by getting eight yards to Adam Thielen things like that are so big for him and yes he does have to stay healthy we always go on the presumption that guys will unless there's a really disturbing history. So if that happens, then you might, you might be right that by the time Addison gets back, they're going to have, I mean, let's just say it goes like this. Let's say Thielen has 12 catches for 110 yards through his first three games. And Naylor has like three or four. And maybe one of them is a deep shot. I mean, you're going to have Thielen beyond the field a lot more when Jordan

Addison comes back. Mr. Mayor says Naylor's deep downfield skills overlap too much with Jefferson feels like Thielen fills a different niche. I agree with that. I definitely agree with that. That it was a little bit on the redundant side. Now, you do need guys to run clearouts. It's not exciting that when you run a dagger concept, which I mention all the time, because

they do it all the time, somebody's got to be out there running the fake route and be like, throw it to me and you know then you break off your underneath ball to Justin Jefferson somebody has to be that guy Adam Thielen's not convincing is that guy that might have to be Jordan Addison a little bit more or still have Jalen Naylor mixing in what is the average depth of target for Justin Jefferson I could find that out it's it's down the field it's definitely down the field it's not one of the deepest I don't think. Let me see. Okay. Let me see here. I will find this answer for you. So it was 11.7 yards for Justin Jefferson, average depth of target, very similar to Nico Collins, Tyler Lockett.

Actually, Adam Thielen was 11.7 last year. So he was close. And that's what, like, we're making Adam Thielen sound like he is a glorified tight end. But his average depth of target was the same as Jefferson in last year. So he was going downfield. Daniel tell me Darisaw and fries are healthy and ready. Well, fries should be. Derisaw is a little more up in the air. That's where we're going to see if he's on the injury report or not.

If he is and goes in questionable, I guess we'll see. Maybe they want to take advantage of that anyway. Like, oh, well, you know, he did miss some practice over the summer. He's questionable. But I think that Darisaw should be back. I don't want to make any promises there. Chris says, are we caught up in the immediate moment of Addison's suspension? How will it look when Addison is back?

Red zone with three wide receivers, one running back, one tight end. Jefferson, Addison, Hawkinson, Thielen Jones could be devastating. It should be. It really should be. And this all kind of circles back to, well, how important the Thielen trade is when we start adding up the number of options for J.J. McCarthy. The whole concept, though, from the beginning with Kevin O'Connell, I mean, even you go to 23, there were a lot of discussions about maybe they should draft a quarterback, or not

quarterback. Well, there was a little quarterback corner, is what I meant, cornerback in 23. And they said, no, let's go wide receiver. Let's get another weapon here. And even recently drafting Ty Felton was, let's just make sure we get another weapon. Trading for T.J. Hawkins was a move with Kirk still here, but it was, let's get another weapon. Kevin O'Connell and I are very much on the same page on, you know what, I'm thinking one more receiver, one more tight end, one more running back, somebody make play with the football. And as J.J. McCarthy goes to start his career this week, now that Thielen is here, if Naylor is back to at least close enough to 100% with his hand injury,

That is as good of a group of weapons as anybody has ever started a career with. Brock Purdy in 2022, that was when he made his debut and he won those five games and tore his arm in the playoff game. But before that, you know, got them to the brink of the Super Bowl. Maybe he would have beat the Eagles that year had Brock Purdy been healthy. That group of weapons was pretty freaking good. That was really, really good because that, I think they had just gotten McCaffrey, Samuel, Iyuk, Kittle, Trent Williams. If you look around, I mean, Jalen Hertz's first time at the Super Bowl, Dallas

Goddard, they trade for A.J. Brown, Devante Smith, it's pretty close. This is as good as you can put on the field around a young quarterback. If he can't get it done with these guys, then that's going to be pretty concerning. Ron says having a hard time believing in Naylor. I think that that's a fair opinion because it's all, you've only seen just the occasional big play from him and not consistency. So that's where with him practicing all summer long with McCarthy, I wonder, can he prove that?

Can he prove that there is something more there consistent consistency wise than there was last year where it was just the occasional downfield. And look, we've been calling Naylor this for a while. He's a deep shot guy. He's downfield guy. He's Marquez Valdez Scantling. But that was with somebody else at quarterback. And that was with a guy at quarterback who kind of only threw that ball and led the NFL in total yards of downfield passing.

Dystopian Utopia 5 would be nice for the amount of confidence you could have in Jalen Naylor. Yeah, I'm like at a four and a half. And with the hand injury, that's probably the half. 11 for Jefferson. These confidence levels go to 11. Eight for Hawkinson, five for Thielen. Oh, you're talking about targets. Okay, I thought you were talking about confidence levels.

And I'm like, I kind of agree with you that out of 10, just the Jefferson confidence levels 11 targets for Monday night. That was the fan dual question of the day is what percentage of the targets. But if it was 11 for Jefferson, eight for Hawkins, and five for Thielen and three for Jones and Oliver, you're in pretty good shape there. I'll just say blunts here, asks, besides injuries, what would sink the ship this year?

Corners, I think it would be coverage, coverage, yeah. Because when you look at last year, so here's a stat that if you want to, you guys like to be nervous about the Vikings, that's a thing you do. Otherwise, you would have cheered for some other team by now. So I'll throw this out there to you. So I looked up all the teams in the Super Bowl era that have gone to the Super Bowl.

And I only found eight out of, I want to say it was 116 or something, whatever. It was only eight. So less than 10%. They gave up 4,000 or more yards passing and reached the Super Bowl. Now, I know some of that you could cut out pretty much everything until like the 80s when quarterbacks didn't throw for 4,000 yards or they were playing 14,000. games so let's even say that all of that would have had happened within the last 30 years even then it's pretty darn rare for teams to allow 4,000 or more yards passing and reach

the Super Bowl while the Vikings last year allowed more than 4,000 yards passing again with caveats 17 games and I understand the issues with that stat but I think you get the point that if you're not top notch at slowing down opposing teams passing games it's it's pretty hard to go into the playoffs and face three really good quarterbacks more likely than not. And more likely than not, it's either great passing teams or the Eagles who are, if the Vikings face the full strength, best of the best Eagles, best version of themselves, with this D-line, can you stop them from running the football? That would be somewhat of a question, is their defense against the run? I mean, other than, you know, J.J. McCarthy just isn't that good. Like,

obviously that's the clear answer, but, you know, Theo Jackson, I really like a lot, been talking about Theo Jackson for so long. It's like, hey, guys, and finally, after two years of talking about Theo Jackson, like, he's finally going to play. But if you end up with, you know, an injury to Byron Murphy and it's Jeff Okuda and Isaiah Rogers, or if Harrison Smith is out for a more significant amount of time and you're playing someone like Jay Ward a lot, or Josh Mattelis doesn't transition into playing deep safety as well. Like the coverage and the opposing quarterbacks are not going to be forgiving outside of maybe week one.

But they're not going to be forgiving when it comes to a week to week basis with these quarterbacks when you start to face Jared Goff and Jalen Hertz and, you know, Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson, like, you've just got some of the best passers in the NFL. That would be the thing right there that could make life a lot more difficult. On the offensive side, the only thing to me would just be the interior of the O line isn't what it was supposed to be. If Jackson struggles, if there's health issues, if fries just isn't as good as $17 million would suggest, that might hold them back a bit. But when you go through this roster, it is kind of hard to find spots where you would have massive concerns outside of to some extent the secondary.

But they've had a lot worse, secondaries. They have definitely had a lot worse secondaries with Brian Flores and still gotten good results. Blunts, maybe it's because number nine hasn't played too many snaps, but am I wrong to be a teeny, tiny bit skeptic about this season? Would KOC put in Wentz if they start at one and three? Don't take Chicago too seriously. I don't think there's any scenario where Carson Wentz could come in. And, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with being skeptical about this season because there are a lot of questions. still to be asked, the way I look at it is the NFC has so often in recent years been determined

by roster strength. Do we have the better 53 than you? And I think the Vikings are up there in the top three or four with overall roster strength. They've got the megastar talents in Grenard and Jefferson. They've got the B plus talents kind of all over the field, you know, on the backfield and the other wide receivers and the D-line and, you know, I mean, Van Ginkle probably deserves that superstar talent as an all-pro, second-team all-pro last year. So they have a super strong team around J.J. McCarthy, but if you're skeptical, how can I blame you?

Because every time this Vikings team over the last how long has posted one of those 12, 13, 14 win seasons the next year the regression has come for them and i think that the reason they handled this off season the way that they did was because they know that they know that the schedule gets harder they know that things don't break your way at the end of games all the time like they have at certain times during o'connell's tenure so they went out to get stronger defensive tackles they went out to get better offensive linemen they went out to get a better backfield all those things to stave off regression and to fight it off. But if you're not going into this season saying while they should just win 14 and blow everybody away and there's skepticism about McCarthy and so forth,

because he hasn't played, I mean, that's certainly fair. Every NFL team outside of probably Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City is probably asking a lot of those same questions in Philadelphia. You know, they're always very confident in Philadelphia with their football team. But they'll boo them if they go three and out in the first drive. Jay says we need Adam to be on the field as much as possible, especially the red zone. That's a big question for me. How often is Adam Thielen going to be on the field? Is it going to be just, you know, a handful of plays when they want to go three wide receivers

and then they use a lot of Josh Oliver? Is it the majority of the plays? Is it as a main target? Is it more of just a role? I don't think we really know the answer to any of that yet until we actually see it. Let's see. Chris says, how are the cornerback matchups versus Vikings wide receivers this year? Well, Jalen Johnson for week one, and then we're going to have to see. I mean, Atlanta's not impressive.

Cincinnati is sure not impressive. Pittsburgh is going to be one heck of a test. That's for sure. Jalen Ramsey is on Pittsburgh now. If you guys forgot, Cleveland's got good corners still. I think we were all expecting at some point that they would trade some of those corners and maybe start tanking, but that might have to wait until the trade deadline for Cleveland. That's not the easiest start. That's where the first three weeks I think are really good for J.J. McCarthy and for this receiving core to get some chemistry going on

because they don't exactly face some of the best defenses and best corners in the NFL. outside of Jalen Johnson is really darn good, and you guys have certainly see that before. Nathan says I couldn't believe Adam Thielen's separation numbers were that good last year. I mean, that's the thing. He had a great season for Carolina. They were going downfield,

and that's why I don't want to talk about him. I mean, it makes sense logically, right, to have more underneath stuff for Adam Thielen, because the other guys do run deep routes. That is their job. but the average depth of target and separation and all those things like all those numbers for thielan were really good and he was still catching 75% of passes his way last season so maybe raw pure speed isn't always what gets guys open it's you know knowledge of defenses it's the route running

technique larry fitzgerald did it for years route running technique hands all those things but you're right those separation numbers and a lot of it is also like when you find a hole in his own, those data points can be a little bit wonky because Justin Jefferson rarely has amazing separation numbers, but he's being pressed all the time. He's being doubled all the time. And there's usually a defender near him when the ball arrives. And, you know, a lot of times teams are playing like man with another guy on him and then they play something else over on the other side, like a zone. So, you know, someone like Thielen getting into the spaces of a zone, that can make it look like separation, even though

he wasn't snapping somebody off on a route, but that's still very good. That's still doing the job that you're asked to do. Let's see. Dwayne says it should be a good year for the NFC North. If you like football, if you like football, it is. If you are the Vikings, then you're, you know, you're not happy with Micah Parsons. Like, you know, I've seen it for several days now, all the, all the, just hoping, Open and dreaming that Micah Parsons doesn't do what he's probably going to do in Green Bay.

And see, I think that now I'm not telling you how to cheer. I'm not telling you how to think about your team, okay, because that's not what I do. Like you can feel however you want. For my seat, I'd be like, all right, let's go. Let's play football. Here we go. They got another great player, but you've got a lot of great players and go win. Because if you're going to win this, guess what?

If you're going to win the Super Bowl or if you're going to get to the Super Bowl, you'll never believe this. you'll probably have to play another team that has great players. So you got them in your division. If you can beat them, then you can prove something. Crawl Will. You're going to tell me how to say that one. K-R-A-W-L-L. Thielen is a better receiver even at 35 than Jalen Naylor.

I mean, that's true. That's just flat out true that he is a better all-around wide receiver. he's one of the better receivers of the last 10 years in the NFL overall at all the receiver stuff and Naylor is a guy who's career high is 28 receptions so yeah I mean I think that that's definitely true it my big question is just can they carve out the right roles for both of those guys to still contribute after Addison comes back and how much are they going to lean on them in the first three weeks because there's no way to just be like oh you know if Naylor catches two passes in the first couple weeks, it's fine.

Like, it's probably not fine. You need him to be a significant receiver on this team, even if that's four catches over the first couple of weeks. Like, if that's three, four catches a game and they have other people, but you can't have your number two wide receiver. I would say probably number two as of right now. If we're doing it that way, just because he's going to have to play the whole game. I don't know if you could play Adam Thieling the whole game right away.

should be interesting. Red has zero in faith in speedy. When I asked the one to ten how much faith, most answers were somewhere between three and six. But I understand that there's not a lot of faith. I wouldn't put it, I would not put it at zero, would not put it at zero, because he's proven last year that he can make some big plays.

Red says Leviska-Chanault did not know he was available. A kick-returner, punt-returner, seems like a typical Quasi reclamation. Yeah, they do stuff like that. Chanel, man. He was, he was pretty good when he first got to the league and it just has not gone the way that I thought it was going to go. I thought that he was going to take off and be like a Debo Samuel and he just got hurt. And once those guys get hurt, it's just not the same.

Even with Debo Samuel, it's not the same. Jay's going with a four. Jay says Felton is a skinny rookie. needs more weight and experience.