Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles has offensive line ideas for the Vikings

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

The Vikings have quite a bit of cap space to use this offseason, how much should they dedicate to overhauling the offensive line? Matthew Coller is joined by former Vikings lineman Jeremiah Sirles, who has some ideas for how the Vikings should address their offensive line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me from the road in Mobile, Alabama, call him our senior bowl correspondent, I guess,

former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles, also former Buffalo Bill, still licking your wounds from the other day. That was a tough one, Jeremiah. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about your dad the entire game. I really was, you know, I knew where your dad, he was sitting in his chair, he was watching it and we all thought the same things. Three minutes left. Josh Allen has the football. Here we go. Time to go be great. And just to watch it in crumbling fashion, go down again was just heartbreaking honestly like josh on at the podium looked like someone just beat his dog in front of him for like the fourth

year in a row like just so sad and i feel for those guys but i mean as much as it's hard to love on the chiefs you have to respect the greatness that we're witnessing no you're right and when mahomes yeah there was a stat out there that when the other team scores at least 27 points or something, he's got the best record in the playoffs of any other quarterback that's ever done it. And he just keeps piling up more and more of these impressive games. And it really was Mahomes' effort on the ground this time, but also executing the quick passing offense. Andy Reed was in his bag, but Dalton Kincaid forever will be thinking about that ball floating

through the air and not being able to come down with it in his hands. Because if he does, then I think that they are going to the Superbowl. And when Josh Allen got the ball back, I said to my wife, I think the bills are going to to the Super Bowl. I think Josh Allen is going to do it here. And then Steve Spagnuolo. And it's so crazy because we were talking just a week ago about how offenses don't really have the best answers for all these blitzes that teams send. And when you go back and look at it, they overload one side. They don't really give it away pre-snap. And Spagnuolo just got Josh Allen on that play. Yeah, I mean, the blitz was incredibly designed.

You know, letter of the law in empty protection like that, you usually do want to slide weak, which is where the blitz came from. But with the orbit motion, I think that's something that people aren't paying attention to. When you have an orbit motion like that, where Shakir comes back into the backfield and then it comes out it's hard on the road protection have the timing of the motion on the silent count be able to readjust the protection like hey I don't know let's go over here to the right and they just fooled Josh right Josh was at his eyes elsewhere they do a great job they bring four weeks slide away. You had four guys blocking three and two guys running untouched through the B-gap. But the fact that Josh actually found Kincaid and got him the football

with the chance to make the catch is a miracle within itself. And then Kincaid had the moment to have the Tyree Stephenson helmet catch type of ball or whatever it was like the Super Bowl was. Right. But then Warren Cancun, Mark Andrews with a little smile and a tear that ran down his face like, oh, it's not me anymore. No, that's right. Yeah. And his miscues will now be forgotten. And it's on to not only Dalton kinkade but also spotting the football which has been a really super fun discussion over the last couple days about spotting the football and look i agree with everybody else at some point we're gonna have a digital system to spot it i

think it's a lot more complicated than just hey the chips ball, right? But it's not on both ends of the ball. And I'm not sure that it can see through 50 bodies all piled up. And then there's the whole, well, why didn't they ask the referees after the game? It's like, look, this play happens all the time in every single NFL game where they've got to run in there and somebody's got to make a call and they very rarely overturn it. I think for the Bills, you have to have a better answer than that. It wasn't really working in that game. Kansas City kind of figured out their tendency and how they were going to do it.

And that ends up being the difference. But the thing about this Super Bowl is that a lot of people are very unhappy. It's not the matchup that they wanted. There's no clear underdog, no clear storyline. But it is the two best teams in the NFL. And for that part, you kind of got to give it to them. Like, this could be a classic Super Bowl because of how good these teams are. Yeah, I mean, both these teams are incredible.

We talked about it all year. If the Eagles didn't have the question mark of Nick Sirianni, you'd be talking about how they were the best team in the NFL for the entire season, right? They didn't lose a game in like September or October. They just rolled right along, just winning, winning, winning. No big deal. Oh, we dropped one of the commanders?

Ah, we'll be all right. I mean, and just put it on the back of Saquon Barkley and going. I mean, talk about Clash of the Titans. I mean, you talk about an offensive line on both sides that run the football wants to be physical. And then two defenses are just completely different in scheme, right? Spags and dial-up blitzes bring you from everywhere. And then as Vikings fans know all too well, the Phillies is going to sit back, let everything happen, and then just let their front four go. Go, boys.

Werewolves go. Right? And just run up and get there and so it's gonna be really interesting to see the mental chess game between the coordinators of andy reed and van gio and spags right like who's gonna put together the best game plan to go out there and have the wrinkle that might steal the possession or steal the blitz or whatever it might be to give you that one opportunity more than the other team to go out and score. So what is your Vikings related takeaway from watching the two championship games? I think that a lot of people reasonably point to the Philly offensive line. My thing with the Philly offensive line is I agree. I agree,

but good luck trying to emulate this. I mean, there's probably five examples in the last 25 years in the NFL of offensive lines that have built this dominantly that Saquon Barkley can average six yards to carry. So it's probably not a model. Like, of course, I'm not against it. If the Vikings can sign three free agents that turn into this offensive line. I think I was feeling more schematic about it of just the way Kansas city handled Buffalo and their pass rush. They essentially just took them out of the game with the quick passing that they have and the creativity. And I also felt like too, when Patrick Mahomes is essentially never run that play ever in his career for a touchdown. And then they pull something like that out in the playoffs. It's like Andy Reed, everybody guy's been in the playoffs every year of his life for how long? That's kind of the standard that the Vikings have to learn

as they go forward with KOC, that it can't just be your offense. It's got to be stuff that is totally different when you get to the postseason. Yeah, and the thing that I took away watching really the entire championship weekend was the return of the semi-mobile quarterback. Right. Not a not a I mean, Jalen Hurts obviously is a true dual threat guy. Right. Jane Daniels, true truth, like dual threat guy. But Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and those four guys can all create but can also move the chains with their legs in like scramble fashion. Right.

And that's where I think back to JJ McCarthy. He did a lot of that in college in Michigan, just able to run. I mean, he's not a burner by any means, but he is much more athletic than Sam Darnold. He's much more athletic probably than Daniel Jones as he's getting older now. Right. But if you can add the wrinkle of having that just be a threat, it changes how people rush you. It changes how people blitz you.

It just changes the aspect of what the defense is looking at when you have a quarterback that you're going, he might tuck it and go for 20, right? He might not even look good doing it, but he's going to gain 20 yards, right? And so having that element of a mobile quarterback is going to be more important going forward so having that element of a mobile quarterback is going to be more important going forward for everyone in the NFL right I think back to like if Vince Young would be coming out right now he'd probably kill it in the NFL right he was just a little bit before

his time of being able to run and gun type of quarterback right they were kind of a very niche thing where now you're seeing more and more become a focal point of the offense I mean the first play of the game was Josh Allen quarterback power right I, so there's so many things that you're going to want to get to. If your quarterback can just be enough of a running threat, it just puts that much more pressure on the defense. So I do think that was the vision for JJ McCarthy when the Vikings drafted him, but now coming off the knee injury and all that stuff, how much of that do you feel comfortable doing with him, not doing with him? Sam Darnold obviously isn't that guy, but you do have Daniel Jones in the building who has rushed for a lot of yards has a lot of time to kind of build that bigger way so i

do think that's going to be an element that'll be curious for koca going forward as well uh that was one of my main takeaways as well is that if you were totally envisioning jj mccarthy being a kirk cousins who could every once in a while use his legs i I think it's got to be more than that. I don't think that it's enough anymore in the NFL to say, well, he's got a little bit of playmaking because even, and I know this is just one playoffs and CJ Stroud will probably win more in the future. And so will Justin Herbert. These guys are going to get their shots.

But I look at the pocket quarterbacks who have some athleticism, but don't really run, and they struggled a lot, especially with the power of the defensive line in the NFL. And to me, the bar was raised this year by defensive coordinators and defensive personnel up front, which sort of does transition us into another conversation about how the Vikings will construct what they have along the offensive line, because that was highlighted by Kevin O'Connell and everybody knows it. Every single comment section,

what should the Vikings do this off season? It's just offensive line, offensive line, offensive line. So you're there at the senior bowl. I want to get to some free agent options for rebuilding it. But let me get a, let me get a broad take from you. Would you rather have

a top name as one guy, big signing $20 million a year, or would you rather play in sort of the second wave of free agency and try to replace the entire interior of the offensive line? Folks, I found something that I didn't even know how badly I needed. It's called Rocket Money. Like everybody else, I've got so many subscriptions to different apps and websites that I couldn't keep them all straight and it takes forever to try to figure it out unless you have Rocket Money. What Rocket Money does is organizes all of my subscriptions into one place and allows me to cancel the ones that I'm not using.

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You know, I think you go for the Trey Smiths of the world and you get a guy in there and you lock him in there for multiple years to bring in and stabilize, whether right guard or left guard, pick your poison, whichever one you want, stabilize that position. And then I would be big component bringing guys in in the draft to learn from that guy have that guy be the veteran leader in the

room and groom from that way in and then you obviously you always want to bring in the kind of tier two tier three free agents for competition and death right it's a war of attrition guys get beat up cam jurgens can't go lander dickerson has to move in oh lander dickerson's out tyler steen has to go in they don't miss a beat because they drafted that guy, Tyler Steen. They drafted Cam Juergens. They developed them from within the program. Now you have guys that can step in seamlessly versus taking a one-year kind of tier two PFA guy to come in, or not PFA, tier two free agent to come in for a one-year stopgap versus having a guy on a four-year key contract that you

feel really good about and just needs maybe a redshirt year in the NFL before you actually see him as a contributor. So I'm on the component of spend the money, buy the free agent guard, get them in there, settle the position, and then draft interior guys to come in and compete and develop within your system and then let them come in in year two or three and be contributors. Well, one of the issues with the draft is that they only have four picks as we speak right now. And I'm sure that there are a lot of fans that would like to spend four straight picks on guards and just pray that one of them becomes really, really good. So I lean a little bit more toward the side of trying to spend 20 million with three different guys and then of course you're talking about drafting but my issue is that offensive lines end up

usually becoming about the weak points right and as much as tevin jenkins or trey smith could change the offensive line by having one side of it be super beastly if the other side or the middle is still soft i think we've kind of seen this before that opponents know that and they know they're going to attack so certainly if you sign trey smith it could give you a super good right side of the line and a super expensive right side of the line but my concern would be well are you changing its center or is it going to be the same at center? Because that's been a weak point in pass protection. Are you going back to Blake Brando at left guard and hoping that he's better over 17 games than he was in the first time around?

Are you trying to develop Walter Rouse to play left guard? I mean, I feel like there's still some of the same questions where if you signed three guys that were okay, let me give you a, like, I think that with this development, like if you're going to have a young quarterback and you're going to have a young receiving core, like you have your tackles. You got them. O'Neal's probably got two, three great years left in him, then he's going to be on the back end of his slip.

Derrissaw is going to come back and not miss a beat, right? I have no questions about that. Don't bring in the old vet, right? Bring in your four or five that's in't bring in the old vet, right? Bring in the four, year four or five that's in the prime of your offensive line, right? If you're in year four and five, that's the prime of your offensive line. Physically, you've developed to where you need to be.

Mentally, you've played in the league long enough to understand schemes, understand the techniques, understand what's being asked of you on a weekend, week out basis. Then you probably can get three or four years out of those guys into the year seven and eight. Like we've seen with the O'Neills, like we've seen with Bradbury, right? He really didn't hit his peak until year four, maybe even year five. Right.

So I don't love the idea of let's go see if Brandon Sheriff can free and save us. Right. Cause then you run into the issue of those guys get hurt. Right. They tried doing that Miami with Toronto Armstead, right? Bring the guy run into the issue of those guys get hurt, right? They tried doing that in Miami with Teron Armstead, right? Bring the guy in, settle the left tackle position. You're lucky if you get 12 games out of him a year. You want to bring in guys that have the longevity and have the youth on their side to develop that core from within, which is why I'm big on the draft and development. But you have to have a ton of faith in Coach Cooper, and you have to have a ton of faith in the guy that a ton of faith in coach Cooper and you have to have a ton of

faith in the guy that you draft is going to be willing to put the time and invest to develop themselves in the off season. That's why so much of the draft is not just about finding the best talent, but the right personality fit that can they make it in the NFL year in and year out, go reinvent themselves in the off season and come back a better project or better prospect than when they left. That's why the draft isn't such an exact science.

If you're going to find guys, find guys that have started a lot of games in those first few years, like a John Feliciano when they signed him in Buffalo. He only really started one year for the Raiders, but played well. You feel like you've got a guy in the prime of his offensive line development, right? It's just a matter of how much money you're willing to spend, right? How much money are you truly willing to throw at the offensive line and say, we need to fix our interior. Well, and in terms of splitting the difference, even if you didn't want to go with the plus 30 type of player, maybe there's somebody like, hold on, I got my list here. Like a Matt

Pryor from Chicago. Who's a huge dude six seven three thirty five he was uh really good in pass protection aaron banks is a giant guy who helped them run uh really effectively in san francisco i know kyle shanahan is the main reason but banks is a just a gigantic ginormous person who they need to be able to get some push up front uh the drafting and developing if they drafted a guard in the first round, they would get absolutely no criticism for me on it. I would be like, okay,

well, there you go. The only concern is what you said about the development years where it's like, you really need to fix this kind of yesterday. And if you draft a guy in the second round and he doesn't become very good, then you waste two years waiting for him to come around.

And then you realize that he didn't. And then you have to bench him for Dalton Reisner. And this kind of happened even with Garrett Bradbury, where it took two, three years. It was really probably three before we saw him even get to an average level of pass protection that drifted back a bit this year. But I mean, if you're waiting three years for that, when you have a roster that is ready to win, I think that's, that's hard. I think you probably have to try to split the difference with some multi-year contract guys and also with still some draft picks that you could try to develop. Yeah. And I don't think you go draft a guard in the first or second this year. I think that you make that decision when you spend the $20 million a year on a guard,

you're immediately saying third round or lower on the draft, right? I mean, there is other holes on this team that need to be fixed, specifically in the secondary, right? But if you're really looking at it from a long-term perspective, which is what you have to look at it, I know we're the Kansas City Chiefs right so moving forward looking long-term vision you've got to get depth at the offensive line position and and do that it's such a hard thing to say and do because it's so hard it's never an exact science but you have to do that for the long-term health of your offensive line so that you can have like Dallas did forever like Philly's doing right now, like Detroit has done.

They have drafted all of those guys. And then when they feel like they've drafted those guys and they have the one hole, go buy the free agent. But that's because everything else has been done internally. That's the success. That's the pattern to be able to have. I mean, even Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith were drafted guys to Kansas City that developed quickly. It's just that is the path and that's what everyone wants to do, but it's a lot easier said than done.

So you're at the senior bowl. You got your little eyeballs on anybody that you think could look good in purple? Yeah, you know, I think, you know, interiorly Rivers from Miami had a really good day today. He played both tackle spots. He played guard spots. He used his hands really well. I thought he was a guy that had a really good practice today. Another guy is the Emery Jones kid from LSU. I don't think he quite has the length to play tackle in the NFL, but he's big.

And I think he could actually be a pretty good guard. He doesn't have the arm length to play tackle in the NFL, but I he could bump inside and he did really good things at LSU I think he's another good prospect to move interiorly here Gray Zabel's another great name he played you know left tackle from Dakota State he's going to be another guy like Cody Mock like Cordell Volson was that's going to move back inside but he played some center today as well has that position flex interiorly on those guys, right? So there's a lot of good interior players down here, but I didn't see anyone today that I was like, that's the guy,

like that's the dude, right? I think that everyone was feeling their way out. I think tomorrow's where you usually see guys take the next step and kind of separate themselves when, you know, some of these guys haven't had pads on since November, right? I mean, they haven't practiced at all. So just getting their feet back under them. Tomorrow's usually we see the guys take the leaps of how to tear the guys out

as you go forward. I think also, and maybe you and I talked about this at a combine like two or three years ago about how a lot of tackles are starting to think about the guard position a little differently because it used to be like a slap in the face. Oh, I don't want to move inside the guard. They get paid a lot less. not after last offseason they actually get paid a lot now and not only that but teams have to be looking for pass protection specialists because the

differential between the d-line and the offensive line and you get guys like kalijah can't see who are undersized and you're going against them as a 335 pound dude while they're getting underneath you and they're getting past you with their quickness so it might be something that you know they're trying to look at tackles who are a little undersized maybe move them inside i mean it's a it's an interesting dynamic but i think if they were to pick a guard most likely it's a little more toward the middle round that comp pick the third round and try to develop that guy or find a gem than it is the first round but we've got a long way to go uh until the draft so let me ask you uh about a couple of things that have sort of been happening and uh you're

typing that's the the noise is coming through there i don't realize that you're good. Did I know that? Heavy hands, my fault. It's what we call being locked in as well to the discussion. But I want to get just a take from you on Kevin O'Connell signs a multi-year contract extension, something that we fully expected. And I think having him and J.J. McCarthy locked in on the same timeline is very important. But your take on O'Connell officially getting it locked up? I'm glad it's done with him.

Like we talked about, I'm glad it's done early. There was no reason to drag this out. There was no reason to haggle over a few dollars here and there. Like, let's just lock our guy up, be confident in the future and the direction of our organization. Who's in the front? Everyone's behind them.

There's not a Jerry Jones effect of, is the owner and the coach, are they on the same page or the GMs? With that, as quickly as they moved after the season of getting him locked up into the contract extension, just shows how much faith they have in him, how much the team is behind him and how much they're ready to just go, go, KFC, go, build this thing however you want to build it,

who you want to pick, whoever you want with it, just go and run with it and you have our full support. That was the exact move that the Wilfs and that organization needed to do. Warning. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. This is how intense Novocaine sounds. Oh, wow.

Imagine how it looks. Say it more. Yeah, big time. Novocaine, only in theaters March 14th. I think getting it done as fast as possible after the season was important so everybody could just focus on the offseason and there's no thing hanging over their head. There's no rumor mill that's going on

about trading him or about whether he's going to go into his lame duck year or anything like that. How about this? So it's been a couple of weeks now since we all watch Sam Darnold meltdown in week 18 and then in the playoffs. Has your feelings or opinion on the quarterback position been altered at all with a little more distance from having seen that happen and also having seen it happen to like three other quarterbacks in the playoffs? But where do you stand now in comparison to where you were right after the game? I don't think I've moved much honestly I still think that you know if you are ready and JJ McCarthy is on track then you probably try and franchise tag Sam as a chance to trade him later or you know a chance to keep him if JJ's not where you think he needs to be I'm not I don't think I mean I told you I think it was like week 12 I was like it's NFC championship or bust for me to lock Sam into

a long extension in purple. And that didn't happen. And it didn't happen with the question marks that we always were hoping were never going to show back up again. And on the biggest stage, they showed back up. I mean, I count that Detroit game like a playoff game. Obviously, we didn't have to go home, but the magnitude of that game was playoff level atmosphere. And you had to have bats at it fortunately you're only as good as your last bat of this league do i think to have a franchise tag or be in that 30 to 40

million a year absolutely is it something i want the vikings to lock themselves into for the next three four years i don't think so so let's go on an assumption that is a very big reach that jj mccarthy is good to go in the eyes of kevin o'connell like hey let's it's an assumption that is a very big reach that JJ McCarthy is good to go in the eyes of Kevin O'Connell. Like, Hey, let's say it's time for the kid. Let's spend all our cap space on them guards and move forward. So trading Sam Darnold, is it simple or complicated to you? Because I think there's a few different ways that could go about it. One would just be a tag and trade. Is it possible to work out an extension with Darnold to then trade him to another team, the old like extension and then trade that seems to me that's got some moving parts and you could be sort of left holding the

bag there. If something with the trade falls through at the same time, the owner of Pittsburgh is talking about how, yeah, you know, we got to make a choice between bringing Russ back and Justin Fields. And I just, what? Like, that sounds horrible. That sounds like third year, a third round quarterback or something to develop? I mean, come on, right? Like he wants a win now quarterback. There's really only one guy who won 14 games last year and actually played really well. And that's Sam Darnold. So where do you stand on how they could trade him? It's hard for me to think that you would work out a long-term multi-year deal for Sam Darnold with the anticipation of trading him. Now it's possible, but usually you see those things as, hey, we're letting you go exercise a trade. And then the agent goes to the team, negotiates a contract with that team team and then executes the trade. No, it'd be one of those things where you have to make sure you didn't overprice yourself. I don't know if you can ask around the league,

what would you pay Sam Darnold and then try and structure the contract that way. I think the easiest way to move Sam Darnold is hit him with the franchise tag and then let him get an extension somewhere else. Yeah. I think in the most ideal world, you would be able to go to, let's say, the Senior Bowl or the Combine and you just bump into Tom Brady or whoever thinks they're running the Raiders

and you say, oh, I'm sorry, I just dropped that near you. Oh, it's a piece of paper that says three years, 125 with 70 guaranteed. I don't know what those numbers mean, but they sound like a darn old contract. Would you guys be happy with that? Like, philosophically speaking, I mean, I think that you can do something like that, but you can't really agree to it and lock it in until you're actually making that trade. But even if you were like, just say that you're going to the Raiders and they're like, okay, this is what we would pay for him.

Here's the structure we want. You do the deal, then trade him to us. He's worth more that way because then they have him locked up and it's not a franchise tag. At the same time, they could always negotiate that deal with him there. But if he doesn't want to stay there, then they can't negotiate it with him. But he's got to agree to it anyway. Like there's a lot of moving parts to that. But if I'm the Raiders, I would prefer to have him already locked into a contract extension. Or maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference. What would be your return?

Let's just say it's the tag and trade. What would be your return? My question for you then would be, why would the Raiders do that when he's going to be a free agent anyways? If he's going to be a free agent anyways, why wouldn't I just go try and sign him to that deal, not have to give up anything on my end from a trades perspective, right?

It's such a different conversation because he's not under contract, right? And so that's why I'm saying that if the Vikings work to extend him, Sam's gonna squeeze every dollar out of them so that that situation doesn't happen, right? He's not gonna do the Vikings a favor. Like, hey, I'll sign this deal for you

knowing that I'm going to the Raiders and you guys can get a second round pick for me or whatever. That's not how this business works. If that's the case, then I'll just hit free agency and I'll just sign with them anyways, and you'll get nothing in return. That's where this gets a little bit sticky of you can't in goodwill talk to Sam Darnold with, oh, we want to extend you. And in the back of your mind, constantly going, but we're going to trade you. Guys will see right through that. I mean, any good agent would at least. And realize that's

not the best play so i i just i have a really hard time seeing that working because that would be some favors done on both sides right i was trying to work that out because it would be more favorable for the vikings to be able to have that in their back pocket that he's already extended he's already signed so now he is uh better for whoever's trading for him but i guess if the raiders wanted to do that they could the tag and trade though what's the return if that's the most likely thing i don't think you could just let him walk because there's so many qb needy teams if you who are they going to sign they're going to say no no we're good we got mac jones for this year we're fine like no you don't. Daniel Jones is still in the building.

He is. And it's also a reason that I am skeptical. People have sort of decided that Daniel Jones is just going to be a Viking next year playing with JJ McCarthy. It's like not with seven teams that need quarterbacks. And even if you were Tennessee, let's say you're drafting Cam Ward, which I don't think is a good idea, but let's say you're doing it, then you're just going to leave him out there. No, you're probably going to want to develop him over a year and probably going to want to have someone who helps

you be competitive. And that's not Mason Rudolph and it's not Will Levis. So you'd want someone like Daniel Jones. I think he's going to have a lot of phone calls that are not, Hey, absolutely sit behind JJ McCarthy. Cause if McCarthy's here and Darnold is gone, McCarthy is starting, and everyone, including Daniel Jones, knows that. But circling back, second round pick? Second and a third? What are we thinking?

I mean, the floor you can take for him is a second. I don't think you can let him walk for less than that. I mean, a second and next year's third, maybe, you know, something like that spread that picks out a little bit more. But there is a lot of quarterback needy teams. And the longer this goes in through the draft process here, the more kind of things spread out. You know, watching the quarterbacks of the Senior Bowl today,

you're kind of a lot left to be desired. There's not a there's not even a Bo Nix or a Michael Penix in this classroom like dude slam dunk those dudes are going to be like first rounders and they're going to start right away I mean I was watching guys like Jalen Milrow today okay Jackson Dart all right no Riley Leonard you're just like I just don't see franchise put the shoulders of the franchise on and just roll with it here from any of these guys. And so if that's the case through the draft process, Sam Darnold is going to become more and more in demand as things go forward here.

And teams would be willing to say, hey, instead of taking Jackson Dart in the second this year, let's get Sam Darnold for a second round pick this year and roll with everything else being rookies. That makes a lot more sense for me, for teams like Tennessee, for teams like the Raiders, maybe even Seattle. Don't go back with Juno Smith. So there's a lot of teams themselves in that situation if they don't love the draft prospects this year.

So just in terms of tossing at you everything that I've talked about over the last week on the show since we last talked, where do you stand on what the Vikings should do at the running back position? Because the free agent list is not like it was last year. There is no Saquon Barkley. It's a lot of guys who are backups. It's Rico Dowdle from the Dallas Cowboys, who's a guy and he's pretty good, but he's not a superstar runner. Aaron Jones could return. That to me is very risky. First round is going to have some guys. Third round might have some guys. It feels like they're going to have to spend a draft pick on a running back. Well, I'll take the word of my partner, Zach Zenner here. This is maybe one of the deepest running back classes in the last probably, what, three years, maybe even 10 years, right? There's going to be guys that have mid-round grades that go undrafted. You know,

Zach is under the impression, again, and he was a running back for Detroit for a long time. Now he's just a super physique model, you know, But he thinks that every team will end up drafting a running back at one point this year. Every team, because there's so many good ones. You're going to get a guy like Corey Kiner from Cincinnati could be a late-round guy that could be an RB2 for you going into the year. So I do think that this is a really good –

I mean, everything I just said about the quarterbacks, throw out the window and talk about the running backs, There is great running backs at every level of day one down to late day three that can come in and make immediate impacts for your team this year. So I do think they draft a running back. How high? I don't know. with the first round, it is where you get special players just always in forever period. Uh, and the third round areas like that has produced plenty of Alvin Camaras over the years that become star players or Jonathan Taylor was a second rounder. So there's tons of stars in that range. The only issue is that the Vikings are short a corner.

They're short at defensive tackle. They're short at guard. And is Casey at awful Mensah who does lean on the analytical side, has been noted many times. Is he going to say, yeah, actually, it's a good idea to draft a running back? And if there are so many, is it plausible to draft one later on and still end up getting something out of that guy? But the thing is that the failure of Ty Chandler kind of has a domino effect here where they were expecting that guy to be a 1A, 1B with Aaron Jones,

and he ends up a Z. He's just nowhere close. And with Jones, he said repeatedly, hey, I want to be back in Minnesota. I love it here. And I just, you got away with it for a year of a running back of his age and he did fade down the stretch. I just don't know if you get away with it again after he had the football so much last year. And so there's the analytical part of me that's like,'Marion Hampton or Ashton Gentry to go along with all these weapons, maybe it does maximize that guy in the same way that Saquon Barkley or Derrick Henry were maximized for their teams. Yeah, I mean, I'm never going to blame someone for drafting a running back in the first round if they are really sure that he can be the bell cow type of type of player um you know but as far as it comes

with that's what comes a lot of risk with that piece of it you know bijan robinson saquon barkley you know the other guys that you're talking about they're going in the first are generational talents as people like to put tabs on them with but i do think the vikings need to if they draft a running back it needs to be a big back right i don't want to see them draft another five foot nine 185 pound running back that's going to get hurt right if you're going to draft a running back be one of the six two the six three 215 to 220 range that's going to be more put together type of guy that can handle the beating of an 18 game season that takes in the nfl because that's just what it takes anymore is to be a bigger back that can just handle the

bruises from the Bobby Wagners and the Al Shires and those type of players so yeah you got away with it Aaron Jones definitely don't bank on getting away with it again and bolster that position with a day three pick or a third round pick of a big time running back that maybe isn't a 4-4 guy but it's going to be able to tote the rock. I think about, I can't really get the kid from Iowa, right? The kid from Iowa is everything that I would love in a running back.

I mean, I would take him on the Vikings tomorrow if we could. Caleb Johnson. Yeah. Caleb Johnson. Thank you. You know, I'm not great with names.

Yes. He was most of their offense as usual. It's the running back tight end and punter is most of Iowa's offense. So here's one more subject I've been kind of talking about is if JJ McCarthy does start at this moment, and this is something that we can go back to when we talk occasionally throughout the off season, or even when we get to next year's training camp and is continuing to look at what expectations should be for next season. Because there's a part of me that's like, Oh, you won 14 games. So pedal to the metal. Here we go. And they have all the cap space and all that stuff. But then there's another part that's like,

do we, do we got to be a little realistic here? Because when you compare where the Eagles roster is, that's the team that's representing the NFC. It's the best roster. The second best roster was in Detroit. And now the next best quarterback in the NFC is in Washington. And the NFC North is not going anywhere as far as its talent. It could get a lot better if Ben Johnson knows how to use a timeout ongiving or doesn't try to grow a weird beard and somehow think that changes anything stuff like that i mean it's it's now suddenly a pretty pretty rough road i think for the vikings for 2025 they have to be

that much better in order to get the same results so what do you think as of this moment and i know we're nowhere close and we don't know the quarterback and we don't know the who's the interior guards that really win the championships. So tell me what a rational expectation should be, I guess, even for just this off season. I think a rational expectation for me is this is a double digit win football team, right?

There's enough talent right now that if J.J. McCarthy is not a complete slap, right, there's enough talent around him that you should win 10 games. You really should. I mean, between Jefferson and Addison and Hawkinson and Derrison O'Neill, like, there's enough talent there that if you don't just throw interceptions like crazy, you should be able to win 10 football games, right? And with Grenard and Ivan Pace and all the young talent on defense. But there is a scenario here in which J.J. McCarthy has a rookie-type season, and you're looking at an 8-9 win football team because you lose the turnover margin, because you're not scoring your plus-100 point differential or whatever it might be,

and games become closer and your margin for error becomes even slimmer and all those things. But I do think the expectation moving forward is this needs to be a wild card type football team. I don't think going into next year, I'm comfortable to say that they're going to compete for the North again and less Dallas. And I mean, granted, Detroit loses both coordinators and some other stuff, but I just can't confidently go in to next season thing. Yeah. The Vikings are going to win the North. It's not going to be easy. There's going to be a tons of bumps in the road. And with all the question marks, specifically at the quarterback position, I just can't full heartedly say, I believe that. And that's where I think it becomes important when they go into free agency.

And you alluded to this earlier is to sign multi-year players who are going to be part of a foundation and not just rentals who come in for a year fill this spot i mean the stefan gilmore turns out to be a good signing but at the end of the day you go well now he's gone and he was 100 years old and that didn't really get you ahead so if you're looking at free agency you want to be be talking about a DJ Reed who's 27 signing a four-year contract. He could be your shutdown corner for a long period of time. Or if we were talking about the offensive line, a Trey Smith, a Tevin Jenkins, these guys can play for you over multiple seasons. They're not Lakin Tomlinson who's 33 years old and you're just trying to sort of jam him in there and hope.

And it also gives you time, too, with multi or free agents to draft a little better or to develop the guys that we don't have answers about. Kweisi is three drafts in. We only have answers on one of them, so we're going to find out. But to get answers, to know who your foundational pieces are, I think that that's an important thing. They did it last off season. I suspect that they will do it again. Love to see it. Hate to see it. I mean, the hate to see it's pretty clear

that the Super Bowl is just not something people are going to be too excited about. I mean, I'm excited to watch good football. I think it'll be good football. Aside from that, though, two weeks of zero storyline. Oh, the Eagles are back. Oh, Mahomes is back. You know, Mahomes is really good.

Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. Three-peat. Have you heard that? Have you heard they're going for three in a row? You know, I agree with you completely. It's a bummer.

And I'm trying to get myself out of the it's a bummer phase and into the, hey, I'm happy that I might get to witness a 3P for the first time in the history of ever. Right. It's one of those things where you can hate them. I had my fair share of drinking the haterade for the Kansas City Chiefs. But it's impossible not to respect Andy Reid and Mahomes and Kelsey and the greatness in which they have put on for this run for really the last five years. So as much as I agree with you it's not fun to talk about, I respect the greatness to it. My hate to see it is can we stop with the weird head coach introductory press conferences and Duval, right not good like not good like I give

these dudes like a full week to get in the building let themselves it's almost like the second they arrive they're like get out there first impression put your camera out there and they just panic like I think back to like Shane Steichen's original interview and we're like what are what are you talking about or the awkward when they're daffing up the players mike mcdaniel facetimed to uh he's like yeah you're fucking gonna win everything and he's like okay i don't know who you are like we have to figure out a way to put these head coaches in better positions so that people don't think oh this dude's toast four seconds into his 10 years as a head coach and uh jonathan gannon who appeared to think buddha baker was kyler murray which i mean if you never met if you never met before it's a short guy you don't have your helmet or

number on right right they don't have name tags around the facility so you know uh i you i went through that when i got the job covering the Vikings, where you go into the locker room and you're like, I hope he's standing next to his locker because I don't know what he looks like when I don't see him with the helmet on. So it's a little dicey there. But nobody could top Adam Gase, though, who seemed high on something and was all over the room.

Yeah, so those are just a treat because they go awfully so bad. They're train wrecks. I can't remember the last. Even Ben Johnson was kind of weird, right? He's like, tell the players, get comfortable being uncomfortable. You're like, what is this, the program? Like, what are we talking about? This isn't a movie script, dude.

Like, these are adults. This is their job. Yeah, we all understand it's uncomfortable to be in the NFL. We get it it we don't need you to go out there and slam it to the world now like i don't know i just think that it can be handled so much better i don't maybe prep these guys a little bit better when they're going there but it also shows why not everyone needs to be in front of a microphone all the time well they better get used to it because they have to stay in there four times a week uh during the season. So, you know,

that that's part of the Kevin O'Connell had a pretty easy transition to that because he's a big talker and big communicator and everything. And one thing I will say is everyone in terms of hate to see it, everyone tries to form an opinion. When a coach get hired, they try so hard. This is going to be a disaster this guy oh what a middling hire who care and uh i would just look at last year with dan quinn nobody cared nobody thought it was a good hire oh well that's not getting anybody hyped and when

dan campbell was hired everyone thought this is the stupidest man alive like what is he talking about biting other people and stuff this is a psychoest man alive. Like, what is he talking about? Biting other people and stuff. This is the psycho. And you just never really know. Winning the press conference doesn't really do a heck of a lot for you. But these guys aren't cheerleaders. They're football coaches. So they're like, do Duval.

Duval. How do you say it? What? What am I supposed to do? The eye raise. Everything else. Like, buddy, you could have, like, walked in front of the mirror two or three times and been like, do ball.

Like get super into it. No, you had to like this high pitched eyebrow raise, like body lean. I was like, this is going to haunt you for a long time, my friend. You know what it was? It was like, I'm Ron Burgundy. Like I'm Ron Burgundy. There's a question mark at the end of the teleprompter. Do ball.

Who do you think will be the best new hire? Probably Schottenheimer. No, kidding. I want to say Ben Johnson. And mostly because I want that guy to succeed. What he did in Detroit with Jared Goff and how he built that offense and the creativity and all that, I hope – I root for those kind of guys that are

their first at bats, right? Their first at bats, you hope it goes well because you never know when they're going to be that position again. So I really want Ben Johnson to hang in there and turn that thing around with Caleb Williams and be able to put a name in the flag of, I'm not just a great X's and O's guy, but I'm also a very good head ball coach. Right. So I do think that he has the most tools to succeed right now. Right. The dark horse for me, though, is a variable, right? A dude that knows how to coach, been to the playoffs, back in his home building, going to build that thing the right way up, has all his infrastructure around. I mean, he could be a guy that turns that place around kind of like Harbaugh did with the charters. And we're talking about the Patriots being competitors in the, in the North again, next year. That's who I was going

to pick. I was going to pick the Patriots because what we saw from Drake may was that he survived that first year and was actually an exciting player who put them in position to win. And if he could do that with that situation, with a coach who was in over his head, no weapons, and they've got cap space and they've got things to work on. The most perplexing to me is Pete Carroll with the Raiders. It's just, I don't know, guys. I just, I don't see how you're winning. I don't see who's, even if it's Darnold playing quarterback, like who's catching the ball. Do you have some, I don't know, like Pete Carroll's defense was passed by and that's why he got fired.

So is he going to adjust that? Or is it going to be like Zimmer being like, I'm back guys, Zim ball. And then it's like, nah, Zim ball was over three years ago and we all moved on. I think that could happen to Pete Carroll. Yeah. And I mean, all we talked about really at Pete's end of his tenure with Seattle was how good of a CEO he was, right? He hired good people

around him. And so it's going to be really important who he puts for his staff members, that they're good X's and O's guys, because I don't really know how good of an X and O guy Pete is anymore. I mean, obviously the dude's incredible. He's been in the game forever, but what he did in Seattle was really just kind of manage the personalities of the players and be the exciting guy. I mean, Alex Boone obviously played for him, said he was great, but he needs to have slam dunk coordinator hires that are going to be able to scheme stuff up because that's not what Pete's about. The Schottenheimer, who's the Cowboys guy? That was the most perplexing one for me,

right? You let McCarthy walk and then you promote from within i i don't get that one at all unless he's truly just like listen you're a placeholder until dax contract gets to the point where we can trade him then we'll go hire the new coach and draft the new guy but i do think that that wasn't a very desirable job for a lot of the head coaching candidates because you know jerry jones is going to be over your shoulder you know that he's going to have his press conference every week. Like if you want to go be a guy, especially like a Ben Johnson type and plant your flag for the first time, his head ball coach,

you want to do it your way. And if you go to Dallas, you're doing it Jerry's way. And I think Jerry's way is getting a little bit more. How do you put it politely? Like Jerry is getting a lot older and it makes a lot less sense when he talks to the media now and his introduction or his, when he was asked about,

uh, Schottenheimer being hired, he just wouldn't even talk about him. And it's like, what is going on here? And is his son competent? Not that there's any nepotism in football or that it ever causes any problems,

but I think is this guy really the leader of the franchise that's going to do it the right way for them? They seem to be kind of in peril there. And yet the irony of it is they still have a ton of talent and they could still be a playoff team next year. But suddenly the winds have shifted in the NFC East and they are good now. Let me throw two more quick. I hate to see it. I am exhausted of people pointing out that the Giants had Saquon Barkley and let him go. If Saquon Barkley plays for the Giants, he averages 4.25 yards per carry and they win four games because they were terrible. They did the right thing. The Giants did the right thing. They tanked. They got rid of expensive

players who they weren't going to use and they went to other places and they played well, but there was no point to signing those guys. There was no point to franchise tagging Saquon again or something. It would have been insane. So it's the way it's worked out is embarrassing. It was better for their franchise. It was the right thing to do. And everyone's like, ha ha giants. That'll teach you to let him go. It's like, well, he was a free agent. Number one.

So he didn't have to sign with you anyway, nor was he going to because he had known what they were going to do. That's just gotten so tiresome. Other thing. Love to see it. Something finally went right for Taylor Swift. I mean, it's just, she's had a lot. No, wait, it's didn't. But she's, Hey, love to see it something finally went right for taylor swift i mean it's just she's had a lot no wait it's didn't but uh she's hey love to see it she's made a relationship last over multiple years so good for her when it comes to that and uh truly love and hate to see it

actually with brian flores not getting a head coaching job paid it for him love it for the vikings yeah i agree i sad. I think he deserves to be a head coach in the National Football League, but I'm very happy he's back. Very similar to, I'm glad Cliff Kingsbury did not take a head coaching job because I think he's a great coordinator. Do what you're good at, right? Do the Ben Johnson thing. Come back, finish what you started. Don't leave your rookie quarterback who you didn't have so much fun with next year when he's not a rookie anymore. I love when guys are self-aware enough to go i should do this one more year right instead of putting yourself for a position where you may not succeed or you're comfortable right so i'm happy

for that but i am happy brian flores is back but i do think he deserves to get a shot at being a head coach again at one point all right jeremiah searles uh next week when we talk i'll have some fun maybe you know we'll do we'll probably talk each other into stuff with the Vikings in the NFL and start to preview the off season. And then after that, we'll have a super bowl and it'll be another year in the books for Tuesday morning left guard. So thank you for taking the time from the senior bowl and using all of your

phones data to connect here today. And we will talk again next week. Thank you, sir. Anytime. Football. Football.