Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles sees Caleb Banks' upside

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Matthew Coller is joined by former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles to talk about the team's draft and his take on whether they nailed the Caleb Banks "risky" pick. Plus his favorite pick and the one he questioned the most. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, Mr. Searles, I feel like this was an NFL draft made for a big man. Was it not? I mean, that had to be fun loading up the trenches for the Vikings. None of these soft skill position players that help you win. It was a bit, no, come on, I'm just kidding. But really, it was a meat and potatoesy draft for the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, it was good to see them address some needs, some things that have just kind of been in previous regimes, band-aids. hey, we'll try and just mismatch and maybe trap one late and look at it.

But I'll say this, Matthew, that was maybe the best draft in the country or maybe the world. Maybe the world. Maybe the world. I'm just giving you a hard time. I don't know. I loved the ability to go and get what they need it. And I thought it was really interesting because at one point, I thought they may have locked Kevin O'Connell in a closet and been like, hey, we're taking defensive guys. And Brian Flores is like another detackle.

at somewhere KOC's pounding on the locker. Like, let me out, get the receiver. But they took the big guys up front. I think it's a position of need. And Brian Flores is my guess when he signed his contract extension, said, I will need pieces in the draft. You will get me those pieces if I come back. And Rob B said, sure, we'll do it.

And then stuck to it. So overall, I mean, besides a little bit, we'll probably touch about the reach piece of it. But I love that you address positions of need. Yeah, the part about not getting wide receivers, some of us did prep on about 20 wide receivers going into the draft because I was convinced that the third round wide receiver would happen. But the way that O'Connell described it was basically the board did not fall to them

where they were confident taking some of those wide receivers. And so they stuck to the board. But the thing is like this is something I feel like the Vikings haven't really done in recent years. It's been much more of reach or trade out or trade it for whatever player, maybe Cam Acres again. But doing it this way does have its drawbacks, which is that you kind of got to stick with what ends up landing there.

But let's start just with, you know, Caleb Banks and your assessment of him. I'm ping ponging back and forth quite a bit here. On draft night, fans wanted to burn down TCO Performance Center because they had reached on Caleb Banks versus what the expectations were. And now I feel like a couple days later I'm hearing Williams Wall, which might be quite a bit too far for what they did. But give me your assessment just of Caleb Banks as a prospect. Yeah, I mean, I honestly, I didn't have him going in the first.

I had him as more of a day two guy, maybe even fall into day three just based off the injury. Medical has always been something. And as a guy that deals with the Vikings front office on the agent side of it, they're usually pretty sticklers when it comes to medical and the background of the medical and making sure everything's right in line before they'll be able to pull the trigger on a guy. And so I did I had no expectation of them taking Kayla Banks in the first round. I never thought it was even a remote possibility. And so you're looking, okay, well,

look at the prospect. All right. Let's look past the injury. Let's let's look at the player. Really solid player, but I didn't see the production of a defense of a first round on defensive lineman. When you draft a first round guy, I think a guy's like Gerald McCoy and Nadomacin Sue and Aaron Donald's. Like those are the type of defensive tackles. I truly think about. when you said first round pick. Caleb Banks didn't have that kind of production. He didn't even, he didn't really have that kind of disruption. He didn't have the numbers.

He was hurt all his senior year. And so it was just kind of a surprise pick for me. And it took me almost a full day to kind of digest and really think, why did we need the feel the need to go and do that? There hadn't been a defensive lineman taken at that point. Was this truly the best available on your board? It was just, it was an interesting piece to me into the process of the draft pick for the

Minnesota Vikings of how is Rob B and Flores and Kevin O'Connell like putting together their board. But as a player, you probably could have got him at 50 at 49 when you're picking there in the second round. But if you really felt like that was your guy and you had to go get him, I mean, Rob B putting his balls on the table and saying, all right, I'm going to go take my guy. And that's kind of what it felt like to me. Yeah. And swinging for the fences just doesn't scream like interim GM or acting general manager for now. And then a GM search comes up next. But hey, we're going to take one of the biggest swings in the draft. Do you think that the way this draft played out just with the talent?

And it was talked about as a bad draft for, you know, quite a lot of time leading up to it. Do you think that that pushed them into this position where maybe in other years, they wouldn't have said, hey, let's go for broke and try to get the blue chip player. They would have maybe gone more solid if that area of the draft had been stronger. Yeah, I think right at that point of the draft, like between 18 and 20 is where you started to see prospects that really weren't first round grades. But they were good players, but no one was super pumped to draft at number 18 or 20. And that's you saw San Fran and Buffalo trying to just get rid of those picks as quickly as they could at the end of the first. Like we we don't want them.

We don't want to guarantee these contracts. We want to get out of this. And I think the Vikings were stuck in a little bit of no man's land where no one really wanted to come up to. where did you really want to drop all the way back down into the mid-20s? And so I think they just kind of found themselves stuck in purgatory of middle of the first round. What do we do? And for them, it was just take-fronts available. I thought there were some other positions like safety.

There was still Theteman was sitting there on the board. You know, I think there were some positions where there were some corners that were still on the board that you could look at and go from there. But to reach for a defensive lineman and really one of the biggest dice rolls, if not the biggest dice roll in the entire draft for a team that had just fired their GM based off some historically bad draft picks coming into these years.

I thought that this was going to be the, hey, safe pick. Thinaman sitting right there. Mackay Lemon sitting right there. Like just take a receiver, take someone that you just feel like can come in and immediately impact, not have to answer question marks

about the guy's health leading all through OTAs. And really, I don't think this guy's going to take a snap until we get to training camp. Yeah, it doesn't seem that way, which of course sets him back and the fact that he played under a thousand snaps in college makes him more toward on the spectrum of things of ready to play and impact your team right now and total development project. It puts him a lot closer to total development project, which might take a couple years. And I asked Brian Flores about a comparison he's made in the past about Cam Hayward, where Cam Hayward basically didn't start his first two seasons. and then year three kind of took off and has become a great player. But I think that's what Brian Flores mentality is, is he is comfortable with taking a

player that might take a couple years to grow and develop, which from a broader franchise standpoint, I think is a smart way to go about some things. Because if you draft for right now, hoping some player will save your butt, I mean, usually doesn't work out that way. Like a rookie that you're taking right now, they often take growth, just like we've seen from Dallas Turner. So I understand that perspective. But I also think that in the talking about it as a spectrum,

there's a high percentage chance with all the red flags here that it doesn't work out. And if it does, there's a decent chance that it ends up being a home run. So why don't we talk about how each one of those things would happen? Like let's start with the success first. If Caleb Banks becomes a success, like what does that look like? Yeah, I think for this year, it looks like he's not the, day one starter in my opinion. He's a rotational guy that can come in

in packages and disrupt and learn Flores system and play behind Redmond essentially. Be Redmond's backup. Maybe you get 20 snaps out of him earlier in the season and his role grows and you kind of ease him into what you want him to be and the package

you put him in and he grows into that role in first half is 20 and by the end of the year you're getting 35 to 45 snaps out of the guy and his productive snaps. They're not growth snaps, but the really productive snaps, that then would require him to stay healthy for all 18 weeks, right? And all of training camp. That's where it starts. He doesn't miss a single day of training camp. And for this to be a success story on this, on this year, year one, that is pivotal.

Because if he comes into training camp, starts a little bit, foot gets aggravated or even another slight injury happens, whether it's something else and misses a week or misses the first preseason game, now you're just behind in the development. That whole thing kind of goes off track. but if you can get him in there and get him to be day one, week one, contributing 20 plus snaps of being productive, some TFLs, some maybe a sack or some pressures, I think he can grow into that more of the starter guy

that you want to do to pair him next to Redmond, right, and next to bid citrus in the base packages. So I like that piece of it. And I think that if he can do that his first year and stay healthy, then all of this kind of gets mitigated. And then you roll right into year two. And that's when he's really going to have to take the big jump and become that impact player that you expect out of the 18th overall pay.

If there is a silver lining to the guy hasn't played that much football, it's that you can mold them in the way that you want him to play football for you. And I think what we both know is that Brian Flores system is quite a bit different from a lot of other teams. He is not going to tell defensive tackles, you line up here, just chase the quarterback, and that's your only job. And that's what you do every single day of the week.

It's a very dynamic role. That might be the case depending on the matchup, or it might be today you're moving offensive guards. And that's all you're going to do and you're not going to get QB pressures, but we're going to get four sacks in this game because we see something that works that way. But so we know that he's going to be playing a lot of different roles. But in an ideal world, like what role does he settle into? Because he's got nose tackle size. But also I was thinking about Pittsburgh for this and how they would have traditional. tech defensive ends, which we don't really see that much anymore, but kind of like it for him with

somebody with that kind of quickness and speed at that size. I like him as more of the three, four defensive end where you're in that four or four eye technique. So the four technique is head up on the tackle and then a four eye technique is on the inside shoulder of the tackle. And I think it's, it's different than just a true three technique that's over the guard because when you move yourself out to either being over the tackle or just inside of the tackle, it really gives you the leverage in the B gap, but it also allows you to loop out and keep some contain. And so I'm thinking,

okay, for the best position you have him is like that four, four, I, and then you have Ben Ginkle on the outside, over the tackle or over a tight end. And you put in stress on those guys that can run type of games and the pass protection with that quick twitch ability that you have, or he's just going to be able to bulrush that tackle and put him in the backfield so that those linebackers can come underneath.

You know, I don't like him as much in the interior, like noseguard, one technique. I think you want to be able to use that short area quickness that he does have and put him out over the tackles and trying to get him and make guards have to come out and cover him up in space. And hey, if the tackle's fanning out to Van Ginkle, and now this guard's got to come out and cover up two, three yards before getting to him advantage Caleb Banks over most guards in the NFL, not all guards, but most guards in the NFL to use that short area quickness or his length. It's sometimes to really push those guys back because he does have very

long arms. So he'll be able to use that. And so I think that's where you're going to see the most production out of him early in his career. And I'd like to see Flores say, hey, just learn this position, whether it's strong side defensive end or weak side defensive end, learn what I need you to do in this position. Once you master that, then we can start saying, okay, now move over here into the nose guard or, hey, we're going to move you over to a head up nose in a NASCAR type of pass rush package and just bulrush that center back. But I don't think you want to put too much on his plate too early, especially with missing all the reps during OTAs. I totally agree with his skill set.

I think that if he is too far inside, that's where the double teams really got him at Florida. And you see him get pushed back at times. And that doesn't mean that'll happen forever. But those, the stockier guys are better at taking those on. I feel like you see them kind of get down low and get the low pad level. Right, exactly, right, drop the knee. And that's pretty hard to do for a guy who's 6 foot 6 and 330.

30 pounds out over the tackle rushing inside. Then you're asking an offensive line, what do you do with this guy? Because he is quick enough to hit that B gap and get inside of a tackle. But also the tackle is supposed to be dealing with Dallas Turner or Andrew Van Ginkle on the outside. And if it works out that way where he's just rotating into that role on, hey, it's second and 10. Get out there and rush the passer. Hey, it's third and 13.

Get out there and rush the passer. but if it is second and four, maybe you're going to have Dominique Orange in there with Jalen Redmond and try to get like Levi Drake Rodriguez just gets strength in there. Like we can't be moved and now our linebackers can roam around and then you try to build it up from there. So what do you think in terms of a successful,

because we're going to get to the other side of this, in terms of a successful path, how long do you think it will take? I think it takes at least. a year, right? I think it takes at least a year. And most of that is because of the complexity mentally from the Flores system. I think if you just put him in the simplest system of a four three, you're a three technique. There's your B gap. Own your B gap. Blind dog in a meat house, Seaball go. Probably could get something out of him in six months of again, all this barring,

he stays healthy. I think with the Flores system and how much you're going to be asked to do, that's going to be outside of the norms. You're going to be learning the new techniques. You're going to be learning the new terminology. You're going to be just learning the whole scheme in general because you alluded to it. With Flores scheme, it's not as much I need to know my job. It's like, hey, I need to know my job because it affects that linebacker's job,

which then affects that safety's job. And if I'm in the wrong gap and that safety's not here, then we're all dead. And so it's just so much more of a complexity piece. I think it will take him a full year to get comfortable in this system. and if he can, Brian Flores just got a very Swiss Army knife tool that can be unbelievable in a lot of different places. I don't know enough about the kid's mental makeup and I never talked to the kid or know, hey, can he handle this load? But I'd be shocked if Flores and them didn't test him on some of this stuff and go, okay, this guy will be able to pick up what we need him to in order.

And if not, I don't think they would have taken him where they took it. And for coaches, it's trial and error too because as much as Brian Flores knows about football, and scouting football players and everything else, no one really knows what it's going to look like when the guy gets on an NFL field until he actually gets on an NFL field. They had, just for an example, they had this vision of Dallas Turner. He's going to be Van Ginkle 2.0.

He's going to drop back in coverage, and pick off passes and rush blitzes everywhere. And then it turned out, you know, that's just not really what he does best. What he does best is line up on the edge and go chase the passer. And that's his thing. and so that's what he's going to do. And it might be the same case for banks.

Now, if I tell you, hey, it doesn't work out, well, the first thing you're going to say is the foot and he got injured. Let's take that out of it, though, because we don't know what's going to happen there. Let's just assume that the greatest doctors in not only the country, but also the world, that they have a good sense for metatarsals and we see where this goes. But I always, I can't stand doing that anyway. Like, what if a guy gets hurt? Like, I don't know.

Like, what if any guy gets hurt? Right. Anyway, so let's take that out of it. If it doesn't work the way they expect it to, why did that happen when someone is this big and this quick? I think the first thing you can do is just lack of production, right? Just, hey, you just didn't produce the way we needed you to produce, whether that's from a, hey, you were out of shape.

Hey, you just couldn't pick up the speed of the game. Like there's so much from a developmental side that comes with jumping from college to the NFL, regardless of you're the number one overall pick or Mr. Irrelevant or a rookie minicamp tryout, the speed of the game is just completely different, even from coming from the SEC. It's just completely different. And some guys, they just can never get it. It just never adjust. It just never flips for them. And they just are always a step behind. And it's just like, come on, man, you just, you got to get there. And some guys, it takes four games. Some guys, it takes four years. I mean, I think of a guy like Garrett Bowles for the Broncos. His first three years

were awful. And people were ready to just throw him off the roof and be like, we never want to see this guy ever again. Comes back in year four. He's an all pro and makes $100 million. So it really does just take some time. But if this doesn't work out for that reason, I think a lot of it will just be, it just happens too fast for him. And he just never is able to catch up for in year one or year two. And by then Brian Flores is done with him and kind of role diminishes. And he's still around because he has to be, but now you're talking about a guy that's getting 15 snaps a game as the 18th overall pick and it's going to crash and burn. I think that was the Lewis scene thing with if you look at any of his athletic profile and his college production, you would go, why didn't this work? And it always seemed to be a step behind. It seemed like whatever needs to fire for you to see and go has to happen at such lightning quick speed that a four, five, six,

guy who's undersized like Cambinem is twice as good as this 437 guy who's 6 foot 4 who went to Georgia because he sees it quicker and fires quicker on what he's supposed to identify within his assignment. And if there is something there where at a combine, you can run your 40 and have that explosiveness. But if you can't see the assignment, what you're supposed to do and also quick react with your hand fighting element is a huge thing too. like get those hands up there on somebody they're huge he's got these monster like grizzly bear hands but can you actually get them in the right spots because if you don't then the leverage is going to go to the offensive lineman and if that stuff never materializes then i was thinking about like a

jerry tillery now tillery's like 30 pounds lighter but still was a six foot six guy and was crazy strong but just never seemed to understand the leverage and was kind of just a guy uh in the league and has bounced around to a bunch of different teams. I could see that potentially happening for Caleb Banks. But on the plus side, though, if he doesn't become Callais Campbell or Akeem Hicks, and he only becomes a guy who plays 40 snaps a game and gets five sacks and is a good run defender, 18th overall pick for a defensive tackle who does that, that people have to game plan for.

There's scenarios where this doesn't have to be perfect mega Jose Canseco hits it in the parking lot. This can just be a ground rule double and that's worth $20 million in free agency. Absolutely, because you're going to pay more than that for that guy if you do hit free agency. Right. If you're willing to say, hey, we guarantee this guy $18 million and he can be that productive. That is a home run. Like that is a slam dunk because if you look at what some of these detackles are getting in free agency, yeah, you'll take that any day of the week. If you're like, oh, I need to pay this guy like $5 million a year. Yeah. Hook me up for that one again. And we'll do it again.

I think best case scenario here for a guy like Caleb Banks is he turns into the guy that I don't know if you guys remember, Stefan Toot from the Pittsburgh Steelers, as solid as they come, right? Never really was all pro. I think I'm looking at up here. He had one second team all pro year, but was just, hey, he had 35 sacks on his seven year career. He had some fumble recoveries.

And he was always productive. He was never Cam Hayward. He was never going to wear the gold jacket. but he was a guy you had to worry about. And I remember watching the tape when we play the Steelers, be like, man, this this two-headed monster between Tewitt and Hayward is really tough. I think if he could turn into it to it and you're just talking about a guy that's just super productive that you can rely upon on every first, second, third down,

that's what you're hoping to get for out of Caleb Banks. Right. This doesn't have to be Williams Wall right away and for it to be a success. And especially because with the Dominique Orange pick, which we'll get into and Levi, Drake, Rodriguez and Ty and Grumdawkins and Elijah Williams, they've created this very competitive young room where they're going to be battling it out, been jockeying for position, but they also kind of have different skill sets. And Brian Flores is going to be in kind of teaching mode with that unit where they could grow together and become something over a couple years here. So I think there's

a lot of scenarios where this does work. There's pretty much a very clear outline of how it would not. Let's move into the Jonathan Grenard trade. Grenard was tweeting today about, you know, people trying to take the first press conference. How are you supposed to be excited about your new team, but never make it sound at all like you're not, you know, you didn't like your previous team or whatever, a tough spot to be in, but we know how much Jonathan Grenard took pride in being a Viking. He gave everything he got. He played through injuries.

He fought his butt off. Come on. Anybody trying to make anything other than that is a clown. but now they don't have Jonathan Grinard on their football team. What did you make of what they got back for Grinard? And now what happens because he's not here? I love the 27 pick. That was the thing I was most excited about because there's going to be a lot more depth

and a lot more talent in the 27 draft than there was in this draft. And so I know everyone was like, oh, we wanted a second for him. I'd take a third in next year and a third this year is over a second round pick for Grenard or the 50th overall or the 52nd or whatever. Philly had this year, I would much rather take a third next year based off of just the talent that's going to be there and the more of the depth. So I like that that Rob B did that piece there. I also really like the fact that they maybe bought, they maybe sold a year early, but I'd rather be a year early than a year late. I'd rather sell a guy that maybe has one more really productive

year in him and fans are going to look at him if he has double just sacks next year and be like, what the frick, man. How did we let that guy go? And then if you, he falls off the age cliff in 28 and 27, everyone's going to forget that we made the right move here. We got something for him. Also, the contract that he signed. Thank the Lord Robby did not sign that contract. That one, I think, is going to come back to haunt Philly and Harry Roseman down the road. So I like the foreshadowing to be able to look down and go, okay, let's not handicap ourselves with an older defensive end that is yet to play a full season for us.

let's put the 23-year-old or 22-year-old Dallas Turner that really put it on the last eight weeks of last year and hand him the role and see what he can do with it while he's still on the rookie scale contract. So I thought it was a really good move by Rob B and crew. I know some fans are not going to be super happy about it, but from a business side and a logistics side, I thought it was absolutely the right move. Well, and that's the hard part about a move like that is you don't have Jonathan Grenard on your team anymore, so you're worse. And when the management and coaching staff after they trade a player seem like they are holding a vigil, I mean, that doesn't really make you feel inspired by a trade like that.

But when it comes to the actual math of the thing and the nuts and bolts and that's where it becomes hard. It's like, well, they have Bernard, you don't. But when you start adding cap space, multiple draft picks and a guy who likely just based on history, I think edge rushers do pretty well into the. their 30s, but once you get toward that range, you're not going to get better as a player. So you're getting younger by getting Dallas Turner. The path for Dallas Turner to play is much better and the role is much better. So if you kind of look at all that stuff on that side of what you get for this, it makes it reasonable to do it. But there's two things that help me back from saying, well, you know, they nailed the trade.

One is that it's Philadelphia. And they are down and their edge rusher stunk. and you just said, oh, here's a lifeline, Philly. Climb on up it and be awesome again. Why would you do that? It seems like they were offering more than anyone else. Unless Gannard can thrill the football, I'm not terribly concerned about. They did win the Super Bowl with that quarterback.

But anyway, so you know, you're helping out a team that's usually pretty damn good. And that doesn't feel great. And the other part is just when you get Kyla Murray here and you look around at the rest of the roster, and you go, this is a pretty, pretty darn good team. And then you lop off a big part of it. There was a huge percentage of your pressures. And then two years ago, your sacks, it maybe doesn't quite line up with, this is the last run for this group.

And you said, well, everybody else except you. Like, we have a bunch of these overpaid players now or older players now. But we're taking off this one part. And, oh, yeah, by the way, go win the NFC North. It's just a little bit harder to do without it. I don't think, I don't think this coaching staff's goal is to win the NFC North. I think that they're looking at this roster going, it's probably not feasible this year, right? Maybe, maybe if Kyler Murray is as good as he could possibly be and play at the absolute highest level imaginable.

Yeah, maybe it's possible. But looking at the quarterbacks and how you're going to go win the NFC North, it doesn't have this clear path like you laid out of that's the goal. Obviously, that's the goal of everyone. but that's the forward facing goal. The internal goals are always a little bit different. There's always the two-year plan or the three-year plan of when is our next window. We had a window last year.

2025 was a window that we felt we built and we had and we turned the keys over and we crashed and burned. I don't think they're immediately going to turn and go, well, 20206 is our next window. They're probably looking, okay, our next window most likely is going to be 27, 28. So this year, let's not handicap ourselves for our next window by paying the edge rusher or having the headache in the room of he's going to just sit there and be like, well, I'm not playing. I'm holding in or no, building some of that internal strife, like the deal in Daniel Hunter stuff or just kind of it nags and it's distracting and it's conversations. And then it can really blow up and be ugly or heaven forbid he doesn't play the way you want him to play. And now you can't trade him for the value in which you wanted to. So all. those things, I believe, is more of Rob B and KOC and Brian Flores going, yes, in the short term, in 26, this is going to hurt. And maybe Dallas Turner can turn it up a whole other notch and become the double-digit sack guy that Gernard was. If we can even get three quarters of the production that Gernard had from Dallas Turner, fantastic. We'll still continue to grow with him, but we're

setting ourselves up to go get the edge rusher if we want him in 27 and free agency to see and leave ourselves some wiggle room for a quarterback or leave ourselves some wiggle room for an extension for a player that we love or we have to go get and getting draft capital for next year's draft, which is going to be much better. I truly believe that they're not thinking about winning the north in 26, but building the window for 27 and 28. Yeah, I mean, I think that the roster is a B plus roster when it's healthy, which I would say about Detroit, Chicago and Green Bay. I mean, I think Chicago has the highest ceiling of anybody where they are in their just roster build with Caleb Williams taking the next step.

And you could see Detroit being great. I have a tough time seeing Green Bay being more than maybe like a 10-win team. But either way, they're all kind of in that same type of spot. And the Vikings are plus 600. They actually went down after the draft to plus 600 to win the NFC North. So that's last out of the four teams. What you're talking about, I mean, we can all see a scenario where Kyler Murray's great. works. But if you're handling an entire offseason as Rob Brzynski and you look one year out,

you're like, I have to do something about this. Like there's a, there is a thing coming in 2027 that's not looking very good unless we start to prepare for it. So you're sort of batting down the hatches by getting like the draft that you had, the free agency and the off season. But it's just a little hard to deal with now because you know that you're Aaron Jones or T.J. Hawkinson, possibly Brian O'Neill, Blake Cashman, all these players, like they might not be here next year. And that's going to be a lot to deal with. So why not go all in now, right? Those were your two choices. And they decided we're going to set up for the future with Rob Brzynski. And I think this entire draft did that, like getting extra capital, getting extra cap space, getting a project

defensive tackle who might average 22 snaps a game this year. But then by 2027 in the middle of the year the guy's playing 45 snaps and is a beast. That's kind of the way they approached it. Another one that is for the future is Caleb Tiernan, who I did not really have on my radar as someone that they could draft. Well, now, I thought that if they were going to draft a tackle, that they would do it high. Like, I thought Monroe Freeling when he was on the board, I'm like, this could happen. I wouldn't mind if it did, actually, because of just the age of O'Neill and his contract situation and Christian Darrisaw and his knee. Okay, I'd be good with taking an offensive tackle here.

But what do you see in him as a third round pick, maybe to develop as a potential tackle or other people have mentioned kicking him inside to guard? Yeah, I think if he would have had probably an inch and a half longer arms, he probably would have went a lot earlier. I think that was the thing that held teams back a little bit on him was just the length because he's enormous. I mean, he's a very large human being. he's just a little bit. I think he only had like 33 and some change arms. No, didn't hit that magic

wonderful number, that 34, that all we love and know. But I think you had to draft for the potential Brian O'Neill's future. I draft for the potential replacement before we have to have the replacement. And with a third round pick, no one's expecting him to come in and start right away. You know, I think especially with offensive line. Offensive linemen in the third and the fourth, if they start right away, home run. If they're really good backups and they have the spot start for four or five games, even better because now you're going to get to see them and you're going to get to see some growth and see some development. But I do think he has some interior guard flex too based off of how we use Blake Brandl, how we like to have the bigger bodies. I think in a perfect world, Kevin O'Connell would have four starting

tackles in its center, like just how he likes to build his offense like Donovan Jackson play tackle at Ohio State at times. And, you know, Real Fries is really the only two, quote unquote, true guard on our roster. And so you've drafted a guy that has versatility, could play all four spots and back up. all grooming him to hopefully eventually take over for Brian O'Neill in the future and not have to spend a first round pick next year because you didn't have any capital and you didn't have any plan. And Walter Rouse obviously has not worked out. And so you're going, okay, we need a swing tackle with a development piece to be our starter. I like the draft pick of Caleb Tiren there.

Caleb Tiren there. Tiernan. Tiernan. I think so, isn't it? I called him Tierian forever. So I think it's Tiernan. Yeah. I can look up in the beast event.

the athletic has all of the, the way to pronounce people. I think it's Tiernan. I think you're right. T-I-E-R-N-A-N. Well, you know, if we got to talk about them for the next five years on, you know, Purple Insiders.

So just making sure. Anyway, I really like this draft pick, especially after I watched him, because he's very explosive out of his stance. For a guy who's as huge as he is, there's a little jolt there, which does say to me you could potentially, potentially play guard.

And we have to factor this into. I think Will Fries overall was fine. He was not $18 million a year fine. And after this year, they, I believe on the third day of the league year, this is like the deep front office analysis podcast here, but it all matters because on the third day of the league year next year, they owe Will Fries $10 million in cash. So I don't think that whoever is the GM is going. to show up with giant black bags filled with $100 bills for Will Fries.

So that would mean if they loved him, they would have redone a contract. I don't think they love him. I think they like him. But I don't think they love him. So you could cross-train Tiernan and have him ready to be Brian O'Neill's replacement. Should it go that way? Personally, I think they want O'Neill to be a Viking for life. The hard part there is $60 million in your offensive tackle room is a lot.

So this, this pick really is a, is a later pick, but makes sense. But if somebody gets hurt, they brought in Ryan Van der Mark. Okay, that's a guy who's played, but we've, we've seen, you like him? Just a one year too. That's the thing. Okay. Right. It's just the one year thing for Vandenmark.

And so I think that was the bandaid if they didn't get the guy they needed in the draft. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like they have this idea for the tackle position. And we've seen what happens and who ends up playing in some pretty important. important games at tackle if you don't properly plan for it. But it's been a long time.

Actually, there's almost a whole generation of children who have just seen decent to good tackle play for the Vikings. People forget it's a nightmare if it doesn't go well. Dominique Orange, we're jumping a little bit here, but Dominique Orange, true knows, which is not something the Vikings have had under Brian Flores. It seems like after last year he was like, why don't you give me one of them? Why don't you give me one of them Casey Hampton dudes who can just stuff bodies? But it's intriguing the fact that they would go with that position.

Yeah, I think for me it shows a shift maybe in Flores's base defense of wanting to get five defensive linemen on the field. Hey, let's get big citrus at the nose. Let's get Jalen over here, Redmond over here on the three technique, get Banks over here. We can get Ingram Dawkins at a five technique and, you know, get some beef when we need to stop the Detroit Lions run game or the Green Bay Packers run game or the Chicago Bears. I feel like this was a division winner pick. This was a we know the people that are in our division. We know what they want to do running the football. We need to be able to combat that on a week to week basis when we play these guys.

Let's go get the big run stuff for in the middle. Oh, they drafted Logan Jones against with the bears. Well, he's a little undersized. let's get the guy that's going to just try and eat him up as much as we can. Okay, they signed Sean Ryan and Green Bay, little undersized at center. Let's go find a guy that's going to mismatch him physically. And really since Linville Joseph, we haven't had a freaking ass kicker at nose tackle. Linville was as dominant as they came as a nose tackle.

He moved on and we've tried some guys here and there. We've moved some guys, but we haven't had that dominant force there at nose. And I think this was a way of Flores saying we got to get stronger at that position. Harrison Phillips was good at his job. Yes. But this guy is 30 pounds heavier. And so, I mean, Harrison had this mobility about him where you could line him up at the zero and then you could jump to a different gap and create a room for somebody else. But they got run on up the middle last year when they went in that different direction and moved away from Harrison Phillips.

And I think this is just to say, whoops, and let's go out and fix that problem that we had from last year. And I mean, the guy when you look at him, just his power, his strength, we talked about creating leverage. This is going to take a couple of people to try to move this guy. And even if he is only a 300 to 400 snap player, I think that the linebackers are especially going to succeed more, the safeties who really struggled last year because offensive linemen were getting to that second level and just Blake Cashman and Eric Wilson and Ivan Pace, these are not huge guys. Right. They need space. but if they've got it, they can lightning in there and make plays in the backfield. So that one fit pretty well to me.

Let's just talk about like one more guy that stood out to you and why it's the fullback. But I mean, just in general, because I want to ask you about the draft at large as well. So was there any other pick that the Vikings made where you were like, okay, either that intrigues you, shocks you, horrifies you, or excites you? Just pick it a motion. The safety pick for me was really another head scratcher. You know, the first round pick, you're like, and then you hit the safety pick.

And I think on paper, you're like, oh, had a pretty good senior year. You look at him, but when you start to dig more into the history of the player, you're going, oh, is this a one-hit wonder? Is this a guy that just had a really good year, surrounded by a really good defense? So he put up his best tape ever. Or was this guy a difference maker?

Was this guy a key contributor? Was this Miami defense going to fall apart? without this player back there. You look at a, couldn't crack the lineup at Indiana, he transfers out again, finds a home in Miami, 24 years old.

The safety pick, I felt like that was a position we needed to address. I also felt when we didn't take the safety on day two, that there's this backdoor, something of Harrison Smith, like, hey, I'll be back in September.

I don't want to deal with this nonsense. So they felt like maybe like you get one more year out of him and bring this guy in his kind of a backup swing safety for them. But the safety pick, for me was just a little bit of a reach again where I felt like there were some other players you could have got on the board. The fact that they didn't have a fourth round pick may have impacted that where they felt like he could be gone by the time they get back to the board again in the fifth round. So you have to reach on this guy because you really like him and Flores really

likes him and then sort of sacrifice what comes next. But this one feels very much like a Rick Spielman type of pick where it's like we can't really figure out looking at him on paper. And the production this last year was phenomenal where, okay, is that really the third round pick? It's kind of a big reach. I don't know why this guy came to my mind, but like Jalen Holmes was one that they took in a late third or early fourth and we kind of went, I don't really see that player on the board there.

I'm not sure why this would be what you do right here. And then other players on the board in terms of prospects were pretty. good. And, you know, somebody like Jermad McCoy, I know that the knee is completely, you know, terrifying. But at the same time, when you get to that point in the draft, you have to at least think about going with that player. And then in the fourth round, when I see, um, Mike McDaniel saying he's going to take his shirt off if they take Brennan Thompson because he would be so excited. That kind of makes me go, could you have just drafted Brandon Thompson there? And then look, these are fourth round players in a bad draft and everything else.

So I don't want to make too much of it. Even versus consensus, the power of the consensus runs out after about the second round. So it's usually just fits and guys you like and guys you believe in and everything else. Okay, Flores believes in him. That's fine. But there were a couple playmakers who just sort of slipped through the cracks that I felt like, are you sure you don't want to just grab a guy who runs like a four three and see if he's any good at, you know, being behind. Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison.

So there was a little bit of question there. What did you think of the fullback? I'll be Frank Smith. Frank Smith was like fullback. Say you love the fullback. I do love the fullback. I've always loved the fullback. Who doesn't love a good fullback?

The question is, does he play one snap or five snaps? And I think that's about as many snaps as he's going to get per game. I think they're going to use them a lot. And I think they're going to use them. I freaking hope so. I mean, when they didn't take a, when they didn't take a receiver in the first is when I went, okay, maybe Kevin O'Connell is starting to lose a few stripes of those that I say he can't change.

Maybe he's willing to go 12 personnel, 13 personnel, Daddy McVeigh did it, I can do it. We can be, we can do this, we can make it happen. And then as the draft went on and he drafts the tight end and you're looking around like, hey, maybe, maybe that guy you hired to come in as a consultant, like help you with the offense is going to actually be able to put his thumbprints all over this. I love it. I love it.

I would love for you to be able to use Will Fries and a little bit more of what he did best at Indianapolis. I would love for you to use a 12 and 13 personnel and get these guys on the field and find a way to pressure the defense and control a little bit of the clock and allow your defense to get a little bit more rest than they did last year. So I'm hoping all those signs are pointing to where I think they're. going, I won't be sold until it's September and we have a 38 minute time of possession. I, yeah, that's a little bit harder to see.

But maybe that's how they want to build it out a little bit more with Kyler Murray out of the pistol, which has been talked about a tiny little bit by Kevin O'Connell. At the owner's meetings, he sort of said it. And then it was almost like, why did I say that? Why did I say that we're going to do pistol? Why would I do this? Because whom is playing quarterback? Is JJ a pistol quarterback?

Kevin. That was kind of funny. But like, yeah, we brought him in to run out of the pistol. Um, or other things. Um, I meant it again, but slower or pro set, um, split back, uh, anything. Really. No, but, uh, I, I like where Max Bredesen could potentially fit in here as just, it's beneficial to be different in the NFL.

Yeah. It's, and, and that's what's kind of missed about the conversation about the Rams and how they used the 12 and 13 personnel with multiple tight ends last year. It's not just, wow, McVeigh is so smart. It's preparing for them was different. And I think that there's value in that put Josh Oliver, Max Bredesen on the field at the same time for some plays, sometimes, and you might feel pretty darn good about that. So just looking over here at the fan duel rookie of the year favorites.

Jeremiah Love is the favorite to win rookie of the year. Fernando Mendoza's second. how much he's going to play. Love is plus 320, Mendoza's plus 410. Carnal Tate is plus 700 and Jordan Tyson plus 750. Feels like there's just a lot of wide open in

this draft. Even when you look at the odds, like Ruben Bain is the favorite to win defensive rookie of the year at plus 500 tied with David Bailey, which is kind of surprising as the 15th overall draft pick. What was the most surprising thing to you

on draft night and kind of your Big overall takeaway. I mean, the most surprising thing for me was the Rams taking Simpson. Like, well, what? You're maybe the second best team in the NFC, maybe the fourth best team in the entire NFL. You're fighting with a roster to go win the Super Bowl against a team in your division that just won it.

And you draft for the future. That was just a head scratcher to me as the rest. And I'll say this, Dan Orlovsky was doing like slap somewhere, be like, I told you all. I told everyone. But that was super surprised me. And then to see McVeigh afterwards, too, you could tell he hated everything about that pick. And then on day three, did a little damage control on the on the drafts. Like, you know, I'm just a stoic guy. I just wanted to be like, are you though? Because I've seen you absolutely be on nut job. So that was the most surprising thing to me. And honestly, reaching for Jeremiah, I love at three and guaranteeing 53 million, I think it is for

him is crazy business. I get he's a phenomenal. player. I get what he could potentially bring to your team. 53 million is a lot of freaking money for a running back, man. And especially if you're talking about wanting to get the fifth year option out of him, there's just a lot there that I understand it. But the businessman in me just goes, man, that's a big risk. A little bit odd with a team that is tanking and totally rebuilding to take a running back. It reminds me of Indianapolis Marshall Falk many years ago.

By the time your team's. good enough to help this guy. He's going to leave for somebody else. And I mean, this has happened with Sequin as well. The same sort of deal. The Giants were just not in a good place and he ends up leaving to a better team. So I look forward to whoever Jeremiah Love gets to play for next because it's just hard to see the Indiana, the Arizona Cardinals getting to a point quickly where that's worth it when it's Gardner Minshu handing the ball off to him or I guess, Carson back by week 12 when they've won three games or less. So that one doesn't quite fit for me.

I love the Carnal Tate pick because get the receiver for your young quarterback. Help find out if the guy can actually play. The Tye Simpson one is so weird because this is the bleep them picks team. It's the all in Super Bowl window. Got to do it right now or everything implodes in the, but we're going to take a future franchise quarterback who just so happened to have a connection with the GM and his dad. And there was like a weird layer there.

And I just don't understand it. And I did see, you know, speaking of Orlovsky, he's, he's ended up being right that Simpson was a first round pick. But I also saw him say something like, well, they weren't like a number three wide receiver away from winning next year's Super Bowl.

And I'm like, doesn't Devante Adams miss five games a year with a hamstring? Isn't Puka Nakua having some off field problems? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Like, Mackay Lemon seems like he'd make sense to me.

Yeah, yeah, there's add another layer, layer of weird. Yeah, just get another weird, right? Another snake.

I'm a snake. But he's another one of those guys. Played his college football out there. He's a good player. Like, I don't know. Give Matthew Stafford everything you can get. And if you're Stafford,

you've got to be a little teed off. Kind of reminds me of Aaron Rogers when they pick Jordan Love and not taking a receiver there. Yeah, okay. I mean, that's really worked out for them. So long term,

this might be great. But I don't think that Simpson is as talented as Jordan Love. I see him as being a mid-quarterback if it all fits and if it all works. So that's where I was really, I was really thrown off. Do you have a rookie of the year favorite, by the way? I mean, I felt like there's not that many offensive guys taken in the first round. I mean, Jeremiah, love makes sense because he's going to get the ball the most. Like he's going to have the most numbers by far compared to anyone else just because they're just going to turn around.

handed to him, handed to him, and play action deep shot to Michael Harrison. And so you're just going to be like, okay, well, Marvin Harrison, excuse me, Jr. But yeah, so it's just, it's got to be him because, and I know this could be a year where you have like a fourth round running back that just takes off to. Like, I think you could have a dark horse guy that got drafted on day three that cracked the lineup because guys got hurt and turned into a guy that has a 700 yard, 800 yard season with multiple touchdown. So I think it's wide open as I can ever remember it after a draft. You, you're really done messed up NFL drafting when you let the Cowboys have a great draft.

And the Caleb Downs, Melichai Lawrence, I mean, that's a great start for them. And Downs might be a pick there that if he gets three, four interceptions and is effective box safety on the defensive side, obviously. And the quiet one might be Judarian Price, because I think he's just going to go in there and play a lot of football for that team with Zach Charbonnet injured coming back from an injury and I don't know what else Seattle even has after losing Kenneth Walker. So always so much intrigue that comes out of the National Football League amateur draft. And nine, nine fat guys taken in the first round. I mean, nine offensive linemen and you kind of heard it. Everyone was in love with like the top 10

old linemen. And then it was this huge drop off, which is I think you saw like three old linemen taken in the second, maybe two. And then there was this big. big run really in like the fifth and the sixth is where you started to kind of see everyone goes. So that drop off from the first round to day three was huge. But all those guys that got taken in the first round are monsters. I mean, every single one of those picks rightfully deserved to be first round picks, going to be immediate day one contributors at whatever offensive line they went to. So I thought all the O linemen that got taken in the first round were all well deserved being taken. Was it odd to you the way the centers fell on the draft? Yes. I don't, not really,

because the center, you kind of, your top center goes in the second, right? And that's what happened. The top center went in the second. You're like, okay, there he goes. And then everyone else goes day three. And it's like, especially because I felt like with this center class, it was a lot of center onlys. Yeah. Like Tray Zune, Brian Parker, like Jagger Burton, all those guys, Pat Coogan, one spot guys that you really didn't think had guard flex. You felt like, hey, that's a center only for us. Hard to have two center onlys on your team. Right. And so you're going, okay, if we already have a center only, we need to draft a guy with a little bit more flexibility or if we need a center right now, yeah, we can probably take him the sixth, stash him for a year, but we're going to need him to play for us in year two or three or else we can't justify the roster spot. So I feel like that was what's trying to depress the center market a little bit was just the fact that a lot of them didn't have a ton of guard flags. The fact that the Vikings didn't come out with one until the seventh, another one of the many things that we didn't really expect going into the draft. So I spent a lot of time on center, a lot of time on wide receiver.

And I wanted them to take Connor Lou in the third. I know he's hurt. I know he's coming off, like coming off the ender, but you have, you have your guy. You have Brendel. I mean, if he would have been hurt, he would have heard his name called in the second. I felt like you get to the third where you're sitting there and you're going, okay, safety. Dude, take the center. Take the center.

Draft your future center there. Pair him with Donovan for the foreseeable future. Let him red shirt for a year. No pressure to get him on the field. And then let him take over after Brendel's gone. I don't know. I really wanted to see them take Connor Lou there. I feel like arguing over late third round draft picks. Should we really be doing that?

Like ethical draft analysis, do we really want to get into that? But like, I felt when they got to the end of the third, I thought Brennan Thompson and Connor Lou or Sam Hacked. And there you go. There's your defense heavy. There's your offense. And you got some, you know, potential future center, maybe some extra help on, you know, the wide receiver core.

and to go, you know, with a safety there, that was a little bit surprising. I mean, well, you know, we never know how it's going to work out. But it felt like there was an opportunity there to grab a couple of useful offensive players. And they just didn't do it. And I guess we will track them and see how that ends up going. But Mr. Searle's great to catch up with you, sir. I hope we can do it again soon. Absolutely.

Football, Matthew. Football, Jeremiah.