Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles thinks the Vikings made the right hire in Brian Flores

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles analyzes the hire of Brian Flores as the new Vikings defensive coordinator. Would he rather see what Flores can do with the current group of players to ask Flores to rebuild the defense with younger players? Plus, how should the Vikings approach the offensive line this offseason? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hello, welcome to another episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard here on Purple Insider. As Jeremiah Searles returns, he was at the Senior Bowl watching his center dominate and get great reviews at the Senior Bowl as well. Jeremiah, I'm glad to have you back. we've got a super bowl to talk about but also a defensive coordinator so why don't we begin your reaction brian flores is a minnesota viking well first of all i'm just glad that we recorded post breaking news for the vikings which is not usually how things work for us usually we wrap up a podcast and it's like bam something crazy happens so no i actually really enjoy I really like the hire you know I really like the hire I think that he's a brilliant defensive guy you've seen what

he's been able to do everywhere he's been he's been able to take them from poor to very good now it takes a little bit of time you know but I think that he's basically at this point it was Flores or bust in my opinion you know after some of the L's that we had taken of trying to find guys earlier you know I think he was the best on the table, you know, best in show when it came to what we were looking at. You know, so I think it's a home run higher for the Vikings. I think it's something that everyone should be excited about because I do think he's going to be able to come in and not just instill a scheme,

but instill a culture of what that defense is going to be and what that defense he's going to demand out of. And we're not changing schemes. 3-4 is staying. You know, he's a 3-4 guy. He's an outside linebacker, three guys in the dirt type of guy. I'm all right with that

because the more you change schemes, the less you can be more comfortable. So it'll be very similar scheme, just different verbiage for these guys. But a lot of these guys are veterans. They're pros. It won't be a hard transition. So it's the same essential scheme,

but a very different philosophy from Donatel that wanted to play a lot of guys back and let completions happen in front of them and try to force teams to complete 10 passes in a row to which other teams said fine that sounds great and we'll do that but now we're talking about the number two blitzing team in the NFL in 2020 and 2021 when Brian Flores was at the helm for the Miami Dolphins. So that's extremely different from the Vikings. And I was looking this up last night. This is a crazy stat for you. What does that stat mean? But how about this? The total safety blitzes last year from the Vikings, 18 in the entire season.

12 of them went to Harrison Smith. For Miami in 2020, it was 151 blitzes by safeties. I just think that's really telling about how different this philosophy will be, even if it does have the same scheme and even if Kyle Van Noy is going to be Zedarius Smith, assuming Zedarius Smith stays, and we'll talk about, if you're Brian Flores, what would you rather have? The kind of guys who are already there or the rebuild. We'll talk about that in a minute.

But just from a philosophical standpoint, what do you think about blitzing like crazy versus the way that Donatello wanted to play? I'm all about the aggressive play. You know, I'm all about the ability to get after guys, to be aggressive. It's what the league is going to, you know, you start to play a little bit of cat and mouse game of, well, do we blitz the really good quarterbacks? We play covered against a really good quarterbacks, but I think the ability to have both is really important. And last year, the Vikings just didn't have both.

You know, the Vikings had like kind of a panic blitz period, right? Where like well maybe we blitz if he's i don't know and then all of a sudden it just all falls apart but i think flores will be like okay against this team we're gonna have this plan which is a heavy aggressive blitz pan on first and second down or maybe on third down or hey he's gonna be a tendency wise we're gonna blitz second down and then we'll play coverage against third and long or in third and medium this is what their tendencies are so we're going to play coverage against third and long or in third and medium. This is what their tendencies are. So we're going to go coverage here or a single dog blitz or double dog blitz, whatever it might be. I'm all fan. I'm a big fan of just having everything at your disposal. And, you know, when you, I had to prepare for a few Flores teams, you know, you had to really be on your P's and Q's as an offensive lineman, as an offensive coordinator, because you didn't know what he was going to throw at you.

You know, he kind of kept you on his heels. And then as you got into the flow of the game, as soon as you kind of felt like you knew what was going to happen, all of a sudden he'd hit you with something different. Um, you know, so I'm a big fan of pressuring guys, making guys think on the fly, making quarterbacks think on the fly coordinators, all of that, because when you think on the fly and you're trying to adjust in real time, all it takes is one of the 11 guys to make a mistake on the field. And that's where your big plays come in your turnovers your interceptions your sacks your tfls all those things so i love the more aggressive approach than the sit back and try and see if the other team just makes a mistake on their own type of feel this is where i am contractually obligated to say that usually

it's the personnel that makes the biggest difference on defense and if you don't have good players it doesn't matter how much you blitz or don't blitz. But I kind of lean the same way as you, wanting a more aggressive defense. And I thought just even in 2021, what Mike Zimmer did to dial up enough blitzes to get them to where they were one of the best sack teams in the league, it kind of kept that season alive in a lot of ways,

even though their cornerback play was horrendous. And that's going to be a big part of building for Flores is going to be who can play man-to-man coverage, which again is a big change from last year, but actually might be a better fit for some of the personnel that they have than asking a lot of corners to be as smart as Patrick Peterson and as good at reading route combinations as Patrick Peterson when they weren't last year. That, you know, someone like Cam Dantzler is probably more of a man-to-man type of guy. But I want to ask from the offensive line perspective,

because I think with offensive linemen, A, being asked to play right away, you get drafted, you're in, you're starting. We saw that from Ed Ingram. We saw how difficult that is and have many times actually seen how challenging that is for offensive linemen to step right in. But that's the reality of the NFL with the salary cap. And also offensive linemen are always changing teams and things like that. And chemistry is hard to build up. It's what makes Philadelphia so unique is that they've had this offensive line kind of together the bones of it for several years. I think that gives huge advantages to the blitzing defensive coordinator because it's chemistry, it's experience.

Those things can counteract a lot of blitzes. But how many offensive lines are you going to play that really have those things across the board? Yeah, I mean, it's as simple as looking at the Cincinnati Bengals, right? They come into the playoff game against Buffalo, and everyone's like, oh, it's a brand-new group, and what are they going to do? And they kind of just ran the ball, and they were fine. And everyone's like, oh, look what they did.

And then you go and you look at what Kansas City did, and boy, that blitz package they put together against Kansas City, or Kansas City put together against the Bengals, was just, you could tell everyone was like, wait, who's blocking 95? Wait, where's that guy coming from? And yeah, when you're in a brand new environment and you don't have the same five out there,

it's really hard to just make sure everyone's lined up and including the quarterbacks and you're communicating with the running backs and sometimes the tight ends. And so, yeah, if you're going against a blitz heavy team, you have to make sure everyone's on the same page, right? Because it's like I said earlier, if you have one guy that's in the protection scheme, that's not right. Right. We used to kind of make a joke on the offensive line. It's like, listen, one wrong, we're all wrong. We can still be right. Right. Like if the offensive

line comes up and points the wrong guy, but we still all go to that guy, we can all still be right. But when you have, Hey, three guys are going right. Two guys are going left. And then all of a sudden you leave the three techniques standing there, like bad things happen. But that all happens when you're sending guys from off the edges or you're bringing safeties into the equation or corners, or all of a sudden you have two linebackers blitzing to the same side. So now the guard that's supposed to slide right has to slide left. And there's just miscommunications to go through. So're absolutely right having offensive lines that can play together and that can see things together and speak the same language together to almost a non-verbal point right where i promise you all

five guys from philly walk up there jason kelsey says one word and they're all thinking the same thing right they're all thinking there's no extra no no you have this or no slide this this this like if you can get to that points offensive line you can dominate but very rarely do you see that in the NFL just because of injuries like you said guys getting paid and going somewhere else rookies coming in I mean you name it it's just such a rare thing in the NFL and everyone's looking for it every NFL team's looking for I want the same five right you can even say Kansas City with Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith and Orlando Brown like and Wiley. All those guys have been together for a long time.

Everyone's looking for it, but defense coordinators immediately know, oh, young player or new player, and especially early in the year, they're going to test those guys right away. So I want to try to make two different cases to you regarding Brian Flores and what they should do with the roster that he's going to have here. The first case is to mess with the cap and bring everybody back. And that starts with the fact that we can point to actual data that shows us Ed Donatel did not use these players correctly. I was even looking this up and PFF has added a really fascinating stat that has how often

linebackers are in man versus zone coverage, which, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, what does that stat mean? Like cocaine for us. But here's what was fascinating is Eric Kendricks was used in man to man coverage in the bottom, at the bottom of the league, only 13% of the time for a guy that I would consider as good of a man to man linebacker as there is in the NFL. Now, has he lost a step? Of course, because age comes for everyone. Even I wake up every day sore and unhappy. So, I mean, I can't imagine a 30-year-old linebacker who's been

putting his body on the line being the same speed he was when he was 25, but to use him so little in man coverage is just negligent. And the same thing goes for Harrison Smith. He blitzed 12 times. He normally was blitzing three, four times a game during Mike Zimmer. He rarely played in the box. This is the, now with Flores' system, they're going to bring the safeties up, play them in the box. I mean, there is a good case for multiple players, even say, you know,

Louis Seen, but you know, that's a little bit more of a long-term thing. He's going to be here anyway. Uh, but you know, bringing, uh, the aggression to this, I think is a better fit for the guys that they currently have, which would be the argument for not making a major rebuild and change. So reaction to that argument first, and then I'll make the other one. No, you know, I'm going to lean towards that argument with you because when you bring in a new defensive coordinator that is similar in scheme wise being the three four scheme not switching back to a four three. Like you kind of want to see what can he do with the pieces we have. And also, we've talked about this for all year we're paying these guys already, you know, and if you're going to cut them you're going to have some dead money now granted you could save half of your salary cap or whatever you know but you and i both talked like until we can get out of salary cap hell it's gonna be really hard to say okay let's rebuild this thing so for me it's like okay these guys are paid they're on their contract let's let them play let's let them

play through let's let them do their thing let's just kind of play this season out new defense coordinator and all that and let these guys let them cook right isn't that the meme that's right now like hey let him cook you know I want to see what Flores can do with these guys because you're right you have talent on this roster it's not like there's not talent on the defensive side of the ball now it's not as talented as it was three four years ago but you still have all pro players pro bowl caliber players on that side of the ball let's see what Flores can do with them you know let's see what Zedaria Smith and Daniil Hunter with an aggressive thing. So it's not just reliant on them to go win their one-on-one matchup every time, but now you can get them on a running

back or you can get them on a tight end because you are blitzing and you're eating other guys up and, and just see what that looks like. I'm all about trying to keep some of those guys around right now on the defensive side of the ball and seeing what he can do with them. Okay. Let me make the other case. Brian Flores was able to turn around a defense in Miami in part in one year because they had the cap space to sign Kyle Van Noy, Byron Jones, a couple other guys, Shaq Lawson came in, made a pretty good impact for them as a situational rusher. A lot of times it's the players. And if Harrison Smith and Eric Kendricks, and I would throw Z'Darrius Smith into this because the second half of his season was very average as opposed to an MVP first half of his season. So if that's what you're looking at in

the future, it might be better to just move on now. And you could tell Brian Flores, this is a two-year plan where this year I want you to develop, which he has been very good at in the past. He has a scouting background. That's how he broke in with Bill Belichick. Scout some dudes, find some guys. Who's around the league that you like? That's a good thing about Flores staying in the league,

thankfully to the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he's still dialed in 100%. He saw Steelers guys. He saw the AFC, which maybe the Vikings didn't see as much. He knows who the free agents are that might fit his system, all those things. You want to let him cook? Let him build.

Also, move on from those guys. Create some more cap space, but you don't have to spend it right away. Develop throughout this year. See what the guys that you have can do. See if Patrick Jones is a dude because he flashed as as being a pass rusher but we don't know if he can do it all the time until he actually plays I mean the same thing goes for you know a lot of different positions Brian Asamoah linebacker like play that guy every down how about the corners like let's see if they can be brian floris corners as opposed to going out and getting a veteran or trying to bring back patrick peterson who in my mind does

not fit with this defense at all like i think you just need to let him go try to win a championship later but saying to brian floris this this is your oyster my friend and hey by the way when we move on from that quarterback guess how much money we'll have to put into your defense. So be patient, be a developer, and this is going to work out in the long run. How do you like that argument? That's all just going to come back to what is this team's whole philosophy going into next year?

Is it a rebuild year or is it a win now year? You know, it all depends on that. And the hard part is I think if you go to Brian Flores with that argument as a general manager and like the patience, you got to think about the other side of the ball is going to say. The other side of the ball is going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on. We got the best receiver in the world. We have arguably one of the top two tight ends in the entire NFL. We're paying our quarterback, I mean, a ton of money. We're playing our running back a ton of money. Like, what are we doing? We got to win. We got to go. And there can be some definite pushback from the offensive side of the ball

if that's your argument. You know, because you're going to see one side. It's the idea of like one wrong, all wrong. Well, now you're talking about half guys are rebuilt. Half guys are like, we got to win now. You know, I think if you're going to go the full development route, it's got to be on both sides of the ball. And I don't necessarily know if KOC and those guys are looking at that

on this side of the ball this year. Now, if they are, I'm all about it. Go for it. Give Flores the years to develop. Do that thing with the young guys. Just wait a year until we get to cap and move on from some of these guys on both sides of the football and then go from there. But on the other side of it, you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth.

You can't look at the offense and be like, hey, it's okay. We're going to win now. And then go to Flores and be like, hey, it's okay, we're going to win now. And then go to the players and be like, develop, just develop. We'll be all right in two years. Like, it has to be an all-united front on that side, and I just don't necessarily see that situation playing out well for the Vikings. I understand where you're coming from. And from the player perspective, you're absolutely right.

If you're Justin Jefferson and they cut Harrison Smith and cut Eric Hendricks and trade Daniil Hunter you're going to be like are we caring about this right now but also all those players were on the field for the 28th best defense and a lot of the players or at least some of them were on the field for all of the defenses in recent years I know Hunter was hurt for two of those seasons. They didn't have Zedarius Smith, but Harrison Smith, Eric Hendricks, those guys have been out there making a lot of money as good players, but way overpaid players for what they've produced over the last couple of seasons. It's a harsh business, but sometimes the younger player who just by proxy of being younger and cheaper is better for you, even though you love

the older guy, it's just sort of the economics and reality of the league. And if you keep Harrison Smith, if you keep Eric Hendricks and they fall off the face of the earth, which you could argue last year happened, but even if, even if it's like a bigger fall and they kind of like can't play anymore, Chad Greenway, 2016, would be an example of this, where he had a great career, but by the end, he was not a guy that you wanted to really trust to play more than 25% of the snaps. If that happens with these guys, and at their age it certainly can, considering Troy Palamalo was retired by the age of Harrison Smith,

is going to be next year. I think that there's even an argument to make that it's very risky to try to bring those guys back. Like it seems risky not to, but it might be riskier to bring them back if you end up paying them that much and having them fall off. So even though the perception would not be great, it might actually just be smarter in on multiple fronts, not just the, well, you have to play horribly or have these guys, you might end up playing just as well.

I think the hard part is, you know, when you're moving on from those guys is usually because you had a crappy year the year before. And I know that defensively we did, but team-wise, it's like we won 13. You know, we won 13. Yeah, the defense wasn't great, but, you know, those guys were there and we we won 13 games so why are we blowing the whole thing up you know and that's where the the push pull from offense and defensive side of the ball is such a weird situation that the vikings are in because very rarely do you see a 13 win nfc north championship team that's like no our defense was bad like bad bad we need to start from the ground up with this

thing even though our offense and our quarterback played at his top level and the whole bit like That's like, no, our defense was bad, like bad, bad. We need to start from the ground up with this thing, even though our offense and our quarterback played at his top level and the whole bit. Like, I just – I'm struggling to not have my player hat on here because I try and think of me sitting in that locker room if I was an offensive lineman for them. If I'm Brian O'Neal and I'm going, man, we're not far on offense. Like, we're actually right there.

We're in the top five. We're doing all these things. Like, it'd be really hard for me to feel like I'm just going to sit on the bench for a year with this really good offense as we're actually right there we're in the top five we're doing all these things like it'd be really hard for me to feel like i'm just gonna sit on the bench for a year with this really good offense as we try and move on from all these players that have been part of these this run that we had last year even though from a general manager's side like it makes sense i think that's why this situation is just super super unique for the vikings i can't think of a team in recent history that's had a similar situation to this um where it's worked out for them in the long run either keeping or moving on you know it also goes back to a lot of

if you're going to move on from those guys you got to hit on your draft picks you got to hit on on that on free agency but you know we don't really have money to go out there and hit on a bunch of free agency even if we do cut these guys we're still not in a great place cap wise we're better than we are um you know which is not you're going gonna be able to go out and sign top end free agents at all those positions that you release these guys and you know the draft as well as i do it's a crap shoot i mean some guys are gonna be great the second they walk in the door some guys are gonna need some more time so it really just goes back to the whole philosophy of what um what koc and quasi and all those guys want to do to how do we approach next season and like

I said it has to be a unified front everyone walks out and says this is the plan for 2023 no one's gonna come out and say we're gonna suck it's gonna be okay but the the idea to come out and say like hey we're gonna we're gonna build this thing our way last year was great but we kind of had lightning in a bottle and we made a run with it but if we want to win a Super Bowl here's the steps we're gonna take boom boom boom boom and lay that out i think vikings country and vikings fans and everyone will be like got it okay the worst thing you can do is go out and be like we're keeping everyone and we're going to do it again because i think everyone saw it towards the end of the year like that's just not a capable thing to do even though with the players that we have and the players that we have are great

you're just not gonna be able to recreate what happened this season especially with the schedule going into next year yeah i i don't know how many times between now and training camp or whatever the off season i'll bring that up but it's worth bringing up i mean when you have mahomes borough herbert hertz and 49ers qbX on your schedule, that's way different than Andy Dalton, Mike White, so forth. I mean, you could play much better and end up 28th. I mean, just with the guys that you're facing, especially if Rodgers comes back to Green Bay and plays the way that he did in the second half with Christian Watson, or they add some receivers around him. You're talking about one of the toughest quarterback schedules in the entire league versus this year which I thought had an argument for one of the easiest quarterback schedules for sure which makes it an abomination that they finished

where they did but when you think about so and again like I believe that Brian Flores could potentially use these players better but it's only in theory. It's not a guarantee if they, if they slide from where they were and 17 game seasons take more of a toll than 16 game seasons, by the way. You know, it's just, it's just going to the playoffs too. You see that one of the reasons teams that make the playoffs don't the next year is it's a longer season. It's more of a grind. And so this team going to the playoffs added more to the bodies of these players. And Eric Hendricks last year by PFF and linebacker scores on PFF and safeties are very difficult. They're tricky because it's a tricky position to grade. But he was 36 out of 56, which means he was just in the middle of the league.

And he's set to make like $12 million on the cap. My thing would be, could you get someone in the middle to play with Brian Asamoah that costs you $3 million on the cap or $5 million? And the answer is just, yes. Like, I think that this team has long fallen in love with the players that they have and overpaid for them.

And that's where you could sort of have your cake and eat it too here, where you could make the case that playing someone younger or playing someone cheaper, who's a filler and drafting someone to develop is just a better plan even for the production not even just for the price but just for the economic decision of it and they've never wanted to be cold like that maybe the most glaring example was kyle rudolph they drafted herve smith rudolph wanted a big extension they just gave it to him same with with Delvin Cook. It was like, we can't live without him. We can't live without him. We love him. He's one of the faces of the

franchise. And those contracts often blow up. So I guess I look at it as they could make shrewd economic decisions and they could say, like, obviously we're still trying to win because Kirk is our quarterback and Jefferson is here and everything else, but guys get old. This is the reality of the NFL. So if they want to live in both worlds, I think that they can. I just feel like when you hire Brian Flores, maybe part of the selling point is, can you please use Harrison Smith better for us in his final year or two of his career? Yeah. I think it's also like, can you, can you actually show us if he's lost a step or not? You know, I mean, Harrison could have an all-pro year next year

if he's used the right way. You don't know that. Again, that's a coin flip, right? Has age really caught up with him, or is he still playing at a high level? Like, same with Eric Kendricks. Hey, if he's playing more man-to-man and he's blitzing more and he's, I mean, I think he almost set the rookie sack record as a rookie, as a linebacker for the Vikings.

Like, I was there. Like, he is a very good blitzer, and you paired him with a guy like Anthony Barr. And so, I mean, if you add even just one or two more guys that are in that three million to five million range that are good quality free agents, you know, I mean, Hicks is a guy last year they brought in. I mean, they thought he was going to be kind of that guy. You know, and he did. He flashed at times.

But I think that Flores can almost be a proving point of like, hey, we gave you these guys, and and yeah they were what they were or like look see they still are what they we what we think they are and we got one more great year out of them and then we move on you know I think that he could be kind of a proving marker too for man it really was Ed Donatel and these guys still are very good or yeah okay yeah these guys were a little slow and we got to move on and here's the the problem with that is can Josh Metellus be a starter in the league? Like maybe he's been a spectacular special teamer. He was great when he filled in, but you're not going to find out like, could he be Louis scenes partner for a long time? You're not going to find out if Harrison Smith stays there. And if you're already looking at this year, and I know that nobody wants to hear like white flag, it's not going to work out, but you also have to just

understand that, you know, regression is a thing and the schedule is a thing and so forth. And it's just hard to see it being better than it was last year. If you understand those things, you can find out whether Josh Metellus can play and boy, if he can, it's great for you, right? Then it's a younger player in his prime where you can extend after this and have him be Louis Scene's partner for a long time. You are never going to find out. And if they keep, and I think it's inevitable that they cut Jordan Hicks, but if they keep Kendrickson Hicks together and say, well, it was definitely Ed Donatell's fault. And then you don't play Brian Asamoah. You don't find out where he is and you waste another year of his rookie contract.

And I think that there's a big amount of value in finding out and also looking for other players in free agency who are 25 or 26 that there might be something there for the future that maybe this guy was a role player. And I'll give you an example. It would be J. Ron Curse. I mean, Dallas looked at J. curse and you know, J Ron has his shortcomings. But he is also a very uniquely gifted dude who Dallas and Dan Quinn spotted

brought in, like, you can do this with Brian Flores. And so I almost want to say like, believe in yourself that you don't have to continue to rely on these players who have just been here for a long time and aren't the same versions. I looked up Harrison Smith and again, like disclaimer about PFF grades with those two positions that don't always tell the exact story, but he was 28th out of 68th. Like that's real good, but it's certainly not worth $19 million on the salary cap. So I guess that's, I think that the argument uh is like how much you want to kind of lean into brian flores ability to build his own group as opposed to saying why

don't you just inherit the things that the last guy had and do it better because if it was the personnel and nobody could have done better then it's going to be a total disaster next year and we're going to be talking about uh an eight nine season that was just a big giant waste of time you're right i have no rebuttal to that you know the economics of football is a huge thing i will say this being in the world that i'm in right now this draft class isn't necessarily what i call the deepest draft class at every position it's very top heavy but then you're going to get into the middle rounds. You're going to hear names called and you're going to be like, who, who, who, who is that? It's just, it's not a super talented draft in the bottom parts of the rounds. And that's where you can usually find some of those big role players that are development guys that

can spot start for you and see how they grow. But that's another piece of it is, you know, if you don't hit with the guys that you want to in free agency, you're really betting on the draft. And that's a, that's a big thing for this. I mean, we don't have a ton of picks as it is. And, you know, we have other needs on the offensive side of the ball too.

So it's not like you can just draft all defensive players, but you know, this draft class isn't super talented. So it's just, it's a big roll of the dice, but I think Flores knowing him from talking to people in the NFL, he's going to walk in there with a plan. And he's going to say,

this is, and he probably did in his interview, this is what I'm going to do, take it or leave it. And I think the Vikings took it. And so I think they're going to give him a lot of freedom and he's going to be the one making these decisions for what his defense is going to look like. I also think that regardless of which direction they go,

that he's a great hire for them. Agreed. I think that if he's in a development role for next year and a scouting role in determining who can play and who can't, that's good. And I think he will use the players, or at least they are a better fit if they stay with it. I just can see the future of a 9-8 season or something because it's just going to be such a hard landscape to be able to do it.

Or an injury or something. We're talking about a guy like Anthony Barr late in his Vikings career where, I mean, I had the utmost respect for Anthony Barr, but if you're paying him a salary cap hit of $15 million and then he gets hurt, he's just like, okay, well, that just went down the drain and there was nobody else to be there because they hadn't developed anyone. So, you know, I think it's a very tricky situation

for them to be in and much easier for me to tell Brian Flores, why don't you just believe in yourself, bro? Like, just, just figure it out. You can do it. But let me ask you about a couple of other things. So Garrett Bradbury is a free agent and there's a report that the Vikings want to extend Ezra Cleveland. What should they, what should they do with their interior offensive lineman? I mean, just the other day reacting to that report, I said, I don't think it's a great idea to put down a whole ton of money for a guy who's one of the worst graded pass blockers in the league and Ezra Cleveland. So maybe we could start there.

You know, it goes back to how we started the show. Like, are we trying to keep the same five right are we trying to keep them all together for another year you know okay we have our left tackle and Darisaw do we want to keep the guy that was next to him for all the snaps do we want to keep him there and then do we want to keep the guy that's been the man in the middle for so long who had statistically and grade-wise besides the injury one of the better years of his career you know he did and usually guys going to the contract you're due it's just kind of a it's kind of an unlike there's a little bit of that extra bump in your butt when you're trying to say hey I want to go get paid um you know and then you have Eddinger him on a rookie deal and

then you have one of the best right tackles in the league at Brian O'Neill you know so it really depends of like hey do we want to go and try and find new guys that are going to be the face of our offensive line for the next five years or do we want to try and keep the next two to three years together in this front and you know I think that it would be very typical Vikings fashion to go out and let and let um Ezra walk and then go find a middle role player guard that started some not really a la Nick Easton type of thing where they bring him in and say okay we're gonna draft a guy you're gonna start for a year you're gonna start the season if things don't go well we're gonna bring the guy in that we drafted I can see them going that route but I am I'm not a huge fan of extending

Ezra Cleveland because his market value is actually gonna to be fairly high. A guy that started a lot of football, guys played a ton of football, had a decent year, not a great year. But, you know, he's going to get paid by someone because of the experience factor. I just don't necessarily think he's going to be worth what the Vikings are going to he's going to ask for from the Vikings. You know, when he hits free agency, it'll be different. But you have a little bit more bargaining power when you're asking for extensions because you're in the building, right? And you're like, no, this is my guy. You're we're guys like, let's get it done. Let's get this deal done versus-friendly deal. But we're going to let you go hit free agency, and then you have two days to get back to us, or whatever it might be. But I'm not a huge fan of extending him or Garrett Bradbury, to be honest. I think if we're going to try and rebuild this offensive line with KOC's crew, let's go draft and hit a couple guys at free agency

that are going to be the face of the offensive line for the next five years, not the next two or one even. I think that what they would be concerned about with Ezra Cleveland is if you let him go into the final year of his career and he plays great or I mean not his career his contract his rookie deal and uh hopefully not his career we've seen that happen though in Minnesota knees and so forth uh but uh assuming just his contract, if he plays great, then it's like, oh, well, we missed our chance. And now he's going to want way more money. And now he's probably just going to leave because he's going to be disrespected because all the youths are disrespected all the time.

So, you know, it's like we don't want that. And his physical upside is really, really good uh i guess for me it's the fundamental issue of having the same problems over and over again not understanding you know stunts twists things like that being beaten quickly many many times is something that i don't know if you just snap your fingers and fix but also it is i mean the offensive linemen take the longest to develop of any position and we've even seen that from garrett bradbury so it's a very hard bet to make like take the longest to develop of any position, and we've even seen that from Garrett Bradbury. So it's a very hard bet to make. Like, do you try to kind of get in before he has a great year or something,

and then you're going to lose him, and then you lose a great player? Or are you, like, going to make a bet and pay somebody out big money like the Vikings almost did with Matt Khalil? They put down a big offer to Matt Khalil and he turned them down. And imagine what that would have looked like in 2017 as opposed to the solid Riley Reif. I think that would have been a disastrous contract. And you just don't know.

Like you can't predict the future with these things no matter how many analytics you have. But I think it's kind of risky to bet on someone who's been a poor pass blocker. I just think that the risk is very high there. And if he hits free agency and becomes one of the highest paid guards next year, because he played well, Oh, well, like I'm willing to take that risk because there's always guards in free agency. And it shouldn't be a position that you're normally paying out massive dollars,

unless you're like, you know know uh kansas city was like right on the cusp and you just need joe tooney or something like that but i don't know that that's a really again like a really smart economic decision but teams seem to love like their own guys and maybe the traits element is outweighing the actual production element which seems to be kind of how they view both of their guards. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of it's going to depend on if coach Cooper stands on the table and pounds for him too. You know, if coach Cooper's like, no, no, I can get the most out of this guy. And we saw flashes of it this year. You know, I need one more full off season

with him. I need one more OTAs training camp. Like again, you can't, you can't buy the experience. He has the experience. And so it's like, okay, he has all that. Now can we just clean his mistakes up? Can we clean his technical issues up? But I didn't see a ton of technical improvement throughout the year. It was kind of like he came into the year playing what he was, and he finished the year what he was. And when you're talking about paying a guy, you want to see technical improvement on the things that have been poor

for multiple years, not just one, and be like, okay, we're going to pay him because he can get these things fixed now. So a lot of us can be telling if Cooper pounds the table for him or not. And again, we won't know because we're not in those meetings, but I think that's going to be a big factor. If Cooper's like, this is my guy or Hey, let's go find someone else. Uh, your thoughts on the potential of re-signing Garrett Bradbury? The back thing scares me. You know, if you miss as much time as he did with the back that he had, that's a really tricky injury for especially an offensive lineman, especially an undersized offensive lineman who gets bull rushed a lot.

You know, it's one of those things that we don't know the severity of it. You know, it took him, he missed five games this year, four games. I can't think of that but like that's a that's a big chunk of time to miss and you saw it when he came back in the playoff game he wasn't quite right um you know so a lot of the extension thing for him is going to be the extent of his back injury and also again it's hard to find centers in this league and so teams are going to be looking for centers you know so, so that's another one of, are we wanting to get more of a pass blocking center in here? You know, I think Garrett Bradbury was perfect

for a Clint Kubiak offense with his ability to run and do things in space and reach those noses and do all that versus a more of a KOC offense. You're looking for kind of the Mitch Morris is the guys that are a true pass blocking center. Cause you're going to drop back 50 times a game. You know, so I think a lot of it's just going to be philosophy wise of is he a right fit for this offense or is he not? And is the price point the same? You know, is the price point for what we're looking for? Or can we go draft a center or can we find a center and free agency that fits what our offensive scheme is the most and build from the interior out since we already have our tackles? I think it's a little bit of a difficult position because if they stay with Kirk Cousins as their

quarterback, which I assume they're going to do, he has played with Bradbury for a long time. Quarterback and center chemistry, I think, is a pretty important thing and if you're just sort of going out if you're adding a rookie then we've kind of been through that before and how difficult that is for a rookie uh even if it is the top rookie prospects say from minnesota um but uh but it is there is a challenge there of developing that player on the fly in the nfl and then when you go to the free agent list and you see some guys who are going to get some big contracts, well, if you're out on Bradbury, you're probably out on those two. And then you're kind of scrambling to like,

is there a veteran guy? There used to be a guy, I think his name was Doug Ligurski. Played with Doug Ligurski in 2014 2014 we went through six centers in San Diego in 2014 I I covered Doug Ligurski a little bit and he first of all he's the smallest offensive lineman I think I've ever met like he was he was as small or smaller than Nick Easton you're just like wait you're the center but also he was like this scrappy veteran dude who you didn't really want to start the whole season but like he could kind of fill in or something. I don't know if that's like what you want though, for the Vikings with Kirk cousins is your quarterback over 17 games.

I don't know that you want a Doug Ligursky all respect to him though. What a career for a guy who like was not that big and just scrapped his way to being a solid NFL player. So, but those guys are backups. And if you look at the free agent list, there's like five starters and then it's a bunch of Doug Ligurskis. And that's pretty tricky. I think that Garrett Bradbury kind of holds some cards here with the Vikings. And he could say like, I showed you guys that I could play better than I did before, better in your system. The shotgun stuff probably helps quite a bit. But I also think that paying a center a ton of money is a risky thing

because if you're not a top five center, then the difference between the sixth and the 18th best is probably close. I think this is a difficult decision. I also think they really like him. I mean, I think that he's a good personality for the room and all that sort of stuff. So I wouldn't be surprised if they do find a way to work out an extension. You know, the only reason I think that they wouldn't is to save some money. You know, like you said, you know, this is a team that needs money. It's got a lot of holes to fill, not just on the defensive side, but the offensive side too. And so if you're willing to bet,

yeah, again again the age thing comes into play here right he's got a lot of miles on him he's played a lot of football are you willing to extend your center if like you talked about the Anthony Barr situation if his back is even questionable questionable going into next year like and you pay him and extend him and then he gets hurt in week four and he misses five games again next year like that's money that you're just burning and again you saw what happened I mean when you have a starting center when you bring a backup center look what happened in Tampa this year right Ryan Jensen gets hurt in training camp and they really never kind of got it put back together there the whole time that he was out and so for me a lot just can be depend on injury of how significant that injury is for him. If it's a

long-term thing, you know, backs aren't something that just like go away. You know, those are big time rehabs, big time, future potential risks for back injuries. And I've seen an end guy's career guy, Richard Ornberger comes to mind. I played with Richie again in 2014, where we had all those things go down where he had a minor back injury at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year was herniated disc. he I remember him laying like a ninja turtle on his shell in the back like after a game because he couldn't move you know because he was in so much pain and so for me it just goes back to a risk factor and I think you can save some money at that position by a drafting a center or a guard that you think can play center or whatever

it may be and then bringing a veteran center in not quite a doug lagursky level you know but there's guys that are out there that can play center a tyler larson from the washington commanders comes into mind a guy's played a lot and i have a development system there but i do think kirk cousins hold a lot of cards in this you know a quarterback can make or break whether they keep a center or not you know if kirk cousins like no no you're bringing him back because he's my guy what are you going to tell kirk no you're not going to tell him no you're going to be like okay well we're bringing we're bringing garrett back now how long you extend him is the question it also depends on how much they want to let kirk cousins have a say in what they're doing

because his future is up in the air as well. I mean, this is, it's remarkable. The number of decisions that have to be made and every single one of them is like the matrix where if you pull this lever, then this lever pops up and you just have so many, is that how the matrix works? And then you have just so many different things that all impact each other with the decisions, offense or defense, because if you do let some of those defensive players go

it's easier to afford a Garrett Bradbury and there's just so many moving parts uh to this but uh you know there's also a big game to be played uh on this Sunday what uh are you most excited about of Super Bowl what are we at now 69 where are we at Super Bowl something 57 maybe whatever I think it's 57 whatever Super Bowl Super Bowl, big game, Eagles, Chiefs. What are you excited about? You know, I'm excited for Jalen Hurts. You know, it's so much. And I'll be the first one to admit it.

I mean, I even saw the reporter that, like, apologized to him at the press conference. I was like, sorry, I didn't think you were going to make it. I was like, okay, first of all, just don't even say that. Stop. Grow up. That's so cheesy. That's so bad. But I'll be the first to admit, you know, last year I was like, I don't know if he can become that elite quarterback. You know, he was kind of not throwing guys open, waiting for things to develop. But it goes back to show how much a guy can develop over a year. So I'm excited for him and his ability to get in this offense and run this offense well. And I'm just really excited to watch these fronts you know everyone can say oh we all the skill position but these are two of the most dominant offensive lines really in in the NFL right now Eagles definitely get the nod there you know but you have dominant

defensive line for Philly you have a really good pass rush in Kansas City with Chris Jones and those guys on the edges so I mean this is gonna be a true clash of the trenches type of battle and as an offensive lineman you can't ask for, I mean, this is going to be a true clash of the trenches type of battle. And as an offensive lineman, you can't ask for anything better. I mean, it's going to be a true kind of grind it out in the run game with Sanders and his Jarek McKinnon, Clyde Edwards, a layer is back. And, um, you know, Pacheco has been just running really hard up the middle for Kansas city and, you know, Boston Scott, and it's just so much of the run game. And so often I feel like you go into the quarter, you going to the super bowls talking about the quarterbacks and rightfully so right my homes but i really think the run games can be what makes the difference of a winning and losing the super bowl and i couldn't be more excited to watch those dudes up front you would

think that you would i would i would tell me i'm wrong tell me i'm wrong rebuttal that point but no no matter how uh enlightened you are as a media member and so forth, you got to meet for a heart. So that's what you are. No, yeah, I mean, I think on Philly's side, I mean, how effectively they can run the ball. I don't think it's whether they can. It's just can they dominate with it?

Because the Chiefs are not great at stopping the run. What I love about this matchup is it's the better roster versus the better quarterback, which to me just says really even. I mean, I think that Jalen Hurts has enough weaknesses that you'd be concerned about, but some of those are covered up by the fact that he can run. I mean, Mahomes and the performances that he's put on in the playoffs would suggest that he can beat just about anyone I think there is some validity to the fact that the Eagles played one of the

easiest schedules in the NFL as everyone in the NFC did I mean there is some validity to that I don't know how well uh they can cover what Andy Reid is going to bring to them I just feel like this is it's a slug fest in the offensive side. And this could be one of those like 31, 28 type of classic games. So I, yeah, I'm, I'm very excited about it, but I'm not surprised that you would start by focusing on that. So who do you think is going to win Philly? I think Philly is going to win. And I think it's going to be because of clock management. You know, I think, how do you eliminate patrick mahomes you keep him off the field i don't care if the dude's got a peg leg like you just can't let him out there like the things he can create and do and he's

gonna be better i mean the fact that he had an extra week here is absolutely enormous i mean he's gonna be he's gonna be light and day night and day better than he was in the afc championship game you know so you just gotta find a way to keep him off the field you know so I think part of what Philly's plan is is going to be the clock management with that offensive line milking it down to 40 seconds even if it's in the second quarter and doing all those things to a frustrate my homes but you know I think something that got really kind of under looked throughout this because of how easy of a schedule Philly had is the depth on their defensive line is really quite crazy. I mean, you talk about their starters and you've got Riddick who has an incredible year. You have Fletcher Cox, you have Brandon Graham, who's

still producing at a high level. And then you have, oh, by the way, guy named Adamic and Sue, who's played forever as a role player. Now you have Linville Joseph as your starting nose guard. You have like, it's just crazy. The depth that they can rotate in and keep guys fresh for the entire game. And they've been doing it all year. And so if you can start to make this a one-dimensional game for Kansas city and not allow them to run the football at all, and just start rotating those pass rushers in there by the third, fourth quarter, like it's going to make a huge difference. And so if you can control the clock early on, which I think Philly will do in the first quarter and for the second quarter

just controlling the clock and then make it a shootout if it's close in the second half I give the nod to Philly which is that defensive rush to be able to get to my homes more times and they're gonna be able to get to Jalen Hurts I'm gonna pick Kansas City and also if I'm wrong I won't apologize for it because I wouldn't apologize for any opinion. I mean, I, that to me is one of the most corn ball things I think I've ever seen. That's, that's a reporter trying to get attention for himself. That's all that was because that's, look, we all work with the information that we have at the time. Now, personally, I thought Jalen Hurts was going to be really good. Uh, so that worked out great for me, but,

um, if I had been wrong, I would say here's why it was wrong or here's why it didn't work out or worked out differently than I thought. And that's interesting. That's an interesting discussion. Why should I apologize for working with the information that I had at the time? If I'm saying right now, I think the Viking schedule of quarterbacks is going to be amazing next year and they're screwed. And then those quarterbacks get hurt what was i supposed to know that today like that's not how any of this works that's that is like the look at me is look at me thing and that person should be embarrassed but that is the year 2023 for you so i'm excited about the super bowl man and uh i assume we're going to plan one more show oh yeah we gotta do a

wrap-up and there'll be something crazy biking related before it's all said and done it's just how it goes there'll be one more crazy thing between now next week that happens and we'll break down the kirk trade to uh carolina no it's just but yeah all right so at least one more and then it'll be more periodic when things happen throughout the off season and and so forth and you're going to be very busy during draft season. But I will say this, even though we'll have another show that this season just as a whole week in and week out was our most fun by far.

I mean, just such an entertaining season for the Vikings. We had so much fun and the playoffs have been crazy. And I just can't thank you enough for the insight that you bring for the entertainment value as well and I told the agent that you work for at the combine last year when we met like I think Jeremiah has some special abilities and I don't know how long you'll be doing broadcasting like this with your success on the agent side but you really do have a special ability to convey the game and I get so many messages from people saying they can't wait for a Tuesday

morning left guard, even if it comes out on Wednesday or whenever. So I just can't thank you enough for everything for the season. Oh man. I appreciate that. It's a blast. I echo everything. It's been so much fun.

You know, it helps when we get the script at the beginning of the year, we can just know that it's going to be a fun year. And so we just, we get that script right as training camp starts and we're like, man, 13 win season, let's go. Cause the last two years we got in the script. I'm like, ah, it's going to be the same thing. Um, but no, I'm kidding. Uh, thanks everyone for listening. You know, I get messages too, about, um, breaking things down and talking to, I love it. I mean,

regardless of where I go, you know, the Vikings are always going to be a team that I always root for regardless. I spent three years of incredible times up there, met incredible people like yourself. And I mean, it's just a great place and I'm up there all the time. My gym's right across the street. I'm there with our offensive lineman training up there. So I'll always be around for Viking land. Um, and I just really appreciate everyone listening as well. Wait. So if you knew the script, why did you declare them to have a good offensive line at the beginning of the year you can't give away the script oh okay all right the script is for our eyes only it's you gotta build suspense Matthew gosh come on what is this first time okay I was looking for an apology there for that opinion but uh anyway

all right thanks Jeremiah thanks everybody for a really fun year enjoy the Super Bowl and uh we'll catch you next week