Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Kevin Cole breaks down his 'analytics' draft board

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Matthew Coller is joined by Kevin Cole of the Unexpected Points newsletter to discuss his analytics big board and what the Vikings should do in the draft.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of purple insider Matthew collar here and joining the show for the 100th time, Kevin Cole, the unexpected points newsletter. And I was just reading it here on my phone, the analytical big board. And when this came out, I immediately sent Kevin a message and said, you got to come on the show because your analytical big board doesn't like a lot of these Vikings potential prospects. So, uh, what is going on, Kevin?

How are you? I'm doing well. Um, may have to check the data on the hundredth appearance. I'm, I'm taking, taking the under on that, but we'll, we will get there. We will get it's gotta be close. You've been doing this for quite some time now and, you know, going back to your time at PFF and then now, uh, with your awesome newsletter, the focus is on football analytics and we lost a couple of people to the NFL who were doing

really cool data science stuff, like our friend, Eric Eager and people like that. So, uh, you know, you're, you, you've risen to the top of the rankings here with some of your analytical work. And I appreciate that. So let's, uh, let's talk about this, uh, analytical big board. What I like about it first, Kevin, is that, um, it's a little different from a lot of the big boards that essentially by the time we get to the draft, I'm just going to say it, they mostly look the same by, I mean, everybody you click on a big, Oh, that guy's a 22 instead of 25. And you know, I understand why that happens. We all look at the same people a million times and there's some thought leaders and information comes out, things like that.

People shift their boards around. But what you attempted to do was also weigh in the positional value the surplus of drafting certain positions And let me just start with this statement a lot of the positions I think the Vikings could take are not necessarily the highest on the surplus value and That's probably because you know the Vikings aren't gonna pick an offensive tackle Which you you would usually have high but I want to begin with one position. I could see them taking that a lot of the guys were much lower on your board than they are on a lot of the other boards, which is cornerback.

Have we lost the cornerback position as being considered premium in this world? Because a lot of the guys, even Judd a Baron who I really like for the Vikings, Trey Amos players like that are really not among your top guys on this analytical board. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe I'll just explain as quickly as possible the, the, the analytical big board. So it, it looks at second contracts, how much value players are typically getting out of position when they're drafted at a certain draft slot on

average, you know, smoothing it out along the way there and Then it says okay. We know what the rookie contracts are going to cost that is locked in for the next four years So how much additional value could you expect drafting certain players at certain? Positions so so that's kind of the the framework for this and as you mentioned, of course Quarterbacks get moved way up or even a low end starting quarterback, according to my numbers, is probably gonna be making $25 million a year or something in that neighborhood.

We saw Justin Fields go for 20 million a year here. And then next is, and this is research I've done a few years ago and updating as it goes along, I kind of divide the non-quarterbacks into three different tiers. So the top tier who are expensive for second contracts and are difficult to find outside of, really, the first round, but even outside the first couple of rounds are Offensive Tackle, Edge, Rusher, and Interior, really, Pass, Rusher, we're talking about on the defensive line. So what's interesting is

prior analysis, I had tier two being wide receiver and cornerback. Now, and as you mentioned, cornerbacks have fallen a bit relative to wide receivers because we've seen these very enormous wide receiver contracts come out. We've also seen early wide receiver picks, like let's say a Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, maybe not that early, but at least first round there was like this first round curse going on with wide receivers for quite a number of years. So we've seen them making a lot of money and more success early, but still success in the second and third rounds. So they've almost separated, they've almost formed a 1B type of tier below these other ones. And then cornerback has left after that. So if you look at like the top 10 contracts in the NFL right now between

wide receivers and cornerbacks, I think nine out of 10 are wide receivers in an annual per year. So it really shows the separation there. So for that reason, cornerback has fallen down a bit. So for me, it was a tier two position, but now it's actually kind of fallen a little bit further versus wide receivers. And that's why you can find them, but they're just not as valuable. If you look at the contract that's stingily signed, it's just not on the level of a Justin Jefferson or someone like that. And the impact I think has also been a bit more muted in the first round versus finding some guys in the second or third round that can be very successful. Well, there's a couple of things there. I mean, this is really speaking to my argument that the Viking should draft a wide receiver in the first round is because the prices have exploded for wide receivers. And the one I really look at to demonstrate just how ridiculous prices are for receivers these days is DK Metcalf.

I mean, DK Metcalf is coming off of a pretty poor year overall, the worst of his career since he was a rookie and he lands $32 million a year, which is only 3 million behind Justin Jefferson. And they had to give up draft capital to bring him in. And I know Pittsburgh is a pretty desperate franchise for weapons, but I mean, that's the price of playing poker here with wide receivers. And when teams get good ones, they do not let them go. So I think that contract for Christian Kirk a couple years ago, and this is even before they added 60 more million to the salary cap.

It was like 18 million a year. What's Byron Murphy Jr. Getting who's a really good outside corner and has flexibility and the team loves him. It's making like 18 million a year. I mean, that's what an above average, really solid, really good top 30 corner is making the same as a guy who is not even a good wide receiver. I mean, it's kind of crazy.

And if you go into the receiver market and free agency and try to pick somebody up, I mean, I just wish the best of luck to you. You usually have to trade for somebody else's angry wide receiver who is demanding out of another team. That's not all that favorable. The best place to get them is in the draft. And I, I totally agree with you.

I think that it's become almost like a second quarterback for wide receivers with how much value they are. But with corners, I also think that teams are playing so much zone these days that there isn't this crazy value of the one guy who can shut down the other team's other one guy. I just don't think that really exists in the NFL so much anymore. Kevin. Yeah.

I don't think it exists that much. I mean, the, the dynamic that's like to this oft quoted, but we mentioned Eric Eager earlier, we talks about the kind of the strong link versus the weak link in the system. So if you have a quarterback group in the quarterback in the offense has at least to some degree the ability to, you know, seek out who they want to target on there. If you did have a lockdown, you know, Darrell, you know, Darrell R the style of corner, if that's such a thing existed anymore. Well, you just don't really throw to those guys anymore. Now you typically have a second or a third receiver who's pretty good, you have a tight end where most tight ends nowadays, if you look at the, the just look at simply at weight as for guys who are playing out there on the field is going further and

further, and they're not lining up on the line nearly as often you have running backs who become more and more involved in the passing offense. And you just have a lot of quick passing, which also comes into play too, as, you know, what can you do as a cornerback? You don't want to, not giving up a big third down, down the field, that's a highly valuable thing. If they're just dinking and dunking, then there's maybe not quite as much control on there. So yeah, so that's, that's a big factor. You mentioned the difficulty of getting the wide receivers. Yeah, it's actually reached the point where it's very similar now to offensive tackle in terms of guys not leaving, like the top contracts in the NFL, not leaving to go to other teams. Yet we have seen that happen, but it normally comes with, and we

talk about DK Metcalf here, we talk about AJ Brown maybe before, with boatloads of draft capital going in the other direction when it does happen, it doesn't happen in free agency. And hell, we've even seen it for these old guys like Devontae Adams and Tyreek Hill just get masses of amounts of trade compensation despite the fact that they're going into their late 20s. I'm just not sure if we're gonna see that for quarterback, but it could be a talent issue also, right?

I mean, there could be something where we don't have a Deon Sanders like prospect or a Revis type prospect or the guys that we've seen before. So there could be some pushing back in that direction. But I think generally just the degree of options that offensive has lowers the usefulness of a single great quarterback. Well, and I really think of it through the lens of how

the Vikings play in terms of what they asked their corners to do Which is basically be in the right spot and then rally to tackle because they send a lot of blitzes They cause a lot of pressure and the ball comes out pretty quickly So if you can be in the right spot and you can tackle you've got a pretty good chance to be a good Vikings corner I do think there is certain guys that rise way above the level of Patrick Surtain would be a good answer to that, but it's almost like the tight end position where there's five guys who are really worth it and they move the needle and they're great. And the other ones you can kind of find a guy.

And I think that free agency showed us that with corners this year that there was a DJ Reed or various war. There was a bunch of guys who you would have been happy with on the free agent market. That's just not the case at the wide receiver position. But Vikings fans have heard me bang that drum enough throughout this draft season. Let's talk about a trade up for a cornerback is what we're saying. I mean, it's possible.

I guess I think I look at guys who might be a good fit, but I also think that the Vikings have a lot of needs at position and, uh, no, no, quasi.foments. I said, we call them wants now. So sorry. They have the Vikings have a lot of wants. Well, they aren't as desperate as they used to be for some of these positions, but they have a lot of wants at positions that are not thought of as being very high on your list as the analytical type, highest value positions. Safety is one of them.

Guard is one of them. We talked about corner here. The intriguing one to me that I think is getting to the same area as wide receiver is defensive tackle where they don't hit free agency very often. If a good one hits free agency, someone goes crazy and pays Christian Wilkins 25 million or Milton Williams 25 million when those guys are good, but they're not Warren Sapp or something. I think that that is a good play that sort of melds something they could use along with a high positional value or a positional value that seems to be rising in the NFL.

Look guys, I am just about at the age where I'm starting to notice that hairline fading a little bit. So if you're struggling with the same problem, allow me to make a suggestion. Give Hims a try. Try Hims Hair Loss Solutions and you'll be joining the hundreds of thousands of subscribers who found their hair again. Hims provides you with a convenient quality access to a range of hair loss treatments that work all from the comfort of your couch.

Just answer a few questions and a medical provider will determine if treatment is right for you. And if prescribed, your treatment is sent directly to you with no shipping costs. The process is simple, 100% online, and there are no uncomfortable doctor visits. No insurance is needed, and one low price covers everything from treatments to your ongoing care.

HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers, and they can help you get your confidence back with visibly thicker and fuller hair. Start your online visit today at HIMs.com slash purple insider. That's H I M S dot com slash purple insider for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Hims.com slash purple insider results vary based on studies of topical and oral, minoxidil and finaster Prescription products require an online consultation

with healthcare provider, and will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply, see website for details, and important safety information. Yeah, yeah, I mean, my thought on the wants, needs, you know, desires, whatever you want to say for different positions is that outside of quarterback, and I'm even a little bit less,

even when it comes to quarterback, as far as having that box checked than a lot of people may have, teams should really not assume that they have a lot of these boxes checked. Now you mentioned offensive tackle. That's probably the closest equivalent being that you don't come off the field unless you're injured,

but at the same point in time, if you have a good third kind of swing tackle, that's probably the closest equivalent being that you don't come off the field unless you're injured. But at the same point in time, if you have a good third kind of swing tackle, you have two tackles who have to maintain not getting injured, you know, there's going to be some more usefulness than they're there, than there will be for let's say a backup quarterback. But beyond that, I mean, it's almost like you don't even have any boxes checked. If you think you have boxes checked, you think you have pass rush checked, who knows what's gonna happen there? You have guys who are injured. You think you have interior pass rush checked.

Who knows what's gonna happen there? You have guys getting injured. You can rotate players. You can use multiple players. There's not really like a continuity sort of aspect there. And then of course, we talked about cornerback. You talked about receivers. Do you really gonna have all three of those boxes checked

for your wide receivers you're gonna need? Probably not what's going on there. So for me, it's about attacking the value at least early in the draft. Maybe you can try to use a number of darts on positions later on in the draft that you're trying to fill with one particular guy, but I'm not for this checking boxes going for needs in the, in the NFL draft in

particular, where everyone says, like, people love to say, Best Player Available. And then quite often, you see them taking the position that you thought that they were going to take. Because I think that the pull of that, the pull of looking at that roster and just seeing the, the, the starters all line up in a way that looks like this is a playoff team is a little bit too strong for people. And they don't kind of realize the chaos that we get into sometimes before even the season starts with what's going on in the depth chart. Well, and that's why just everything comes back to wide receiver for me. That's why with wide receiver, I mean, things can change fast. You're one injury away from Jalen Naylor is

your wide receiver too. You are a suspension away with Jordan Addison for having to figure that out. And when Jordan Addison is ready for his fifth year option, what is that dollar figure going to be? And it happens fast. Things change fast in the NFL with depth charts with the defensive tackle position specifically, the Vikings go out and spend a lot of money on Javan Hargrave and also Jonathan Allen. But you mentioned the rotational aspect. I think a 500 snap defensive tackle is really valuable in the NFL because that means someone else only has to

play a run out there for 500 snaps. And if you have those guys, fresh, healthy, and they're going up against the offensive guards who have played, you know, 55 minutes in a game at the end, I think that that's an edge of just having fewer snaps. We think of, oh, well, this guy played more snaps. He's more valuable. That's true. But we've also seen someone like Harrison Phillips,

I think it ground down as he goes along playing 700 to 800 snaps. And you could draft someone that if they click, they could be good for a really, really long time. That's what I like about the defensive tackle position. Those guys year in and year out, like, what do you expect from Vita via next year? He'll just be great. Right?

Like, do we ever say, well, you know, he could go up or down. Not really. Not with that position. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a reason why the concept of motor, uh, someone's motor in only really comes up in the, for the defensive line because you know, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of work.

And when you're, we're on the offensive line, you kind of let the player come to you a little bit more than, than vice versa. So it's a ton of work and I wouldn't be surprised and I don't have the exact data to work on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if teams are looking at this also, is that maybe conceptually like we've seen in baseball with starting pitchers, I think we probably should see a little bit more with pass rushers in the NFL where we say, yeah, this guy is a high level guy above above someone else. But if you bring in someone who's fresh, you bring in someone who maybe has a move or two that they haven't

seen offensively, because remember, they're the ones responding. It's like how the batter is responding to what the pitcher is doing. On the other side, they can kind of get into a little bit of a groove, I feel like more on the offensive side than on the defensive side there too. So having fresh bodies to throw at at the problem and especially knowing as the course of the game is going where you may be facing a lot more passes,

other things may be going on, you can adjust based upon who you need in those positions whereas two very different skill sets versus stopping the run versus stopping the pass. It's just a position where there should be more duplication and maybe not as much reliance on the top names. Well, and this is where the one area where I am completely unprepared in this draft is edge rusher because the Vikings have Andrew van Ginkel, Jonathan Grenard, and they spent

so much to get Dallas Turner. So I don't expect them to do that. But if they did, it would be hard to argue that they were crazy because you just don't get what they, what they got last year out of those edge rushers. It was basically a thousand snaps each. That's abnormal. That's not something that you even want for Jonathan Grenard to be out there for 70 snaps or Andrew van ginkle.

Now you can move around a little bit more, but Grenard being asked to play the entire game every single game is just a lot, uh, to, to put on his plate. So even if they did something like that and drafted an edge rusher, I think the entire world would be perplexed, but that's another surplus value position that we've just seen. Miles Garrett get his new contract that putches, pushes them up into that position. So I don't think that Jaylen Walker is going to drop to 24, but if somebody like that did who has exceptional pass rushing ability, I might say, all right, well, whatever, like figure out a way to play that guy.

Maybe that's where I need to do my final draft prep is just make sure I know who these people are because I haven't looked at the guy from Marshall or the guy from Texas A&M, cause I just don't expect them to go in that position. Now, let's look at another, a couple other spots here. Safety on your board is just really nowhere close to a lot of the other top positions. Melikai Starks is really interesting to me for the Vikings because he plays multiple positions because Harrison Smith is probably going to retire after this year. Uh, Theo Jackson is a good player for them. I think is going to be a good player, but hasn't proven anything in the league yet.

At the same time, safety would set off my analytical brain a little bit too. I just don't know. That was my issue in 2022 when they took Lewis scene that even if he had turned out to be a good player, that's someone you can get in free agency to be a good player. The guy has to be unbelievable in order to justify taking in the first round. You agree with that? you can't, rather than be racked with this kind of emotional trade off of what you're going to do, just throw some money at some safeties and free agencies and then you don't have to worry about being put in this type of situation. Now, not everyone can do that. It doesn't always come up. There are some safeties who end up having what looks like fairly absurd contracts sometimes in the off season that don't end up panning out. So I'm not saying just waste money on that sort of thing.

But there can be some benefit to doing that. And again, I would just say things are going to open up. We don't know what's going to happen. Players can still develop. One thing I wanted to go back on just really quickly though when we go to EdgeRusher is that there's also another thing to think about when we're talking about the needs versus desires versus everything else. You know players outside of the quarterback, maybe outside

of offensive line who have a little bit longer timeline, what we know about what they're going to do next year is actually a lot less than what we think there we know. What we know we're going to do, they're going to do in two years is all, is basically almost nothing for, for some of these positions at certain ages, three years and so on and so forth. I mean, of all the different players, of all the different positions, EdgeRusher, according to research has been done by Timo Riske at PFF, actually has the least amount of contribution year one, and then really has a big jump in year two and year three. Now, sometimes you don't see that. Sometimes you get these guys firing right out of the box, but it's also a thing to think about

if you feel like you have stability in the organization, if you feel like you have a timeline, if you feel like, I don't know, if you have a quarterback who's gonna be starting for the first time and maybe next year or the year after that when Jefferson's still in his prime and everything else is going forward, can really be the time to go for it.

You can also think about spending these positions knowing that year two, year three is when things are really gonna come into play. It's not the easiest decision to make. Again, it doesn't look as good when you're looking at a roster and you have those names on there. When you have them two or three lines down

rather than starting, but it's something to also consider as part of building this puzzle, not only for this year, but in, but in future years, if they take an edge rusher, there's going to be egg on everybody's face who has talked about the Minnesota Vikings, but I think what you just said, it makes it justifiable. I mean, if you were rotating in guys and, uh, developing somebody for the future, like Van Ginkgold's contract is up after this year.

They may extend him and that might change the equation here. But as of right now, he's not under contract. And so you've got Granard and Dallas Turner who's unproven and throwing. I think what one of the things Philadelphia has done and when you succeed in the draft, we hold you up as the draft king that they've just continued to say, we don't really care if we have more defensive linemen, we're just going to draft defensive linemen anyway.

And I'm sure there's been a lot of reaction there. That's like another one, really. And yet, you know, then you look at the Superbowl and they've got 50 guys running out there and making plays. So I will be unprepared and, uh, very surprised if they do that, but it will be also pretty justifiable. How do you feel about guard these days? There was a lot of discussion about guard because if we're talking about defensive tackles being crazy valuable, shouldn't the guys that block the defensive tackles also be

valuable? Yes and no. I mean I think there's definitely more value. We've seen contract values go up quite a bit. What's missing from the equation when it comes to guards is historically they haven't been drafted super early versus these other positions. We've seen it sometimes. Sometimes it's a good effect, sometimes it's not so great effect. But the other thing is when you look at free agency, a lot of the top contracts, a lot of the elite players have been players who have been fully let go in free agency and allowed to go and sign somewhere else, not even as part of a draft pick compensation. And I think that's really a function of the structure of the franchise tag, where the franchise tag gets a single one size fits all franchise tag on the entire offensive line. So if you're going to franchise tag a guard, you're putting them at an average top five salary for a tackle is what you're basically forced into doing as part of that equation.

So I think for that reason, they're let go a bit more. So it's more of a position I would say overspend and free agency. I'd be a little bit more comfortable than going early in the draft. But typically if you get to the mid rounds or if you get later, that's that, that's fine for me. Yeah. With the Vikings being with number 24, I think this does complicated a little bit when we talk about these positional values because they're not going in the top 10 here. And if they were picking a guard in the top 10 or safety in the top 10 here. And if they were picking a guard in the top 10 or safety in the top 10, you'd be like, that's a reach.

And that's not gonna get you what you think, even if it works out. And we'll talk about Ashton Gentile and where he is on this board for some of the same reasons. 24 with the potential to move back into the first round. So that's my question. The positions that are not being talked about by us here as the ones that you want to really go all in on because of the contract value, when does it become an

equation of that guy actually does make sense there if you can pick up extra draft capital down the road? Yeah. I mean, I think we'll just talk about interior offensive line or more really guard. I mean, centers and in a whole nother category as far as almost like the safety of the of the offense when just talk about Interior, Offensive, and Line. Or more really Guard. I mean, Centers in a whole other category as far as almost like the safety of the, of the offense when we talk about contracts there. Yeah, I mean, once we get into, the Guard is at the top of what the third tier of positions. So again, we had, you know, Tackle, Edge, Interior, Pass, Rusher, Wide Receiver, Cornerback, and then now this, everyone else falls into it. So they are more at the top, whereas safety is more at the bottom of that discussion. So as we get into the middle of the second round, it's more of a flattening of the value

that you'll get. So whether you take one at the end of the first round or at the end of the second round, you're not necessarily deriving a lot more value doing it at the end of the first round versus the end of the second round. So yeah, if you can combine these things together, trade backs are very powerful. And they essentially just give you more wiggle room to be wrong or to be not as right as you thought you were.

And you just accumulate that value, which can give you some more spots. So yeah, if you traded back, I think that's fine. Once we get into the middle of the second round, I think guard or some of these tier three positions are looking okay. But once we get to safety running back, maybe even tight end to some extent, second round. I think guard or some of these tier three positions are looking okay. Um, but once we get a safety running back, maybe even tight end to some extent, I'm a little

bit it's hard because there's just so few tight ends to really gauge how good they are. Then I'm looking more into the, into the third round or further back. Where do you stand on the Vikings potentially trading down? Cause I wrote about this quasi at Apple meant to talked about it a lot. And there's really this back and forth of if somebody who you have as a top 10 type of prospect top 15 drops to 24, then their value, if you think they're a potential star could be more say Justin Jefferson or Christian Derrsa could be a heck of a lot more than three or four players that you pick in the third and I go back through the Vikings third, fourth round picks.

And I go, I don't know, man, my pants are really not set on fire by looking at this Alexander Madison and Jaylen homes pick, right. And yet in the back end of the first round, the Vikings have picked some legitimate star players. At the same time, I understand what the, a lot of the math says about trading down and accumulating multiple players. So where do you stand on that? I don't really know how these things are viewed inside of NFL buildings,

but I'm always a little perplexed by the idea of a quote unquote true first round pick. Or these are the every team has somewhere it seems like between 12 and maybe 18 first round picks that they've graded as a first round pick. Somehow all 32 teams get one of those 12 to 18 players, which is I think is fine as this is always a little bit interesting in the actual first round. So because there is such a focus of it in some in some media things. Maybe it's overly weighted inside of draft rooms also to say, Hey, we check that box. At least by the numbers, some of these trade backs out of the first round into the second round can be very profitable

when you think about, you know, that you're not giving up a lot in value to move back the salary, there is a, like, if you look at the, the salary amounts that you're being paid, it goes down drastically. And then the next thing, it starts to flatten out a bit, but between pick 32 and 33, there's actually a drop. There's actually a, a large drop there. So you get that value when you're going back.

But I think teams are also maybe a little bit smarter about not trading up into the first round that we saw that a lot more in the past. We saw people like the Patriots and maybe the Ravens take advantage of that a lot more. And the Seahawks take advantage of that a lot more than what we've seen in the past. So either way, I would be willing to do it. It just all depends on what the compensation is going to be there because you do get a benefit going into the early second round versus the early first round just in salary again. It's an incremental benefit and that's what it comes out all this. Yes draft the best players. That's that's your number one way to win a championship and we're talking about the incremental benefits. I do think you want to do it. I think that this year in particular there will be a lot of differing opinions on which players are ranked in the top 15. And if the Vikings have one in particular that they think is going to be their guy star potential, perfect fit, they've, they've met them. They've talked to these guys, they've sit down with them.

They know all their friends. So if they love somebody, okay. Because they've put themselves in a position where if this draft pick does not work out, they still have a very strong roster. They can compete if the person doesn't succeed right away, they have time to develop them and that sort of thing. But it's hard to argue in this draft. When you look at doing, you know, use the PFF simulator or whatever, and you

move down to 34 and you go, all right, who's on the board that would fit the Vikings like, Oh, eight guys still are projected to fit them and be, you know, somebody that they could like there, why not pick up some extra capital? So I kind of look at it as one of those fluid situations where if Mason Graham drops for some reason and the Vikings are sitting there or whatever you go. All right. Well, just take that guy and don't worry about it. But if those guys are off the board for them,

it should be an easy decision. I do think it's hard though to make those trades work. On the PFF simulator, they always accept the trade, but they don't always accept the trade in real life. So that might be a hold up here for the Vikings actually getting decent value for their pick in a draft where a lot of people do seem to think their strength in the back end of the first and into the middle of the

second round. I want to talk about a couple of, uh, surprises on your board. Uh, one of them would be the gap between where Ashton Genti is going to be picked and where you have them. Uh, and I, a lot of people wanted to change the narrative on running backs for last year. And I do think running is being used more and it's being used a little more successfully and that if you can build a running attack, my gosh, it's worth its weight in gold.

Like everyone knows that, right? Having a great running attack is phenomenal, but I don't think that the viewpoint on running backs actually changed because when we went into free agency, it was like, Oh man, is someone going to pay Najee Harris like $18 million a year? And they didn't. And the Vikings went out and got Jordan Mason for basically nothing trading for him and then gave him a small contract.

I didn't see this explosion of love for the running back position. And I'm not convinced that we're going to see it outside of Ashton Gentile, but is he an exception to the rule for where you would draft these guys or would you still say even him? It's probably not worth it. Uh, I mean, I would say even for him, it's probably not worth it. I mean, we had a weird situation where the evidence that we got for the increasing value of running backs probably was most associated with what we saw from the Eagles and maybe even with the Ravens. But then, you know, we also have Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson there. We also have two running backs who were signed on the relative cheap. You know, when we talk about free agency, again,

I'm willing to waste that waste. That's not again, I'm willing to waste, not waste, that's not true. I'm willing to spend maybe a little bit more generously in free agency than some others because of the fact that you're not going to use the more valuable and limited draft capital that you have there. So I don't think we've got a ton of evidence that a running back in and of himself is going to redefine what an offense

is gonna be able to do running the ball without having these other things around around the offense. So I haven't seen a lot of evidence there. I would say I guess I have it as being at the end of the second round here. There is I will give a little caveat that the methodology for how this is done, you know, looks at their their veteran contracts for these types of players. So, the running back probably doesn't get enough credit for the fact that, as opposed to we talked about Edge Rushers and others not being, you know, straight out the box, very high value. The fact that they are so high valued, the fact that a lot of their value is kind of used up

maybe before they even get to their second contract, means maybe you could push them up a bit further, but for me, I don't know. I just feel like again, when you have so many boxes that I want to double check and triple check, uh, it's just going to move them down a bit for me. The running back position, I think has always been so much based on the environment and can you maximize the talents of that running back? So if you put, I don't know, Deandre Swift behind that offensive line in

Philly, he's pretty good. He's definitely not Saquon Barkley. But if you give Saquon Barkley a hunk of crap in front of him, which was what happened in New York, he averages four yards of carry like everybody else. And so I think it depends on the team and what you can give that guy that if you are the Jacksonville Jaguars and you're drafting Ashton Gentile to like change your franchise. It's just like B. John Robinson. Has he changed the Atlanta Falcons? Do you go into a game against the Falcons ago? There is no way we can stop

No, of course you don't but when you play the Lions you are terrified of Jameer Gibbs because he has all those other things He has the scheme. He has the passing game and he has the offensive line. I think we don't give the passing game enough credit for affecting the running back because the more terrified the defense is, the more too deep safety, all that sort of stuff. I think that's always existed. Even with a going back to like a Marshall folk. I mean, there's a lot of space for Marshall folk to work right.

And to maximize those freakish skills that he had. So if you were a great team already and you were ready to chase the Superbowl, if you're Kansas city and you draft him, then maybe I could say you could justify it. Although they drafted Clyde Edwards, a layer, and that didn't work out. The luxury pick. There are no luxury picks.

I guess it is hard. It is hard still to justify it. If you can't give that guy absolutely everything, uh, that he needs in front of him. So I want to ask you about, uh, the Vikings in general and just how good you think they're going to be the over under created a pretty interesting discussion that came out from ESPN bet with eight and a half and most folks here as they probably do in all NFL cities believe that their team should be better than an

eight and a half win football team. But I think it's justified for Vikings fans to think that coming off of a 14 win season things, some things will be harder. I'm sure health was a thing for them last year. Schedule with the AFC South was definitely a thing that drove a 14 win season. At the same time, they've spent a ton in free agency. They've got a ton of veteran talent, a very good coaching staff. Like how good do you think that they can be? I mean, I think they can be pretty good. I mean, I'm maybe a little bit higher on JJ McCarthy than

what the consensus might be. But, you know, there are the headwinds. The headwinds are, whatever you think about Sam Darnold, he had a great season last year. So if that's what has to be equaled, in a way, to get to the level that they were at, at least offensively, that's a, that's a, that's a tough go. Maybe it's, maybe you could do a little bit better in the probability of eventual season-ending collapse being also a little bit higher with Sam Darnold, and we saw that last year. I mean, the other thing working against them is, of course, the defense being so good last year that it just typically isn't the case that you see that year over year, or there's more instability there because you don't have the

equivalent of the quarterback keeping the floor and the ceiling a bit higher there. So, and then you combine it with the fact that we'll see with the Bears, but you do have a quarterback entering his second season, which typically there's a jump up as far as that's concerned. And then you have a couple of other very, very strong teams who don't have major pieces moving apart. It looks like what could have been already the best division in football, statistically, likelihood may be even higher that that ends up happening again. So there's a lot of headwinds, I guess I would say. But at the same point in time, when you have a quarterback

and you have a new quarterback coming into the mix, I still get excited for the possibility of getting that elite play and pushing everything forward. Because there are scenarios, at least, where you get such good play out of the quarterback that even if the defense does fall off, you can still maybe not have as many wins but have a stronger team to eventually compete for a Super Bowl. So the you know, you weigh everything together. And if you're going to come out with a median type of number, which is what we're talking about for a win total, the fact that it's at eight and a half, although it's skewed to the upside. So it's probably more

between eight and a half and nine. It might be correct, but it doesn't mean that the tail end of the outcomes that are higher isn't looking fairly strong. The defensive side. That was why they invested what they invested to try to stay off regression. I think when they went out and got Hargrave and Allen and brought back Byron Murphy and so forth and may draft on the defensive side here to add even just a little bit more is because they realized if you're going to play the NFC East and you're going to see, you know, Jalen hurts and Jayden Daniels, you better have some guys who can

get after them on the interior and not just have Jonathan Bullard, who is a fine run stuffer, but was not somebody who could get after the pastor. So I think that they spent in the areas that they needed to improve, but I, what, one comment you made that I think is totally correct is I think they're more concerned with how this team could match up in the playoffs than they are if they get 14 or 11 wins.

And I also think that everyone's going to slide back by two to three wins in the NFC North just cause they're not playing the Tennessee Titans this year and the Jacksonville Jaguars and these sort of free wins, uh, that they were given by the AFC South and even the NFC West they played last year, which was a lot weaker than we thought it was going to be. So I think that it makes a lot of sense for them to have a roster that has an expectation of 10 to 11 wins. But then when you get into a playoffs, you have the offensive line and the defensive line to be able to match up. And what it really comes down to is where is McCarthy at?

And what we saw from a lot of young quarterbacks, whether it was Stroud or Daniels that worked out is in the middle of the season, there were bumps along the way for those guys and Vikings fans should prepare themselves. But by the end of the season, if your guy is on the upswing heading into the playoffs, I don't, I don't think, I think age is just the number here when it comes to that quarterback position. We have seen a lot of young quarterbacks have success going into the playoffs. Yeah, yeah, I think this is an interesting case here though when we talk about injury and going into a second year, because if let's say Sam Darnal was the you know declared the starter and balled out last year and J.J. McCarthy basically didn't play. I would look at him going into this season like a second-year quarterback. I would not look at him like, like a rookie quarterback

where there's typically, you know, suppressed performance. And I would say what he's going to do this year is going to be very similar to what you're probably going to expect for him going forward. Now, what you're getting there is you're getting, you know, mental reps, you're getting scout team, you're getting a lot of other things that you're learning along the way. I don't know if we have a large enough sample of guys who were injured as rookies. We have a sample of guys who didn't play as rookies who didn't, doesn't seem to have any effect on their development, whether we're talking about Aaron Rodgers or whoever along the way. So I don't know, there's a little bit of a, of a test case here to see, to see whether or not there will be a learning more of a learning curve than there would be for a typical second year quarterback, even a typical second year

quarterback who didn't play, uh, cause age, I don't bring into it nearly as much either as when it comes to NFL experience. I believe that there isn't any other cases of a team drafting a quarterback in the top 10 and then him immediately getting hurt. So of course the Minnesota Vikings would have that, uh, little factoid as they ask for many of those. I still think mentally you're getting something part of the team that, that, that you're not, it's just, where does it, where does it fall in?

I mean, it's an interesting question. I, I, I, I guess I would lean more towards you're getting probably like half of maybe the development that you would have been getting otherwise. But I could be way off on that. Maybe there is just a physical muscle memory timing sort of thing that's going on in practices that you don't have. I don't think you're way off on this because of the way that they handled him behind the scenes. It was not like they sewed his knee back together and said, go back to Illinois where you're from and sit in your house and think about what you've done. Uh, they had him basically game planning for every single week and preparing as

if he was going to be the starting quarterback. And over the last five months during his rehab, when he's been on the field throwing in his rehab, O'Connell told us this yesterday. He's basically been running the offense by himself with all those different types of throws. There's a lot of experience here that goes into it. That's different. But one thing we forget about rookies is that they don't even show up from the beginning

of the off season program. They have their own little special mini camp and then they're in OTA is like having no idea what they're doing as opposed to McCarthy, who knows the entire offense. He knows the coaching staff. He knows the wide receivers and he could show up from day one and learn the offense from the very start rather than trying to just show up and play catch up and then figure it all out on the fly.

So I think it is a, is a massive, massive difference. Uh, before I let you go, Kevin, give me the, the, the draft take that you love for this year. And I, and I know it has not been the hottest draft. It's just, it's not one of those years where there's a ton of amazing debates and everyone's complaining about it. But, uh, what's, uh, what's the take that, let's just say this, you know, social media used to be a lot more fun with Twitter, a lot more arguments and stuff going on.

Now it's just, I don't know. But let's say if you tweeted out one of your takes, which one would get the most people coming after you? About this year's take. I don't even know which ones would have the most people coming after me necessarily. But I mean, I kind of sound a little broken record on some of these takes, but I mean, any sort of take I could craft of drafting these quarterbacks, in particular, let's say the Jackson Darts and maybe Milro like a lot earlier than where they're being projected or people are talking about they should go, I guess that would be it.

I'm just like, who cares? You know, like first round picks busts all the time at other positions. No one seems to care. I think part of the whole thing is, and this is interesting, someone put out a, I think it was Orlovsky, put out something like, what's worse, missing on a first round quarterback

or missing on a big free agent quarterback? And it's like, well, number one, like you're not guaranteed to miss. Like, you don't have to miss, it doesn't have to be part of it. But part of missing on a first round quarterback, why it's bad is self-imposed. It's you're too locked into this guy.

You build everything around it. You're psychologically like everything in the media says, this is your next guy, this and that. If you can somehow block out the noise and say, we're just bringing in someone to compete here, just like we would bring it to other positions and we'll be willing to move on just like we are at other positions.

I don't know, I look at these guys, I'm not a film expert. You talked about consensus big boards, they all start to align after a while. Are these guys really like a tier so far down below some of these others? I'm not quite so sure of that. So I mean, who the hell knows it could be another 2022 where they all

the quarterback stink and maybe I'm completely off on on this one. But I would say why not look at taking these guys in the middle of the first round, maybe even earlier if you really wanted to take a shot on one of them and not worry so much about the potential that you miss the way I look at it is if the NFL evaluates a guy is a first round talent at the quarterback position, they all kind of have the same chance to work out. It's like, well, McCarthy's QB five. I don't know. QB five was Lamar Jackson.

Like there's a lot of these guys. Yeah, for me, it's always the risk of not getting the hit. Fuck Vasya. Ways the risk of the miss and people look at it's always the risk of not getting the hit. Vassely outweighs the risk of the miss. And people look at it completely in the other direction. They just see quarterback miss in the risk associated with that. Whereas if you look at all, a lot of the top quarterbacks,

of course you have your Joe Burrows and your others who go number one. But a lot of these other guys, whether it's Mahomes, whether it's Josh Allen, whether it's Lamar Jackson, whether it's Justin Herbert, or whether it's Jordan Love, where there's Lamar Jackson, whether it's, you know, Justin Herbert, or whether it's Jordan Love, where there's all these look at all these guys, and you're saying like, can you make any case that they were completely maxed out on how early that they were taken? No,

they weren't completely maxed out at the same point in time, a lot of people would have told you they would have been, you know, ranked anywhere between 10 to 15 to 20 spots lower on a lot of big boards, maybe not Lamar Jackson, but the rest of them would have been ranked quite 20 spots lower on a lot of big boards. Maybe not the more Jackson, but the rest of would have been ranked quite a bit lower on a lot of these big boards. So, you know, throw the big boards out the window. Forget about getting your highest grade possible and your highest likelihood of someone looking back three years from now and saying, oh, we got a hit on that, you know, that edge rusher because they're like a decent player. Forget about that. Let's go ahead and take some swings at quarterbacks

and then everything else can kind of fall into place. It's funny because I kind of think of it like if you, um, if you have money, you can make money. So if you're San Francisco and you draft Trey Lance, it's okay. Like you're already San Francisco. You're great. Your roster's great. You already had a good starting quarterback there that could still take you to the NFC championship and one drive away from the super bowl again, even after you draft Trey Lance. And

then you can set up whatever other random quarterback you take in the seventh round to be your guy. Like that's a team that can screw up at the quarterback position. If you're the New York giants and you take Chauder Sanders number three overall, you have to play him. He has to be your guy. And then, you know, if he's, uh, if he's not, then you're just fired and it becomes a lot more tricky. So I think there are definitely teams that could and should take swings on, especially

Jaylen Milro, who at least is very intriguing. But even if you're Pittsburgh, you're desperate to do something more in the playoffs. You need this guy to work out like the real world application per team is, uh, is always interesting. Anyway, great stuff. Kevin Cole, unexpected points newsletter. Go check it out. Google it, check it out on sub stack purple insider dot football.

Same thing. So if you're, you know, on on your way there check that out as well But always when I see you pop into my email always give it a read So thank you so much for coming on here just before the draft and having a little fun conversation. Thanks, Kevin Appreciate it. And yeah, I got to track it I must say we're somewhere in the like between maybe 20 appearances, but probably not so somewhere between 10 and 20 So we're gonna get there though. We need we need a counter, but probably not. So somewhere between 10 and 20. So we're going to get there, though. We need we need a counter.

But you know what? I haven't been paying attention. All that means is that you have been extremely generous. And I appreciate you. So thanks. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me. I love I love talking to you. Number one, I love working through kind of in my head when I'm talking about these things, too. So so I always appreciate to come on. Unexpected points newsletter. Check it out.

We'll talk to you soon. Blood ball.