Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Kyler Murray and Justin Jefferson, match made in HEAVEN?!

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Bucky Brooks is joined by Matthew Coller in order to talk about the offseason additions made by the Minnesota Vikings in order to make up for their most glaring weakness, which was in the QB room. They added Kyler Murray who was released by the Arizona Cardinals. They talk about what this means for one of the leagues top receivers Justin Jefferson as well as what it might spell out for JJ McCarthy. Listen to all that and much more on this exciting episode of the Bucky Brooks Show! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Bucky Brooks show. I am Bucky Brooks. And today, man, we have the man. I guess I could call you Renaissance, man. Netta found out today that you are published author. You're the podcast host of Purple Insider on the Believe Network. You know, it's funny because you spend a lot of time not only talking about those frontline guys or whatever, but a lot of your conversation was about Harrison Smith.

And Harrison Smith is the defensive quarterback of that unit. We all know when we talk about the Minnesota Vikings, it is about the quarterback situation, in Cala Murray, J.J. McCarthy, former number one overall pick, and Cala Murray makes his way from Arizona to Minnesota. J.J. McCarthy has 10 stars under his belt, trying to figure out if he can be the franchise quarterback. What are you hearing? What are you seeing from those two quarterbacks? It's interesting the approach that Kevin O'Connell is taking here

because he is saying this is a quarterback competition. And you've seen someone like Tom Pelliserro report that he believes that it's going to be a true quarterback competition. I have a slightly different opinion of that that it's not. I think that if you're Kyler Murray, you're not coming to a team when he had his pick of the litter of teams that don't have quarterbacks. And he decided to come with Minnesota to come play with Justin Jefferson and be the starting quarterback.

And when you look at what Kevin O'Connell has done when he's had a veteran proven starting quarterback, he is 31 and 11 when Kirk Cousins or Sam Darnold start. I think that says a lot about what quarterbacks who are veterans can do in this system. And also I think that because Arizona fell out of relevancy and they were trying to rebuild while Kyler was still there on the fly and didn't have a great football team that, you know, people have kind of forgotten about how good Kyler Murray is capable of being. And if you look at his 2024 season, he played, I'm going to call it real quarterback because it wasn't a system where he was, you know, going on one with the clap and sort of like running around like

it was with Cliff Kingsbury. He was under center almost 25% of the time. They ran more play action type of stuff. They kept him in the pocket more. Quick game was a big thing for that offense. And so I think that he can build on those things. And he played very well in 2024. Then I thought started out okay last year and got hurt. And then they decided to go with Brissette the rest of the way. But I think it's easy to forget like with Kyler Murray, the peak of him is one of the most exciting and dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL. He's also one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the NFL. And when he had DeAndre Hopkins, he was thriving. But Marvin Harrison, Jr. has not become DeAndre Hopkins. I could tell you, Justin Jefferson is DeAndre

Hopkins. Like, he's that good. He's at that level or maybe even slightly higher. So I am fascinated to see how Kyler adapts to what KOC wants to do. But I also think it's a good situation for J.J. McCarthy. And it's good to have him in this competitive environment with Kyler Murray, learn from him as a veteran quarterback, and get the development that he just didn't get. I mean, it was coming to the league, show flashes, excite everybody, get injured. And then, hey, you're the starter now. By the way, your successor won 14 games. So can you just go do that again, kid? Like, that's a lot to ask. And where I think it was the most difficult for JJ was he got hurt in week two. And so.

So then he misses five more games. And where are you going to develop in a season when it's two games, miss five, play a couple more, miss another one. I mean, it's just really hard. So I think because the rookie contract puts so much pressure on teams, we analyze it through that lens. But we also see a Baker Mayfield, the Sam Darnel, the Gino Smith develop over a number of years. Ryan Tannihill did this too.

So I think the best thing for J.J. McCarthy is that true, healthy time to develop. And then if Kyler, who has an injury history, gets hurt, you have someone who you've been bringing along and bringing along. And I think we'll be much more ready the next time to actually play. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I love both guys. I was a big fan of Kyler Murray when he was coming out. I admire his athleticism being a guy that was taken as a top 10 pick in baseball. You just don't see the kind of athleticism show up. He didn't even play that much.

He is a legend in high school. In Texas, some would say that he's the best high school player that ever put on the pads at that level. in that state, which says a lot concerning the number of elite outstanding players that have come from that area. And J.J. McCarthy, what I loved about him when he was coming out, I thought he was the ultimate winner. I appreciated the way that he sacrificed his game to fit into what Michigan wanted to do. Anyone knows as a four or five-star quarterback coming out, you want to sling the thought all over the yard, but he didn't. He was willing to play within the confines of the offense. And in key moments, when they needed him to step into that playmaker role, he did it.

It's been unfortunate for him in Minnesota. Injuries as a rookie, injuries as a second year player, limited to 10 starts. He has 11 touchdowns, 2 ever interceptions, but he hasn't been given that full runway to live and die with his mistakes and go through it and learn and grow from that. And the Vikings are in a win now situation. They're not a team that wants to rebuild and wait on a young quarterback.

To me, what's interesting about this is, I want to see how JJ McCarthy handles. is this. Does the pressure swallow him whole or does he have a competitor's in a fighting spirit to be able to battle through and see if he can win this competition at the end or be better prepared for when the opportunity to get back on the field shows up for him, given the history of the quarterback position, but particularly Callumery, kind of going to the sideline. I got to ask you this, though, because you mentioned Justin Jefferson. I know they sign Juan Jennings to come over with Jordan Addison. They got T.J. Hawkins. They have other after

all over the yard. What's Kevin O'Connell's vision for this offense? I think that number one, they want to be much better running the football. We were just talking about how there's an advantage there if you're a team that can run. And you know this for being on the defensive side in your career. I mean, if a team's run all over you, it's the worst because it sets up favorable down and distances all over the place. It wears guys down.

And then the passing game becomes a lot easier. So they've invested a lot there in trying to improve. of the running game by drafting Demand Claybourne and also hiring Frank Smith. They also hired a new offensive line coach whose history is in the outside zone. So I think they want to start it there. But I mean, the number one goal is to get Justin Jefferson back to being Justin Jefferson. So what you have to figure out is what works best for Kyler Murray because this has been somewhat of an interesting trend of his career that early on his deep passing game was

absolutely phenomenal. And then in recent years, it's been much more quick game for him. And the deep passing has not been as successful. Now does that go along with the wide receivers he's playing with or the system or whatever it might be? But they need that back because Justin Jefferson is a guy that is going 15, 20 yards down the field all the time. And it's a lot of timing. O'Connell says this all the time, rhythm and timing. That's the biggest question I have about Kyler Murray.

In that 2024 and 2025 tape, you see way more rhythm and timing. then people would give Kyler Murray credit for playing from the pocket, hit that back foot, bang the balls out. But you also see a lot of, oh, I didn't see it right away. I'm going to scramble. And I think with O'Connell, he's going to have to be patient and stick in the pocket at times. I also think O'Connell is going to have to make some adjustments too because if you run dagger over the middle over and over and over with Kyler Murray, it's not that he can't throw

over the middle. That's kind of a myth. but do you want him throwing over the middle time after time after time at five foot 10? Like I don't know that that's the best usage. And he is very precise on those timing routes with like tight ends with Trey McBride. So can he get T.J. Hawkinson back involved because it's felt like the last year, maybe even two going back to Sam Darnold, that Hockinson was a lot of time standing there, wave in his arms, open underneath and the balls flying over him as, you know,

McCarthy and Darnold were both very aggressive downfield. I think that Joanne Jennings signing is absolutely huge, though, because he's kind of like a tight end in some ways. He plays with that mentality's good blocker, but he's also a possession wide receiver. So if you're sending Addison and Jefferson downfield and you have Hawkinson and Jennings underneath as guys who can find holes in zones, run after catch, I think that's a really favorable situation for Murray. And I was going through trying to compare, has he ever had a group of weapons like this? It's like he had this guy or he had that guy or had a running game this one year or an offensive line that year. I don't think it's ever truly come together.

So I think trying to figure out how to balance all that, knowing you want to run more, knowing you want to protect Kyler from having to be overly inventive, like you want him to do it at the right times, but you don't want to just say, why don't you just create on every single play? You can't really do that in the NFL. I think it's fascinating to see how it all comes together. But I think if you're buying Kyler Murray stock, this is. your best argument is he just has never had an environment and situation like this.

Yeah, you talk about a situation like this. According to Fanduals sports book, The Vikings over eight and a half wins right now. It's sitting at 115 plus 115. Are you behind that? Do you think you think the Vikings can get over eight and a half wins? Yeah, you know, I talk about this a lot on my show about the skepticism of the markets and the skepticism of the power rankers, you know, that you'll see the Vikings power ranked at 24th, 28th. No one's really buying that this is going to work. And I think that a big reason for that is that people haven't watched a lot of

Kyler Murray because they didn't have any reason to. When was Arizona on national TV the last couple of seasons? Probably never. But I think when you really start to look into it, you look at how he played much more like a traditional quarterback that could run, as opposed to a running quarterback who occasionally played in a traditional manner. I think he's grown a lot. And just the other thing that I've,

I've heard is the motivation for Kyla Murray is absolutely through the roof to prove to everybody that he's the guy that was the top player ever in Texas, that he was the Heisman and also show the Arizona Cardinals that maybe they should have got a couple more wide receivers. I don't know. But he's he's very motivated to make this work. And Kevin O'Connell's connection with quarterbacks is special. And his connection with the locker room is special and Justin Jefferson is special. Those things move the needle.

So it may be a little bit, hey, I cover the team and I've seen this work before. I saw it work with Sam Darnold. I saw it work with Kirk to win 13 games. So maybe I'm more apt to believe it than everyone else. But there's also a major volatility to Kyler Murray. He has been so high and so low at times in his career. He's been hurt in his career. And I think it's fair to go into this season and say, all right, Harrison Smith, at this moment's not here.

You have a quarterback that's super volatile. if it all doesn't come together, this is an eight win type of football team. They're never going to win three games, but they could hit the under. There's that potential. But as of now, here in May,

I'm buying it and I would take the over on that. Look, I'm all in on Kalamurray, and I'm going to say this, and I want Viking fans to understand it. He's the most talented quarterback that they've seen in that building. And particularly under Kevin O'Connell.

We talk about Sam Donald and Kurt Cousins. the talent itself is not even close. Now, we can talk about how Sam Donald and Kirk Cousins played within that system in terms of efficiency, but in terms of just raw talent, let's pick up the ball and go play in the park. Callow Murray surpasses them not only as throws but as a runner. The one thing that we need to see from Calamary is, can he be disciplined enough to stay within the process of reading through the progressions to allow him to fully exhaust all options of the play so that Justin Jefferson and John John Jennings and George,

and Addison can be consistent factors in the passing game. And then the other part, can he take the ball every week? Can he show up for 17 games and give them what we saw flashes of when he was 2019, opposite rookie year, what we've seen when he's been a two-time pro bowler? And he elevated the Cardinals into a playoff contender. If that Kalamari shows up, sky's the limit for the Minnesota Vikings. Last thing, what should we be looking for over these next few weeks as they enter? phase two and phase three of the all season, OTAs and mini camps.

Give me one storyline that you have, you know. Yeah. Well, obviously, if it does become like, look, it's a quarterback competition. They're splitting the first team reps, although trying to figure that out in OTAs and minicamp is pretty tough because they just kind of are out there in shorts. I think it's really just how the defense starts to come together because there are a lot of things that are different on that side. We're not going to see Caleb Banks because he's still recovering from that foot injury,

but we will start to see Dominic Orange. We will see how they're going to begin to manage the safety situation. And they also have to replace their punter, Bucky, which is, you know, you think I'm kidding. But they had one of the best punters in the NFL last year. So there's going to be a competition there. That's mini camp and OTAs for you. But truly, it's a team that's a lot alike from what it was last year. They kept it together.

And I think that's because they believe in it. They believe in this group because there's a lot of guys that they could have moved on from. They could have moved on from Hawkinson. They could have moved on from Aaron Jones. And they decided to bring them back. And they're basically making the argument. Our team was good enough. We just needed a baseline of quarterback play. And I wouldn't be surprised if they get it. But getting our first looks at Kyler Murray and OTAs and minicamp, it will be pretty darn exciting. As you mentioned, to just see the way that that guy moves around and throws the football. But I got to ask about this book. Football is a numbers game, one in which you pin talking about the rise of PFF.

about it. What was it with this book? Yeah, yeah. So in 2021, I sort of observed as an enjoyer of data and analytics that the NFL was really starting to adopt a lot of concepts that the football outsiders and the PFFs had been talking about many years ago. And just one piece of evidence of that is the cover of my book, which is the Eagles in 2017 winning the Super Bowl. And if you recall, I'm sure you do. And your audience does. They went for a lot of fourth downs. And it wasn't just that, but that sort of like sparked my interest. So it's like, okay, the NFL seems to be paying attention to this. And at the same time, PFF and their grades and their data was starting to impact the way that

we wrote about the league and the league talked about, you know, players and things like that. And while the NFL would always say that they didn't pay much attention to the grades and so forth, I think that that is true in some instances more than it is others, but the data that they gathered and the systems that they had were in every building in the NFL. So I was like, where did this come from? How did we get here with this company having such an impact on the NFL? And I found a pretty crazy story of a guy who grew up in England, became a fanatic about the NFL and just wanted better.

He wanted more data. He wanted to know more. And so he built this crew of people who were kind of like him and then created this company he grew it and grew it and grew it. Ultimately, Chris Collinsworth bought the company and then it exploded from there into college football, into FCS. And then, you know, there was some as often happens with big companies, some conflicts that came about that actually was during the time that I was reporting on PFF.

And maybe you've seen that, you know, they were just sold to teamwork, which is kind of a result of some of that business side stuff with PFF. But what I really found out was that every single. play you watch, every single game is in some way these days impacted by data and every single decision, whether it's the draft, which is an interest of yours, of course, or if it's a decision on player value and things like that. So I interviewed cap experts and I interviewed agents and all sorts of things about how data is impacting the NFL. It was a fascinating journey to find out because I think for the longest time, it was like, well, this is an eye test type leak.

And it will always be that. And there's no question about it. But it's also an arms race. And I'll just tell you one of the most interesting things that I found out is it's not as new as you think. Because Bill Parcells was one of the first people to hire an IT guy to build programs to store data. And the first head coach to adopt BFF was Tom Coughlin of the New York Giants at the time. And we think of Tom Cothlet as like being as hardcore, old school as it is. But if you tell coaches and general managers, they can get an edge, they're going to look for a way to get an edge.

And then, you know, now, even since I wrote the book just a couple years ago, we've seen all this tracking data come in. And I think teams are a little overwhelmed. They're hiring a lot of different people from this thing called the big data bowl, which happens every year at the combine where all sorts of PhDs and math put together these reports. and a lot of teams hire them. So inside these buildings, if you can win the data bowl, if you can be better at understanding all the analytics and how to apply them with the scouting, with the character analysis and all those things,

you can be ahead of the game. And I think that we've seen that tangibly with some franchises probably highlighted most by the Philadelphia Eagles. Yeah, the Philadelphia Eagles certainly were ahead of the curve when it comes to utilizing analytics and data and those things. there's been a big conversation inside and outside of the league about what characteristics the perfect general manager in the league would have.

And while some of us old school guys would say, oh, he has to be a head scout, he has to be able to see it, he has to be able to identify it on tape. Others would say, no, he needs to be the best decision maker, meaning he can take all the information from various departments, kind of spin it together in his head, and make the best decision with a little bit of football. analysis from an old school style, new school technology and data that comes from maybe the analytics department, and then a little bit of a gut feel that allows you to understand clearly what your coach wants and how they want to build out the locker room. And if you take those three components together, man, it would give you a leader who is dynamic enough to deal with the new school stuff while also having a base and a foundation rooted in the fundamentals of building a team, that's what you like. And it just so happens that the Minnesota Vikings are searching

for a general manager. They are. And if you look at the backgrounds of all of the candidates who have come out, every single one of them comes from a scouting background, but has worked their way up to an AGM position. And I totally agree with you that it's actually harder than ever for those people to now know, how much do I juggle the data, the production? So just using the draft, for example, Caleb Banks, the Vikings take him. If you just look at the data, and production, it's not, it's certainly not awful. I mean, it's, you know, he's six foot six, three 30. He was going to win some reps at Florida, but the Vikings are trying to contextualize what they saw and what the data says versus what they see this player doing to grow or how he might

be used differently. And this is where it's so interesting because if you just put up two PFF grades of two players for any position, it really doesn't tell you a whole heck of a lot, unless they are extreme. Somebody's a 95 and somebody's a 45, but that doesn't happen a lot for guys who are getting drafted, right? So how can you dive into the usage, the coaching staff, the quality of competition that they were playing against? So it's sort of like how some people want to use chat GPT to give them all the answers.

It's a useful tool probably, but it's not going to just tell you everything. And that goes for every piece of data. I use the PFF grades, But if you look at, you know, usage, where someone lined up, how often they blitzed, how often they were in coverage, like all those sorts of things, you might look at Caleb Banks and say, you know what, the way he was and then get, you know, to the granular scouting level, the way he was asked to, you know, double, get double team, handle double teams or something like that,

could we move him here and it might look different at our level and that kind of thing? So if you're the decision maker, you got away your scout saying, look, you can't find six foot six, 330 pound guys. And here's what the reason was that he didn't produce at quite the level we'd expect, but here's how we're going to use him and that's going to be different at our level. It's a really tricky balance. And I think that, as you said, like a general manager has to be in a room with all of those people and gather all of that information and then make a call on it, which is,

that's why they get paid a lot and get, you know, all the criticism and all the praise because it's not the easiest job in the world to do. Yeah, not the easiest job to do. And I think it was interesting about the Minnesota Vikings draft. You talked about Caleb Banks and maybe being a bit of an analytical darling. You didn't look at Jake Gold Day from Cincinnati, who also has impressive physical traits and tools and things that are quantifiable based on how you perform at the Brode.

You look at Dominic Orange, who also showed up and impressed in workouts. then you marry what they were able to do physically as an athlete with what production or performance they flashed when they were between the lines. And you're trying to find this sweet spot between potential and production with the prototypes to make it a very compelling pick when you're making those selections, which is why everyone is looking at this defense and looking at this draft as, oh, this may be a foundational draft for the Minnesota Vikings to make another bounce back. Yeah, it's so interesting because I am trying to weigh is fit overrated or is fit actually the cheat code when it comes to solving this mystery that is the NFL draft. Because I think that if you run a draft the way that they did this year with an acting general manager, Rob Brzezinski, there's going to be a lean on the coaches to guide you to this is what we think will fit. This is what we want to do in the future. the Vikings have not had a dominant interior since Linval Joseph and Tom Johnson were the two defensive

tackles. It's been a while. And I think that it's bothered Kevin O'Connell that they'll go up against Jaylon Carter and against Jordan Davis. And like, can we can we just maybe bring those guys over here or those sort of prototypes? Because you see the impact. And I remember talking to a quarterback once about interior pressure and just how annoying it is. Yeah, outside I can step up. But when you have a six foot six, 330 pound guy in your face. There's not a lot you can do as a quarterback. And not to mention that, you know, they want to play two deep safeties. They play two deep safeties as much as anybody in the NFL.

So if you can have a Dominique Orange that is overpowering the center that's taken up two blocks at the same time. And you can have your linebackers be able to come up and make plays or safety's come downhill from those deeper positions and have lanes as opposed to guards flying through to the second level to drill them. Like, it's a nice advantage. And the NFL is also running more often with more design handoffs than they've had since, I don't know, since 2007 or something.

Like, it's sort of swung back that direction. So I think you could see what the plan is. The question a little bit for me would be on someone like Caleb Banks, were you so into the fit with your defense and they want to play a three, four, they play three, four base more than anybody else in the league? were you so enamored with the fit and maybe the upside that you did reach a little bit more than normal because there's also this board management that we talk about and I'm sure you saw all the consensus board stuff and everything else.

But it's like that's again, decisions that they have to make internally are like, we really believe in the fit. So maybe the teams that get the best fits can get the most advantage. But then my brain goes to the analytical side and goes, but what if maybe coaches overvalue players because they think they fit. And to tell you the truth, Bucky, I don't know the right answer. And I don't know if this will be a referendum on that answer. But I do know that they drafted for fit. And I think that that comes along with coach buying. Like this was the guy we wanted. This was the role we wanted. So we're going to pour into him maybe more than if the GM just said,

you know what, I'm going to draft the best player on the board, regardless of how he fits with our franchise. But, you know, they did that through the entire draft. They even did it into day three. taking Max Bredesen, the fullback from Michigan. And if you saw any of his tape, you understand why, because they hired Frank Smith as an offensive assistant to revamp their running game, bring in this hard nose fullback. And there's, again, kind of this shift toward old school football a little bit more. So I think you could, you really didn't have to work very hard to see the vision of what the Vikings were doing in the draft.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I would tell you as a former scout who grew up in. in and around the Green Bay system under Ron Wolf Hall of Fame executive, I would tell you that fit in scheme was everything. And even though we talked about prototypes and having the measurables and those things, a lot of the evaluation is done with your team and a potential role in mind. How would this player come in? How does he fit into the team from a schematic standpoint? How does he fit into the team regarding the locker room and the culture? but more importantly, what is he going to add to the team with his skill set? And even though there are some teams that pluck the best player and they say,

hey, once we get them, we'll figure out how to utilize them. The majority of teams have a laser focus on we like these kinds of guys to fit these roles and these are the guys that we want, which is why when we talk about consensus boards and those things, it is impossible to have a consensus board that mirrors the rest of the league because the rest of the league is literally scouting players just for their team and for these designated roles that they're willing to create for those guys. I think that's a really great point about looking at a consensus board, I think can maybe give you a hint about where the players are going to go in the draft.

And I know that a lot of teams use it for those purposes. I also think that it might be good as a let's think about this again. Like if you have, if you're using it inside a front office, which again, a lot of teams are looking at it and saying, all right, we're thinking about just to throw out a random number. We're thinking about taking this guy at eight, but the whole analysis universe on the outside,

which includes former scouts like you and Daniel Jeremiah and so forth, a lot of very talented people. They have them at like 38th. Like, are we missing something? Are we falling in love with the player too much? But the other thing that teams know that you mentioned, I think is extremely important to the Minnesota Vikings, is the culture fit.

This is something that Kevin O'Connell has built kind of from the ground up with this locker room and this team. And they're not going to draft certain types of guys if they don't feel like they fit. And coachability is a huge thing as well because they believe in Brian Flores and his staff. And they have every reason to do so. We've seen a lot of players just to give you an example of Josh Mattelis, a sixth round guy who was a special teamer, kind of a tweener between a big nickel and a safety. He wasn't even playing when Brian Flores got here. He just got a big contract last year and he's playing a thousand snaps a year.

So you also have to factor for each individual franchise where they're at and trust a little bit more in someone like Brian Flores evaluation. The other thing too is we can't just look at a consensus board and say, oh, well, you know, it was 20 picks off. So everyone should be fired. When it gets past about the 75th pick or so, I don't know how many people in the media. you have time to be evaluating the 147 player. So on day three, not that many, right? So on day three, it's pretty much do your scouts like a guy, right? Like I don't know if every team does this.

I know some teams are they go to their scouts. They say, who do you like? And that's who we're drafting on day three or coaches or whatever else. So I think what the Vikings did on day three, just for example, is they looked for guys that they just thought would be a really good culture fit and a really good scheme fit. I think they might have gotten one of the steals of the draft in Chuck Demings, who was an F.S guy that wanted to stay loyal to Stephen F. Austin rather than going to a bigger school that recruited him. So stuff like that, they know they've got their research and the thing for sure

that a consensus board can't look at. And this is a Caleb Banks point is medicals. The teams are going to know way more. Otherwise, Jermon McCoy would have been a top 15 draft pick. So I think it's fascinating. And I think it really tells us as a real enjoyer, of data, but we're always kind of looking for what's the right answer, not let's just look at one number or one board or one PFF grade or whatever and say, nope, that's the right answer. Everyone else is wrong because everything comes along with context. Yeah, context is everything. And I think the context that you provided when you talk about the first three picks for the

Minnesota Vikings, Kayla Banks, Jake Golda, Dominic Orange being big time defenders, guys that are versatile but stout and sturdy at the point of attack. you talked about Brian Flores living in base defense more than other teams. And the league has a lot of respect for his ability to utilize what we call hot pressures and hot blitzes with kind of this hot coverage that was really made famous by Pat Narduzzi, who is a college head coach, who is a head coach of the University of Pittsburgh right now. Talk about Brian Flores and what are the next steps? What has to happen for this defense to go to another level to help this team get back in the postseason?

Yeah, I think that's such an interesting. interesting conversation because Flores blitz is all the time. He is the most aggressive coach in the NFL. And we know that blitz can be boom or bust. It's been way more boom than it bust for the Vikings. But I think what there is lacking in some of the past is can you just rush four? Now, it doesn't matter where those four come from. The simulated pressures are a heck of a thing in the NFL for offensive lines to deal with right now. But a lot of times if they haven't sent a fifth rusher or a sixth rusher and overwhelm the quarterback and they've had time to throw, they have not been able to cover as well as some other teams maybe that have invested more in

the secondary or have a pass or tan or something like that. So I think what they want is to be able to rush with four more often. And also it's really about stuffing the run. Last year, if you just look at their numbers, they did finish pretty good against the run, but there were some game specifically where if they could have made this stop, that stop, or just like slow down a little bit. I'm thinking of week two against Bejohn Robinson, like just slow Bijon Robinson a little bit and you stay in that ball game. I think that's why they decided to go with Dominique Orange and Caleb Banks that if you can overpower an offensive line, maybe you could create more opportunities for your linebackers to come downhill and slow down the run game. And if you can stop the run, I think today,

it's always been true in the NFL, but especially today, everyone's trying to get into second and four. Everyone's trying to control the ball. Everyone's trying to get, you know, more play action shots and stuff like that because they know that the data says, if you can run play action, you're going to have more success. So I think that that's where they're going with that. But the big question that they have is, is Harrison Smith going to come back? Because Harrison at the end of the year, and it's so much fun to see. It's almost like when a baseball pitcher is 38 and he doesn't throw 95 anymore and he's just painting corners.

Like that was Harry at the end of last year. He was just painting corners. It was beautiful to watch. Just making adjustments, reading plays, reading formations, calling his own number to blitz, even if it wasn't the play that was called. And it was classic and vintage Harry. But at some point, especially that defensive back position, you don't see many safeties going into pressing 40 years old.

So he may not decide to come back. That's going to be a huge adjustment for Flores because the way that that relationship works is Flores sends in a play. Harrison Smith takes in the play, calls it, and then they go, all right, now we're changing everything based on what Harrison Smith sees. And it's fun to watch. If you look at the all 22, how much they're moving around. He will start in the box, drop back, you know,

he'll be communicating with Andrew Van Ginkle and just totally change coverages based on his film study and his ability to identify stuff, that's not something anybody else can really emulate. So if Smith isn't here, how do they kind of work around that? Is that Josh Mattelis's job? Or are they going to kind of say, we can't really do that with anybody else? So now here's our adjustment. I think it's going to be really fascinating to watch. I'll just highlight one more thing. They traded Jonathan Grenard, which was a pretty surprising move considering how good Jonathan than Grinard has been for the Vikings. But now it's Dallas Turner time.

They traded up for him. He started to emerge last year, led them in sacks. It is a prove it situation for Dallas Turner, which will be really fascinating to watch. Look, we're excited to see what happens. Fanduel Sportsbook is excited to hear what you talk about coming out of these camps in OTAs because right now they have enlisted at plus 550 to win the NFC North. We'll see if they can live up to it.

The other thing we'll see is when's the next time? You can come on my show. I jump on your show. But as we get closer to the camp and get kind of into the thick of it, we got to revisit the situation and see what's going on in Minnesota. Until next time, that is Matthew, call it, my guy. Purple Insider, get to make sure you check that out on the Believe Network. Make sure you check out his book.

Football is a numbers game. And until next time, I'm Bucky Brooks. And I'm out.