Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Let's talk about expectations for Kevin O'Connell

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Matthew Coller and WCCO Radio's Paul Hodowanic talk about Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell and whether he should feel pressure right away or if he deserves patience. How many coaches would you trade places with? Plus the Vikings player randomizer comes up on Patrick Peterson. How important is he to the Vikings' results this year? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, along with Paul Hodowanek of WCCO Radio. And we were having a discussion right before we went on it's like all right now we've reached this point where we've got OTAs and minicamp and so each week we're going to have a couple of storylines in the middle of the week and there are going to be some things to discuss, who's out there practicing, health updates, things like that. But also it leaves the door open for some other conversations that can be fun. And I have come up with the Vikings randomizer where I push a button and it tells us what player we need to talk about. So we've got that. But I wanted to ask you first though, Paul, one of the things that Kevin O'Connell was talking about yesterday during his press conference was about being more than just an offensive minded head coach.

And I think what I've come to is the conclusion that the number one storyline of the Minnesota Vikings 2022 heading into the year is their head coach because the players on the offensive side are not all that different. And on the defensive side, there are different faces, but a lot of similar talent level where they can adapt and they can be a little bit better than they were last year. If things work out with Ed Donatel scheme, but what will eventually really determine the season is did they have a better offense and so give me a give me a one to ten how much pressure should be on Kevin O'Connell like how much pressure should we be putting on Kevin O'Connell to be better than Mike Zimmer as a head coach I would say maybe a five I'm kind of right in the middle I think there's two contrasting styles to this.

I think the Vikings didn't really change their roster. And so that's telling you, hey, we believe we're a coaching staff away from being a better team when they don't make big roster overhauls, when they don't commit to a rebuild, when they go out and sign Z'Darrius Smith and trade back in the first round and kind of opt for not taking a premium player at 12 and just not opt for a clear direction. What they're saying is we were satisfied enough with everything else around us except our head coach and GM. And so in that instance, that puts Kevin O'Connell in a spot where you say, hey, we're counting on you to be the difference here. We're counting on you from getting us to eight wins to 10 wins, 11 wins to make in the playoffs. Like you are the X factor.

And so that I think would kind of push him, you know, higher up the seven, eight pressure. But then you have to consider he's a first year head coach. He's never done this before. He's never called plays. So to immediately put pressure on him to be a 10-11 win coach is setting him up to fail just because, you know, if we were just, if we did this a thousand times, how many times are they a 10-11 win team? That feels like a less likely outcome for a first-year head coach when you don't know

what his leadership style is going to be. You don't know what he looks like calling plays. You don't know what he looks like calling plays. You don't know what he looks like working with the defense. You don't know all those things. So I would put it right at about a five because I'm balancing the fact that the Vikings ownership and basically said, we need you to be the X factor, but I also don't want to put too much on him as a first year head coach.

I feel like that's when, you know, he either falls to artificial standards that shouldn't have been set that high, or he kind of crumbles under pressure that maybe he shouldn't have had. So I think you kind of set it right at the middle. He doesn't have no pressure. This team has some aging players. It has a quarterback they have to make a decision about. So there is a quite a bit, quite a bit of pressure,

but to put it at an eight or a nine feels unjust for a first year head coach. Anyone that you're throwing into that is tough, especially when it's their first time around. If this was Harbaugh that we had here, okay, maybe the pressure ramps up, but he has never done this before. So to get it higher than a seven feels just unfair to him. So I'd put it kind of right in the middle, right at a five. Yeah. I think that what they want it to be is probably where you have it and

where it's fair is probably higher because if you wanted a head coach who was going to take you to eight or nine wins with a veteran roster led by an old and expensive quarterback, well, then you could have stayed with the head coach that has a pretty darn good head coaching record. Let me call this up on pro football reference, because I've mentioned this about Zimmer's record before, but I don't know where he ranks all time in terms of win percentage. So let me see if I can figure that overall.

Now, the last two, three years were not so impressive, but it's not like they're going from Joe Judge to Brian Dableable where if the guy can competently like get you through training camp without any headlines about what a bizarro weird guy he is then you're good like that's not kevin o'connell i don't think uh unless things change really seriously in the next few weeks he seems to be a very calm guy uh and not like a complete football sociopath. But I also think that when you're moving on from a coach who was, say, fringe top 10 head

coaches in the league and it had as much success as he did before, then I think that the pressure and the standard does have to go higher. And just because you say out loud competitive rebuild does not mean that we have to look at it and say, oh, competitive rebuild, because that didn't match up with the things that they did. Now, if it had, then I would change the pressure meter. Now, also, you can't go nine or 10 because nine or 10 means you're fired. And like that was last year for Mike Zimmer. That was nine-10 pressure but I think it has to be higher than a four or five because the patience cannot be that we sit here and go well look it's his first year and so what if he botched that two-minute drill so what if he kicked the wrong

field goal or punted at the wrong time or so what if the players were confused about his scheme or you know whatever it might be. I think that O'Connell is a safe head coach with the idea that he's not going to be a totally crazy person and have no idea what he's doing because of his amount of experience in the league. But there is nothing in the world that prepares you for being the head coach of an NFL team. Look at pictures of Mike Zimmer, who was one of the most accomplished defensive coordinators in the NFL before he took the job with the Vikings. Look at pictures of that man, and then look at pictures of when he left.

And it wasn't that long. It was like, what, seven or eight years. I mean, that job will take years off of your life, and, you know, there's no preparing Kevin O'Connell for a lot of the things that come up think of the things that went down during the zimmer era from teddy bridgewater i mean adrian peterson it starts right off with 2014 even up through last year everson griffin and you know delvin cook and injuries and drama and egos and offensive coordinators, like all the things that go down.

You want a little less of that with Kevin O'Connell, but it's the NFL. I mean, go to any NFL city and be like, Hey, is your team dramatic? Like, Oh my God. Yeah, of course this, this, this, this, this, and this happened. We just notice it more, I think because it's the Vikings, but you know, I, I do think that there is maybe seven or eight out of 10 that no, he's not going to be fired, but he will be judged harshly because the standard is set to, it's not that you have to turn around a team

that won four games. That's pretty easy to do. Kevin Stefanski, for example, he shows up in Cleveland. They have like one win. Okay, oh my gosh, you got us to nine? Like Freddie Kitchens was your coach before a complete clown show if you even just show up and don't embarrass yourself on day three you're good but with kevin o'connell i think it's i think it's quite a bit different than that for

the situation that he takes over yeah i just you talked about it a little bit we saw what pressure did to zimmer when he felt like his back was up against the wall. He stopped playing the young guys like that would have developed, and he went with the older guys. He became much more my way or the highway. And again, yeah, O'Connell wouldn't rise to that amount of pressure, but I don't want to put him at a spot where he is sacrificing the long-term development of some of these players on this roster to immediately try to be good right away because there's pressure on him to immediately improve from this roster and from this season a year ago. Like if it makes O'Connell fall back into some of the same traps that Zimmer fell into in terms of just not testing some of those guys you really want to see are if they're going to be important pieces of the roster beyond this year like Kevin O'Connell won't be the long term of Kevin O'Connell shouldn't be judged on this year it should be judged on year two three four when he has a little bit more time at least in my estimation obviously this first year is important and probably more important than most first year

head coaches would be just because of the situation he stepped into so that is true but if he's sacrificing anything for this first year and not trying to push buttons for future years i think that becomes troubling so putting too much pressure on him to immediately vault from 8 to 11 wins just feels like you're sacrificing the long-term future which i mean is kind of what they've done in some of the moves that they've made but i don't know if i want the coach to fully commit to that. I don't know. What's your thoughts? Well, yeah. I mean, so when it, as it pertains to playing players for the future, if that's part of his thought process, he shouldn't, shouldn't do it. He should just play the best players that are going to win him games because that's the roster.

Like you shouldn't play Wyatt Davis over Chris Reed at right guard and have him get destroyed and get Kirk Cousins sacked a bunch of times for development purposes because that's not the approach you took if they did take that then I would say absolutely have at it whoever is playing quarterback it's Ryan Fitzpatrick. Well, if look, if Ryan Fitzpatrick gets sacked, oh, well, like who cares? Sorry, Ryan Fitzpatrick, you're an awesome guy, but it doesn't matter. You're trying to develop players and you just need a competent quarterback to get out there and have some fun. That's not the way that they went with this. And I think that we, because he is a first time head coach, we want to automatically, as is our nature, say, all right, look, give the guys a space, let them learn, see what happens.

But in a similar way in town to Rocco Baldelli, for example, or even when Tibbs was hired as the head coach, this is kind of that way. It was like, well, it's the coach that needs to change that's the thing that's supposed to take it to the next level so here's tom tibideau for you like just because it's not jim harbaugh doesn't mean that it should be viewed differently to me because it's the the way that the roster was constructed so i think that there should be the pressure and just because like kevin o'conConnell is a younger guy and doesn't come across as a lunatic doesn't mean we should be nicer or, or not nicer, but like less, less, um, I don't know, rigid when it comes to this, I think we should be like, I really think that, that there's always this tendency to sort of acquiesce like here in Minnesota that it's like,

oh, well, you know, Hey, the wolves, they finished seventh. Like that was a fun season though. It's like, okay, right. But they traded players to get stars and got eliminated in the first round. Like that's not good enough, right? Just because you had some fun. It's just not good enough. You blew multiple 10 point leads. You know what I'm saying? It's the same way with the twins. They set the home run record and they get eliminated in the first round and go, well, it was a fun season. Like, no, it's not. I mean, yes, it was, but like, that's not what the standard should be when you have a lineup like that and a roster like that. And, uh, you know, I think that, you know, maybe head coaching and football has more to do with winning than say basketball or,

well, maybe, maybe basketball people would tell me I'm wrong there, but baseball for sure. I mean, the guy just shows up and like, tries to keep everybody not calling each other's eyes out. I think is the job for a baseball manager and read the computer and do what it says. Sorry, Rocco. I'm sure that's wrong too. Anyway, I found Zimmer's record by the way, win percentage, the coach. So it's five 62. The coach right ahead of him is Wade Phillips. Our guy, Wade Phillips, two spots up three spots up is bill Parcells at five 69 win percentage. Zimmer is five 62. He's right ahead of Marv Levy. Who's a Hall of Fame coach, ahead of Brian Billick, ahead of Jimmy Johnson, ahead of Chuck Pagano, ahead of Mike Shanahan,

not too far behind Frank Reich. Don Correale is kind of in that ballpark. Mike Holmgren is not at 60% win percentage. Neither is Pete Carroll. The point just being that Zimmer's name, in terms of his win percentage for what he did is in the ballpark of a lot of very, very good coaches. And in order to be better than that, Kevin O'Connell has to have some really good ideas of what they're going

to do, particularly with the offense. Now, let me ask you a question, Paul, based on early impressions, very earliest of early impressions. Who do you think is a comparable coach to Kevin O'Connell? Who would be the best if you said, oh, he's going to and don't say McVay because he's the best coach in the league. You can't do that. Like this guy is what Kevin O'Connell could be for the Vikings. Yeah, that's difficult because I want to stick with that tree just to make sense. I mean, Zach Taylor feels like a expectation for this first year, at least. I mean, he didn't have a great first season, obviously the second year or second and third year, third year was much, much better. But that's another disciple who uh i don't know seems very similar into what

he did with sean mcveigh prior to getting a head coaching job and getting a head coaching job and you're probably looking for an in-between of taylor's second and third year because taylor's first year that roster was abysmal so if kevin o'connell has a first year zach taylor year that's horrible for the Vikings. But Zach Taylor was not working with much. But last year, he had a better quarterback than Kirk Cousins, but probably an all-around roster pretty comparable to where the Vikings were. They won 10 games. They made it in the playoffs.

They obviously made a run. I think that's kind of a very similar coach and situation that you would try to project on the Vikings. Obviously, quarterbacks in different spots of their career, but just game in, game out, at least during the regular season, Joe Burrow and Kirk Cousins were probably playing pretty comparable football. Obviously, Joe Burrow turns it up at the end of the year, makes a run to the Super Bowl. That's not comparable to Kirk Cousins, but throughout the year, similar quarterbacks, similarly gradeded quarterbacks I think that fits the mold and just one more point on what we were talking about I just think I'm coming around to your point in that

he probably needs a little bit more pressure I just think that is setting up O'Connell for to to underwhelm expectations I mean if we just go through the last year, I way before they signed or they hired Kevin O'Connell, I did a huge coaching record thing where I was just looking at all the head coaches, how long they had been in the league and what their records were like last year, the newest, all the head coaches were new. Uh, two of them won nine games. Five of them didn't nine was the highest that any first-year head coach won. If you go further back, just to head coaches that have an above 500 record that were new head coaches, in 2020, so far, we have Kevin Stefanski. He's the only new head coach that, through his two seasons,

has an above 500 record. If you go back to 2019, you have Matt LaFleur, who's obviously been really good, but no other new head coach. Cliff Kingsbury's right at 500. Zach Taylor's well below 500. Freddie Kitchens was fired right away. Brian Flores was just under 500. These new head coaches haven't really been over 500 before. So I think, yes, he deserves more pressure than those guys based on the situation, but it might be setting him up to fail. But I think if he succeeds, it's a Zach Taylor type season from last year that you're getting from Kevin O'Connell and you see you can build into the future with him. I love how generous you were being putting Kirk Cousins name next to Joe Burrows.

I wouldn't. I mean, not in the playoffs, of course. But, I mean, through the first part of the regular season, Kirk was playing really, really well. Burrow was as well. I think they were comparable-esque when you look at the rest of the roster and you can say, can he do what Taylor did? Obviously, you don't have Joe Burrow. Folks, with baseball season in full swing, just a reminder, if you're headed downtown for baseball, make sure

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that's totally neither here nor there. I'm not sure that Zach Taylor is actually a good coach. I am sure that Joe Burrow is a really good quarterback and Jamar Chase is really good at catching footballs. But that's, yeah, that's a little off the subject, but okay. So what it really comes down to, I, okay. I mean, let me answer the question about comparable coaches. You're really looking at Matt LaFleur and Kevin Stefanski as guys that you would talk about as best case scenarios. So if it's Matt LaFleur, he takes over a team that was kind of floundering a little bit. Really, if there was a team that did a competitive rebuild, it would be the Green Bay Packers around Aaron Rodgers that they went from

not playing very well in 2017 to, well, he's hurt in 2017 but 2018 not playing particularly well uh under mike mccarthy mccarthy then gets fired and here comes uh matt lafleur who changes the offense around gets more out of aaron rogers than mike mccarthy was getting out of they build the roster up they hit on some draft picks jair alexander rashaun gary and then all of a sudden they're a force to be reckoned with. Problem is their quarterback won MVP two years in a row. So like, yeah, I don't know. Like Mike McCarthy deserves some criticism, but his offense was also one of the best in the league last year. It was probably a combination of Aaron Rodgers being pouty and their roster falling apart a little bit and then being able to rebuild it around a top three quarterback in the league. So I don't really think there's a comparison there. There probably is with the

Cleveland Browns where they were able to improve their roster, did help to have a quarterback on a rookie contract, but were coached so vastly better from what they had with Freddie Kitchens that they took a big step in improvement. Also similar vibes between those two guys, kind of intellectual guy, humble, kind of more quiet, not somebody who's going to be yelling and screaming like a complete lunatic or something out there, that they picked the right guy for what the players were looking for. And that could certainly help. What it comes down to a little bit fundamentally is how, like how fair is it to hold them to a high standard that we think they might not reach or probably won't reach?

Like there's no one in the estimating world about the 2022 season that thinks they're going to reach the standard that they have to reach in my mind for this to be a success. Sorry, that's convoluted, but I think you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I think that's the point I was getting at. I think at the beginning, I was factoring in my expectations with where the Vikings have kind of set Kevin O'Connell to be, but I think my expectations were already coming under what the Vikings have said we believe Kevin O'Connell can do. Because with the offseason moves, they've basically put their chips into the table

to say we believe Kevin O'Connell can be this missing link. I'm skeptical of that, and I'm skeptical of any head coach coming and being that missing link unless they are a proven coach, unless you are getting a Bill Belichick, like a coach that has just been around the block, you know, can come in right away and do that. And so I think they are giving him lofty goals and setting him with high standards. And that could either end up being a really good thing because he hits those and it's like wow Kevin O'Connell really did well but if they go eight and nine again it's like okay we're stagnant again now we have to change the roster because we're not going to change the coach

again we now have to change the roster so they have kind of there's a thin margin of error that they're trying to walk through in which they believe Kevin O'Connell can be this really, really great head coach. Because I mean, that's what they're betting on with the moves that they've made already in the off season, they're betting on that.

And if you can't do that, then a lot of roster changes are going to have to come and they're probably going to take a step back next year, as opposed to this year. So they're gambling. They're gambling a lot and kevin o'connell which i respect the confidence i'm just not sure you should be that confident as we talked about with the draft i'm not sure you should be that confident about anything where you're betting

that much on a head coach that has never once uh been a head coach in the league didn't call plays last year like it's a lot of things you're betting on, but if it hits, you're going to look really, really good. Maybe there's a Nick Sirianni comparison here for Philadelphia, a younger guy who had never coached before comes in. He went nine and eight. So, you know, right. That's yeah. And that's the thing is that the Matt LaFleur, Mike Vrabel, I don't really see much comparison, but they are both former players.

Mike Vrabel is much more of a hard ass, I think, than what Kevin O'Connell is going to be, but they are both former players and they brought in Ryan Tannehill, started running the simplistic offense, the bootlegs, you know, maximizing what Tannehill could do. But where I always end up kind of being held up with this whole conversation is the concept that the Vikings really held back Kirk Cousins. And there's just two things that don't match up, which is if you look at Kirk Cousins career and you look at his numbers throughout his career and his PFF grades, they keep getting better. I mean, so like when you go back to Washington, 2017, his quarterback rating was a 93 his QBR was a 56 touchdown to interception

ratio I mean I know these are basic numbers but it's 27 to 13 every year with the Vikings he did better than that by quite a bit every year with the Vikings he did better than 2016 in terms of quarterback rating yards per attempt he's mostly the same or better pff grade he's put up his highest pff grades in recent years and so that's where i always end up being like well so wait so we think there's another level to this we think that they were so lost and confused in the universe of offense that he put up his career highs like these these are just conflicting things that don't match up so it's kind of got to be one or the other like it's got to be that there's either a ceiling that's even higher than this uh or that that that they were doing a decent job if not a very good job of

getting the most out of cousins and there isn't another level to that so really it's going to rely on and this may be what they think but they're spending the defense being a lot better than it was in order to get them to that 11, 12, 13 win threshold. okay, I mean, that is a great year from Kevin O'Connell, 11 wins. You're either winning the division or you're right up there one game below the green Bay Packers. And that's more wins than cousins ever had with Mike Zimmer. And so write the narrative that, you know, Kevin O'Connell was the difference, but if it goes to nine, then it feels very much the same. And that, and like, that's just the NFL for you and and uh how things work so um final final thoughts on pressure level for kevin o'connell before we number randomize yeah i would i you convinced me a little bit to push it just because of the expectations that they've set

for him uh i i still don't think it's remarkably high. I think maybe a six or maybe a seven. But to me, Kevin O'Connell's legacy is going to be based on what he can do for me, at least in two years, three years, four years. If he can push this roster in the right direction, I think that's good. But I think we all kind of know the limits of this roster. And so I think what's really going to define him is what he can do with the next iteration of this team. And if he can get some good things out of this part of the roster and this season, I think all the better. But if he doesn't do that well this year, I don't think it's a death knell for O'Connell, I think it more says they evaluated the roster incorrectly rather than they didn't

evaluate the coaching correctly. So I think he's got some pressure because they've obviously set up the roster, but by no means is this a make or break year or anything for Kevin O'Connell in his first year. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. I think that what we're talking about is the entire plan as a whole and how it will be judged. And if it ends up with being seven wins, then we'll be able to say, hey, man, that was not good enough in your first year. And there will be, I'm sure, plenty of reasons to criticize that I don't know yet because we haven't seen him coach uh okay before we get to a random player uh i'm gonna throw a couple coaches at you and you tell me whether you would trade kevin o'connell for that coach or not okay would you trade kevin o'connell straight up for um cliff kingsbury no i wouldn't. Uh, I don't, Cliff Kingsbury seems like another one of those where he's kind of holding his situation back whenever the, the, he, he's basically his offense is Kyler Murray go do

stuff. Uh, and I don't know if I love that. I think there's a lot of, you know, there's some people on Twitter and things that like, like his run scheming, but if that's the only highest, uh, thing that you have to, you have to mark off for clings, Cliff Kingsbury, then no, I would take the unknown of Kevin O'Connell and hope he could be better. And then kind of a middling head coach and Cliff Kingsbury. Okay. The reason I pick Cliff Kingsbury is because his record is exactly 500 to start his career, but did win 11 games last year. I mean, but they completely fell off at the end of the year.

They feel like more of that team than they do the 11 ones. They had the 11th best offense in terms of points. Not bad. Top 10 in terms of passing yards. 11th in terms of defense. Like this sounds kind of like what we expect from the Vikings to be. And, and you might say,

well, they had, they had more talent. They had a really talented team and that's why they were able to get to 11 wins despite their coach. Though Kyler Murray halfway through the season is in the MVP conversation and then suddenly ends up falling off. I'm not a cliff Kingsbury guy myself.

I don't think that he's like this absolute wizard, but it shows us, I think what that demonstrates is a coach who won 11 games last year, you're saying your coach should be better than that. And you would not trade him for Cliff Kingsbury. I mean, that's kind of interesting. How about Brandon Staley? Would you trade him for Brandon Staley? I think I would trade him for Brandon Staley uh I think Brandon Staley is

shown in his first year that he both understands kind of his team I think every all the reports are that the team really enjoys him that was something the Vikings needed last year so that would be an upgrade from Mike Zimmer. The fact that he's a defensive coach scares me a little bit and that they're probably, if Justin Herbert's good, he's going to have a revolving door of offensive coordinators in there. Same thing if Brandon Staley came here. But he seems to do all the correct things analytically in terms of fourth downs, two point conversions, and seems to kind of get it from that sense and so that's one where his arrow seems to be trending upward uh and he seems to have said the right things and be on the right

track as a head coach i'm not like a there's there's a lot of momentum for brandon staley's like one of the best coaches in the league i'm not quite there but he feels on a different tier than cliff kingsbury and one that i think would i would trade out the uncertainty of Kevin O'Connell for Brandon Staley, because I think there's a higher ceiling involved for him. Yeah, I I think that Brandon Staley handled himself well last year, but then there's another part of me that says you had some of the best quarterback play in the league and miss the playoffs. Like, how did that, how did that happen? That I think tells you how difficult it is like to be that first year head coach, because even as good as Brandon Staley came across seemed very up to date on how he handled the fourth downs was very aggressive there and got a heck of a lot of good play out of Justin Herbert. I'm not sure they even fully

maximize Justin Herbert on the offensive side, that their offense may have held him back even a little bit from a great season. But just looking at him having a very low average depth of target and so forth and what he's capable of doing, that it's almost like it needs to be let loose even more in the same way that Buffalo did. And I think there's some coaches that there's no dispute whether, you know, you would trade him for Sean McDermott, who's one of the best coaches in the league. John Harbaugh is very clear. No one's doing this for Mike McCarthy. So there's only a few that you can really compare him to. And I was trying to think

if there was anyone else that I would say, would you do this? How about any new coach like Nate Hackett, Josh McDaniels, Matt Eberfer. And any, yeah, yeah. Any of that. I,

I think the answer is probably no. Like any of the other new coaches, I think you would just rather have Kevin O'Connell. Yeah. I think the, the one I, I mean, what do I know in terms of head coaches in terms of what they can

do nothing their teams their teams don't know when they hire them they have no idea i seem to like i really enjoyed brian dable so maybe you'd get me to trade that one uh but other than that there was no one that i was like my god the vikings you missed out you didn't get this guy uh so i think at that point you you just trust the trust the Vikings and that they picked one. So Brian Dable would be the only one that I would be willing to have a conversation about. Okay. Um, yeah, I agree with that. And I'm surprised that they didn't interview him.

Yeah. I'm also surprised that they didn't interview Byron left, which was always kind of a weird thing to circle back to of like, what happened there? Why, um, why wasn't he, he you know somebody that you looked into so uh did you know let me see is this actually work that there is a random nfl player generator is this true if this is true this could be really really something for our content yeah oh my gosh there is okay the vikings or can do does it have to be all of nfl because we're going to get some random seahawks backup guard that i've never heard of it it literally it is like the most

like messy website you've ever seen and there's just one button that says generate and it says like number of players and then generate and then boom it comes up with a player sure devin mccourty first player came with, let's try it again. Eric Weddle. Carson Wentz. Okay. So someone, someone listens to this podcast and is a computer science. Like has that job just code us one of these generators.

That's just Vikings players. So we can do that. At least it does players that I've heard of. Like it's not, it doesn't seem to be going deep into the roster for these players. Like Judea and Clowney just popped up tyree kill derrick henry trent williams so these are all players that seem to be like star level but this i mean this is super funny though like what even is this website all right let's uh i wish it was for vikings but i'm just gonna punch it and see

who we get and then talk about that player. Aaron Donald. Good. Aaron Donald's very good. Great player. You'd love to have him on the Vikings, man. I don't know. Hot take,

hot take alert. Yeah. Maybe, maybe there's a way to do this for like 1997. That's a little out of your depth. Zach Ertz. So plays for the Arizona Cardinals now. Yeah.

That's my take on Zach Ertz. Yeah. No,inals now. Yeah. That's my take on it. Go Zach Ertz. Yeah, no, I mean, if this was – if they had the 1997 version, this would just be you and Eric Eager and Manny Hill just on some text thread just talking about all the random players that you've generated. Joey Bosa. Trent Williams came up again. Okay, it seems like there's maybe a limited number of players who will come up in this.

There's a Vikings bias apparently. who will come up in this. There's a Vikings bias. Apparently we didn't get any Vikings. No, Harrison Smith popped up. I just didn't mention it. Julio Jones, Jason Kelsey. Okay. Well, those are your random players, but let's try it. Vikings version.

New segment here. 19 was the number that came up. So I've got the depth chart here. That would be, let's see, Patrick Patrick Peterson let's talk about Patrick Peterson for five minutes um how much does Patrick Peterson matter to the Minnesota Vikings success this year I think a lot in in terms of just where they have him slotted he's going to start against like maybe the number one corner I think he is fulfilling both a big role on the field and off the field we saw last year he was a big leader

just coming in year one he's and he's basically at the podium after every game he seems to be a vocal leader inside that locker room so from an off-field perspective he's really important in a secondary room that just got young with Andrew Booth and Lewis Seen. He's going to be expected to be a leader there. Even Cam Dantzler is still super young, still learning from Patrick Peterson. So he's going to have to balance with a big role off the field with a unit that really needs him in a new coaching staff, where he's going to be tasked with really helping these young guys along. And then on the field, if they have aspirations of being competitive, they need solid cornerback play. They don't need Patrick Peterson to be his pro ball self again. They just need him to be average and not to be someone that opposing quarterbacks

are just picking at where they're where's Patrick Peterson. Let's find him. Let's go after him. That's the bar he needs to clear. He just needs to be average. They seem like they're going to have enough talent behind him in that secondary spot. So he just has to not be a liability. If he can be average, this secondary can be average. And then if the pass rushers stay healthy, this defense can be above average.

So Patrick Peterson's a big linchpin in the back half of that defense. Cause if he just can't play this year, then you're throwing Andrew booth to the wolves, hoping he's healthy. You're throwing Harrison Hand to the Wolves. You're throwing guys that need a little bit of development time and haven't proven anything for a team that has playoff aspirations. So Patrick Peterson needs to be just an average player and he can get by and that'll make his contract way worth it. And the Vikings can be good on defense, but Peterson is one of the biggest linchpins there.

Yeah, the check actually cashed with Patrick Peterson last year. And that was one where we spent a lot of time saying, look at his numbers in Arizona. They're not very good and that he had fallen off pretty significantly. And look, it's not to say that he was the megastar Patrick Peterson that he was the year before. And there was an injury that was mixed in. And that's something you always worry about when a guy gets over 30. I also wonder how much of it last year in his success, because context is really difficult with cornerback statistics. That's why we see guys have good years and get bad years and so forth.

Teams were really attacking Bashad Breeland and really attacking Mackenzie Alexander last year. And their numbers, they were two of the worst corners in the entire NFL. That if you were an opponent, you were coming in going, well, you know, Patrick Peterson, he could still play a little bit. Let's not target him. And I also remember Daniel Jeremiah telling a story about how when he worked in the NFL, that name recognition would usually mean so much, even if a guy didn't still have it, which I'm not saying

that Peterson like didn't play well, but just to contextualize this and try to project forward that maybe name recognition. And also the fact that two other corners were really struggling led to a lack of targets peterson even mentioned his lack of targets last year it was like who wants to tell them it's because they were throwing a breland all the time like that's why and if he's targeted more this year how much of a challenge is that going to be it is a different defensive system so mike zimmer actually got the most out of patrick peterson last year is ed donatel's system going to do the same for him i have no idea and um always funny to me when i see assertions that people make about well his

scheme's going to do this his scheme's going to do that it's like look we really don't know um we don't know exactly what they're going to do and how every person is going to fit in it. Only Ed Donatel really knows the things that they're going to do schematically. But I think that Patrick Peterson is one of those. Like if we were to name the five linchpin players to can they be like a really good team, like in the playoffs and having a chance to go compete for a deep playoff run clearly kirk cousins is number one by far running away i don't think patrick peterson's very far down the list because if he plays really really well then not only like is

that big for coverage which matters but you mentioned Like, what did they get him for? $4 million? Like to have, to have that. Although again, just side note, it might mean the league didn't really think that Patrick Peterson was worth more than $4 million based on how they saw him play last year. But if he plays well for $4 million, that is incredible value that they've been able to get. So I think that he does fall under that category of being one of the players that holds the keys to whether they succeed or fail this year. Yeah. And I think he kind of, again, if he can just be average and the way this Vikings defense takes a big leap is Cameron Dantzler goes to another level or Andrew Booth comes in and it's just right away

you can see a first round talent, a lockdown corner. I don't think there's a world where Patrick Peterson reverts back to him, his Arizona self, and that he's a lockdown corner on the outside. So that's not what they're asking for him. But if he can be an average piece and he can be a leadership piece and he can help develop one of these other guys into being that number one corner and Peterson can be a solid number two, that's a really, really ideal scenario. So Peterson may start one in the depth chart, but he can just kind of stay where he is and he can allow other players to kind of move above him and his role can continue to just be solid this defense

can be really really good but i would agree i mean if you're going to name kirk cousins you're probably going to name one of the defensive linemen on this on either sides darius or daniel hunter you're probably mentioning justin jefferson and someone else for lynchpins but peterson peterson's right there uh in terms of really really important pieces for this team and I I don't know it's it's gonna be really interesting for him because we obviously know he's not the athlete he once was and he played well last year but that's no guarantee him that he can do that again this year every every year that you get from Patrick Peterson at this point is just a bonus and so you're just hoping for more of this past year Patrick Peterson

than like one of the last years of Terrence Newman, where it was like, yeah, we can throw him on the field, but do we feel great about it? Maybe if he's our third, fourth corner, but Peterson's the first corner. So he needs to be more what he was last year and less like some of the other old corners that the Vikings have had. All right. I just did number randomizer on the 1994 Vikings and came up with Terry Allen.

Okay. Great year. Great. I'm going to be able to give you much on that. Yeah. Well, that's a, what,

what year, what year would, did you start say remembering like 10 years from now, which players will you be going? Like, remember that guy said like oh man 2012 maybe yeah like right when we were in the the far ponder years i was really i was really into it at that point so i don't know maybe you'd be like wow man matt asiata you remember him wow just yeah what a

bowling ball two two three yards every time what what a guy. I can do some remembering of like Jerry Allen and the Williams brothers. So I can do that. But if you go to 1994, if I recognize the name, that's a win. Terry Allen was great for the Vikings, but then ended up like leaving and going to Washington and leading the NFL in touchdowns a couple of years later. He was a guy that had like a really serious knee injury in 1993 and then came back and went for a thousand yards. It was fantastic. The Vikings 1994 offense is incredible.

Like Warren moon is the starting quarterback and he threw for 4,200 yards, which at the time was complete insanity. Uh, 122 receptions for Chris Carter. And somehow Jake Reed still ended up with 85 and quadri Ismail with almost 700 yards. Like that's how much they were throwing the ball at that point. But I, yeah, if we're now we could, I mean, it's far enough removed now that even my first team that I covered, you could do remember that guy that like red Ellison is is distant enough in the

in the past to be like yeah remember the time that they ran a um like a counter run inside to ret ellison at the goal line versus the lions and then there's gonna be a lot of that in 10 years there's gonna be a lot of remember when they were like running plays for cj ham to catch in 10 years that'll be the like hey we were running wheel routes like specifically for cj ham like you uh-huh really yeah you know yes yes yes yes cj ham certainly falls into the charles evans scotty graham category of like oh yeah jerome felton remember those guys yeah for sure uh good stuff paul we'll go back to the number randomizer that was like a seven eight minute conversation about a player

that we had no uh preparation for at all and just went number randomizer so i love it good stuff we'll do it again soon uh paul you take care of yourself and we will talk to you all again very soon