Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Lewis Cine makes splash plays in Day 4 of Vikings camp

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Matthew Coller talks live with Vikings fans about a big day for Lewis Cine and if he has a chance to take a step this year after finally showing some flashes during practice. Plus discussion about Jonathan Taylor's trade request and Kirk Cousins's future. (Don't worry, an emergency Danielle Hunter podcast is on the way) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here after day four of Minnesota Vikings training camp. Glad to have everybody back on a Saturday night. And it was actually much nicer out at TCO performance center for the first day of fans because it was not 1000 degrees. So, uh, it was a very nice day to stand out there and watch football fans had a great day. And also they were treated to a show from Justin Jefferson. I know that I spent a lot of time last night talking about one Justin Jefferson catch that was incredible, but he did it again. Jefferson just every year in camp seems

to want to make it very clear who the best wide receiver in football is. And once again, you know, this is one where I think the Vikings tweeted it out, but he started the day with one-on-ones against Andrew Booth Jr. Or was it? I'm sorry. I think it was against the Caleb Evans. Just go and streak down the sideline, does a little slow up, then accelerates, catches the ball, goes for touchdown, does the gritty in front of the fans. He's got shoes on with like 99s on them for Madden. So, I mean, Justin, just doing what Justin Jefferson does being a star. And then he had another one where I think that was against Andrew Booth Jr. where he just ran right by him on a go route, caught it would have been a touchdown. So those

were a couple of the highlights of the day from him, but that's not surprising or really all that notable that Justin Jefferson is doing great things. It was more notable that Louis scene was doing some great things today, had a couple of interceptions, uh, some very nice plays on the football, but there's kind of different forms of camp interceptions. So there's like a seven on seven drill where it's just the quarterback and the wide receivers and then the cornerbacks and the linebackers and they go out there if you didn't know what seven on seven is you I assume you do if you're watching this football stream but uh you know so okay they're

dropping back and throwing the ball and stuff it's very hard on the defenders I think to do the seven on seven there's no pressure on the quarterback. You can just drop back, set and throw. And I also think that there are more mistakes sometimes by the quarterbacks on seven on seven, where it looks to me like they try to make a throw there. It's not like there's just a sack or they just check down. They kind of stick with it, try to make throws. Sometimes it results in interceptions and I don't take them as seriously as big plays as the situational drills, because when they're doing the situational drills, that is much more intense. This is 11 on 11. They're pretending the clock is counting down

from one minute or whatever, trying to go down the field and score. It's one of the last things they do each day at practice when they're at a high intensity practice. And so with the second team out there, because Lewis scene is still with the second team, as far as I've seen, hasn't taken any first team reps on 11 on 11s, but Nick Mullins playing quarterback, he throws a ball that Lewis scene just spots, accelerates, jumps, intercepts. And it was also nice to see the way that the team reacted to Lewis seen intercepting the pass. It seemed like a genuine excitement for him to make that play.

At this point, they've got to know how much sort of maligned Lewis seen has been that a lot of people have been talking about him playing on the second team his development the first round pick and the pressure that goes along with that and it was the first time really since lewis scene got here that i felt like there was a real flash of excellence that last year everything was so slow and I remember getting to the point midway through camp and saying, I don't think I've seen him make a play the entire training camp, like a pass breakup, make a play on the football. And with this year's camp, I mean, we're only a couple of days in, but it's hard to say how much better he looks in terms of the meeting rooms, understanding the defense, when the pads come on, things will change and so forth. But you can say that at least based on today, there was several plays where he looked more confident and where you could see that athleticism. And it really stood out to me about Harrison Smith talking about how connecting the mental part with the physical part is where you maximize your speed.

And it just looked like he did that on that play where when you're not having to think through everything, should I be here? Is that the right route combination? Should I be accelerating toward the ball? Should I be dropping back whatever if the more you think it's kind of like i'm sure a lot of you are casual golfers like myself and the more you think your way through the backswing like okay keep the elbow in wait the hand's supposed to be here turn the hip all that and then you shank it into the woods because you're trying too much and you're not just swinging the golf club. And that play in particular, well, only one play for Louis scene

was swinging. The golf club is just gripping and rip it. That's a play where he sees the ball and goes and gets the ball. And I don't think that with Louis scene, it's ever been about a lack of potential or a lack of high end or physical ability, because you know how you guys have probably heard me talk before on the show about how somebody walks out there. And I know we joke about Josh Oliver and, and Juwan Williams being these huge people, but they walk out onto the field or they jog out, you know,

and you just look sort of the off the bus thing and go, well, that guy looks like a real NFL player, you know, with you just look sort of the off the bus thing and go, well, that guy looks like a real NFL player. You know, with Lewis scene, it's that kind of way. The man just looks big. He looks physically impressive. He looks fast and fluid in his motions when he's warming up, but then you just never, or taking individual drills, but then you've just never really seen it come together. So today on a couple of plays, it came together and just never really seen it come together. So today on a

couple of plays, it came together and he made some plays on the football and, and you can talk about how, Oh, well it's one splash play and does it matter? Does it not matter? And there's a discussion to be had there because it is one day and heck, you know, just the other night we're talking about Jaron Hall's very good day. Well, today was not a very good day for Jaron Hall. It was a struggle for him and Nick Mullins and that backup quarterback situation. A little spotty, I would say, because when we're celebrating an interception, also somebody else picked the pass off. Jaron Hall overthrew somebody today, had a pass intercepted and it just is a reminder that every day we're going to try to react without going crazy and overreacting and you know that's

that's what we're going to do with lewis scene as well but i do think that as far as confident goes confidence that this could be significant to him to have one of those days where you're making plays. And I know from talking to coaches about this over the years, making plays in practices, I mean, that's what they're evaluating all the time. Yes, it of course is, how are they doing in the meeting rooms? Do they have their assignments right? And things like that. But also being a safety and being a defensive back is a lot of times about you know making a game-changing play getting an interception forcing a fumble getting a pass break up over the middle where you accelerate quickly or something like that

and a lot of times you know watching from the sideline that's what we can tangibly judge is you know how somebody can make plays on the ball. It's because we don't know, they don't come over to us and Brian Flores doesn't say, all right, guys on this play, here's what Lewis seems supposed to be doing. He's supposed to drop it. They don't tell us that they know that, but a lot of times that's what ends up correlating to the team's decision-making and we'll see if he could start to stack days. I mean, that's the thing that's got to happen here. I don't know if there's a chance of winning the job or not, if they view it that way,

or if they like Cam Bynum and Harrison Smith, and they just want to go forward this way. But I also think that we're going to have to be patient a little bit, I think, with Louisine in terms of saying it's over or saying it's a bust if he doesn't make the starting lineup on day one because things can change, injuries can happen, and we saw even over the last few years, there's been a few times where Harrison Smith has been out, somebody else has to step up

and come in and so I don't want to get too far ahead of myself or ourselves as we talk about Lewis scene but it is really notable in my mind that there was finally a little bit of a click moment for him and now how he builds on this as he goes forward because the reality of Lewis seen versus combine him. And I think Josh Metellus has a different role. I don't think he's really fighting for that spot. I think he's got more of a built-in role to the defense because Brian Flores likes him and sees a skillset there. So let's just talk about it in the way that it's like combine him or Lewis seen combine him. no doubt is one of the smartest players on the field and is going to be in the right spots. But if we're talking about which

one of these guys can change a game, it's more likely Louis seen because of his physical skill. So if that gap gets closer and closer, then, you know, Louis seen gets a chance, I think, because he does have more physical ability. We'll see how it plays out throughout the summer. I think getting a really good day from Louis scene before we get to August, before the pads come on, making a bit of an impression today is a really good thing for this. And we have been talking about it as that battle is over. And I'm not ready to say because of one big day that all of a sudden that battle is back on and here comes lewis seen closing on cam bynum

because they do like buying him a lot uh it's just that he's giving himself a chance by starting to make plays and by starting to read and react and if he does that on the second team, maybe there will be a day in the not too distant future where we show up to practice and then it's splitting those first team reps. And even with last year, you know, it was Jesse Davis and it was Chris Reed at right guard. And then all of a sudden it was at Ingram like, oh, okay, he's mixing in. And then here comes a preseason game. And do we have an actual battle with preseason games? And this plays into it. Will they just sit, combine them and Josh Metellus in preseason games because they're the starters or will they use some of that as an evaluation tool? I'm really, really interested to see how that goes. Uh, Hunter says the safety room might be deep. Oh yeah. I mean, it, it definitely is. Uh, I think Bynum can probably grow on what he did last year, though. There's a ceiling there. Metellus, I was talking to Jordan Hicks today about Metellus and I said,

Hey, you know, it's really interesting to see a guy kind of go from, you know, being on the, uh, being on the special teams and not getting much opportunity to, you know guy kind of go from, you know, being on the, uh, being on the special teams and not getting much opportunity to, you know, kind of elevate his game. And he said, we've known about how good Josh Metellus is since last year. We've known that. And he said, he sort of looked right at me, he had sunglasses on. So I think he was looking right at me and just said like, Metellus is going to be good, man. I was like, Oh, okay. So that like everybody seems to be very high on Josh Mattel is and where that's going. But I think that that other position is, you know, maybe less stable and we'll see if scene starts to get those first team reps at any point

in training camp. But I can say for sure that if you make plays like that every day that are kind of a rare combination of speed and athleticism and quickness, then you're going to get more opportunities because the coaches cannot deny players who can make game changing plays versus guys who are just capable of getting in the mix. And something stuck out to me that Brian Flores said just the other day, I asked him about Metellus and football IQ, and he was talking about how, you know, it's great to have that football IQ, but he sort of said, I have great football IQ, but I couldn't play. So we have to consider that you got to be able to run and tackle and make plays and not just focus on does a guy know the game and I wondered if that was a little bit like hey it's not over with Lewis scene I don't know if that is what he was trying to tell me but I kind of took it a little bit that way that physical skill is still going to dominate in football so don't entirely write off Lewis scene yet and we're going to need a Lewis scene So don't entirely write off Lewis scene yet. And we are going to

need a Lewis scene meter, I think, because the other day, who was it that we were talking with the other day? Somebody, maybe it was Will Raggetts where we were talking about like, what percentage are you that Lewis scene is going to be the backup and not the starter. And it was like 95%. And so it was like all the way up here, maybe after a really good day today, we move it down a little bit. Maybe we move it to like 80 and we see where it goes the rest of the way. But the Jaron Hall QB to talk, I think is probably out after today or has gone back to the cold. Remember I said the other day that went up to the yellow. Now that's back to the ice cold blue, um, from skull city blues. I have, uh, uh, seen the future and, oh, I've seen the future. Good for you. That's a good one.

Seen the future. And it's bright is what you're saying. I, that's a great pun. I like that. Uh, could be, it could be, we're not, it's not over. It's not over yet because of one year and an injury and then a recovery and then four days of camp is, I guess, the lesson from today. From Swerve and Mervin, Lewis seen having a nice day is a real positive. The guy needs to start somewhere, and that somewhere is starting to make defensive plays against whoever he's playing. Right.

And for me, it was really the confidence of the play, that there was just sort of a, I see it and I'm going to get it. And I think that there can be some things you have to overcome as a young player when you feel overwhelmed. Right. And it's kind of like if you go to a new school or something and you don't really understand the teaching. So let's say that you move from Florida school system to Minnesota's sorry, Florida people. And, uh, you get to Minnesota and they're like two grades ahead of you because we have a better school system. And it's going to take you a little while to catch up. Uh, the NFL going from college is

kind of like that. And I think that, uh that if he can catch up and he can get to the, to the grade point where the NFL is, then he can use all of his football skill and make plays like that on a consistent basis. It's just, it's just not easy to know after one day of something really good happening for him, if this can be built upon or if this is going to, you know, kind of go back to where it was, or if the coaches are looking at it like kind of a lucky play or something like that, we don't really know what their discussion is behind the scenes,

just that it's notable that it happened today and worth now kind of paying attention to. Again, we had gotten into a rut of well leucine is just with the second team and i don't know and today was oh oh something to look at here okay uh skull city blues on fire with jared gets a hall pass today uh jaron yes jaron hall but uh look i mean're going to have with backup quarterbacks, this has always been the case, the ups and downs from a day-to-day basis, and he's got to recover from that one.

Now, they're going to be off tomorrow, so no live stream tomorrow night. But on Monday, then I believe the pads are coming on, and then we'll do this again all next week. The night practice is Friday night, and I think I don't see any reason why we can't live stream after that it'll be late at night but um we can recap the live stream and everything else all the way through next week so make sure you're paying attention to the show drop your questions in here about whatever whatever's on your mind vikings training camp

or the nfl and alex asks off topic what do you think of jonathan taylor requesting a trade or the running back situation in general i think that jonathan taylor just like all of his friends is in a very very difficult spot he's a great player and when you look at the we talked a lot about rushing yards over expected with delvin cook well delvin cooks had faded jonathan taylor's is elite over this first couple of seasons but that's kind of what happens right it's kind of what happened with delvin cook where he was elite in rushing yards over expected and lots of other metrics and then the concern is that you're going to sign him to a long contract.

And by the second year of the contract or something, you're not getting your money's worth, or you could have replaced him for a lot cheaper, put money into your offensive line, put money into your receivers, your defensive backs. And it's just going to be a more efficient use of your dollars. I think that Jim Irsay was just, you know, really foolish to make the comments that he made about the running backs. I mean, sometimes I'm amazed about social media, how people just log on and, and just, they just change lives with what they say on whatever social media. And it's like, well, what were you thinking?

Just logs on with gasoline and a match and lights it on fire. His relationship with Jonathan Taylor should have kept that whole thought process behind closed doors. But I also understand that even though Jim Irsay is pretty unhinged, he's also got a point. I mean that it's just not really an efficient use of the money. And one of the things is that these running backs at some point are going to have to prove everybody wrong. They're going to have to prove these teams wrong if they want to get their money. And maybe Christian McCaffrey started to do that last year with San Francisco, but so long as these deals keep blowing up and these running backs aren't able to keep going into their late twenties and early thirties and that they are as replaceable as they are, then this isn't really going to change. And we're just going to see a lot of angry running backs. I actually thought, so there's a lot of people that sort of made fun of Saquon Barkley, like

Saquon, you got 900,000 more than your franchise tag. What? I thought Barkley handled it the right way. Let's go play football, make $10 million and see what happens next. That's all you can really do as a running back. I just don't think that they have any leverage. I don't know who's trading for Jonathan Taylor as good as he is. I did think, wouldn't it be fun if the Wilfs were also unhinged and they just called up and said, we want Jonathan Taylor for Daniil Hunter. Let's have the best offense in football or something. I mean, it wouldn't be a good move, but it would be fun and crazy.

So sometimes I am jealous of those Colts reporters that have an absolutely wild owner who does whatever he wants. The Vikings don't have that. They have relatively well-grounded owners. I don't know from, from a reporting purpose, the insane owner might be more fun. But anyway, the point just being that I don't know who is going to trade for Jonathan

Taylor because trading for Jonathan Taylor includes paying Jonathan Taylor. And I don't know who's doing that. I mean, I think that if you're a team that is really bad and you're searching for some relevancy, let's say you've had a tough couple of years and your fans are down on you, the media is down on you if you could trade for jonathan taylor and get yourself over the edge because as an aside there is a difference between running backs don't matter finger quotes and like running backs don't matter so the running backs don't matter finger quote thing is a much larger discussion about how dollars are spent and how replaceable they are and how they're not often in control of their fate. Okay. That's one thing. It's the offensive line. It's

the scheme, the defenses that you play. These, these things all are big factors and there's luck as well. Somebody falls down. Instead of coming to tackle, you get an 80 yard touchdown that happens one year, not the next year and the point just being that a lot of guys in this world with good blocking can run for four and a half to five yards and it's there are very few even historically who are special year after year after year chris johnson was a good example he ran for 2 000 yards and then the next year it's 700 yards less and never even approached that again.

I mean that, that happens so many times with these running backs, but running games matter. Running games are worth points. Running games are yards, improved situations. And I think that any coach, any Shanahan style or Kubiak style coach would tell you that if you can start at second and five, every one of those play action, happy coaches would love second and five, second and four, second and three play actions, bootlegs, handoffs for first downs. I mean, remember when Kevin Stefanski pushed the run button 10 straight times against

Dallas and just beat their face in, there is no world where that's not going to be awesome. That, that is great. That's the easiest thing in the world to just hand off and plow the other team over. You're controlling the ball. You're wearing them down. Having a great running game is really good for your offense and it's worth a lot. And the Vikings last year saw the wrong side of that. I believe the expected points added was something like minus 27 points for the Vikings last year. And the best teams were gaining 30, 40 or more if you have a running quarterback. But among non-running quarterback teams, there's a 50 or 60 point gap based on running games. So it matters. And I think that that's a different conversation from saying we need to pay this guy

because he's really good. So it's not smart to pay, you know, Jonathan Taylor, 15 to $20 million a year because he's good because he might not stay good for a whole heck of a lot longer, if that makes sense. And I look around the league and go, well, who would be smart to trade for Jonathan Taylor? And I don't have a good answer because this year, if you are that struggling team and you don't plan on being great, then you're just tanking for Caleb Williams, right? I mean, I don't know. Like if we just, gosh, I I've, I'm going to look at the list of all NFL teams and see if I can come up with one. Hold on. I'm gonna look at all on my phone. I'm gonna look at all the teams. Is there any one team that needs Jonathan Taylor? I mean, because even you look at someone like new England and Ramond Ray Stevenson will run for like 1200 yards at five yards a clip.

I mean, Las Vegas has Josh Jacobs, Pittsburgh. Do they need a running back? I feel like Najee Harris is not good, but they already spent a first round pick on him, which is part of the running backs. Don't matter. Thing is Clyde Edwards, a layer, you know, Najee Harris. There's been a lot of running backs who just haven't been very good. So all the running backs that have tried to dig their heels in Delvin cook. Um, and now, you know, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, it hasn't worked out for any of them. And I doubt this is going to go anywhere, those guys. But, you know, it's a weird situation, and I don't really understand why Jim Irsay has been saying the things

that he's saying. But, I mean, I think maybe him just being Jim Irsay would be the reason for that. Okay, from IShotU99, from your experience, how much does training camp performance actually translate to future in-game playing time? Players have impressed in camp, but end up disappearing. Is it all just 50 50? Now I wouldn't say it's all 50 50. I would say that we do get is fooled the right way to put it,

or maybe somebody's training camp does not translate. And you go, man, that guy had a really good camp and then it never happened for him. And, you know, he had all this momentum or buzz, but I think that it's much more than 50, 50. It's probably more like 70, 30 that if, because what that means, if you've got camp buzz, what it usually means is, and there's levels to this, is there camp buzz for the number six wide receiver based on some highlight plays that you saw on Twitter? Or is it camp buzz of players, coaches, so forth?

And I'll give you two ends of the spectrum here. In 2017, I was talking to Terrence Newman and I asked him about Delvin Cook. I said, you know, Hey, what do you think of Delvin cook, by the way? And he said, look, I know a special football player when I see one. Okay. This guy is something different. I collided with him out there and he hit me with a power that I have not been hit with in a long time and in a training camp practice or whatever.

And like, trust me, this guy is special. I was like, oh, wow. And then immediately he was special. So that's a fairly high draft pick who shows it right away in training camp, impresses everybody, wins the job, and then turns into a great player. That happens a lot. If it's somebody, I mean, like Justin Jefferson, if he had had a full training camp in 2020, probably by the end of it, we would know what was going on. Right. That's the only reason that there wasn't as much buzz with him. But if somebody was, if there's a reason to think it, if like he was a high draft pick or something like that, and everybody's talking about it, if guys unprompted are talking about it, but a lot of times if it's not going well, there will be,

well, you know, he just needs to keep working on it or something like not something negative, but something that hints at, I don't know if it's going as well as they want it to. Uh, and then there's the bottom roster guys that like your TY McGill, who has a great preseason game or something. And he just wasn't ever really in their plans. Alexander Hollins is another one. He had a great training camp. He wasn't really an NFL caliber wide receiver and they just cut him and whatever else it never turned out. But I think that if it's a player that's expected to be somebody on the team and everyone's buzzing about him in camp more often than not, not like a hundred to zero, but 70, 30, that player is good. So like

Josh Metellus is a good example with the way everyone's talking about Josh Metellus. If you were asking me to bet, does he have a good season or not? I would say probably yes, because they're seeing him all the time and they're talking about him and they know what they're looking for the coaching staff and the other players. And they're bringing him up unprompted and you know giving him opportunity and so forth and so something like that and we've got some hints that kind of thing uh already somebody like that you would put a bet on with their training camp buzz versus maybe there's a third teamer who gets some picks or has a good preseason game and then you know know, maybe not so much. So anyway, let's keep carrying on here with your questions. Kirk could play himself into another deal. He does that. Smith

AZ says it's possible. It is possible. And you are right that he definitely has done that throughout his career, but also another team already in his career said, okay, we're going to let it all play out. You know, we're just going to let it all play out. And, uh, we're gonna, you know, hit free agency and go from there. He already did that, uh, in Washington. And that's how he ended up here. I don't think he's afraid of that outcome. I really don't. And he said that straight out in his first press conference that he's gone through this a lot of times. He always looks at it year to year. And I believe him that he always looks at it year to year and he's okay with it at the end. But there's always

this thing, I think pinging in the back of the Vikings mind, which maybe will change. I don't know that like who, who's next, who will be the quarterback then. But, you know, I look at, I look at what the Raiders did and the, and the front half of what the Raiders did is probably smart. The back half of what the Raiders did is probably not smart. So the Raiders moved on from Derek Carr, but then they could have been the team that traded up for the number one pick and should have done it. And they, they didn't. And, and, you know, I look at Atlanta is probably the same way that Atlanta had a quarterback for a long time. They decided to move on from him in Matt Ryan. Like this is the right time to move on. And the back half of it was not a good

decision to stick with Desmond Ritter, but they were in position. And I think that the Vikings can do that too, that they don't have to be terrified of moving on from Kirk Cousins. And I think that what Kweisi Adafomensa has shown with a lot of these guys is it's not like Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer, who were always afraid to move on from older players. They were always a year too late and not a year early when it came to moving on from certain guys i i i think as of this moment that they will play it out this year and then move on from cousins but that's that's another percentage meter that could change uh rob says i believe per analytic, cornerbacks more impactful to pass defense. So yeah, the way that that worked is that PFF a while back looked at pass rush versus coverage. Now let's keep in mind

that those two things are intrinsically tied together. But I think in today's NFL with teams getting the ball out so quickly that the coverage they found is more important. So if you can rush the passer, but can't cover anyone, you're still going to get smoked. And that's really what happened to the Vikings last year. But if you can cover really well, your pass rush doesn't have to be as good. And part of it is, you know, coverage sacks. And so you could go back and forth all day. But I tend to think that one pass rusher, if you pay him that much money, you have to know that he's going to be that good for years to come. And that's a big part of the evaluation. If you make Daniil Hunter a top three paid pass rusher, you got to be sure that for the next three years in that contract, he is going to

be a top five guy. And you know, with his injury history, I don't know, like they I'm sure they're trying to project it. I would bet there's a decent chance that he is really great, but there's also a risk that goes along with that. They might not want to take at this point. Derek says, I see a trend. Kwesi seems to drag his feet when dealing with decisions regarding players that should be traded or resigned could have got value for a couple of these cuts

or too late trades. Well, I mean, we're really only talking about just Delvin and Zedaria Smith, right? And that's really the only situations that we're talking about there. I don't't can you think of any other ones that are like that uh i mean okay we're into camp but we're not even in august yet and with there's two sides to this story with jefferson and with hawkinson those guys have to

agree as well so is it dragging your feet or is it i mean you can look at this one way or another is it dragging your feet or is it being a hard-nosed negotiator or whatever? Because he's a newer GM, maybe we think it's dragging his feet or trying too hard to get his price and then ending up not having it work out. But I don't look at any of these situations yet as, Kwesi, what are you doing?

I mean, it's July 29th. We are not close to that yet. If you're a general manager of a team that is not being talked about as a Super Bowl contender and that is in the middle of this revamping of a roster and you're looking forward with everything you do, I think what you do is you set a harder price. If you're a general manager of a team that could win the Super Bowl, take Kansas City,

they're going to pay Chris Jones because they really want to win the Super Bowl. And he's a big, important part of it. And I know they moved on from Tyree Kill last year. So I guess they can be shrewd at times, but more likely than not, a guy who's a centerpiece of your defense, you might be more apt to just give them a little bit more money. It's like, all right, you know what? You're a pretty important guy to us. We're on the cusp of the super bowl. And the Vikings did this a bunch of times when they felt like they were a legitimate contender, give a little, you know, give a little too much to Anthony bar, restructure this contract, give a little more money to that guy but that's not where the Vikings are right now so they can set their price and say all right you do it at our price or not and uh you know I guess we'll see how that plays out

and maybe we will think that maybe we will think that he dragged his feet too much. I'm not really sure, but it's an interesting discussion. This is a good point by Skull City Blues. Eagles have a blueprint for multiple defensive fronts constantly rotating. I totally agree. I think that the depth of the defensive line is a massive deal, and it is a unit type of thing. deal and it is a unit type of thing and there are more valuable elements of it but it's kind of about having a lot of really great players on the defensive line and not just one guy who is dragging your entire pass rush and the eagles have done this extremely well but think about like they

don't get credit for inventing it just go back a few years ago in 2017 with the Vikings and think about how different this D line is. So you have Everson and Daniil unbelievable, uh, defensive end combination, probably the best in the league. And then in the interior Linval Joseph in 2017 played as well as anybody in the NFL and nose tackle. You had Shamar Stefan, who was a run stuffer when playing 30% of the snap solid Tom Johnson rotating with him and was really good at getting after the passer. But then Brian Robinson would come off the bench and he was good too. And so he'd be in on third downs and he'd be rushing over the guard and things

like that. Like that's a lot of players who can play, who are causing problems. And, um, you know, I think that if the Vikings build this up, they might look at it and say, well, look, the Eagles have a bunch of guys, so we need to draft some guys. We need to sign some free age. Do you need, we need a lot more than Dean Lowry and Harrison Phillips might be the way that they look at it. And I think that that would be probably smart to spend the money over a couple of players than just all into one player. But that's always going to be the discussion because let me just present the other side of that. You don't win deep in the playoffs with just a bunch of average guys.

You need greatness. It's just, are you going to be sure greatness continues with Daniil considering he lost basically two years to injury? From David, I'd rather trade Hunter now and hopefully get at least a second round pick than lock him up to a big contract for three years and have him turn into another overpriced vet. Kwesi has his eye on 24 and 25.

Yeah, I think they are comfortable doing that. And look, the way they negotiated with Kirk was pretty telling because at least from the reporting that's been out there on it, it sounds like Kirk wanted X number of years at X price based on what Derek Carr got with Daniel Jones got. And the Vikings had their price. We're only going to go this far for an extension. Let's just say, hypothetically, we're only going to go two years and you want three. And the Vikings dug their heels in and said, that doesn't work for us.

And we're going to try another direction. At least that's how things stand right now. In this moment, I wouldn't hold this forever. In this moment, I think that's a good approach for this team. If that becomes a thing as we go forward, if they're a true contender and they have shot up and have all these players emerge and they're ready to really be there. And they're still doing this and not willing to move off of the hard line. Well, then I would view it differently. But at this point, I think you can hold the hard line with where they stand with Daniel Hunter right now.

But it could continue to be awkward. And I think you hear that in Kevin O'Connell's voice where he doesn't. And this is why it's hard to be a head coach and why kevin o'connell is very good i think at towing the line with his players and with his general manager and mike zimmer was not with either i mean can we imagine what mike zimmer would be saying right now i think this deal's done with mike zimmer and hunters back right because mike zimmer would just go out in public and say we better get this deal done right i mean i'm certain of that so i it was very interesting to see quacey or kevin o'connell take into account quacey daflamentis position with hunter and the negotiation but also his player

so if he does return he could like, great to have you back. Just like I said, or if he's traded, he could say, well, you know, that's the business and onto the next player. Uh, Alex says any move that pushes the team toward moving on from Kirk is a good thing. Well, I tend to feel the same way. And it's all about, it's all about what, what, you know, trying to predict the future, as Mike Zimmer said. And I'm going to get together with Ben Gessling from the Star Tribune and do another episode for longtime listeners, the crystal ball episodes every year where we try to look into our crystal ball

and make predictions based on what we're seeing in camp and the offseason and everything else. And everything is like that for the general manager. It's about making your predictions what are you seeing in the future are you seeing Kirk Cousins get better in the future no are you seeing him get more expensive yes and so if they do move on like that seems smart but the future in the crystal ball is very unclear at who the other quarterbacks are going to be that are available, including in the draft. Uh, Alexander, what are your thoughts on Jonathan Taylor requesting a trade after his

owner's comments? I feel bad for Jonathan Taylor and all running backs that they are in a winning win list position, a position they cannot win that they're not going to get paid more the owners will dig in their heels look if the owners can blackball a guy the owners cannot pay running backs they always win these things almost 100 of the time if they could force lamar jackson back to the ravens they have the power here and what teams are willing to pay for is what something is worth. It's that's the market. And there's not a whole lot that these running backs can do about it. And it's unfortunate because when I was growing up, think about the great players that I would have been watching. Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas. If you're a little bit older,

LaDainian Tomlinson, or I guess younger than older, LaDainian Tomlinson, or I guess younger than me, LaDainian Tomlinson, Sean Alexander, all these great running backs. And they give their bodies, they are beaten down. They do a lot of different things and it's tough. It is very tough. But at the same time, it's really hard to blame the teams for not paying them, right? Because it's a bad investment and it's been a bad investment so many times. I would say this though, that Jonathan Taylor is probably still good. And if he were to have, like, we were just talking about the Daniil Hunter and the desperation and everything. And I mentioned earlier, if you're a team that's been bad and has a chance to be good

this year, that you should go for it. There might even be an element of if you're a team that's good and has an injury or even just has a running back who you're not sure about RB1, then maybe you should also go for it. Maybe someone will trade for him. I don't know that it will happen. And if teams weren't willing to trade for Saquon Barkley or Delvin cook, maybe they won't with him either. He is very good though. And if he,

if he's a final piece to somebody's team, it could be like the Christian McCaffrey thing where maybe, maybe something swings so far to one direction that if you're the team that kind of comes back a little bit like think about fullbacks fullbacks were just totally not used at all and kyle shanahan was kind of like you know what this kyle use check guy like let's put him in let's let's let's use him and it's been very useful and the vikings even with using two tight end sets like oh everyone's 11 personnel it swung too far away from the big people. So now, or at least with Kubiak, and then the Vikings are trying to do some of this with Josh Oliver, but with Gary Kubiak and with Shanahan, they started to kind of bring the big people back and they had some success with it. And so did the Ravens. And so

did the Vikings. And so there's a little bit of like, oh, don't use those guys. They're not efficient or whatever. Well, broadly, it might be true, but for a certain situation, it might not be. And the Christian McCaffrey trade for the 49ers, at least as of this moment, it worked. Now, long-term, is it the smartest thing? I don't know, but they're a Super Bowl contender. So it worked and they kind of went the other way. And maybe if there's a team that does the same thing with Jonathan Taylor, but the problem is those guys get hurt so much 49ers lucked out with Christian McCaffrey. But if you trade a second round pick or something for Jonathan Taylor and he gets hurt, yeesh, and that's, that's pretty tough. Um, so let's see, uh, from David, why would another

team sign Hunter to a contract? The Vikings wouldn't wouldn't? Well, they might be in a different timeline. Every team has a different timeline, all 32 teams. And if you went to their fans, I bet their fans could tell you what it is. Their fans could categorize their teams as we are nowhere close in rebuilding completely. We are on our way up. We are in our winning window, or we are on our way down after a winning window. And those are the only places these teams are. There's a couple of those places where they would want Daniel Hunter

and to sign him to have him for multiple years, specifically in we are in our winning window or we're about to get to our winning window. I think the Vikings are on the other side where they just were in their winning window and they're trying to get back to the upside. That's why you don't sign Daniel Hunter is because you're in the one place where you don't want to sign a player like that. That's why from Hunter. Do you think in the somewhat near future, we could see the death of the running back position because no one is willing to play it. Absolutely not. No way.

Nope. I mean, if you're, if you're, and I'm sure we will see this or hear stories of this. If you're a parent of a running back and your kid's really good, your kid has no chance to make the NFL. I promise you none whatsoever. Zero. The literal odds of your child making the NFL are like 0.0001%. And if you're a great running back though, in high school, you're dominant, you're a prospect, even you're a star recruit.

You can get a education for free and NIL money and have a pretty good college experience as a running back. And then whatever happens happens after that. Saquon Barkley is in a tough spot, but he's making $10 million. I mean, there's still money to be had, a pro career to be had. I don't think that people will just stop playing running back. And here's the other thing, too. A lot of people can't catch a football. So all this whole thing of, Oh, we'll just move all the running backs to receivers.

What running routes and catching the ball is not just something anybody can do. Have you watched college football? Half the receivers can't catch the football. You think that all these running backs are just going to do it. There's always going to be great athletes, great skill players who play in the backfield. From the time they're little kids, they get the ball in their hands. That's where you get the ball in your hands most as a kid. And then develop into great running backs. And they'll make a lot of money on first contracts, endorsements, NILs. And it's just going to be a reality that you're not going to have a long career. But it would almost be like saying like, no, one's going to play tennis because, you know,

if you're not Serena Williams, you can't make a lot of money on the pro tour. Well, you're not making the pro tour. Most people aren't. So no, I don't think we're going to see the death of the running back position or anybody stopped playing it or anything else. And if all 32 running backs held out and said, we're, we're not doing it. We're not playing. We want our own CBA. The NFL would go find 32 more dudes who could play and out of the XFL or USFL, and they'd probably be pretty good. And then the running backs would realize that they were as replaceable as they thought. Not that anyone can do it. It's just that, you know, there's a bevy of players who can.

And so I don't think there's any real answer to this thing. Let's see. Alex says the market is highly constrained. College players can't enter the draft until a certain point. Rookie contracts are regulated. A free market would let running backs get paid when their value is highest. Oh yeah. This isn't a free market. No, um, it's not it's, it's the market as it exists. Uh, but free, absolutely not. I mean, this, this right here, it's not from a player's perspective, considering the value of the national football league what it's worth what these players get paid

it's not a great cba what rookie players are worth i mean really what a rookie contract should be logically would be a rookie comes in and signs the deal that sam bradford signed because that's what the interest well if we were doing free market there's no draft and you would just sign a guy to whatever you could sign him for and that's how it would work they would just all be available after college and then everyone would sign him and there would be an nfl signing day and it would be like wow andrew luck gets a 200 million dollar contract as a rookie that would be if it was a completely fair and free market uh but it's not i mean it's really set up to especially rookie quarterbacks imagine how much money joe burrow should have already based on his performance or josh allen or patrick mahomes based on just their

performance alone but that's not how it works that's not the cba they negotiated so there's nothing they can really do about it i think um anyway uh being an outstanding receiver is why christian mccaffrey is making 16 million that's how you get paid and that you know that's the thing david is that is true but there's only probably two guys who have been i mean maybe there could be a handful more who have been real impact players in the last 25 years as receivers and running backs, Marshall Falk and Christian McCaffrey. There have been others that like catch the ball out of the backfield on screens and stuff, but actually going down the field, running routes. But I do think that, um, they, you know, they should like run running backs andan robinson was running routes today and

there was you know tweets out there and stuff i do think running backs should make that a focus of their development because that could get them a little bit more if you're already there if you're like that pro uh type of level i mean this is an interesting solution from skull city blues running backs should be allowed to come out after their sophomore year in college and and I do think that if there is one solution because think about it this way all running back we talk about them as if they're all the same if you come out of college at 20 years old and you didn't play that much college football the mileage is way different than somebody who comes out at 23 who just carried the ball 400 times for Tulsa or something right like there there is a difference for sure and maybe that's a solution and maybe

like I think part of it with staying for three years was these guys bodies are just like cannot play in the NFL that might be different now the way that they that they treat their bodies so maybe um all right this is uh gonna be the last question of the night but you guys have been amazing again showing up here every night and as long as you keep showing up i keep showing up so um next week all next week after practices eight o'clock sometimes it might go 8 15 whatever in that range but aim for eight o'clock every night. Um, you know, we're going to keep doing this cause it's been awesome. So, uh, from go for teeth. Do you think that they are just waiting for JJ's contract to get done so the others can be taken care of that? I do not know.

I don't think so because Jefferson's contracts should not impact this year's salary cap very much where Daniil's would. I would think that the most pressing situation is Daniil, and then maybe the other ones can happen. But the most pressing in my mind is Daniil Hunter because he's not even practicing. And with Justin Jefferson, they don't have to get this done today tomorrow he's going to play this season it's pretty clear he's throttling people in training camp like he's going to play and so if he doesn't have a contract he's also under contract next year that's an important note as well that they've picked up the fifth year option Jefferson if he really wanted to press his luck he could try holdouts hold hold ins, hold left, hold right, whatever. He could try that. But it's really in this situation, the fourth year with the fifth year option already picked up, you don't have a whole lot of leverage and the team could just sort of shrug their shoulders at you. you so he he's in a very different situation than daniel hunter where hunter is not playing on this

deal period hockinson and jefferson they are going to play on their deals so there's a little less pressure to do it right away but i thought i mean i think overall though uh there's pressure on everybody it's just that daniel is by far the most pressing so um just all right now last last question i promise and you guys keep throwing great questions uh have you noticed this from alex have you noticed the vikings spending more time improving the screen game thus far i think they will uh but not so far it's only four days in they haven't done the i mean they are running some screen stuff but they haven't been in the pads yet. And they haven't done these long sections of 11 on 11s. It's been a little more sporadic, but when they do, when they really get rolling in practice, it'll just be like 11 on 11s for most of the practice. And that's where you start

to see things develop. I do think though, to your point, they need to be much better in terms of the practice and that's where you start to see things develop i do think though to your point they need to be much better uh in terms of the screen game so anyway what a great night of football discussion you guys are the best thank you so much uh for showing up here every night this week and i was only planning to do this every once in a while but now uh i'm gonna do it all the time because you guys are great and i really enjoy chatting with you about vikings camp so monday night will be the next one and then all next week we will do it as well so thanks so much guys football hunt hunter thank you we're gonna end on that football appreciate it very much we'll talk again soon take care guys