Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Looking for clues the Vikings' offense will be different (A Fans Only pod)

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fan questions, from how Purple Insider business works to the language Kevin O'Connell will be teaching Kirk Cousins in the new offense to who's battling it out for the WR4 position to whether the Vikings should keep a fullback in the mix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. This is a fans-only podcast here where I take Minnesota Vikings fan questions and answer them. You can submit either through the website purpleinsider.com or send it to me on Twitter if you at me. Or my DMs are open, so you can just send me a DM. Just say, hey, this is for fans only, and I will put it in the queue and work my way through all these questions and try not to spend too much time rambling on one question. So I get through many of them, but I've got a lot of great questions for today to answer about the Vikings. I also put it out there too, that you're free to ask about other stuff like, you know, reporting

on the NFL and things like that. If you like happy to answer any of those questions. And especially since we are getting into June here that, you know, weird or wild or historic or whatever type of NFL questions or Viking questions you want to ask are always pretty fun, kind of mixes it up and things like that. So, you know, when it's the off season, it's especially interesting to have those types of questions that mix it up. So if you got anything on your mind or if it's hardcore 2022 Vikings, all that is perfectly good. So feel free to send it. And as always, we have to open a diet Dr. Pepper first. All right, let's get right to it. Hold on. Let me open my file here. You would have thought that I would have had that open first, but I did not.

Okay. Let's begin with, uh, this is Curtis sent me an email says, uh, Matthew, how do you guys survive with five people to pay slash support or are all of you moonlighting? I know at the end of 1500 ESPN slash KSTP came as a real shocker. Finally, I still don't get why they let you go and kept some intern by the name of Declan Goff when you had far more time in. Well, first of all, let me say this. I hope that you're just making fun of Declan and maybe you follow him or you're friends with him or whatever, because Declan is a great guy. He is an extremely hardworking person. And I was glad that they didn't fire everyone when they decided to shut down the station

and that they kept a job for Declan. In fact, I mean, of all the people that I worked with, I think Declan was the one who had the most growth from the time that I met him, that he got a job there. And then he worked his way up from working just a couple of hours a week up to getting to run the board, to produce shows. And then he's become actually, I think, a very good talker on air, which took a lot of work from him to get to that point and to cover hockey and to do the show with Judd over there. So, uh, yeah, I have nothing bad at all to say about Declan Goff. He's a good friend and somebody that I enjoyed working with. So I was glad that they kept him on. And I think that they've even kind of bumped him up in the company a little bit. Good for him. He's absolutely earned

that. So as far as the purple insider business goes, well, it's, it's been a developing thing. I would say, because at first, uh, I didn't really know how to go about starting my own anything. And my wife suggested going with a sub stack, uh, which is basically the newsletter. I know a lot of you subscribe to the newsletter. So you get the articles in your email every day at purpleinsider.com. If you're, if you're not subscribed, you can go there. You get all the articles that I write and that Paul Hodwanik writes that they go there. Um, so I started that first cause I thought, well, I definitely want to keep writing about the team. And when the team said that I could keep my credential, uh, that was one of the PR people, Jeff Anderson, who deserves

credit for that. And so he, he called me up and said, Hey, you can keep your credential, keep coming out, covering the team, keep coming to games. So I was like, okay, great. So that's on the writing side. And that is the subscription model that now it feels like everyone is doing. So there's that. And then as far as this podcast goes in the middle of the pod, you guys hear ads and those come from blue wire podcasts, which is a podcast network that sells to sponsors and then puts those ads inside of the podcast. And of course they pay for like downloads. So every time you listen to the show, if you know, I'll get a message from somebody like, Hey, can I send you some money on PayPal or something just to show my support to kind of give you a tip or a high five.

It's like, if you're downloading the show and listening to it, you are supporting me and you're allowing this to happen. Um, and then the website bring me the news a little while back. Um, they connected with me about running some of my articles on their website. And so that's a little bit of a revenue stream too. And those guys are great partners. Uh, Joe and Adam over there, they do a tremendous job of like gathering Minnesota news. They've got some original reporters there as well. So they do a really good job.

And so I hooked up with them. So it's kind of like coming from a little bit of everywhere with revenue. And as far as the people who like I'm paying, so Sam Ekstrom left to go to the lockdown network, but he was working full time for me. And then now Jonathan Harrison is doing the social media stuff. So if you see like some cool social media stuff, follow the purple insider, he's doing a tremendous job with that. Paul Hodawanik works for WCCO radio, but I partner

with them too, on some appearances and some fill-ins that I do, uh, over there. So Paul, um, you know, I pay him like a monthly kind of thing, contractor style, that kind of deal. And then people like Searles, Courtney Cronin, who you hear come on, uh, they get paid to anybody who's coming on like a regular basis that I want to make sure they get paid too. Because anybody who's coming on like a regular basis, then I want to make sure they get paid. And the reality is that none of these revenue sources are going to put me in a penthouse, of course, but it's been enough to allow me to pay other people when they deserve it. Like Paul Hodowanek, who was intern Paul. I mean, at one point I was giving him like $20 gift cards to, you know, golf galaxy or whatever, just to say thank you,

to make sure that he got something out of being intern Paul. And as we've built this up and as we've gotten more support, more downloads for the show, which I mean, the first month, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of people listening and then, you know, it just builds and builds and builds. And so then we get a little bit more and a little bit more from the ads and things like that. And I didn't want to just say, Hey, like I'm just going to pocket as much as I can and whatever else I want to give an opportunity to someone like Paul Hoda Wannick. I want to work with Jonathan Harrison, who I worked with at 1500 ESPN because he's a great guy and does a tremendous job. So I want him to do that.

Courtney would come on for free, but that's not fair to have somebody like her who's so busy she's doing ESPN radio, covering the Bears. And so it's just fair that I do that. And then I'll try to allocate some to go to road games and go to the combine and things like that, uh, to try to just do the absolute best job I can do for everybody. Like it was somebody else paying me, but it is, you know, my own business money now that's

being used. But really, I mean, it's like, that's why when people support on the sub stack or when they read the articles on bring me the news stack or when they read the articles on bring me the news or when they listen to the show, I'm just so greatly appreciative because it allows me to be able to do this stuff, to not have to, uh, moonlight, as you said, uh, to not have to do anything else and to entirely focus on this job, which was my career for 10 years before COVID. And then, you know, you guys have allowed me to

continue to do it and to continue also to, you know, do other things that are cool with it and to reward people that helped me out with it. And that's, I mean, that's amazing, but it's not like bringing in so much revenue that I've bought a bigger house or anything. I mean, I still just, you know, just like before in media where it's not like, again, it's not like you're, you know, buying Jimmy Butler's house when he gets traded to Philadelphia or anything, or you're buying Anthony Barr's house when he moves. It's not, it's not, it was never like that. Um, but it's, I would say it's, it's similar to what I'm able to do. Only I get to decide kind of who I want to work with now. And everything

else is pretty similar, including how much money is coming in. So I don't know if that totally answers the question, but I'm not, all these people aren't full time. A lot of them are just contributing in different ways. So Paul Hodowanek is contributing with me and working at WCCO radio. So I guess I'm the moonlighting for someone like Paul, Sam was working full time. And as we go down the road, that may be a position that somebody else gets brought into, but it's also June at the moment. And it wouldn't have made any sense to bring somebody else in like after the draft. So we'll kind of see where we're at down the road. If someone else, you know, ends up kind of being my partner in crime here. So hopefully that answers the question and kind of

opens the door a little bit to how purple insider industries, uh, works. Okay. My friend, Chuck Aoki, if you guys don't know Chuck, you should follow him on Twitter at Aoki five Chuck. He is a silver medalist multiple times and a Paralympian, an incredible guy, a great friend and a huge supporter of the show. So I really appreciate you, Chuck. OK, so he says, here's your fans only. If the Vikings were playing the AFC slash NFC West this season instead of the East, would they have still run it back? Oh, okay. So you mean, yeah, those, instead of playing the NFC East playing the NFC West and instead of playing the AFC East playing the AFC West. Okay. Give me a second. Hmm. I think the answer is yes, that they would have continued along these lines, but we would have to be way more skeptical if they could

even compete for the playoffs. So right now, I think most of us, anybody who's kind of living in the real world about the Minnesota Vikings, not being way over critical, not being way over optimistic lands somewhere in the ballpark of where Vegas is on this team and says, look, if a lot of things go right and Kevin O'Connell knows what he's doing, you can win 10 games with this team and you could be in the playoffs because the NFC is not that tough. And because your schedule is not that tough. And if some things go wrong, you're probably going to be in the same place that you were before, which is in the ballpark of seven or eight wins. I think that's the most realistic viewpoint of the Vikings and Hey, it's the Vikings. So you

never know when a 13 wins season is going to crop up, but probably not with this team, unless it really everything just sort of the red carpet is rolled out and quarterbacks get hurt or, you know, all the quarterbacks that they need to be bad that are unproven are all really bad. And the defense is not just good, but the Donatello defense is unbelievable and takes this huge step forward. But those are kind of like the fringe outcomes. Also the bad one could be a fringe outcome too. I think that that's living in reality. If they were playing the AFC West and they had to go up against Mahomes, like Derek Carr is the worst quarterback you've got to go against, Russell Wilson, Justin Herbert, you'd probably have to go on the road for a few of those games, of course.

And then the NFC West, which is still really difficult, even though you could beat Seattle, we'd probably be looking at the schedule and saying, gosh, this might be like a six-win team. Like, I don't see the other win team. Like I don't see the other outcome. Like I don't see the, Hey, they can win 10 or 11 with this current schedule. You do see it. I didn't pick it that way. Exactly. I picked it closer to nine, but you could see, um, with this schedule, an 11 win season, if things go right with that schedule,

with those proven quarterbacks, where you're going into more than half the games where your quarterback is not as good as those other guys. Yeah. You'd probably be saying like, I think they would have made the same decisions. I just think that we'd be talking about it a little differently and be more skeptical about their chances to return to the playoffs, which to me right now is probably a coin flip for them to be a playoff team. I would be saying much closer to maybe one in four if they had that schedule, but I don't think that they would have sat up in the office with the Wilfs and said, you know, we're playing Herbert this year, so we probably shouldn't bring back Kirk. Like, I think it's clear that ownership wanted to maintain their competitiveness and wanted to

stay with Kirk cousins in order to do that, unless they were going to get, you know, the top overall draft pick in return. Clearly that's not what they were going to get. And Kevin O'Connell also, and you can't blame Kevin O'Connell for this. He probably looked at the draft class, which turned out to have one first round quarterback who was picked 20th and said, can I just try it with Kirk instead? And maybe let's just do that. And instead of drafting one of these quarterbacks or instead of going out and trying to sign Marcus Mariota. Um, now I think that, you know, long-term we may end up looking back and saying, well, I guess you should have just bit the bullet and done that anyway. But instead, I think Kevin O'Connell probably wanted one swing or maybe two

based on Cousins' contract at getting the most out of him, getting them into the playoffs, taking them farther than Mike Zimmer, doing things better on offense. And I asked Kweisi Adaf-Vilmenta that. I mean, I asked asked him like, are there things that you see on the offense from last year that you think were kind of like inefficient that you can do better? And he said, yes, absolutely. And I don't have the answer right in front of me, but he kind of went into a little more detail of the tiny edges, the down in distances. And I think he's probably nod, nod, winking, winking about the second and long thing, you know, running all the time and being a little more efficient in the way they go about stuff. And so they have that thought and that's the direction they chose. I don't know that it would

have changed entirely if they had that, but that would have, I mean, that would have made things really something though, right? If they had said, if they had come out and said, we're playing a way too difficult schedule. So we decided we're just going to take a step back that, I mean, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I, my, my initial reaction Chuck is now I think they were just going this way anyway. But as I talk through it, I think, well, I don't know, because maybe they would have looked at it and said, we can't add enough to this roster to somehow stop Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert. I mean, throw in Kyler Murray, who they lost to last year and played extremely well, throw in San Francisco. That's a great team. Throw in the Superbowl chance. If that's who they were playing, I would, I'll put it down as a, maybe I don't want to completely dismiss it as maybe I did like four minutes ago. But I think that they, they are hanging on to this idea that you can hang around and

be competitive, get in the playoffs and then anything can happen. And it seems like they've made all their decisions based on that. And I'm not sure that that would have completely changed their sort of MO because of a schedule. Um, maybe it would have last year. I mean, last year's schedule on paper was actually pretty difficult, but now when you go through it, the door is open for them to take advantage because I think on one of these fans only pods, I think it was like what 11 out of 17 games, Kirk cousins is clearly the better quarterback. So maybe that, maybe that was a factor as they consider, do we tear it all down? Do we trade everyone away or not?

All right, let me get a little, you know, it's a little hotter out today. I'm in the sun porch, it's like 80 degrees. So there will be more breaks for sips of Diet Dr. Pepper, sorry. Okay, this comes from matt via the email uh wes phillips responded to an andrew kramer question about having a shorthand verbiage to play calls which helped in his offense where they could call more than one play in the huddle instead of just running the play that's called against any look uh is it new to the Vikings? Is it new to Kirk Cousins? It seems like it may play into Kirk's robotic strengths.

It seemed like he audibled less than most experienced quarterbacks in the past few years. So, no, I don't think there's anything at this point that they're going to give Kirk Cousins that he hasn't seen before. I mean, what is this? Is this like year... How many years is this in the league for him? Year 10? What, 2012 he was drafted. So yeah, I mean, 2022, he's played for a bunch of different coaches, a bunch of different offensive systems. I don't think that there's some, any sort of

change that could be like, oh, well, this will work better for me because I've never had this before. I mean, he's had lots of different situations. So I don't know about that. I think what they were trying to say is there are some offenses where they go into the huddle and they give two play calls. And it's the first play unless the quarterback kills it. So if you ever are watching a game and you hear the quarterback go, kill, kill, kill,

and he'll kind of make the like throat slashing kind of thing, that means he wants the second play. I mean, I don't know how often you see this really in games. Like I think they usually kind of run with the first play and then make adjustments, or maybe that's not as popular as it was a few years ago. It feels like you were watching games maybe five to 10 years ago and every quarterback was doing that because they were sending in two full plays. He was calling two full plays in the huddle and then killing the first one and going to the second one.

I've heard less of that because I think the adjustments are maybe more baked in. So you get to the line of scrimmage and it's all right. This defense, this is how they're lining up. So everybody kind of knows the deal. This means you're adjusting your route this way. This means you're adjusting your route that way. And then like audibling is, it seems like it's sort of, I don't want to say that it doesn't happen because of course guys are changing the plays and making route adjustments at the line of scrimmage and things like that.

But audibling seems like old terminology to me, like Peyton Manning audibling at the line of scrimmage. I think it's more of adjusting things built into the play. And so knowing that you've got to do this at that play, calling out something, calling out like a orange, orange for like an outbreaking route or something. You know what I mean? Something like that, like words that are built in to make those adaptations at the line of scrimmage for the quarterback, adjusting the protections and things like that. So maybe not full plays. I think that's kind of what it refers to and what they're getting at. But I don't know that there's one way or another of doing it. Uh, because so cousins is always such a tricky beast with everything because so in 2018,

John D Filippo, and this comes from Mike Zimmer telling us this, I think at the combine, John D Filippo had a bunch of checks and changes built in for Kirk cousins. So he would go to the line of scrimmage in the shotgun and he would look at the defense and he would read the defense and he would say, all right, like I was just saying, like he'd call out some, some combination of words that would adjust this, change the protection, adjust routes, whatever, right? Switch to a run. That happens a lot. If you look how many guys are in the box and then they'll, you know, make a change of the play and they'll go to a handoff instead. And Mike Zimmer said that he didn't want all of that on Kirk Cousins plate. So they tried to simplify and the Kubiak offense, I think has a lot less of that, more of the bootlegs, more of the, like, yeah, you're either running it or passing it here. And that's your, that's your decision.

And then there's some of it built into third and longs situations where you got, you know, the field spread, stuff like that. And you know, that didn't really work that well with John D Filippo asking him to do all those things, though. It did kind of work at the beginning of the season and then faded as it went along, which has happened so many times with new offensive coordinator comes in, has new ideas, changes this with cousins. It works at first and then it gets kind of found out or he struggles and has one of those

cold streaks down the stretch. Like it's always so difficult because you're pushing one button, you're pushing one way, but you're taking away from something else. Mike Zimmer last year, Mike Zimmer is begging her cousins, throw it down the field more often, buddy. But then what happens? Like the more turnovers, more sacks at the beginning of the season. He's Alex Smith.

Basically he's throwing all short passes, but he's never turning it over and he's never getting sacked. And then when Zimmer pushes him to throw it down the field more, there's more risks that end up getting taken. And it's like, they've never quite been able to thread the right needle in some ways. In other ways, he's put up really good numbers and really good PFF grades and everything else, the way that they're doing it. But I've always wondered, probably similar to you, which I think is part of your question. I've always wondered like, what if cousins was just running a no huddle out there? Like no one ever has trusted him to do that. And I don't think that

Kevin O'Connell is going to trust him to do that, but there have been a few times where yeah, the clock ends up becoming a problem, but let's say it wasn't with the clock and he's just running an up-tempo and maybe calling the shots. The guy knows football really well. No one has ever put that trust in him, but also no one really puts that trust in almost any quarterback. And so you have to kind of operate within those, um, you know, within those boundaries, but it's an interesting question. Like every single thing that Kevin O'Connell adapts changes, adjusts from how they were doing things before is going to be part of this whole evaluation of, can he get more out of Kirk cousins?

And this will be part of it. If he goes to the line of scrimmage, like remember the game against Baltimore, where he goes to the line of scrimmage, misreads the defense, throws it to nobody. And then there's some question after the game. And the answer is like, yeah, well, that wasn't a play I could change or something. It wasn't exactly said that way, but we got the indication that it wasn't something that was allowed to change or whatever it might've been. And I think cousins wanted more of those.

So that's going to be part of this whole deal of like, is he going to say halfway through the season? Thank goodness. Kevin O'Connell took the shackles off me, or are we going to be going? Oh, okay. They let Kirk maybe handle a little too much here. That's just, you know, part of the things that we don't really know. Okay.

Next one comes from CJ Nolden. I think, unless that's an H, uh, in light of the Javon Kinlaw situation, I'm curious about how you and reporters approach interviews with players and balancing act of developing professional relationships while also not just lobbing softball questions. Oh, that's a good one. So if you're not familiar with the Javon Kinlaw thing, uh, basically a reporter who I kind of want to put after I just peaked at this, uh, I kind of want to put after I just peeked at this. I kind of want to put like finger quotes around this reporter because sometimes like not everybody who's around a team is necessarily the same type of reporter that I might be or that Andrew Kramer,

Ben Gessling from the newspaper or Mark Craig or those guys, like not exactly like that. And the fella who got into it with Javon Kinlaw, because he tweeted something or went after Kinlaw in some way. And then Kinlaw said something to him out in the field. And then this guy, this San Francisco, whatever he is, let's call him a content creator, went to Twitter and said, Oh yeah, well, if Javon Kinlaw hurts me, I'm going to get paid and be rich. It's like, what, what, what, if you have a professional issue with Javon Kinlaw, why don't you guys just work it out behind the scenes? And as opposed to saying, if you hit me, I'll sue you like what? Um, I mean, if the guy hits you, you, you, you're going to have some serious problems. I don't think you want that. Um, but I also think that if whatever you said

about the guy brings the player to hit you, uh, then you must've really gone too far. Yeah. This whole thing, that's always an issue of when you have people who are around the team and this does not happen with the Vikings, but when you have people who are around the team and this does not happen with the Vikings, but when you have people who are around the team and some teams have decided we're going to let like more people in or whatever, who do different content creation. I also think that if I read this right, this particular content creators, dad is a columnist in San Francisco. So maybe he has sort of connections to help him get around the team and things like that. You know, you get unprofessional behavior when you bring in people who aren't professional. So that's one thing that teams struggle with because they want

more coverage and they want more people to feel like they're welcome to come in. And it's not just traditional outlets. Obviously the Vikings have me there and I am no longer a traditional outlet, but, uh, it's a very difficult balance. And I know that the Vikings personally struggle over this as well. Like how many credentials do we want to give out? And how do we know that people are going to be professional about the way they act? Um, so yeah, but to your question, um, I have had conflicts with players before. Not so much to speak of with the Vikings, but previously in my career, when I was in Buffalo and even in my first job covering the American hockey league. And I remember asking a question that was not well stated by me and a player got upset

with it and said some things that he really shouldn't have said. I mean, he really overreacted and we just sorted it out behind the scenes. I wrote what I was going to write about him, which is that he wasn't really living up to expectations. He apologized for using some language. I apologized for asking the question wrong and we all moved on with their lives. I continued to cover him. Everything was fine. Um, that's how it usually works. I mean, there are other reporters on this beat who have had this issue or that issue with a player or the player has had an issue with them and they usually kind of get together with the PR and they have a conversation about it. Here's, here's why I said that. Here's what I thought. Okay. Shake hands. Everybody moves on

with their lives. And that's kind of how it goes on a professional, uh, uh, situation when you have those types of issues with players. I know that wasn't the direct question, but that's sort of like how it works. So I'm not tweeting about it or I'm not writing about it. I'm not going to come on the show and be like, Oh, this player, you know, said this to me in the locker room or what? Like, no, no, no. That's to me, that's corny. That's like elementary stuff. You're not a professional. If you're doing that, you're not carrying yourself the right way. All you're doing is trying to use that player and use the team to get attention for yourself. And what you guys want to hear from me is about the team. You don't want to hear about, I mean, maybe you would, cause it's sort of juicy, but like, you know what I mean?

You don't want to hear me try to get attention for myself. And then that's what this reporter was pretty clearly doing was trying to just be like, Oh yeah, well, I I've had this conflict with this player and, and, and look at me, look at me. So I don't have much respect for that. I don't have any respect for that actually. Cause that's not how you should carry yourself on the other side of things. Um, normally in all of my experiences talking with players, it's usually very much on the side of small talk when you get to know guys. So like I had a conversation with Xavier Rhodes once about video games and he mentioned to me that, you know, Teddy Bridgewater had destroyed him at Madden and made him quit Madden because Teddy was so much better than him.

Uh, you know, I've, I've had conversations about music with some guys, like things like that, but we're, we're never like, there's no illusions here. Like they know what you do. You know what they do. We know why we're there. I'm not there to become friends with Terrence Newman. I am there to interview Terrence Newman in a professional setting and get as much insight into football and into the team as I possibly can. And he doesn't have to do that interview if he doesn't want to. Now, Terrence Newman is one of my favorite players to cover ever because he was always willing to offer insight on how football worked and things like that. And kind of coach me up a little bit when I had questions,

but I've asked players to talk before and they've said, I don't want to talk. And that's fine. Like that is totally their rights. Um, I think if you're hiding away from something, if you're not playing well, then you deserve to be criticized for that. But, uh, usually it's, it's, it's a very sort of professional setting. It's like, Hey, BC Johnson talked to him the other day, for example, like BC Johnson. I have talked a number of times and he's a very friendly guy, but I don't ever think that BC Johnson and I are like boys.

You know what I mean? And he doesn't think that either. And if I tried to be that, I mean, these are NFL players. Like they have lots of money and cool friends. And like Justin Jefferson sits on the sideline at the Lakers game next to LeBron.

Like none of us think these guys want to be our friends. We don't relate at all on kind of like what our lives are like. So there's no, yeah, I don't think there's any illusions that way. When it comes to questions, I think you just have to ask everything in a respectful way. So I'll give you an example. Latavius Murray, another guy, very smart very respect respectable person like just carried himself in a great way in all the time that I covered him and I always felt comfortable asking Latavius Murray any question so he was hurt I think early in 2017 or he was trying to get over

an injury and you don't want to say like, Hey dude, is your ankle like messed up still? Like that would be not a professional way to ask that. And you don't ask it like your boys, even though we got along extremely well. And he was very, very cool to talk with, but like you would say something in the way of like with your recovery from your surgery, uh, do you feel like that's held you back from kind of being up to a hundred percent? And then his answer was, yeah. I mean, it's, it's like been a hard journey or whatever it was. I don't remember exactly, but I think if you always take the tone, no matter what you're asking, whether you're asking the lighthearted question or whether you're asking the hardest question of being respectful, then you're more likely to get a respectful answer

back or an insightful answer back. And that's always the goal. So if someone thinks like, oh, you've written a nice story about me, but now you've got to ask me a tough question. You want to do it in a way that, you know, they can appreciate. I think the people who have trouble with this are probably like ESPN and national people and like NFL network, national people, because they'll, you know, if they go on TV, um, and like rip people, they're going to make some enemies there. So you don't see a whole lot of that. But I think that like, oftentimes they'll kind of be friends with players or they know a lot of, you know, agents and things like that. And so then maybe there's a little more conflict. But on a day to day, I think you see each other as sort of colleagues, coworkers. It's not quite

that way, but I, yeah, it's, it's one of the weirder relationships maybe in the world is reporter and player. Um, but like, I'll give you a, just a real quick, before I move on, Jeremiah Searles is now my friend. Like I've gotten to know Jeremiah extremely well. And he comes on the show all week during the season, hung out with him at the combine. Like he's a great, great A plus guy. But when he was playing, it was, it was very much the relationship I just described. And he was a great interview when he was playing, but only as an interview, I didn't go up to him and be like, what's up, buddy. What's going on. I didn't, you know, didn't give him a hard time.

Like you would do your friends. So I think you build these, these mutual respect type of things where even when you are critical and a player sees that you've been critical, they could be like, well, I could talk to him about it. Or the guy is there every single day. If I want to get in his face about something or, or, you know, I can turn down his interview or whatever else. Um, and some, you know, and some players don't take criticism very well, and that's just kind of how it goes. And some of them get along with you, no matter what you wrote. And that's kind of how it goes too. So, um, yeah, it's, it's a very, it's a very bizarre thing, but I don't think anybody who is actually been doing this has any illusions about what your relationships are with players. Okay. Uh, let's get to a hardcore roster question here. Let me move on. Uh, this from skull the boat

as one does. Hey, collar, love the podcast. Interested in your take on the wide receiver for roster spots, football, the wide receiver for roster spots, football, the wide receiver for roster spots, uh, BC Johnson, Blake pro Jalen Naylor, Dan Shisna. Uh, you're forgetting Amir Smith, Mar set in the question. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think that right now with that situation with the wide receiver spot, it's pretty much locked into KJ Osborne is being wide receiver three. I don't see why KJ Osborne would not be wide receiver three, considering that he was very good in that spot last year, but also like the lines are going to get a little more blurred between what is behind

Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson, because there's going to be more situations to use guys. So there could be spots where they see like, okay, KJ Osborne is not thought of as a real deep threat, but Amir Smith-Marset is a deep threat. And so maybe this is a spot where we want to use Amir Smith-Marset as the number three and not KJ Osborne. BC Johnson is a difficult one because he's coming off of the ACL, but also because, you know, I mean, he just in 2020 did not get on the field very often and, you know, hasn't gotten a lot of opportunity. So if they, if it comes down to, are you keeping a Jalen Naylor, if he shows potential or a Blake

Prohl, if he shows potential over BC Johnson, who's played in the league and you have the tape, like, what are you going to do there? I think there is maybe decisions to be made, but you're also going to want guys who are smart and who can handle a lot as wide receivers. And they've said that a few times that the wide receivers really have to handle a lot of stuff. And I think BC that helps him because he's very intelligent and that makes things more difficult for someone like Jalen Naylor. Also a Jalen Naylor sixth round pick. If you cut him, it's pretty unlikely anyone's picking him up. You could put him on the practice squad. I don't think we'll see Dan Chisna playing wide receiver at all, but it would

be something if he did like the fact that he's still here is truly amazing. I mean, this guy almost never played in college and was a track guy and then is in the NFL. I mean, the fact that he's even here is really wild still. Uh, but I don't know if he's got the hands or the chops that are built over years and years and years of playing receiver to be trusted as much more than, and you know, break glass in case of emergency type of situation. But man, if he broke out and started catching passes, he is like him and Kenny Wong are the fastest guys on the field. That would be something, but I think it's a mere Smith, Marset wide receiver for locked in. And he has got to prove that he is more deserving for that spot

than someone who has already played like BC Johnson, but Smith Marsat, you know, the thing with him, I think he struggled last year as a lot of rookies do to kind of understand what they needed from him. But he showed toward the end of the season that he's got talent, that he has got an extra gear to him that will be interesting if they find a way to use it because they didn't last year. And at times it felt a little like not the Cordero Patterson thing to that extreme, but are you guys maybe not utilizing this guy five times a game where maybe you could? So he's one of the, as we do our lists,

who are the most interesting people to watch at Vikings camp? Like I think Amir Smith-Marset deserves to be on that list. Okay. Uh, next question. Let me get another sip of diet, Dr. Pepper here. Sorry if I'm fighting off some burps too. I mean, it's great that you guys listened through it, that you guys grind. I mean, I'm drinking the soda while doing this. So, you know, that's just nature. All right. This comes from, uh, at word homes thoughts on the need or lack thereof for CJ ham in

this new offense. Is this a bandaid we need to rip off sooner than later. Uh, okay. So I totally get the frustration of Kirk cousins checking down to CJ ham. I totally get it. And this has not been a successful team on third down, uh, especially not last year. I think they were 24th third down percentage. And there were too many times where, I mean, I think of it third down, but at all times we're checking down to the fullback in the year 2022, just as not as, uh, heartwarming as it might've been when John Elway was checking down to Howard Griffith or something, or what was, uh, you know, Chuck Evans or whatever out of the backfield was that his name, the old fullback for the Vikings. I mean, I get it. The fullback seems antiquated. It seems like something

that why would anyone still have this on their team when it comes from the nineties? However, one of the most innovative offenses in the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers uses the heck out of the fullback. And the reason why is because it creates a conundrum for the defense. When they see a fullback on the field, they have to respect the idea that you might run power eye form up the middle and blast through for a huge gain with this fullback leading the way, like Lorenzo Neal in front of LaDainian Tomlinson, right? So you have to respect that there's a possibility that that's going to happen. So you either have to put more guys in the box or you have to put heavier people on the field,

which teams don't really like to do. And then when you have those heavier people on the field, you can put CJ Hamm in motion or you can line them up in different places. And here's how this works. So if Kirk Cousins, let's say he comes to the line of scrimmage and CJ Hamm is lined up outside as a wide receiver, Kirk Cousins can look over there and see who is on CJ Hamm. And he will have a very good idea of what kind of defense the opposing team is playing. Because if they have a linebacker

on CJ Ham, he's going to know this is man to man. But if there's a corner over there, still lined up in the same spot, that's pretty likely going to be zone coverage because why would you have your top corner over there on CJ Ham? Because he's supposed to stay in his zone. And then when you do something like that, you put them in motion. That's another way to do it. You don't have to line them up at receiver all the time. If you have in the backfield, and even if you shift sides for CJ Ham, if a linebacker goes with him more likely than not man coverage, if he doesn't more likely than not zone coverage. So there are little things that you can get out of having a fullback where a, the defense is uncomfortable because they don't see it a whole lot.

And maybe people are on the field who normally wouldn't be on the field. So that's part of it. And the other part is the, the coverage indicators. And then there's just the element that every once in a while, CJ ham catches a pass or you run a counter or something. And the guy breaks a explosive play. Like every year, he's got a couple of explosive plays per season. I can think of two right off the bat, one against Carolina, one against Baltimore last year. And if your fullback

has given you good blocking versatility can line up a tight end coverage indicators, mismatches in blocking. That's a good player to have for you. That's something you can do something with. Like I don't look at CJ ham and think, oh, well, that's the reason that they've been a little bit antiquated on offense in recent years. I don't think it's the fullbacks fault. Um, I think it's more of Mike Zimmer's overall run first, everything with Delvin cook than it is with having a fullback on the field. Cause you can use it in a lot of ways to help set up play action. Um, think about this, like, let's say you line up in a situation where CJ ham is the second tight end. All right. And then you hand off to that direction

and you get a big game first quarter. Then third quarter, you come back with that same formation and ham in the same spot. And you run a play action with the run action that looks exactly the same. And instead you boot away from that. And the whole defense goes that way, knowing that they saw it earlier in the game. Like these are the small things that they're looking to accomplish, like making this look like that. So CJ ham helpful. Don't rip off the bandaid. I think he's going to be a decent sized part of the team. in uh one or two more here happy memorial day to everybody by the way we had yesterday off um let's see at rm4213 i agree with your take that the vikings were not lucky or unlucky in close games last season however i think they forced themselves into unnecessarily close games i.e whenever they got the lead they got too conservative on both offense and defense. Hmm. That's an interesting one. Well, I think that that's true that, but is it,

so now I can, I know what example you're thinking of, of being too conservative on defense is against the lions where they refused bizarrely to blitz Jared Goff. Now, were they too conservative on defense is against the lions where they refused bizarrely to blitz Jared Goff. Now, were they too conservative all the way through in those big situations that I don't know, or were they just not good? Like, I mean, that could be part of it as well, right? I mean, if you have Bashad Breeland have a ball hit him directly in the chest and bounce into the hands of Amari Cooper, that's kind of a bad break, but it's also like, you're just not good because you didn't catch it or cover well, which Bashad Breeland didn't. Or I don't know if they blitzed on the play Cooper rush through to Amari Cooper,

but he got the ball out so quick. I don't know if it would have mattered. That might be true. I'm not sure that it is. I think that where talent really shows up with defense is in those spots though. Like there's only so much you can start blitzing all over the place when the other team is sending four or five wide receivers out there and you've got to cover everybody. And I mean, you're really taking risks of giving up big plays. I don't know that they did that differently from last year, from any other year, or that they were way over to the conservative side. I do think that offensively, there were chances for them to take advantage of that. They did not. And everything sort of circles back to that conservative nature on offense for sure. Uh, or is it also the

quarterback, like just being who he is and himself being naturally not a risk taker, not a playmaker to put teams away? Because I, I mean, I agree with your statement that they were unnecessarily in close games. Of course they were. I mean, my gosh, but was the reason that they didn't put Detroit away the first time and were forced to kick a 50 yard field goal to win it. Was that because they played it too safe or was it because their offense just does this? It has these long sections of time in games even, and even throughout, you know, parts of the schedule where it just isn't what it can be. It isn't at its maximum. And I think the major part of this, so I saw a cool stat, the 33rd team on Twitter sent this out. That's, um, I don't know what you, they call themselves

sort of a football think tank, if you will. I think there's some former NFL people involved with the 33rd team. And if you follow them about the percentage of offense created by sheer explosive plays and the Vikings were almost at the very top because they really relied on, on home runs. They relied on huge Delvin cook runs. They relied on big passes down the field, touchdown throws 50, 60 yards, uh, a lot as an offense, they did not dink and dunk really effectively as a team. And so I think that when you rely on your success to be from big plays and explosive plays, this could be why the, you know, yards per attempt, maybe under Gary Kubiak was really good. Cause it was a lot of gotta run the ball and then hit on a big play. Like that was

basically the philosophy. And I think that carried over to last year that it's just like home run hitters in baseball where it's less consistent. If you're a singles hitter, you're getting two or three hits a day. If you're a home run hitter, you might not get any hits for a week and then hit five home runs. That's how that's always worked. So I think that they might

be changing that a little bit as far as the offensive philosophy, but here's the thing about comparing anything to last year is it's not last year. It's a different year and it's a different schedule and it's a different set of circumstances. And, and it really like, I think that people try to reach back and say, if you did this last year, you'll do this this year. But I don't know that there's like that correlation that, Oh, well, if you're a little more aggressive when you're up in the game, is that going to be better? Well, it might be, or this year you might have a tip ball, go for an interception, you know? Right. I mean, that happened to Kirk Cousins in 2020 where he had what he was leading the league in interceptions and half of them were tipped.

But what are you going to do? Right? Like they don't count differently if they're tipped, but it's just, you know, bad luck that they didn't have last year. All right. Let's go one last question. And why don't we make it a question involving the quarterback? This comes from a Demp Dolph fans. Only question always wanted to work out whether Rick's moves, especially the more recent questionable position value ones, extending

bar, Delvin cook Smith, uh, were what he really believed in or whether that was him giving Mike Zimmer that seemed that he wanted, but he would have gone a different way. There's of course, a new consideration now with the potential of ownership's interference. So pie chart, what led to the Vikings stagnation over the last four years? Rick Spielman's vision, Mike Zimmer's vision, ownership meddling. It's the QB man. Well, here we are again, right? That's, uh, that's the, that is the question. I feel like you guys know what I'm going to say, right? I mean, Rick Spielman's vision and Mike Zimmer's vision. I mean, Mike Zimmer's vision can't be blamed too much because his vision didn't include

Kirk Cousins. Rick Spielman's and ownership's did. So they're kind of baked into that. Like, is it the QB? Is it all how he played? No, but the quarter, like Rick Spielman's vision is so shaped by the quarterback's contract that how do we not like, how do I pie chart this where like it's the QB man, but also that was their vision, but also it seems ownership wanted that. So can I give three out of four? If you're

asking me to place blame for what happened to them and why they fell off from a great team in 2017 to not a great team anymore, I don't think it's the head coach. I think Mike Zimmer ran his course and had just had enough and the fate that he got was the one that he earned. So this is not me saying that they should have stuck with Zimmer, but I also think that it's the players that Greg Popovich is one of the greatest coaches of all time when he's got Tim Duncan. And then when he doesn't, he isn't or Kawhi Leonard. That's how it goes. Like that, like the players are the ones who win you games. And when you have, and the

Minnesota links have gone through this, this year, if for all of you who, you games. And when you have, and the Minnesota links have gone through this, this year, if for all of you who, you know, pay attention to the links, when you have great players and then they get older and some leave. And if you don't hit on a bunch of draft picks, which they have not, it's, this is what's going to happen with someone like Mike Zimmer, who's a good coach that you're going to, you know, he's going to do everything he possibly can. He's going to happen with someone like Mike Zimmer, who's a good coach, that he's going to do everything he possibly can. He's going to push every button.

And Rick Spielman is going to try to make every trade and ownership saying, we got to win. And they're going to try to make every signing. And when your tight end gets hurt, you desperately go out there and try to pick up another tight end and everything else. Like you're going to try to do that. You're going to try to pick up every guy you can and make the roster as good as you possibly can. But when you have had players have to leave because of contracts or because of age who were very, very good and you don't develop them and you don't hit on them, it's without any money to work with. You can't

just dip into free agency and start filling those places and expect it all to work. Like when you sign eight players or something, I think it was eight players on defense and they're all bargain deals. Do you think you're going eight for eight? Like probably not. Those needed to be developed players over the years, drafted players over the years. You can't miss on first round draft picks a bunch of them, and then just end up like being good when you have an expensive quarterback. The only way to rebuild that is through free agency. If you miss on draft picks and they didn't have the money to do that. And so, yeah, it's kind of like, I wish I could pie chart this for you, but it's a little bit of a, a little bit of B, a little bit of C and not really the coach. The coach though, did not get the most out of

them in these years and also did not handle it well. So as his team was starting to slip through his fingers, I don't think Mike Zimmer handled that well from a personal perspective, from a front facing man perspective, like you're the guy, you're the front door to the organization. I think someone like Marvin Lewis handled that better. Um, Mike Tomlin has handled that better as his team has faded around him. Like their defense is great, but you know, Ben Roethlisberger as he faded, then I think Mike Tomlin handled that better to keep them afloat than Mike Zimmer did, who seemed to take it very personally and not get along with the quarterback and everything else.

And that may have caused them not to get to the playoffs, but it was inevitable after 2019, when they lost all those players, that they were not just going to snap their fingers and go poof and have them back. So it's really, it's really the vision, the, the lack of vision from either Spielman or ownership to not move on and rebuild the thing after 2020, I think is the main thing that caused them to be where they are. Okay. Before I wrap up, just wanted to mention, uh, the news about Jeff Gladney passing away in a car accident and just how incredibly tragic that is. If you didn't hear about that, uh, news came out on Monday that Jeff Gladney in Dallas had been in a car accident and had died. And, and so I know he's got a son and, uh, sympathies

with his family and, uh, all of his teammates that lost Jeff Gladney. Uh, very, very sad. Anytime someone that young, and he was going to get a second chance after his domestic violence issue that caused him to get cut by the Minnesota Vikings. He was going to get a second chance with the Arizona Cardinals, um, and passed away at 25. So very, very unfortunate news. And we'll just, uh, we'll, we'll leave you there, but, uh, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks all for the questions. Feel free to continue to send them and, uh, we'll talk to you guys again soon.