Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Mike Zimmer is not backing off his vaccine comments and Bisi Johnson is out for the year

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom, fresh off another Mike Zimmer press conference, talk about how the Vikings' head coach has continued to talk in depth about how he believes players should get vaccinated. Jake Browning will run practice for the next few days -- what does that mean for where things stand at QB? And how will the relationship between Zimmer and Cousins be strained by vaccination opinions. Plus Bisi Johnson is out for the year, what does that mean to the receiver room? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar along with Sam Ekstrom here. And Sam, you have taken like two days off for this entire time, basically the offseason. And in one, Rick Dennison is out as offensive line coach. And in the other, Kirk Cousins gets a close contact with COVID. And so Judd Zolged took your seat for the other night. But here we are again with another Zimmer press conference in which I thought maybe Zimmer would walk some things back because he was so frustrated the other day and just sort of let loose and essentially insinuated that Kirk Cousins was a selfish person and selfish player,

not a team player for not getting the vaccination. And Mike Zimmer doubled down again today and said that he's concerned about some of the information that his players have again today and said that he's concerned about some of the information that his players have gotten he said that he knows some guys just absolutely will not get the vaccine and I assume he was referring to Kirk Cousins when he was saying that and so now we are about to go out and watch Jake Browning practice again with Case Cookus possibly. And I saw that Cole McDonald, former Hawaii quarterback is also trying out, which I wonder if that means that Nate Stanley has had his time come to an end here in Minnesota. So give me your reaction to all the happenings of the last couple of days. Yeah. I should not take any more vacation because this is just getting to be too much.

I am amazed at Mike Zimmer's stamina to answer questions about a troublesome topic because usually this stuff irritates him. Usually, if it's kind of bad for the team, he gets tired of talking about it pretty quickly and he shuts that stuff down. Like injuries, for instance. If these were injured players, I don't think he would give us anything. But this is something entirely different. And somebody asked him today, I think it might have been Chip Scoggins, said,

is it more frustrating because last year it wasn't in anybody's control, really. It was pretty easy to catch it, you know just with a kind of a freak run in uh this year it's within the player's control to you know at least get get the vaccination and granted you can still get it but your chances are reduced and you wouldn't have to sit out due to a close contact which is what jake browning benefited from um if not for Browning being vaccinated, they probably don't have practice on Saturday. I don't know what, what would have happened there. Um, but Mike Zimmer's exasperation seems to, to mirror the way the whole organization feels. Rick Spielman was about as vocal as Rick Spielman would ever get when he talked about it on

Tuesday. Um, the team's Twitter account is promoting Zimmer's comments. Uh, this, they, they feel very strongly about this. talked about it on Tuesday. The team's Twitter account is promoting Zimmer's comments. They feel very strongly about this. And maybe it is because it seems like there are a fair amount of prominent players, not just Cousins either, that feel this way. And the fact that it kind of came to fruition this early in training camp, I think it's Mike Zimmer saying, told you so. Like, this is what I'm worried about. And I guess for Zimmer, the sigh of relief is, is that it's August 1st and not December 1st. But I think we know with the way things are going in the United States that it will be December 1st.

At some point, there will be a game where a key player who has not been vaccinated has to miss it. And maybe even if they're going through all the protocols, I mean, maybe they're doing everything they possibly could. Sheltering in place and wearing a mask and being as cautious as they can. But if one person gets that breakthrough case, which I believe is what happened to Kellen Mond. None of us are 1000% sure, but considering there was an Instagram picture on the Vikings website of, or their Instagram page of him taking the shot from months ago, I assume that, you know, he is vaccinated and he was just a breakthrough positive test, but that's going to happen with other positions. I mean, think about the wide receiver group. If you, if you are one of the wide receivers who is vaccinated and you just come in contact with

this just by being out in the world, even if you wear a mask, this can happen. And then you come back, you test positive. And then in your wide receiver room, an unvaccinated wide receiver now has to sit out. Because of that, you could end up missing two or three wide receivers for a game. And if that happens with this team, or if it's cousins, or if it's, you know, a key safety, a key, whatever, like, I mean, you're talking about games that you could potentially lose. And so you could hear the frustration and kind of desperation in Mike Zimmer's voice. Like guys, we're going to lose games because of this.

If this continues and you know, this is a guy who is always afraid of losing he's always afraid of the worst case scenario we know this that mike zimmer is one of the most competitive football obsessed people and every time i tweet something out that mike zimmer says you get you know a bunch of responses back that are who is mike zimmer to tell you what to do and all these things and i understand that perspective but I also think you have to understand that Mike Zimmer is focused on football like he wants fans in the stands he wants his key players on the field and that's what he's talking about here and I think even people who are skeptical about the vaccine who love the Vikings would probably have to agree they'd rather have their starting quarterback, right? I mean, this is where it gets so dodgy.

And Mike Zimmer, though, he went all in today in a way that he hadn't even before. And he accused some of these players of taking in misinformation on the internet, which I thought was about as strong as you'll ever hear any coach on anything. And I wrote today for the website, purpleinsider.substack.com. I wrote about how, whether like this is classic Zim or a new Zim. And I want your opinion on what I wrote, but I think, I think that it's kind of a hybrid because it's classic Zim in the way that he does not give a bleep about saying how he feels, but it's also a new Zim as in he's listening to all the information on the medical side. And apparently the, I'm just going to call it the proper information

from the proper news sources and the Dr. Sills, who is in charge of all the protocols and everything else. So he's listening to the people who would know the most about this in the universe and going in that direction and not making it sort of a both sides type of thing. And that maybe is a little surprising to some people that I talked to the other night. And so I think it's sort of fascinating how Zimmer is both being blunt and candid as he always is, but also coming across as sort of very educated on the topic in which he is talking about. Yeah. And this is a coach that does, you know, walk by and coach by the beat of his own drum sometimes. For instance, when it comes to analytics, that's, you know, not necessarily something that he embraces where a lot of people that are, you know, really, really smart in that

department might say, hey, this is the direction you should be going. You know, when it comes to things like, you know, load management, I think he's adapted that somehow, but he's still like, he still appreciates the contact and the ability to get his players on the field. He really wanted them here for OTAs, things like that. And this is a case where he is 100% like kind of taking in all that's being told him by people that are really smart. And maybe that's him kind of recognizing that, yes, you're right. I'm not a doctor, but I'm listening to doctors. And I think that the breakthrough cases are inevitably going to change some of the protocol around the building. And I know that's going to be frustrating to Zim and other coaches because he's expressed numerous times how much he enjoys the freedom that he does have now, not wearing masks as much. But if you can be vaccinated, and remember,

the vaccinations are almost 100% preventing hospitalization and death. Those are just the numbers. But it does not guarantee, like in Mon's case, that you won't get it. And if they realize that, okay, well, if we're, you know, if these people are unmasked and they're vaccinated, but they can still get it, that could be a problem. And we may have to tighten things up. And the league, I'm sure, is going to adapt that. Just like last year, when we were learning more and more about the virus, things were adjusted as the year went on. And this year, we were learning more and more about the virus, things were adjusted as the year went on. And this year, we're learning more and more about how people interact with the vaccines and then can spread, you know, with this new Delta variant.

And Zimmer has referenced the Delta variant as this kind of ominous threat multiple times. So I don't think we are done with vaccine and virus-related drama, unfortunately. This is, you know, about this time last year, I think we had, what, half a dozen guys who had, like, a false positive because the lab messed something up. Just crazy things are going to happen. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like we're out of the woods. And full stadiums, hopefully, but, you know but who knows at this point. That's the feeling that I had kind of earlier today too as I was seeing more of this and reading a little bit more about where it's at

because all of a sudden people like you and I have to be a little more educated on what's going on in the outside news world because of how much it's impacting the NFL. And my general feeling on it is we might have full stadiums, but maybe masks are going to be required again. I saw the University of Minnesota indoors is now requiring people to wear masks. And I think that we're going to see more and more of those mandates coming back. I think that California brought theirs back. And I wouldn't be surprised even if you and I at some point here

during training camp or whenever we're in the building here at TCO Performance Center, if they start saying, hey, you guys got to wear masks again, too, because it does seem that people who are vaccinated are able to test positive and even are able to spread the Delta variant. And so here we are, Matthew Collar, science guy and Sam Ekstrom, science guy trying to like, you know, wade through these waters and talk about it. But I think we said this after Mike Zimmer's initial rant about how it was going to be difficult. We said, look, I hate this. You hate this. It's going to be a thing. And here we are. It's a thing. Now, what I am interested to see is what Kirk Cousins has to say when he comes back.

My prediction is he'll say, I'm not going to talk about my medical history. And he will say that he followed all the protocols. And that will be the only thing we hear from him. And he'll just repeat those two things. And we'll go back to normal for now. But the discomfort between the head coach and the quarterback on this particular subject. I read Bruce Arian's book, and I've referenced it a few times on here, where he talks about coaching Peyton Manning, coaching Ben Roethlisberger, coaching Andrew Luck. And he talked about how

valuable it was to have the head coach and the quarterback on the same page. We saw that here in 2015. I think we saw that here with Sam Bradford at times as well with Mike Zimmer. We have never seen that here with Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer. They rarely even discuss each other. You almost never hear them even mention each other in press conferences or anything else. You rarely see them in practice talking to each other, having conversations, giving each other a hard time like Sam Bradford once jumping on Mike Zimmer. That was awesome. Yeah. I mean, like to celebrate a touchdown and knocking Zimmer over after he had eye surgery. But we've never seen anything like that here. And I think this just sort of furthers the divide of these two people and that is tough I think and

when we're looking at the roster and saying this team is very good they're very talented those first couple of practices were good now you have this and it is a mile wide elephant in the room yeah I mean right or wrong if Kirk Cousins has struggles this year, it would be very easy for Mike Zimmer to point toward, well, you know, Kirk, you're, you're meeting virtually. You're not in the room. You're, you're not as, as, as much a part of this team as you could be, or as much a leader on this team as you could be. And, you know, what is leadership? That's a very abstract word sometimes. And we've talked about in the past with quarterbacks, like, you know, the, the Teddies and the Sam Bradford's how it's not always about being rah, rah. Sometimes it's

about, you know, leading by example, going about your business, just playing well. And Kirk, I think has become more vocal as the years have gone on and he's been a little more willing to to get fiery and express some emotion we saw that more on the field last year but you know will that affect and someone asked this today too and Mike Zimmer dismissed it he didn't think it was a big deal but will his status affect his credibility in the locker room or his ability to be a leader? Mike Zimmer said, no, I don't think so. But again, he's guessing on that. And it's hard to figure out what other players are feeling. Some players that are on the opposite side of it. And I don't know how it's going to play out either. I think that winning kind of cures all,

but it'll be very easy for things to get tense if and when things go wrong. And it's an NFL season. Things are going to go wrong. You're going to lose games. Kirk Cousins typically has kind of a two, three game rough stretch at some point. Then what happens? Like, how does he respond? How do the players respond to him within that? I think that's all very intriguing. And know if you're a vikings fan maybe a little bit uh you have some trepidation there i guess the one thing you would say is it's like sort of a backhanded type of comment but did he have credibility as a leader to begin with in the locker room is a question because over these years we've seen just a lot of, I guess, evidence to say that he has never really been the guy who everyone looks to. I think it's been Delvin Cook is the leader of the locker

room. And somebody told me that a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago, like, look, Delvin Cook is really the guy that everyone looks to here and not the quarterback. So I wonder if this is just sort of par for the course for the way a lot of people view Kirk Cousins. And even last year, I mean, it wasn't really a thing, but Justin Jefferson saying like, come on Kirk or whatever. And there were times where you saw body language of receivers that were very frustrated. And that has always been a thing that has existed here. So I don't know if it will change or if it's sort of this is how Kirk Cousins is and this is what it's like to play with him and that's how it's going to

be the only thing I wondered about is from Kirk Cousins perspective he has to feel very much like everyone's against him now right I mean he has to feel very much like wow they are really going after me I'm sure he follows the team on Twitter and they have made it quite clear on Twitter where they stand with putting out these Zimmer quotes, because we know that NFL teams and their social medias are not putting stuff out there that the team doesn't want out there. Otherwise somebody gets in trouble. And so they've put out quotes, they've put out clips, and I've seen all sorts of people you know in the media congratulating mike zimmer for his commentary but at the same time all of it is pointed at the quarterback

so as he comes back to the team i mean kirk cousins has to feel like very uncomfortable sort of like um if you if you're in school and you get thrown out of class and then you come in the next day kind of thing and everybody's looking at you like what are you going to do and i i won't say because I saw this comment on our website. I've seen other people say I won't say good thing. It happened now because it could happen again. And so it's not really a good thing to be four days into training camp and have your team fractured. I have massive differences of opinion between your head coach and your quarterback. And the unfortunate thing, if you're a Vikings fan where you're really probably shaken or upset right now is you had

an opportunity to get very excited about this team. And so right off the bat, the first 17 minutes of our show, and now two straight shows are about Delta variant. And trust me, I don't want it that way. You don't want it that way. And Mike Zimmer didn't want it that way, but that's the reality of where we're at right now. And now this is something you have Rick Denison, not coaching. You have Jeff Gladney being indicted. Possibly we don't have that yet. Murph will be on it and maybe today, maybe today. And then you have now this, it was, it were only five days in and, and you have all these things that have already happened um there's there's a 2018 ish feel to it with all these things sort of just coming apart on a team that should be actually quite good and there's such a ripple effect too you know stemming

from fans who i assume paid to go to saturday's practice who got to see Jake Browning and a lot of Jake Browning. It goes to the wide receivers like Amir Smith-Marset, who suddenly, you know, is going to have to catch passes from Case Cookus. And, you know, whoever else comes into the building to fill out those spots. Everyone who's affected by the quarterback. And that's not good for your team development, your chemistry heading into the preseason games. We still have two more weeks of training camp before that first game. You know, the Broncos are going to be in here. And I assume that that's going to lead to a whole new set of protocols too. Like that could get messy as well when you've got

another team involved, how distance will you have to be from them? This whole thing is evolving day by day. And last year, the NFL had, I guess, about what, six months to sort of like observe the virus and react to it. They had a lot of time to set up protocols and they were able to get through the season. And they almost kind of got, you know, payback this year with a lot of stuff that's happening in the country and the world is pretty new and fluid right now. And now that the NFL is in preseason mode, they're going to have to adjust to it on the fly. And that's going to be very unsettling for a lot of teams and a lot of people. So I guess what's the best case scenario that comes out of this? I guess it'd be if you want harmony, it's that Kirk Cousins has a realization. He kind of heeds what Mike Zimmer has been saying and all's well that ends well. But I don't know if

that's the way it's going to go. Mike Zimmer had some pretty strong comments about the players that won't get it. We don't know for sure if Kirk is in that group, but he did not seem confident that they would cave at all. He seemed extremely confident that, in fact, they would not be getting it under any circumstances. That felt very much like he was talking about Kirk Cousins. So now the best-case scenario going forward for the Vikings, oddly, is probably that the NFL changes some of its protocols and tries to lock this thing down a little bit even more

from instead of just, hey, if you're vaccinated, you're pretty much good, go live your life, that maybe there's more masks wearing and involved or whatever other things that they need to do, more virtual meetings, i'm not sure or i brought this up the other night but or maybe they separate her cousins from the other quarterbacks and have him meet virtually or whatever um to make sure that this isn't going to be a problem or at least they separate one quarterback but um maybe now they have a

contingency plan to try to avoid this from happening again. And, you know, as much as I was impressed by Jake Browning the other night, I'm impressed by Jake Browning's sort of approach to talking with us today, how he said, look, I'm not getting into that. I'm not stepping my foot in that hornet's nest. I'm just here to take my reps and I'm going to go forward. Our buddy Sage Rosenfels would have been so proud of that press conference. That was a journeyman backup quarterback press conference on the nose well done by jake browning who talked about trying to increase his his arm strength and things he's done to get better over the years but i think that if

there's anything you could sort of take as like what the resolution is it's just now you understand this could happen and how can we do everything to avoid this happening again and then everybody's got to hold their breath on a week-to-week basis if that you know covid list comes out if you see a tweet that says kirk cousins has been placed on the covid list i mean that might mean that you just lose a game so uh yeah it's it's tough and i don't think that it's changing and it's tough to talk about honestly like we're coming here ready to talk about wide receiver three and kj osborne and all those things and now it's like well but but just put your epidemiologist hat on for a second you know it's sort of um an uncomfortable place to be for

everyone and i guess um we'll just this is one where you just are going to wait and see and see how this ends up playing out so let's talk about a couple of things. Uh, the padded practice not happening today. It's just going to be a regular practice. Rick Spielman came out to talk with us and we were like, Oh my God, is he announcing like something huge? And he says, no, we can't practice a pad today. Like, Oh, okay. Well, no problem, I guess. Yeah. Like, you know, you know how Easter is like, it's like the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox this was like we can't be padded because we need to have a non-padded practice after the first day off after a five-day acclimation period it was bizarre it came from a memo on June 3rd and nobody knew about it until

today want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports inspired goods if you have not seen it yet, you've got to check it out. A couple of my favorite designs are the duck, duck, gray duck, and the Randy Moss goat, which you've got to see. All their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. We're going to hook you up with free shipping on your next order by the way use promo code purple insider for free shipping that's soda stick s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com original minnesota sports inspired goods code purple insider for free shipping yeah so that was very weird but there's no pad of practice so we can't say what are we looking for in padded practice uh but oh i should

mention real quick wyatt davis it was clarified to us that he had an injury and that was why he was not practicing he is not on the covid list it was not a close contact thing or an unvaccinated thing because i did speculate the other night like i wonder why he wasn't here and this now zimmer's gonna have to tell us about injuries remember maybe it was a year or two ago he's like I don't talk about injuries well now you're gonna have to tell us when guys are gone whether it's an injury or not but it didn't sound serious for Wyatt Davis at the same time like what day of training camp Sam do you start saying all right it's time to be nervous about what the offensive line looks like August August 16th, because that would be the first practice after the first game. And caller, are we going to see either rookie in that game? Derrissaw hasn't done anything and Davis is hurt

now. And Mike Zimmer and optimism about injuries doesn't always hit me necessarily as the most truthful, even though he did say that Davis is doing better. We don't fully know where he's at. So if they don't play in that first game and they just, you know, Derrissaw is going to need probably several practices just to ramp up. They're going to ease him in. They're going to be cautious with him. I think there's reason to be nervous. And let's face it. there was reason to be nervous even if the rookies were playing. So there's that. It's not as if the rookies were guaranteed to step in and change the game. So if you have Rashad Hill and, heck, Ole Udo, maybe that timeline is more

successful than the timeline where both rookies start all 17 games. I mean, cause rookies are no, are no shoe in. Um, but I'm still worried about Rashad Hill and Ole Udo. Like, I think there's worries on all fronts, whether it's one zero or two rookies in there. Why do you think they didn't get another offensive lineman? I mean, bringing back Rashad Hill was smart. He's not very expensive and we've seen him play 700 snaps in a season before and hold his own he was an average or a little below average offensive lineman in 2017 but that didn't keep them from going 13 and 3 the fact that rashad hill was playing a lot he's had to come in games recent in recent years once against the eagles two years ago last year he had to come into a game

played really well in all of those games so you trust trust Rashad Hill. I get that. That's fine. But from the guard perspective to trade for Mason Cole, who's been only playing center from what I've seen. So he's kind of the backup center. And he had very briefly played guard, but didn't have a lot of experience there to not bring in. Who was the guy we were talking about austin blythe or something where for like a million bucks right and maybe austin blythe is i don't know championship chasing but i think probably not right he probably wanted the most money possible like could you give him three million that i think that's the thing that we'll end up going back to and saying it was a great off season for them considering how

little money they had to spend and to be able to replace so many positions with good players we see brashad breland out there looking pretty good to start we uh mike zimmer raved about patrick peterson today i think he's looked fine um but you know until pads come on cornerbacks just get roasted by these wide receivers it's like don't ever judge what you're seeing until they put pads on with corners because they just get killed uh in the seven on seven type of look but to not bring in like one more guy outside of Dakota Dozier and we know that one weak link can be such a problem with the offensive line like I'm already I'm like I'm ready to call it like I'm ready to call like okay it's time'm ready to call it. Like, okay, it's time. You can criticize them for that. You're you're allowed now. If Wyatt Davis was great, then you'd say, okay, the approach worked and you can't criticize them. But Wyatt Davis is second teamer and now

getting behind in practice. Christian Darasaw hasn't put on, you know, a Jersey yet really to go out there and practice or a helmet yet. I think you can, I think you can say, why wasn't there another player brought in here? Yeah. You know, someone needs to tell the Vikings, Hey, you didn't need to choose offense or defense. You're allowed to like divvy up the money on both. And they put so much money into that defense and they might be better because of it, but they, they did open up the money. That's the thing about it is that we didn't think they had money. They found it. They did a great job of finding it, and then they poured it all into one side of the ball.

Have they gotten petrified to overpay is my question because they have been burned a handful of times with kind of those mid-level deals. Boone, Remmers, Josh Klein, none of them. I think they played a combined. They were signed for like a total of 12 years and played for a combined four years. Those contracts didn't pan out for whatever reason. And you moved Remmers' position in one of those years, and he was awful as a guard.

Correct. After being serviceable as a tackle. Brian O'Neill, probably better. So that worked out at tackle, did not work out at guard. But I just, I feel like you wouldn't have had to overspend. You could have gotten a one-year deal. Everyone was signing one-year deals in this off season, as the Vikings can attest on defense. So to overlook having just a stopgap tackle seems like an oversight to me. And, you know, moving Udo to the inside further weakens their tackle depth, too. So I'm a little bit confused there. It seems like such a repeat of last year, and you don't even have Riley Reif to kind of like be a veteran stabilizer

so I'm scratching my head and of 2018 too I mean in 2018 it was well Nick Easton got hurt we're just going to go to Tom Compton yes he's never started before but that's okay like what is it though I mean the same way with Dakota Dozier like yeah it's fine he's never started before let's just play him 16 games and now I think Dozier does end up getting the start and Udo ends up sticking as a backup tackle if, or backup guard slash tackle and just, you know, whatever happens. And then Drew Samia got name dropped the other day, which is like, wait, is that a consideration? Um, so yeah, like I remember we had this conversation right before camp started. And I said like, what's the craziest thing that could happen.

And I didn't have only Udo even as a possibility to start a guard. Maybe you had that one. I had Mason Cole to potentially start a guard, but here we are with kind of like crazy stuff happening with the offensive line again. And it's just this storyline that will not go away. It's like Delta variant and right guard will just not go away for us um i wanted to ask you about what you think the impact of bc johnson

tearing his acl is because judd and i did not have a chance to talk about that the other night and i think more than anything it just sort of clears things up like i don't mean that that's good in any way like BC Johnson has made a career for himself here as a seventh round draft pick we don't see that very often so it's really tough for him and you tear your ACL you get behind the ball with your career like this is how tough it is to stick in the NFL so I feel really bad for him and he's always been great with us but it does kind of clear some stuff up for where you are in the wide receiver room at this moment.

Yeah. I, we, we've said that they're going to keep probably five or six wide receivers. I don't think seven again this year. Um, and it is a numbers game, you know, Chad BB probably was in a competition with BC Johnson. That's the way I way I handicapped it. I think Beebe's gotten passed by K.J. Osborne. I think until D.D. Westbrook comes back and competes, K.J. Osborne might be your wide receiver three.

Amir Smith-Marset is likely going to make this team, but he's not going to shock the world and, I think, be a contributor in a big way this year. I don't see it playing out that way. I mean, if anything, this moves everybody up one rung. So behind your wide receiver three, you know, then you've got your receivers in waiting. Who's going to come in at the first injury? And then I think, you know, you're looking at BB, Smith-Marset, and where does Westbrook fit in? The Osborne emergence, and we've got a story coming out on him on Tuesday, is pretty interesting and unexpected. I don't think

they necessarily signed Westbrook if they knew Osborne was going to play like this. And Westbrook can still give them a punt return threat who might be the best on the roster. And I don't think Westbrook is in danger of like, you know, missing the roster at all, but it's possible that he is a special team or primarily and receiver sort of part-time. And if KJ Osborne, you know, passes him becomes the wide receiver three that I think is a good problem to have for the vikings want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original minnesota sports inspired goods if

you have not seen it yet you've got to check it out couple of my favorite designs are the duck duck gray duck and the randy moss goat which you've got to see all their apparel is screen printed here in min on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. We're going to hook you up with free shipping on your next order. By the way, use promo code purple insider for free shipping. That's soda stick.

S O T A S T I C K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods code Code Purple Insider for free shipping. Yeah, I think when you bring in DeeDee Westbrook, considering where he's coming off the injury, you have to figure someone else needs to be ready for at least the beginning of season to be wide receiver three. And maybe they thought that would be Chad Beebe or that would be BC Johnson.

And now we know it's not going to be BC Johnson, but then all of a sudden KJ Osborne starts making plays the only thing is uh pads pads pads pads like it's so hard because i i want to give definitive opinions and try to forecast where these things are going chad bb has won jobs before through full training camps and we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves on some things just because last year was so rushed it was like by the second week we knew what everybody was and where they stood because we just went right into pads and then full steam ahead for two weeks and then boom season this is more of the long haul the marathon and not a sprint so we've got to see the preseason game first does dd westbrook play in the preseason games? Is he going to be ready to do that yet? That's going to be something that we're kind of keeping an eye on. I mean, he's a guy that's had 66 catches

two times in NFL seasons, but then lost his job last year to some other wide receivers. So like, where do we stand with this? We don't really know until we see it out there but what we do know is that kj osborne has put his name on the map more than anybody else and now this battle is kind of down to osborne westbrook bb and smith marsette and i think only three of those people stay i would be surprised if smith marsette got cut wouldn't be the first fifth rounder to be cut and put on the practice squad though. Not at all. So I think that that battle continues to be the most interesting. So we got to get out to practice here in a second, but I just wonder as, as we get into the pads for this week and not today, again, as was announced, um, like what, what do you think is the biggest

thing that we start to figure out once the pads come on? Because I get to not be obnoxious anymore and say, oh, the guy doesn't have pads yet, so we'll see then. Like, I'm tired of saying that, but I always just have to put that caveat when someone's shining because we've seen that before. But what is the biggest thing that will change in how we are watching practice in your mind? I think we got to watch the trenches more closely because that's where there's a ton of contact. And that's why, you know, those are the people that they are alleviating the contact for. It's the guys in the trenches mainly because now they can, you know, the edge rushers can really slam into the offensive line. The offensive line can push back, you know, as hard as they can. And we're going to get to see how Ezra Cleveland is holding up against a massive, assuming Michael Pierce comes back soon, a massive nose tackle. And even Dallin Tomlinson will give him a pretty good test. And then on the boundaries, Bashad Breeland hurt his shoulder. Is he going to be able to press

effectively? How is he going to do with contact contact and how will the receivers get off the jam and, um, and, you know, get work their way downfield. Can my guy KJ Osborne continue to, to show what he's been showing? And I want to see Justin Jefferson against Patrick Peterson, the, you know, famed press corner. Uh, can Jefferson win a lot of those battles? I think he has been without pads mainly, but you mentioned it. Receivers have a pretty big advantage. I just want to see how Peterson looks in terms of his speed and quickness when the pads come on. It's hard to tell that right now. It seems like they're very happy with him as a person, and I could see why. I've just been

really impressed with him. He does have Terrence Newman vibes of someone who's just very, very intelligent and is letting that rub off on other people, but not like in an egotistical way either. Like sometimes stars come in who have been around and they kind of have this, hey, I'm a star type of thing and I'm going to do what I do. Uh, that has not been Patrick Peterson. It seems like a really, really bright guy. And that's played a major role in his potential hall of fame career. Uh, so that's, that's been interesting to hear him talk, to hear people talk about him, but really the age is the concern and the quickness and the speed is the concern because sometimes guys are Terrence Newman but they're usually not it usually is when they lose that one step then things get harder and Peterson did sort of imply that he's going to play more zone coverage so I was gonna ask you about that

because he said that with Zimmer's instruction he's excited to basically like sit further back so he can like see the receiver's route develop more instead of having his back to the quarterback which i read as playing zone coverage because that's what it sounds like as opposed to being right up on guys and playing man to man where his numbers just weren't as good and this is where you mentioned zim it's like sometimes zimmer is i don't like those analytics you got there and sometimes zimmer is like oh someone showed me this number and i believe that and i'm gonna work with that and i wouldn't be surprised if that was one of them so that's that that is a development that um I'll be interested to see we're not they're not going to show us all the coverages that they're playing clearly in training camp but just in terms of how quick he looks how

explosive he looks those things I don't really have a good feel for right now and i think we do get a feel going forward i also want to know this is where we'll end so ryan ficken the special teams coach we talked to him today for longer than i think we've talked to a special teams coach since mike prefer who would talk a lot and he mentioned trying to put greg joseph theer, if you didn't know, in situations where he had, quote, like, adversity. Can you just lay me out a scenario of where they have adversity for the kicker in practice? Like, how does this work? Do they put a tiger out there and they have the tiger run at him or like what what do they do to have this happen? Do they have like, you know, Michael Pierce stand right behind him and breathe heavily? Like how how do you get adversify, if that's a word, a kicker?

I you know, I can't remember the kicker's name. The Gophers kicker that beat Penn State about 20 years ago, I remember he kicked over a ladder. He put a ladder five yards away and had to kick over the ladder to mimic LeVar Arrington blocking him. Maybe they'll bring some ladders out. They'll have Daniil Hunter stand on the ladder for a little extra length. I know they could have the guy from when Adam Sandler plays with Bob Barker

stand on the sideline. As soon as he goes to kick, he'll say, you suck jackass just before he kicks. And if he could kick while that guy is yelling that, then he's got it. Then he's all set. Yeah. I mean the game thrones fans will get this reference but you know just set up sort of like a shame tunnel for him like if he misses just have people like mike zimmer and can be ringing a bell and chanting shame shame shame did you see that uh the giants are running laps when they do things wrong like is it a joe judge initiative i imagine well no go back about two years when the Vikings had to run some like sideline to sideline sprints. Was that a, was that because the kicker missed or we thought it was,

we thought it was the Vikings denied it, but we still kind of think it was, we still kind of think it was, yeah. They were like, oh, that was a little extra conditioning. It was like, was it though? Because guys were just sort of jogging slowly like i could have handled that conditioning like what i don't know i don't know but uh zimmer has always been weird about kickers and the fact that greg joseph missed two from deep the other day i just kind of can't wait for the weirdness with kickers to happen and you'll know this camp has jumped the shark when there is a kicker slash punter who arrives that'll be a prediction that there is a there is a kicker slash punter out there somewhere well with all return now i believe the players on the reserve list get to be replaced on the roster

right so they've got like five spots to fill is that accurate yeah one of them going to uh case case cookies okay four four more spots there's got to be a kicker slash punter in there somewhere. Kicker slash punter. We've got a tight end slash punter, but the punting is going to be fun. Slash long snapper. Yeah. Yeah. This is all, it feels like Groundhog Day.

Quintessential. Yeah, it's all vintage Vikings. So thank you all for listening. Sam and I are going to be doing our live stream on Wednesday, by the way, with Bring Me the News. So if you follow them on Facebook and YouTube make sure you check that out and the video will be up there too so that'll be fun

okay we got to run to practice so I'll see you guys later