Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - More or less confident about the Vikings after preseason Game No. 1?

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

Matthew Coller answers fan questions about a strange Ivan Pace Jr. PFF grade, the interior of the Vikings offensive line and where things stand coming out of the first preseason game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider here live on a Friday evening. And I know that already in the day we did a podcast earlier with Will Raggett. So if you missed that one after you're done watching or listening to this, go check it out. We had a really fun conversation about Kareem Hunt and the Vikings having him in for a visit. So we covered a lot of stuff there. But I got a bunch of questions that I think were really good, either on Twitter or through emails or direct messages that I wanted to get to. Also, I wanted to say that my email on the Purple Insider website had not been working. So if recently you went to purpleinsider.com and sent me an email, it probably didn't get to me. And I apologize for that.

So that is fixed now. So if you go there, and trust me, I've been getting all the spam to know that it is fully fixed. So if you go to purpleinsider.com, contact us. That will go directly to me if you've got a question that you want answered on the show. And what I want to do with questions that I get through emails or DMs is sprinkle them into the top of the show and then get to chatting with all of you. So I've gathered a handful that caught my eye, and then we can get into all of your questions as we always do on these evening chats so welcome in sit back and enjoy another show here as we're one preseason game in we've got the titans coming to town next

week but tomorrow the vikings are back but it's just a walkthrough so i'm not going to do a show tomorrow night because there won't be anything new from practice to report unless there's a major injury or they sign cream hunt then okay then we'll do it but if there's no major news story it'll be sunday night will be the next uh live broadcast so uh make sure you tune in then after practice and of course it's just going to be another crazy week at vikings camp with lots of battles going on so let me get into a few of these questions and then your questions and react to these answers as well. And then we'll get rolling here. So I'm going to start off with, I got this message from John via Twitter. DM says, am I being too positive or does this defense have the young bones to be very good in a couple of seasons? What I would say is that really depends on a couple of things.

I mean, it depends, first of all, on whether any of those young bones become good. I mean, we saw last night, Caleb Evans and Makai Blackman, I think are their most promising young players. Byron Murphy Jr. is only 25 years old. So he definitely qualifies as players who are young slash in their prime. But if neither of those guys hit Andrew Booth Jr. is not trending in the right direction. I mean, Cam Bynum, I think is probably a guy who doesn't have a much higher ceiling. Josh Metellus might, but I think he's really good in the role that they're trying to fit him in. And then the results so far, not all that positive on Louis seen. Now it could change in the future. He's got a long way to go, but that could change.

It's just hard to look into the crystal ball and say, well, yes, because they're young, that means that they will be good. I mean, in 2020, we dealt with the same kind of thing where it was, everyone got excited about Holton Hill and they drafted two cornerbacks and we went, okay, like here comes this young group that Mike Zimmer is going to coach up and he drafted corner. So he knows what he's doing and it just didn't work out. So that is hard to project. I do like some of the early returns. And I think that the idea of drafting young players in the secondary and trying to develop them all together as a group, because

I think secondary chemistry does matter. So you draft a bunch of them in a couple of classes. You try to hit on a couple of second, third and fourth rounders like Tampa Bay did when they went to the Super Bowl with a pretty good defense. And all of a sudden you've got something, but they have to hit. And again, I like what I see from a Caleb Evans. I am a little more like wait and see on Makai Blackman, but I think he's physical and smart. And I think he tracks wide receivers pretty well. And I really like how Byron Murphy Jr.r fits in so you might have something to grow with in the secondary and with ivan pace where everyone's getting excited about him there's a young linebacker we'll see where it goes with brian asamoah not really clear yet uh for either

one of those guys who's going to have the job what that's going to look like but again youth that's intriguing in in the back seven but the front four is where i have many more questions because we don't know what daniel hunter's future is and he's not young and they really have no one else that's young on the front uh on the defensive line i mean dean lowry harrison phillips kairos tonga is young ish so he could develop he could be a player for them for quite a long time if they like what they see. But I mean, even Marcus Davenport, he could be a guy over the next few years that plays for them, but he's going to be 27 years old. So he's not really super young. He could be into the future if they like what they see. So I think a lot of it rests on the secondary guys and do they develop, but then also how do they replace these older players? If it is Daniil Hunter going, but even someone like Dean Lowry will not be here over many years. Marcus Davenport, I guess we'll see. How do they start to get a wave of young players into the defensive line to rush the passer. Because right now they don't really have a youth movement on the defensive

line. We've only seen a little bit of Patrick Jones. DJ Wanham is probably far enough into his career to where we know what he is. And then question marks. I liked Luigi Villain last night, but I don't know if that's a thing or not. So I think the answer is kind of yes with some question marks,

a lot of question marks to where this goes in the future. This one comes from Andrew. Who is your Kyle Slaughter Memorial most overhyped player of Vikings preseason and camp this year? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know if maybe that we need more time to emerge someone to be that guy. I know what you mean that every year it seems like the Alexander Hollins Memorial Award, it could be as well, where there's one player that the fans kind of gravitate to that we talk up in practice and then it ultimately just sort of fizzles out and there's nothing there, that player would have been Ivan Pace. And it might be, it might be, there's still a month to go. If Ivan Pace all of a sudden just, you know, loses all of his snaps and he's not taking first team and he's third team reps and he gets cut. But that would be pretty surprising based on

how he's played so far and how quickly he ascended. I don't know. That's really hard to see if he ended up just being pure hype. Aside from that, I don't know that we've really, I mean, Jordan Addison is very much deserving of the hype being a first round pick. So you suspect that that's going somewhere. Could it be Ty Chandler if they signed Kareem Hunt and Chandler ends up with 200 yards rushing? Maybe. He was probably that guy last year where we hyped him a lot because of 100 and whatever number of yards he gained on a handful of carries and then didn't make any impact in the regular season. So far, I'm having trouble finding a candidate that has been overhyped. I guess at

the very start, we were saying, hey, Jawan Williams is taking first team reps. Maybe they found something here. But then he did make a nice play last night. He could be depth. I don't know if we ever had higher expectations than that. Anyway, this might be a camp where we don't have one, but there's still two preseason games to go. Last year was T.Y. McGill. The guy sacked the heck out of everybody in that one preseason game and then got cut. So let's give it time. Let's give it time. I don't think we've got one yet.

This one from RedAndPurple77 asked, Ivan Pace Jr. didn't grade well by PFF versus Seattle. What am I missing? So I looked into this, his PFF grade and his overall grade was not all that good. But one of the things about a small sample size linebacker grade is that one bad play or two bad plays can bring down that grade significantly, even when they did a lot of good things during a game. and he got a penalty in the game. And I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't even remember what happened on the penalty, but PFF tends to hammer players for

getting penalties. So this used to happen with Xavier Rhodes, where we would look at the PFF grades in 2017 and go, what the heck? Xavier Rhodes is the best corner in the league this year. Why isn't he grading well? Because we don't really process the penalties the same way. We almost look at them as more bad luck getting caught grabbing than it is something we should grade against. But from their perspective, they grade those pretty harshly. So that brought down his grade. And this just tells you about how

small of a sample size these things are, is he allowed one reception in coverage. But if on the play, and I don't remember what it looked like right offhand, but if on the play, he overran something or whatever, they might take some points off for one bad play. But on the overall number, the one out of 100, that's going to have a pretty significant hit because it's just hard to do one out of a hundred, that's going to have a pretty significant hit because it's just hard to do one out of a hundred grades for individual games, but that's what everybody wants. The way that they used to do it was a plus minus system. So if you saw a bunch of pluses from

him on his run defense, which graded at the top of all Vikings players. So he was great in run defense. That's what we all saw. That's a lot easier to see on television is the run defense. But if he made one bad play, it's going to bring down that 100 grade when maybe it was only one or two minuses. But two minuses in a tiny sample where you play basically half the game is going to be a hit. So the point is just that when you're dealing with linebackers, corners, safeties that have very few plays that actually involve them, I would say grain of salt for a preseason game like that. You know, over a regular season, sometimes even a full season's worth of grades for a linebacker might be a little bit hard to figure out is that really accurate to

who that player is or not i think that they would tell you the nfl would tell you that even from inside the building it's hard to grade coverages it's hard to grade linebackers in small sample sizes so i i would say believe your eyes that what we saw with Ivan Pace Jr. was answering the biggest question that we had, which was, can this guy handle when there's a big old fat guard running right at his face? And the answer is yes. And I think that that matters more to the evaluation than a penalty or than one reception that he gave up into his coverage. So I think that kind of explains it. And it's just, don't use a PFF grade from a single preseason game to tell you the whole truth. Like, no, we don't do that with any stat. We don't do that with tackles. If a guy gets an interception, we don't just say, don't ask any more questions. So we should try to contextualize the grades as well. That's how I would look at it. But that penalty definitely played a role in why his grade was not as high as I would have expected from Dr.

Mr. E. I feel like it's worth a conversation about how good of a fit Daniel Hunter is with a three four scheme. Yeah, if it was if we actually in this world of the NFL played the old school three, four, then I think we, yeah, but this is just a pass rusher.

And, and, and this is exactly what Brian Flores has said. Pass rusher. That's all the Neil Hunter is. He is not going to be dropping back in coverage. And I know that last year there was a narrative about, well,

they had Hunter and coverage a bunch of times, but when you actually go look at the numbers, it was maybe once a game. So that may have happened on one big play that you remember. It's kind of like how we talk about, you know, Kirk cousins always checks down to the fullback, but I remember checking this and there were two instances for his entire career as a Viking of him checking down to the fullback on a third down and long, but you definitely remember the one that you saw. And I think it's the same way with, well, Hunter dropped back in coverage once and it went wrong. So I think that happens more than it does.

It's not going to happen. And Flores even explained this. He said that there are some pass rush packages where if two guys look like they're going to go at Daniil Hunter to block him, you might drop him back and rush guys from the other side if that's how they're going to approach it. So you have a mismatch or one-on-ones. And so you might say, oh no, he's dropping back. What is Brian Flores doing? But that's actually part of the pass rush package that leads to them getting sacks through blitzes. So it's a little bit of a convoluted thing. But 98% of the time, Daniil Hunter, regardless of 3-4, 4-3, is just going to run at the quarterback.

And Flores has already said he's going to have Daniil Hunter decide whether he's going to stand up or whether he's going to have a hand in the dirt. That's going to be up to him. So it's a great question, but I don't think it's like it was kind of back in the day. But even then, I mean, when Kevin Green was playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the mid-90s, was he dropping back in coverage or Derek Thomas in a 3-4? No, Vaughn Miller more recently just going after the quarterback.

That's what Daniil Hunter's going to do. That works in every scheme. From CJJohnson28 on Twitter, I know it's a preseason game, but the Vikings showed a lot under center 12 personnel and play action. Has that been a trend during the open camps this year? That's something they clearly want to do. Yes. Now, are they going to do it as much as they did with Nick Mullins the other night?

Not if Nick Mullins isn't playing. I mean, I think if Nick Mullins had to play in a game, you would see that all the time because that's what is probably going to work a little better for him than just being a straight pocket passer. But I think what they want it to be is a changeup is last year. It was just fastball, fastball, fastball. There was not, it was, it was dropped back out of the shotgun, you know, why three wide receivers Kirk's in command. I think what they want is Josh Oliver out there to give them a little more in the run game, give the defense a little more to think about in those play actions and try to create. I mean, the other night they had some wide open wide receivers

on those bootlegs. Those are easy completions that don't take a lot of effort from the quarterback. Gary Kubiak has long believed in them, Kevin Stefanski. And I think that Kevin O'Connell wants them. And I did ask him about this the other day. And that's basically the answer is having this counterpunch is pretty important that they didn't have last year. And I know that McVay has long played out of the 11 personnel, but he has often done this sort of thing, trying to make the run look like the pass. And if you can do that with another big guy in there, that's pretty helpful. So yeah, I think we are going to see a lot more of that. And it does seem like they're practicing it more, but that's hard to really say like did they practice it last year or not it just stands to reason when you have

two tight ends that are very good josh oliver being an excellent blocking tight end but can also catch the ball that you're going to want to do more of that stuff and i think it still remains quite effective and it just makes the other team prepare for something else. So they're already preparing for your base offense with, you know, the shotgun stuff and down the field stuff. And then here's this question. Will Dwayne McBride make the Vikings team? I think so, but I don't think that's a guarantee. If they do bring in a veteran running back, based on what we've seen so far, there is a decent chance that he doesn't. He's a seventh round pick.

That's not uncommon. I mean, this might actually be, you know what, this might actually be the answer. Only there was no reason to actually hype him in training camp, but to the, who got hyped too much, Dwayne McBride in the off season may have been hyped too much seventh round running back. They're taking a swing on a guy who had some good numbers and had a great highlight reel, but that doesn't mean that he knows all the nuances yet of how to be an NFL running back. And I think he showed that last night. He may be somebody that they cut, put on the practice squad, get a veteran, whether it's

Kareem hunt or someone else, if they don't see what they want to see. And I've got to think that them bringing in Kareem hunt, even for a look, has to do with the fact that McBride is just not really ready to play in the NFL, which I think was quite evident last night. It's harder to tell with running backs in training camp practice because no one's tackling them. So they can look quick or they can look sturdy. But then once guys start to tackle you, he looked like he was just trying to run through everyone and that uh did not happen the same way that it did in college so if he gets cut and ends up on the practice squad that's fine that's very common for seventh rounders and i

wouldn't be shocked but it to me depends on whether they bring in somebody else or not all right last one and then i'll get to your comments. From at Skol Stahl, if the Vikings sign Kareem Hunt, you think he'd split carries with Alexander Madison? Yeah, I do, but I don't think he would split carries in the same way of like 50-50. I think he would split carries sort of like 70-30 or something like that um maybe you know maybe madison gets 200 215 and kareem hunt gets 75 something like that that it would be not exactly like a mad or like a cook madison split where it was almost all cook and then only madison when cook was injured but i don't think it's going to be like your series his series back and forth that kind of thing i I don't think it's going to be like your series, his

series back and forth, that kind of thing. I don't think it's going to be like that. If they do sign Kareem hunt, he is in my mind, the backup to Alexander Madison that can come in and spell him, but is not going to be a major part of the offense. That's how I would project it right now. That of course could change a ton if they sign him, and then we'll see where that goes, and we'll see what it looks like. But that would be my expectation right now, is that he is somebody that rotates in,

but not as the main guy. And he would be there in case of emergency, in case Madison got hurt. I would still very much project Madison to take the vast majority of the carries. All right. Let me get to your guys' comments now from Bradley. Did you watch the green Bay game? How did Jordan love? Look, you guys are going to have to tell me. Cause I did not. I'm look, I love football as much as you guys love football, but watching other teams,

preseason games is pretty rough because I don't even know who most of these guys are by the first quarter they're playing backups and it wasn't Jake Browning starting for the Bengals I mean it's just not really worth it unless I'm not doing anything else so I was watching New York Liberty versus Chicago Sky and getting some things done around the house before this and not watching Jordan love play. I also don't think that the preseason is going to tell us if Jordan love is any good or not. And my favorite example, and I don't have the numbers right in my head, but I think that Ryan leaf absolutely demolished the preseason. I don't think it's ever really been predictive of

what a guy's going to do at quarterback in the regular season. So I'm not going to go out of my way to watch Jordan Love and be like, hmm, yeah, I think that I could tell by the way he threw that pass. There's something there. They're playing vanilla generic defenses. He should look good. It's going to be about the regular season for me. So, I mean, but if you you guys watch you can tell me what you thought of it i'm just gonna live my life in a happier place than watching bengals packers

preseason on a friday night i'd rather be talking to you actually than doing that from dionte i'm hearing pace wore the green dot helmet last night is that true uh i don't know if that's true or not um by hearing do you mean like did someone report that um if they did well then that's probably true uh starting to feel like he's locking the spot down well with uh jordan hicks not playing because he's a veteran that would make sense that they would have ivan pace do that i feel the same way as you, though, when it comes to the second part of that, that it just seems like this momentum that Pace has gained has put him in a position to be the starter so far. Long way to go still in camp, talking about how important it is to understand what you're supposed to do, where you're supposed to be. Really get what the coaches are asking you to do technique-wise, X's and O's-wise, to really see the whole picture.

And I think in that battle, that could be a determining factor because both guys are undersized. Both guys are fast. Asamoah is a little faster, probably. So it's going to come down to who gets it better and who is more in command of it. Who could call the defense if he needed to, if Jordan Hicks goes out and if that player is Ivan Pace, then he's going to play. That's where it stands in my mind right now. But even when I was

talking to Will Raggetts earlier, he disagreed. He thought that Brian Asamoah, if the season started today, would still be the starter. I don't feel that way, but we don't really know until we see a little more sample size of this offseason. I mean, these joint practices are really going to tell us because if Asamoah is back in again, not sure about the injury status, but if he's back in next week and when they're practicing against the Titans, but he's exclusively with the second team, it's going to be a pretty clear message that pace is the guy. And yeah, if he was calling the defense last night, that's another good sign because I think if I'm not mistaken, he was out there with Troy reader and reader has been in the NFL before. So you would think that he would call it unless they really wanted to test Ivan pace and his knowledge. So, yeah, I mean, I think that

everything is going in the right direction. That's why I wanted to address that PFF thing, because sometimes we just take that number and focus on it like too much for a single preseason game. For an offensive lineman, there's usually a bigger sample. So if someone had like 30, 40 snaps and had a good or bad grade, you're pretty safe saying like, okay, did he win or lose his reps? But their linebacker is a little more complicated. And I just want to say like, you're not wrong for thinking he had a good game last night because they dinged him for a penalty and that brought his grade down. So I did want to bring that up. But it does.

That trend seems to be going in the right direction, sort of full force ahead for Ivan Pace from E felt second and third team. O-line did haul zero favors. At least he didn't look like he had happy feet like Mullins. Oh, I mean, Nick Mullins outplayed Jaron Hall by 50 miles. Nick Mullins looked, I thought, looked very competent and played really well for a backup quarterback in a preseason game. He got the wide receivers opportunities to make plays. He moved the football, completed passes, was in total command of the offense. I thought Mullins did exactly what you get a backup quarterback to do, which is come in and allow

you to evaluate everybody on the field from the linemen because he's not going to hold on to the ball too long or the wide receivers, especially by just delivering decent footballs for them to make plays. Jaron Hall looked like he didn't know what to do with the ball. I'm not in the business of blaming the third team offensive line. I mean, that's just not at all. Jaron Hall had a very typical rookie first time out where he was clearly just overwhelmed. And that can change plenty of time, plenty of time for that to come together for Jaron Hall.

Everybody knows Nick Mullins is the backup quarterback, but I thought that it was very clear why they like Nick Mullins and why Jaron Hall is a rookie who's not coming anywhere close to taking his job. But again, you're trying to develop Hall to the point where you're confident in him as the backup, maybe next year, instead of having to pay somebody else to be the backup. You get the guy in a rookie contract, feel good about him. He can lead the offense. But as of right now, that's just not happening in practice. There have been ups and downs, but you saw it in the game time where he's just not ready to do that yet,

at least as of his first start. And then we'll go from here. It could look a lot better next time after he now knows what it looks like to be on an NFL field. If you're a first rounder and you look like that, you might go, oh, that's not good. But a fifth rounder, like we expect some development in there.

From Tommy, so is Brian Asamoah not showing any progression or is Ivan Pace just that good? Do we think Asamoah and Pace will be the two starters by the end of the season or is Jordan Hicks experience valuable? Certainly in my mind, Jordan Hicks's experience is valuable. Now there's always the reason they call them surprise cuts is there's always surprise cuts for, you know, whatever, you know what I mean? There's every year, some guys who get cut that we don't expect, but I'd be very surprised if that was Jordan Hicks. Uh, I think that, um, Jordan Hicks is a veteran player who has high IQ, understands the defense, knows what he's doing. And they want that guy out there uh calling the defense on a regular basis

and just you know i mean you got to have kind of that guy to go along with young linebackers i would be very surprised if at any point they benched jordan hicks for someone else but i think it's just that you have an open competition and what's clear with brian flores is he didn't draft these guys. So he doesn't care. Does he care if it's Makai Blackman or Andrew Booth Jr.? I mean, maybe he was involved in drafting Blackman, but no, he's just going to play the best guy.

He inherited most of this. And the same thing goes for Pace Jr. and Asamoah. He didn't draft him just because he's a third-round pick. That matters to you and me way more than it matters to Brian Flores. He's evaluating those guys on an equal plane. Who's just picking it up better. Who's a better partner for Hicks. Who's playing better in practice.

That's how he's going to look at it. And I, I, I mean, I think it probably just means that as of right now, pace has played better than Brian Asamoah. And could they end up being the future two linebackers? Sure. That could end up happening as well. I think for this year though, you want Jordan Hicks to be alongside one of them, unless it goes bad. If it goes bad, then yeah, we could see a change. And also we have to consider with the Asamoah thing that Brian Flores is the type of defensive coordinator who will move guys in and out. And if you go and look at the snap counts of his defenses in 2020, 2021, he will rotate guys in.

He will have specific ideas for how he wants to use one particular player. And I wouldn't be shocked if that ends up being the case for either guy. The guy who doesn't win the job still has some sort of role. It isn't like with Mike Zimmer, who just played the same personnel all the time. Not that I blame Mike for doing that because they were great at one time over multiple years, but they didn't change personnel very much. I think Brian Flores likes to have that, you know, multiple personnel looks a Zimmer would do it on third down when he would get a B Rob in there rushing over the guard or something like that. But normally first, second,

third down, he would always talk about a defensive line rotation, but then if they tried it and it didn't work immediately, you just bail. So I think we're going to see a lot of that but i i would not call it on brian asamoah on august 11th and say well it's over guys a bus 2020 draft class throw them all out it's not over yet because pace has gotten more opportunity so far we're kind of going to have to see where that goes and it just might mean that pace has outplayed him so far from Ron. There's got to be a better alternative right guard. Cousins can't continue to get pounded like last year. Well, it's always going to be hard to play right guard for Kirk Cousins.

And we've talked about that, but I mean, it's the, you know, the, the lack of pocket movement, things like that, like that's going to be hard because they know exactly where he's going to be. They're going to send pressure. These teams also know how good the tackles are, and they're going to try to get their defensive ends involved in the middle to try to attack weaknesses because they know one-on-one with Christian Derrissaw, every rep is maybe not the best strategy. So there's going to be a lot on his plate.

But the thing about a better alternative, Dalton Reisner is absolutely a better alternative. If you start talking about other people, that's where it gets hard. Remember when we said, well, Drew Samia's got to be better than Dakota Dozier. And then he was not better than Dakota Dozier. Or when Nick Easton got hurt in 2018, well, Easton's not that good.

Tom Compton will be fine. And he was not fine. I mean, that's kind of how it goes sometimes where it's like we always think that the guy behind the guy is going to be better. And a lot of times he isn't. But if Ingram plays at the same level as last year, then yes, replacement level linemen can be better. And I have to wonder where this thing would stand if Chris Reed was actually healthy,

because Chris Reed, I don't know what happened, somehow got hurt between mini camp and training camp and has not practiced at all. I saw him on the side throwing a giant ball in the air. You know, he's got like that thick weighty ball and he was throwing it up and down and he could throw it very high. He's a very strong guy, but that doesn't look like someone who's ready to get back in the fray and ready to compete for that job. And I think right now it's Ingram versus whoever they believe they could sign because on the roster, Chris Reed is really the only guy who could compete for that job with Ingram. Chris says, how did Ingram's PFF grade look? It was not good.

It was not good. It was a 42, I think, in pass blocking. But we're only talking about like nine pass blocking snaps. Still allowing a pressure versus Seattle's backups. Not grading well. It's just not good. It's just not it's just not good uh it's just not good um Hunter is not an outside linebacker our guard play is going to cost this team yeah I mean no right Hunter is he's an edge rusher he's just going to rush the quarterback

he's not some sort of like move then they're not making him Anthony Barr or something there's like this this idea that if you go three, four, then the guy ends up like in coverage all the time. That's not what happens. He's just going to rush the passer and he's going to get 12 sacks. Like that's, what's going to go down. The guard play may cost this team. One thing I would just continually say though, is if you are an NFL team that cannot overcome a single weakness, then you're not a good team. I mean, every team, even teams that go to the Super Bowl, are going to have some player who's not perfect. And you're just going to have to work around it. And that might be the case with right guard.

And I, through the years, have grown frustrated with the like, well, if only they just had whatever, like, right. If they had all the best players in NFL history on the offensive line, they would be a lot better, but there's 32 teams. It's hard to do. And should they have probably upgraded earlier at right guard and anticipated this put me on repeat saying that year after year after year, heck maybe last year they should have just kept Jesse Davis or played Chris Reed. And if he protects Kirk cousins for one more play here or there,

maybe we've got some different results, but I also don't want to say, well, you know, the guard play, you just can't do anything like, come on. I mean, there's, there's plenty of guards that struggle throughout the league. You're going to have to figure out a way to work through it. Jonathan says, I think the fact that they brought Hunt in is all a sign that McBride hasn't panned out the way that they wanted. And look, I mean, if you're going to put expectations on a seventh round running back, sort of like your fault for doing that and not having another answer because he's a seventh round running back. I mean, how many seventh round picks even make teams? Not that many. And we love a guy with a highlight reel who's taken late. Stacey Coley, Dylan Mitchell, all of these guys at skill positions who are taken in the late rounds.

There's always reason to love them. Hey, Nick Muse was that guy. He had to go to the practice squad first, might be on the practice squad again. That's how it goes. And if they were so excited by his college tape that they said, we don't need a veteran running back. We've got the seventh rounder. Well, that's probably a mistake in their thinking uh david said seems like most of quasey's picks aren't ready to play in the nfl well i mean in 2022 yeah the 2022 class but the 2023 class has been the total opposite i mean both of the first two picks are starting and then Jaqueline Roy has been good. He didn't play because he was beat up and I'm not sure what happened there or when he's

going to be back, but he's been good. And then Ivan Pace is part of that draft class as an undrafted free agent. Also a Caleb Evans was playing last year. I think they would have wanted him to play more. And now he's starting. We shouldn't leave him out when we talk about the draft classes that that's been a good find so far. So I think that there seems to be a lot of focus and reasonably so on the 2022 draft class because there was a lot to question right off the bat. And so I think a lot of us, including myself to some extent, questioned the decisions on draft day in 2022 and are quick to jump up and say, see, I told you you shouldn't have taken that guard. I told you you shouldn't have taken that injured corner. I told you you shouldn't have taken the safety. You should have just drafted Jamison Williams or, you know, Kyle Hamilton or whatever. And all of that is fair because at the time you could see some of this stuff coming, but we can't make these broad statements and ignore that the first round receiver looks like a monster. I mean, right. So anyway, the,

the question that I asked in the headline was, are you more or less confident? And David says less confident after last night. Depth looks like it's going to be a problem in the first part of the game. So I don't disagree on this, but the first part of the game is the depth. The second part of the game is players who don't play here. Like this has to be clear, right? So the first half of the game is your backup quarterback

your backup offensive line which was a struggle always will be your backup tight ends your backup wide receivers aside from jordan addison your backup running back ty chandler on the defensive side backup d line you have your starting corners but that was about it and metellus got in and can buy them but that was the depth and at the beginning of the game they played pretty well uh so i i guess i wouldn't look at the depth and say they were the problem it's the i mean that where they got crushed was the guys who won't be making the team for the most part i still don't disagree with you that one layer down at a lot of positions and you're talking about a USFL or XFL caliber player. I mean, you go one layer down at starting corner and you're at Juwan Williams, who was let go by the Patriots after not making it as a second

round pick. You go one layer down at linebacker and i'm not sure is it asamoah is it pace or is it you know whatever troy die like that's not really what you're looking for one layer down at defensive line and it's asasia tomowo who you know showed a little and luigi valaine who's a preseason hero and yeah i mean i i don't disagree with you that in most positions there isn't a lot of depth outside. The wide receiver room is just very good. But I mean, I think that the players who are that depth for the most part had a decent night against Seattle. The ones who are going to be on this team. That's what I would say.

Jonathan says, I watched a few drives. Jordan Love struggled but had some shining moments. I think he could be a decent starter, but don't see him as a superstar. I, uh, yeah, I it's hard. It's really hard with Jordan love because you probably would say the same thing about like Jalen hurts. And a lot of it depends on just how much like that last year going into last year. Well, I think he could be a good starter. He's probably never going to be a superstar. And then all of a sudden he took off under the right circumstances. Are the circumstances right for Jordan Love with his receivers?

That I'm not really convinced yet. But I would also say that, you know, Jordan Love had enough talent to be a first-round pick and has the arm and athleticism to be a really good player. I don't know if he has that extra gear that someone like Jalen Hurts has in his running element. So it's going to have to largely be with Jordan Love's arm. And is he accurate enough to be great, or could he just be good? I think if I'm projecting him, I'm where you are, is that it's probably going to shift

depending on what's around him. Maybe he's like a Carson Wentz with a better personality or something, right? Like this big guy with a big arm who can do a little bit as far as movement goes, but he's not going to be a running, running quarterback. And he's not going to be quite accurate enough in order to be an elite quarterback. That's that would be my guess right now on August 11th, 2023. And that is very much subject to change. But I think that I'm in the same place as you in terms of thinking that he could be

good, but a lot is determined on what's around him from year to year. Thor says, signed on late. Sorry if you're caught. Well, don't ever do it again, Thor. Oh, what did the team see last night that they brought in Kareem Hunt? It might not have been anything from last night. They might have had that scheduled before and it just happened today. They may have scheduled that on his bike. I'm going to get as much money as I can tour, which he was in New Orleans, seemed like he was going to sign. Then apparently the Colts called and offered more money. So he went to visit them. And if the Vikings give him more money than that, he'll sign here. I suppose. That's exactly how I would do it if I was him as well. But I don't know that they watched last night and Kweisi got on the phone and said,

bring in Kareem. Like, I don't know that that's what happened. It could just be that Kenny Wong was banged up. There's not much reason to trust the situation. Dwayne McBride didn't look really great. So, you know, I mean, you're just going to take a look at a veteran. It's something that we've expected for a few weeks or at least for a week plus after Wong Wu got hurt and we just haven't seen anything or heard anything from the

coaches that makes it sound like they're particularly confident in these running backs. So yeah, I don't't i don't know that it was just last night but obviously mcbride's just not ready to carry a load or at least that's what it looked like and what it's looked like in camp if he had to i think they want a in case of emergency guy if they need one uh jonathan says it was reported by one of the sideline guys that pace was leading the defense. Okay, great. Yeah. Oh, if that's the case, then I'm sure it's true.

And honestly, that is quite a good sign for him, for his chances, because that's what it's all about. You can't play fast, and he did play fast, unless you really get what's going on. And if he gets what's going on, that's how he can use all of the physical talents that he has that, you know, kind of transcend his height. And that's how you do it. Like all these players, one of the things that football guys will say, and I like this is he's always been this short, like he's always had to find ways to overcome his size. And even though it can be a factor, he has done it by probably understanding the game and the way he plays.

And we saw that violence that he plays with last night that I really liked. David says if they're going to make a serious run at it this season, which I think is how they're looking at it, then I do feel like another quality O-lineman and running back are necessary. I'm in this camp with you, David. I agree. Just sign these guys. And look, if it turns out to be the next Bishad Breeland, well, then it turns out to be the next Bishad Breeland, but

there have been over the years and not necessarily here, but in the league late signings that end up playing out pretty well in a team's favor or a late trade or so forth. If you're going to get Jalen Rager, well, you know, maybe then he's just a punt returner like they did last year. But, you know, somebody like Kareem Hunt has played a lot of football. And if he looks like he's got the burst to be a change up running back to Madison or a break in case of emergency to

Madison, go for it. The lineman, whatever he's asking, give it to him, put him at right guard, or if they don't trust Cleveland left guard. But I think they showed their cards a little bit last night, didn't they? So, you know, you're bringing in, if you bring in Reisner, if you bring in Ron Darby to give a little extra depth to a cornerback group that's so unclear, all these things I'm in favor of because they treated this like they were going to give everybody their chance. All these young players, we're going to give you your chance.

Kenny Wong Wu and Ty Chandler, go show it to us. Wong Wu gets hurt. The cornerback group, go show it to us. If you want these jobs, you want to show your part of the future. Like you got a couple of weeks of camp to show it. And if they haven't, then well, uh, you know, you go out and get the veterans that are still there. And I think that's a fair way to do it.

Plus with the offense they have with the players they have and the way that Jordan Addison looks, they should be thinking when the division. And I know there's a quarterback situation down the road and it'll get talked about. I promise it will, you know, throughout the next year, the quarterback situation. But you said you weren't going to tank. You said you're going for it. You said you want to be back in the playoffs. Well, these guys can help you get there and you should take a shot at them. And I'm sure that it's not going to be all that expensive. Let's see. Mullins looks solid. He managed the game very well. Got through his past progressions quickly. Only issue I saw was a few underthrown balls. Yeah, that's because he doesn't have an arm. You're right. Yeah, you're definitely

right. But a guy like that matters because the last few years they have not had a quarterback that they could put in preseason games to even evaluate their wide receivers. I mean, Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond struggled so much. How do you even give your guys work at that point? I always, you guys know this. I always, you guys know this, I always want to give a lot of credit to players like Nick Mullins because look at Zach Wilson, look at the talents that come through this league sometimes and completely fail. And Nick Mullins through sheer understanding of football, hard work, accepting of his role, doing everything he can to be that guy is here and his role is something it's important i mean to be able to see if jordan addison can make some catches to give nick muse a shot to make a play to get jalen

rager and brandon powell involved those footballs were just not getting thrown the last few off seasons and then on a weekly basis backup quarterbacks are a big part of preparing for the opposing team and i think a guy like nick mullins really does his job so i i want to always give uh some appreciation to somebody who can step in and do what they're supposed to do and i thought that he did that last night thor said if you had to guess are we going into the regular season with the current interior o-line yeah i think so think so. I mean, it all depends on whether they sign Reisner or somebody else, but it's not like there's anyone behind them

that can compete. And that's the reality. So I think that they probably will just have to grin and bear it with Ingram and hope he takes a step forward. I would say that through this point last year, go back and listen to our podcast from last year. We're probably talking about whether Chris Reed is going to win the center job. I mean, it was a very bad start to training camp last year for Garrett Bradbury and, and even Kevin O'Connell remember this last year was kind of saying, yeah, there's competition there. And then all of a sudden it kind of clicked for bradbury and he had a very good season you know i mean so i wouldn't count it entirely out that this kick in the pants is helpful to ed

ingram to get the message and play in that game at the same time not sure that i have a ton of confidence in that but it's all about the other options. Who is going to be there? If anything, this is just my guess. And again, they could sign Reisner right after the show. So if they do, then great. That's a good decision. If I had to guess, I think the way it'll go is Ingram will play to start the season. Chris Reed will get back from his injury and be the backup. But at the first sign of things going bad, that they will make that change and put Chris Reed in a guard. That's what I think will happen. If they end up going into the season with the current setup for the interior

offensive line forces, can we go three in the backfield running back fullback flanker to help block and support the interior offensive line yeah i mean do you think that kevin o'connell you know past first quarter former quarterback is going for that no they're just gonna have to block that that's how it is and you're gonna have to get the ball out quickly as well maybe the play action stuff and having josh oliver's a part of this will help because I think that it was helpful in those years where they had like Josh Klein and Dakota Dozier to have those

bootlegs and play actions and a significant running game to not get Kirk Cousins crushed and, and to show you how much it matters, the play calling and the scheme. I mean, I can pull this up for you guys right now, just how much it matters, the play calling and the scheme. I mean, I can pull this up for you guys right now, just how much it makes a difference, how you go about your offense and, and whether you can protect the quarterback from getting too many sacks in 2021, Kirk was sacked 28 times. And last year it was 46. I mean, so they want to have these like long drop backs developing routes and things like that but and i know that the past attempts were higher but still that's way more sacks and it's a sack percentage of a huge jump in sack percentage but in 2018 and 2019 his sack

percentage was lower especially 2019 it was way lower than last year because they were running a lot of the bootleg stuff with Kevin Stefanski. So there are things that can be done to limit that pressure a little bit more. And I think that Kevin O'Connell has an idea for that to get in multiple tight ends a little bit more often. Let's see. Let's see. How about Asamoah P pace duo replacing Hicks? It's possible. It's possible. I just think that it's more likely that Jordan Hicks is just the starter alongside one of those guys. But if they do that, will anybody be mad? I mean, I have the ultimate respect for Jordan Hicks. He's a great pro, but if they decide that they're just in a place where they want the young linebackers to play instead, anybody be upset? Not, no, not really. I don't think so because that's kind of

where that team is at right now is it's just a lot of young players in this group. I do think it's good to have somebody like him that is in command, but if they feel comfortable and it's very difficult out there is way different than a preseason game to be out there in a real game with the green dot calling the defense and everything else. But, um, you know, I, I think that I think that if Jordan Hicks were to be cut and was the shocker cut of training camp, kind of like B-Rob was years ago, or Terrence Newman, I guess, retired and became a coach, but was going to get cut. Okay. I am all for transitioning the defense into being younger. I guess my question is just when you're bringing in these veteran players, what is it that you want here? Do you want Ron Darby to come in and play outside corner and try to win? Do you want Kareem Hunt to be in running back position or do you want to see Kenny Wongwu,

right? Or do you want to see Ty Chandler? When they talk about threading this competitive rebuild needle, they have been good so far in training camp to the point where I think you could compete for a division. So why would you kind of shift over to all unproven players at that point that I don't know? I think you'd probably rather stick with Hicks, but if they made that move, I'd, I'd be okay with it as it presently stands, which is a lot of young players getting opportunities to find out where they are because they haven't signed those veterans yet. Um, you are right, Steve, that Casey's 2022 draft class is not looking good so far.

And there is a question about how long do we give to decide? I think that anybody who says three years on a draft class is probably right. In my experience, I would say that we should be seeing better signs by right now of a draft class by year two, but I'm always willing to give it a little bit longer, especially when it was a catastrophic injury for Louis seen. I didn't like how he looked last night. He graded as the worst run defender. That makes sense to me. That was something I felt like you could really see on TV. You know,

just how guys were attacking in the run, but I don't want to call it yet. It's just right now. The first three picks first four picks. Is it four or three? Not looking particularly good. And I, Calebans is sort of the saving grace and then the 2023 class is the exact opposite where you have lots of guys looking

like they're going to contribute and that we're just going to relitigate that 2022 draft over and over and over i think but that's kind of what drafting is in the nfl is and that was another question somebody sent me was like is this evidence of how random drafting is in the NFL is. And that was another question somebody sent me was like, is this evidence of how random drafting is? And my answer is like 75%. Yes. It's also don't maybe reach on a guard like that in the second round, because you're kind of asking for it. Like every one of these players had the talent to become good, but you were kind of asking for it or risking it. Like, think about it this way. If you don't draft Kyle Hamilton and you draft Lewis scene, when the whole league decided that they didn't want him as a first round pick and they let you

take him at 32nd. Okay. You are probably reducing your odds by what percentage? Well, top 15 is usually where the hall of Famers come from. And once you get past that, there's a pretty big drop off. That was my contention. So we can question that decision to trade down when they didn't get a first round draft pick. But what are we talking about in odds that Kyle Hamilton or Jamison Williams were great versus Louis seen?

Some teams had Louis scene high on their draft boards. Are we talking about maybe 40% chance Kyle Hamilton would become a great player versus 30% Louis scene? Like this is what they would have added up. So even when we question it, there's still a part of me that says, okay, but if Louis scene was crushing it right now, we would be singing a whole different tune. So, you know, that is definitely the randomness. So I kind of go back and forth between certainly worth observing that the 2022 class is not crushing it when a lot of them had opportunities or have opportunities and still do over the next month. But also there's another part of me that says, this is why every year during the draft,

I talk about how the randomness exists in the draft because one year you're a fool, the next year you're a genius. That's the draft life. Let's see. Higher impact potential signing duo of Kareem Hunt, Dalton Reisner, or Linval Joseph, Jadavian Clowney.

I did see that Linval put it out on Instagram that he wants to continue playing. And I did think, maybe that's not a bad idea. Linval is one of my favorite players to cover. He is just one of the nicest people that you'll ever run across and has a huge heart. He's always been one of the most beloved guys in the locker room and I think could probably still be effective, but maybe only like 500 snaps. I don't think that he could be effective far beyond that. Would I be against signing two defensive linemen based on what we've seen at this moment? No. I mean, you've already got a

veteran defensive line anyway. Why not get a little bit more of a rotation? You guys will have an easy time convincing me to sign people because a lot of them, you're talking about one year contracts, low commitment, probably not very high dollars. And what I would endorse is that they gave everyone else a chance over a couple of weeks in camp to take those jobs and show that there's something there. And if they didn't, well, then they go and get somebody else. So I like that approach. But, yeah, I mean, I would say if you're asking which has a higher impact, it's hard for me to pass up on the guard because the guard is a big deal. I mean, I know that I say, like, look, everyone's got a weakness, but it is big deal. If you have one of the worst guards in the league, if it's going to be that way

hard for me to pass up on the guard, but I do have a lot of questions about this defensive line. I probably would take Reisner over all of those just to have a better situation on the interior, but that's a good question. Very question marley thank you okay what a fun friday night football talk two live broadcasts on the youtube channel here today uh none tomorrow that is just going to be a walkthrough for the team so if there's breaking news of course we'll be here but otherwise uh will not i did want to remind you guys before I wrap up the show that I have been playing underdog fantasy best ball and just getting into random leagues. And I just wanted to say it's been really fun doing that. This is the first time I've ever done it. And you guys should check it out. It's by far the easiest fantasy sports ever, where you just get the app, put some money in there

and draft fantasy teams. And you don't have to do anything else. You don't have to manage them. You don't have to pretend you're Kweisi Adafomenta of your fantasy team if you don't want to. And I think that 98% of all people don't want to. So you could just draft teams, and you're in leagues, and then you just see where it goes from there. So anyway, it doesn't even take very long, just a couple of minutes

and you do the draft. I think it was like every 30 seconds, picks are coming in and, uh, it's a good time. You can do it while you're driving. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just joking. Don't do it while you're driving. But if you're riding next to someone, then you can do it in a very short car trip. So if you use the code purple, um, you can get a double your first deposit

up to a hundred dollars in bonus cash when you make your first deposit of $10 or more. So if you donate a hundred, you get a hundred free. If you use the promo code purple with underdog fantasy, make sure you check out the app. It's really cool. Uh, it works great. So I have enjoyed it. And at some point we've had, we had, it's been so intense. But at some point, I'll go over some of my best ball teams and we can talk about them. So, all right. Great stuff tonight, guys. I mean, it's Friday night in the middle of summer.

Maybe you had hail or something today if you're in Minnesota. And still, there's this many of you hanging out, watching the broadcast. Can't thank you enough. You guys make me want to come in here and do it uh more and more live vikings talk every night and we always have something new to talk about i love that so we'll be here uh sunday night and then complete week of coverage as always on the channel make sure you check it all out and there's always bonus stuff other interviews from tco performance center with other reporters things like that on the podcast feed so make sure you go to the podcast feed as well purple insider and uh you

know like my conversation with ben gessling or matt daniels the special teams coach like those are there and only there so make sure you go over there as well and check it out all right thanks everybody football