Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - NBC's Drew Dinsick is buying Vikings stock

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Drew Dinsick of NBC Sports Bet and the Deep Dive podcast joins to talk about some of Matthew Coller's predictions, including that the Vikings will be over 8.5 wins. Drew thinks they are going to win the division though because he's buying Kyler Murray's resurgence. Who else is he buying in the NFC? Why is he down on the Detroit Lions? The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by FanDuel. All right, Drew Dinsick, NBC Sportsbet, and the Deep Dive podcast. And let's see it. The other day when I was thinking, who should come on the show? Oh, yeah. I haven't done my yearly predictions get together where we try to look into the future. And you are one of the best in the entire universe at prognosticating. And then I was reminded of something, Drew, that a couple of years ago, we did a podcast, I believe it was 2020,

and I said, Drew, tell me who the quarterback of the Vikings is going to be in 2024. And you predicted Kyler Murray. You were only two years off. And here he is now with the Minnesota Vikings. I'm going to give you that one. Good call, Drew. Welcome back to the show, my friend. Thank you for the kind words.

And yes, never wrong. Just early. It was, this is a match. This is a match, though. I've been looking forward to seeing we have all the faith in the world that, Kevin O'Connell knows how to run an offense. And now we get to see him with another quarterback who might have more talent than any of the players we've seen him work with in years past. So, yeah, very, very excited for this year's, you know, Minnesota Vikings to take the field and see what we get out of Kyle Murray.

So the way that this always works, our once a year get together is I give you a bunch of predictions and then you tell me whether they are insane predictions or whether they're pretty good or whether I am dead on. and then, you know, I guess we need to do a better job of reviewing later in the season, how far off or how spot on we were. But anyway, let's just start with the most obvious place to begin. The Minnesota Vikings over under on Fandul is eight and a half wins. I am going to predict boldly that the Vikings get more than eight and a half wins because, well, last year was a complete train wreck disaster and they got to nine. and they've added much, much, much more talent, in my opinion, at the quarterback position. So are you buying over on the Minnesota Vikings eight and a half wins? Yeah, this is an easy one, honestly.

One of the better win in totals on the board, as far as I can tell you. I think Kyler Murray is a marked step forward for them as far as how you rate the quarterback position and how you're coming up with a rating for a team should always start with a quarterback and offensive coordinator, in my opinion. This combination looks perfect to me. I'm excited to see what kind of wrinkles Kevin O'Connell can introduce now that he's working with a quarterback that has the mobility that Kyla Murray has. I'm excited to see what Kyla Murray can produce now that he's throwing to the best receiver

in football in my opinion and Justin Jefferson. So this is an exciting combination. And I think that with the fact that they have the weakest of the schedules in a relatively flat division, I'm almost more tempted. I'm kind of I'm struggling right now. Like do you go for, you know, a little bit of upside by kind of going to an alternate win total, like an over nine and a half, over 10 and a half? Or do you just swing for the fences and take them to win the division at five to one?

You know, I'm only, I'm only trying to key on upside with this team this year based on the way that they handled their offseason in terms of roster construction. And I think that just, you know, from a general standpoint, you know, betting on minus 110 for over eight and a half isn't as, isn't as enticing, particularly in the month of May here as we are kind of winding down May. You know, you're locking up capital for a long time for a small return rather than maybe swinging for the fences. So like kind of the only reason I would pump the brakes is his price and maybe trying to find something with a little more upset. Yeah, there's a few things I want to get into there. the NFC North, certainly what you said about the schedule is interesting, but let's talk about, I mean, Kyler Murray, you liked this fit a couple of years ago.

And before we went on, I was throwing a bunch of stats at you about how bad the Arizona Cardinals are. But is it overly optimistic from my seat to be looking at what Kyler did in Arizona and thinking, relative to the franchise, relative to the weapons around him there versus the weapons he relative to the coaching there versus what I think the coaching potential is here, that I think sometimes you have to project things that you haven't seen before. And so much of sports that's really hard is the guys have a certain amount of results, and that becomes the truth about who they are. And so it's a bit of a leap of faith to say the truth about Kyler Murray is going to be different

than what it was with Arizona based on the circumstances. It's so there's two obvious answers to this. So the first is like, is this an upgrade at the quarterback position for the team? And I think that's a pretty obvious yes. The second question is, is this an upgrade for Kyler Murray as far as a situation? I think that's an even more resounding yes, right? Like the idea that you're going from a franchise that had as much instability as the Cardinals, as little the likelihood of winning,

as the Cardinals and as many humongous questions with, you know, both coaching and roster construction as the Cardinals to, you know, a team that has all of those, I think, firmly answered with, you know,

we have confidence that Kevin O'Connell knows how to coach and construct an offense. We have, I mean, you have a defense that has probably, I would say, the second highest floor of any defense in football after the Seahawks. And you have weapons that,

you know, I mean, you at least have weapons that are not like Fred, right this isn't the situation where one guy goes down and everybody moves up the depth chart and you're like oh oh this is now now kailer's going to have to do it all himself like you know you have uh depth at the wide receiver position uh decent you know tight end room and i think in general uh you know like I was sitting waiting who's going to sign joan jennings where is he going to land and the fit for Minnesota was absolutely perfect to put him you know to give you that kind of depth and let you kind of move jordan addison around in my opinion let you move jordan jess and jefferson around so um yeah i'm i'm pretty sold

that this is uh an offense that's going to sing and kailer murray if you go if you go back and you know try to find an understanding of what had happened like the common narrative is you know you're fading down the stretch you know like what's going on with the second half swoons for this guy. And I don't know, a lot of that I think is pretty explainable that he was running offenses that were somewhat solvable. And he was put in situations where when they were, when he was, you know, fully healthy and his mobility was, you know, completely, you know, at his own, at his disposal,

he was the dynamic dual threat quarterback that kind of unlocks high ceiling for offense in today's NFL when he was. banged up when he was unwilling to run either because of, you know, injuries he was trying to, you know, protect or because in general, the offense wasn't set up for him to exercise that, then they got stagnant. And, you know, he's, I think there is some question of, you know, is, you know, is there going to be a point in the season where the same sort of thing happens where he either picks up some, you know, is carrying some sort of injury and is unwilling to,

unwilling or unable to, you know, to move the ball. on the ground. You know, he's at age 28 season, but all of a sudden, you look over the last three seasons and, you know, last four seasons, really,

and there's not a ton of miles on him. You only played five games last year. He only played eight games two years ago. So, you know, the chances that you're getting him for a perfectly fresh year, and he's going to be able to be the dual threat

that, you know, really unlocks this offense, I think are pretty good. It is interesting, though, with the scrambling, because historically, there is a bit of a falloff that we don't really,

ever talk about. Maybe that's just because we don't have a big enough sample size. It's not like running backs where we have 10,000 and we could show, yep, age 28, everybody, watch out. But I was looking at this at one point to kind of try to project how many yards he might run for. And I did notice that there are a number of quarterbacks historically. Steve McNair would be an example of this, who ran around a lot early on and then didn't do as much on the ground. And that might just be maturity within an offense rather than having to solve everything with your running, you're saying, well, no, I'd rather complete this 10-yard pass and save my body and then run when it's called upon. So that might be some of it, but I do wonder about how what the ceiling is for him from a

scrambling perspective. And even if Kevin O'Connell wants him to be scrambling all over the place, I think he would much rather have him in the pocket just converting first down after first down with his accuracy from the pocket, which he does have despite the reputation. I've had a theory, Drew, that no one's watched Arizona Cardinals football and they're better for it. Not having watched it,

but also your understanding, your understanding of the Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray is maybe lesser than it would be of like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, who are on national TV constantly. So how about this one? So you're in on the over.

Well, I did want to circle back, though, because you mentioned schedule. And it is, crazy how much schedule can shape a season. We know this. We saw it. 2022. The schedule was pretty helpful for the Vikings in 2024, playing the Putrid AFC South. And the Vikings have the NFC South here, but they did not get the fourth play schedule as the Detroit Lions did. So how do you deal with schedule at this time of year?

Because I tried a bunch of different methods. I looked into doing it by the betting lines. I looked into doing it by last year's record. I even looked. looked into what NFL.com analysts ranked as the hardest schedules and easiest schedules. And there was nothing that was sticky from year to year projecting how tough the schedule was actually going to turn out. So how do you kind of resolve that issue? Yeah, I think I'm I you can you can you can never really fully predict, uh, injury, which ultimately dictates how hard your schedule is. Like I don't think, uh, you know, there are standout examples, right. Like I think everybody in the

universe looked at the Patriot schedule last year and we're like, wow, they got a gift. And sure enough, they did get a gift. And there are, you know, there are probably two or three teams where you can pick and say, like, wow, okay, this is a very, very difficult schedule in terms of strength of opponent. I mean, ironically, the Cardinals this year. Like, they don't come up for air once all season long. And, you know, and so sometimes it is literally just there are a handful of teams where it's like there's too too big to fail hard or easy.

Sometimes you have to look a little bit more in detail at the sequencing like Chargers this year is a good example. For some reason, they warranted the ire of the schedule of guides and are playing five teams, I think coming off of their buys, which is pretty unusual. You really kind of have to have a very bad luck to get that. Usually three teams is about the most you see coming off your buy if you're in a bad

year but you know sequencing also matters you know when you're you know kind of a team that's looking to take a step forward did you get some of your easier opponents in the beginning you know part of the year are you at home uh more predominantly at the early part of the season so you can generate a little bit of momentum so that you can kind of get belief in that locker room you know those it's it's a lot of soft you know relatively difficult to quantify things when you're looking at schedule and degree of difficulty um how early is your by week uh you know when you know when you know when are you facing your difficult divisional opponents on the road? You know,

these are sort of the things that I'm mostly keyed on when I'm looking at a schedule. And, you know, Packers' home opener is pretty favorable, I think, for the Vikings. If you're going to play the Packers, and, you know, they may have some personnel unavailable for many reasons, injury and, you know, disciplinary reasons. You know, some of their more important players, ironically, you know, may be unavailable for that one.

And that's a great positive nugget to kind of take away from the schedule for the Vikings this year. Turning around and, you know, getting, you know, kind of a neutral rest opportunity to take on the Bears week, too, I think is solid. And then just in general, an early by week doesn't really spook me for these guys. They don't have as much travel as a lot of their other opponents. And then, you know, I love the idea that they really only have to go on the road and play outdoors twice in the later part of the season. and one of them is against the Jets, which I don't think is really spooking anyone. So compared to years past where you've seen the Vikings draw

like Packers and Bears late in the season and you kind of know like those might be scheduled losses in division. That's not great. I think the fact that you get the Packers out of the way in the middle of November and you get the bears out of the way early in September is pretty solid. So, yeah, overall, I think sequencing worked out pretty fairly for Minnesota. And I think just overall the strength of opponent doesn't look to be concerning to me, at least, in terms of who you draw.

Yeah, I think they ultimately, like, yeah, if they had gotten the fourth play schedule instead of the Lions and was the Christmas Day game, the one that decided that? It was. It was. Yeah. This is fun, fun in the moment. But ultimately, that could have, you know, gotten a little more wind in your sales, I suppose. But, no, I don't think ultimately that the difference

who would have been the difference between the Colts and the Titans? Titans. Arizona and San Francisco is the big difference there. Arizona and Sam, yeah, fair enough, fair enough. That's, yeah, that's not terrible. Commander's Giants, it's not terrible. So, yeah, I think, yeah, maybe you lose half a win going from Arizona to instead of at Arizona at San Francisco. But otherwise, I think it's pretty good overall.

And yeah, I think, you know, coming, maybe a couple of things could have been a little nicer, like coming out of your buy if you draw the lions instead of the colts that would have been solid um you know i think that lines bills packers niners stretch in the middle of the season is going to kind of make or break them for the division um but uh yeah i think they did a nice i think they got a nice nice schedule overall and i honestly like you know kind of your your commentary about the scrambling and kyle mary like even a player as physically robust as josh allen it's very clear over the last couple of years that they've tried to limit how much he runs and when he runs and save it for the fourth quarter of the high leverage games, save it for the playoffs.

And even still, he's, you know, he's got, you know, broken foot last year, heading into the playoffs, even with them putting him in bubble wrap for huge portions of the season. So I think, you know, there's there's no doubt that they will have a plan in place to kind of utilize his scrambling excellence when it matters the most as opposed to just, you know, kind of the year that the Cardinals went eight no out of the gate was the year that I remember them kind of just taking the leash off and being like, look, man, if it's there, take it. Like, you know, go, and that, that was why that offense was so unstoppable for that stretch.

And then he picks up an injury. He's scrambling less. And then everything went sideways. So, you know, I would guess that there's a plan in place. These guys, you have been, been through it enough. And I'm, I'm sure they are excited to deploy specific packages and plays for high leverage situations that really take advantage of that skill set. Because Kyla Murray is, he's more mobile and he's more quick than I think people realize.

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Prescription required, see website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. The tendency also of the college to NFL coach is my system works and what you find out is that it doesn't. Like there's no system. They all have to be very malleable throughout a season because now it's even become an arms race of data as well where every team is studying to the detail the other team's tendencies. So if you do something consistently and Chip Kelly ran into this, it was like it worked at first, but then they did the same stuff out of the same formation time and time again and everybody knew it. So it's like, here's what's coming because they're in this formation, which in college, who cares? because you're at Oregon and your players will just run over the other players.

It doesn't matter if they know it's coming, but in the NFL it does. And Kevin O'Connell in 2024 and 2022 was really good at that, at adapting the offense as it went along, adding new wrinkles, adding new details, especially the 24 down the stretch as you saw Sam Darnold play as well as he did. We really saw a lot of in-season adjustment. So I don't know that Kyler Murray's ever had something like that. I want to get into the NFC North, though, here. The odds right now on Fandul, Detroit Lions are the favorite at plus 150 to win the division. Green Bay plus 250, Chicago at plus 320 and the Vikings at plus 500.

We've been watching the Vikings one kind of bump around a little bit. Like after the draft, people didn't like their draft. So it went down a little. And I'm like, okay, come on. Like, that's, that shouldn't really move your. I don't know if that was exactly why. but I was like, that seems odd that that would move in just after the draft. And then over the last couple of weeks, it's sort of gone back up a little.

I don't know. But when it comes to the division, I think this is the hardest one in the entire NFL to try to project because it feels like whoever runs into those ancillary factors is going to be the one that ends up at the bottom and whoever gets the benefit of those factors, the schedule, your field goal kicker, your special teams. I mean, last year, this was crazy, Drew. I'm sure you deal with this all the time of trying to project games. It's like suddenly these kickoffs matter a lot.

Field position, returns for touchdowns, big mistakes. Like, they're making a huge difference in Vikings games. They lost them the game against Chicago. Probably won them a game against Detroit. I think this is a silly sidecar theory, but I think punters are back in terms of their value. Because if you are like an ace, coffin corner guy who's driving 90 yards like what offenses are driving 90 yards when the average starting position is you know the 35 yard line but anyway all of that is to to say that golf has been

consistently top five offense leading in a top five offense they have questions there Caleb Williams is super exciting but also cannot throw it if you and I were sitting across the room with the nerve football couldn't complete and then you know when it when it comes to the Bay Packers. There's just questions there. Like, do they get off to a hot start without Micah Parsons? Is that possible? And then Josh Jacobs, that is a huge factor of is he going to play this year for the Green Bay Packers. So also, we don't know what Kyler is really going to look like with the Vikings, even we can project all day long. So how do you, well, no, wait, I got to give this in the form of a prediction. I'm going to do it this way. I'm going to predict the Detroit Lions number one in the division, the Vikings two, the Packers three, and the Bears.

shockingly falling to a nine-win season that puts them last in the division because regression is real. So that is my prediction. What do you think of it? Okay. I mean, I think you're kind of you're correct in that it's going to be flat, right? Like there's no teams, you know, outside of really surprising injuries to really to the quarterback probably. I don't think any of the, you know, there's no trap door that opens up and these teams. wildly underperform. They're all competent organizations. They all have competent coaching staffs.

It's really just going to be, as you mentioned, the intangibles. And it is kind of funny you brought up the special teams because special teams decided the Super Bowl last year effectively. And punt returner fields a punt fairly for the Rams. They maybe win that NFC championship game. If the Rams don't get a field goal blocked against the Eagles, they're probably hosting that MC championship game. So, yeah, I mean, the small things that really decided and flip things like,

last year were pretty ridiculous. But no, your NFC North predictions. I'm against you on the Lions being the winners. I'm pretty convinced that what we saw last year with the Lions' offense in the absence of Ben Johnson was clear signal about how important he is in terms of kind of making things easy for golf.

I think the fact that Goff had some of his worst performances is a professional last year in the absence of Ben Johnson is not a miss you know not an accident and I'm worried about you know particularly the way that they're going to be able to protect him this year with how they've backfilled some of the losses on that offensive line um not sure outside of penesoul that I'm really willing to go to war with any of the four guys on that line um so consider me on high alert that golf is on the regression part of his career and I think that's enough for me to keep the lions out of contention in a really, really close division. Also, you know, I don't have any problem with Dan Campbell as a head coach

as far as what he brings to the table from a motivational standpoint and just being able to get the most out of the guys in that locker room. I was not impressed with this play calling last year when he took over the play calling. I was not impressed with his backfill of losing Ben Johnson in terms of his original hire. and I, you know, we'll see what Drew Petsing ultimately brings to the table. But when that kind of news hit the wire, I was a little like, really? I was left a little cool, I'll just say. And I don't know that it's not going to work, but I'm definitely concerned that there's not going to be, you know,

any kind of return to form from two years ago for this lion's offense. And I think their defense still has huge holes, particularly in the secondary. So, yeah, to me, the Lions look like the team that has the most downside of these three, which is crazy to say, considering where they were two years ago. And that downside is enough for me to kind of stay off of them at price, particularly as the small favorite in this division. The downside for the Packers, I guess, you know, putting them all of the offensive coordinators in kind of tiering them in order

in this division is really tough. But Lyons get fourth for me. I would put, you know, LaFleur and Ben Johnson kind of co-won and then just behind them, Kevin O'Connell. Not much separating those three for me, though. LaFleur seems to me at least like the one with the biggest questions heading into this season as far as his long-term stability with the franchise and the fact that the Packers now are going to be, you know,

the fact that they looked so different as an offense with and without Tucker Kraft should be kind of concerning for everyone, I think. and Tucker Kraft may ultimately be back and fully, you know, fully participating in this offense for a full season. But never good when, you know, kind of one player, particularly at the tight end position matters as much, you know, as an as big and outsized effect on the performance of the offense as what we saw at the Packers last year.

At the offensive line looks like it could be regressing a bit as you kind of have had some of the players overperform in years past and then finally kind of come back to Earth last year, still no clear answers in the wide receiver room as far as who's your number one and whether that guy can stay on the field. And then as you mentioned, they put all their chips in the pot for Michael Parsons and not hearing or getting any good vibes about his injury recovery as we had into the part of the season where, you know, everybody's in the best shape of their lives. And I had a schedule and, you know, like this is the time of you're usually getting absurdly positive buzz. and yet here we are. Parsons may not be ready to start camp and, you know,

may not be, you know, I guess if I had to bet right now, I think he's probably on the Pupp list to start the season from what I'm hearing. So that's a problem, especially if you draw the Vikings week once. So, you know, I think for me,

the division comes down to Bears Vikings and the schedule difference between how difficult things are going to be for the Bears and how favorable things broke for the Vikings is enough for me to be. confident firing on Vikings at five to one. And my prediction is it'll go Vikings over Bears over Packers over lines. So the Bears are super interesting, I think, other than the Vikings with the quarterback change are the second most interesting team in the division because Caleb Williams was so

spectacular to watch, super fun. But if you sort of reevaluate those games by a throw-to-throw basis, he was one of the more inaccurate quarterbacks in the NFL. if you look at completion percentage over expected. And I do think an athlete like that, a player of that caliber can take big strides when it comes to accuracy. We've seen it happen before from great athletes. But the other side of the ball, so I have confidence that offense should be pretty good and I think he will get a little bit better. The other side of the ball, though, they had the most turnovers in the entire NFL last year, which is always a big red flag in the sky.

that's impossible to do again. Also, the guys who picked off the passes are not there anymore. You know, Kevin Byard and Nashon Wright and, I mean, the Nashon Wright thing was pretty crazy. Like the guy was making a big play every other game for them. I don't know how you recreate that. And I had expected that they were going to go into this offseason and find somebody on the defensive line that you'd go, uh-oh, when the Vikings play against them, they're going to have to factor for player blank. and player blank just never arrived.

I understand why they drafted Dylan Thineman. I would not have. I would have looked for pass rush help, even though I think Thineman is a very good talent. It's like that kind of safety is findable in a free agency, but they don't have anyone who scares you. Montes Sweat is good. And you kind of go,

well, Grady Jarrett is a thousand years old. What do you really have there? And their inability to pressure the quarterback has to be backed up by them taking the ball away a bunch of times. and I just don't see it happening. So they're going to have, I think they're going to have to win shootouts all season long, which came down to last year blocking a kick versus the Raiders,

just having every goofball thing go right for them. I'm just having trouble seeing it happening again as much as respect I have for Ben Johnson. Yeah. I mean, what you're describing sounds like the Lions two years ago, honestly. Yeah. They had a lot of just said at least,

but yeah, I mean, and I guess the question is, you know, Is there any progression for Caleb Williams? Yeah. I would say even a small step backwards and any type of enthusiasm for the Bears goes out the window immediately. Your characterization, I think, is fair.

His down-to-down consistency was poor. His accuracy on the easy button stuff was poor. and then his home run, high leverage, low likelihood of repeating plays were impossibly good. And so, yeah, I mean, if you're looking for a reason to expect regression, those are all very fair reasons. My baseline, though, for a Ben Johnson offense is so freaking high because his ability to scheme positive running efficiency is like one of the most repeatable things in football right now. And I don't know if you take a little bit of pressure off Caleb Williams and he takes another step forward progression wise Then all of a sudden you could be talking about an offense that's good enough to win shootouts pretty consistently But yeah, I would say that I don't think I'm going to go into this season with the bear's defense

Power rated in above 20 They're probably going to be in the like high 20s for me As far as like fair neutral rating for this defense. So yeah, you're you're asking you're you're asking you your offense to score 30 points a game and that's a tough way to live. So I've been doing a bit on the show because I don't really like power rankings and I kind of make fun of them all the time on the show. Quarterback rankings, every kind of ranking that we do. So then I do them to see if I could be better than the same.

You know, if I'm going to, if I'm going to hate them, I need to. It's sort of like I used to work at McDonald's and people will say, oh, you should go flip burgers. You should try it because it's really hard. But anyway, so that's how the power. rankers must feel about me. When I've been trying to put together the NFC, I go, all right, Rams, Seahawks, and then I spend a bunch of time meditating because I cannot figure out who I think the third best team in the NFC is going to be. I settled last time on the Philadelphia Eagles,

but here's what I'm going to do. I'm trying to make a prediction here that I feel like I've gone back to a few times over the years and sometimes it's worked and sometimes I've gotten burned. I'm going to toss it out there that the Dallas Cowboys may end the season as the number three team in the NFC. And America will be enraged, but they'll see it play out on national TV every single week of Dallas bouncing back. And I'll give you my justification is number one. I think their offense was downright awesome last year at times. And I don't understand why anyone would hire Matt Eberflus to be their defensive coordinator, but they did. So now they're changing that.

They have not made enormous, enormous upgrades on personnel, but I think more than you think. And if they're average, if they're 16th on defense, then they will be a team that is really difficult to go up against. So there is the justification that I guess the way I'm making this, this prediction is I could see it as the Dallas Cowboys being the most obnoxious team. in the NFC. Yeah.

It's absolutely on the table. I think your broader point of it's flat at the top is the correct. It's absolutely correct. I would guess that not naming the Cowboys specifically, but that there's a surprise top three team in the NFC this year. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think your short list of Cowboys,

is, you know, that they belong in the discussion. I think the Vikings and the Bears belong in the discussion. I don't know if any of the South teams belong in the discussion. I think the Niners belong in the discussion. Maybe that's not really a surprise, I guess. They were power-rated kind of in that ballpark for a lot of last year. But, yeah, I mean, it's a team taking a step up from seven and nine to 12 and five. We've seen it more times than I can remember.

or so not even really that not even really that unusual to have that type of progression and I would say that you know, Schadenheimer exceeded all expectations with the way he ran that offense last year. I think Clayton Adams, I think the world of him

as an offensive coordinator and just, you know, again, year over year, consistently getting more out of his running attack than the pieces should allow is a positive. They have invested a ton in the trenches in the draft over the last couple of years, and now they've finally got a piece in the secondary in downs

who could be a game changer for them. It looks to me like there are still a lot of holes on the defense, and I think your caveat of they need to finish at least 16th in terms of defensive power rating is correct. Like, without that, you're not considering them. You're putting in the same discussion as the bears probably. And I think the margin between bears and cowboys is pretty narrow as I'm going to power rate these teams heading into the year.

and I think I was out on a limb for a lot of last season that the cowboys were like underrated and then they got mowed a couple of times where I was you know the one holding the flag like yeah this is their game and they just got crunched so that may be the only reason that I'm a little hesitant to to really stick my neck a little far out on here the Broncos game is the one that stands out as the one I remember I was pretty sure they were going into Denver and they were going to deliver a hammer blow to the one. of the best defenses in football and they lost 44 24. So, um, I remember that. Yeah. That was a, uh, that was a gut check there. Uh, but then coming out of the buy three solid wins, including the, uh, the Thanksgiving day game against the chiefs. And, uh, and then three brutal losses that, you know, again, kind of hang on the defense.

So ever flus being the problem, uh, you don't actually have to twist my arm very hard for that either. Yeah. Well, right. And, uh, you know, I think that, um, guys. like, you know, Matt Eberfluse, they will have one good defense sometime and then everyone will decide that they're like a defensive genius. Well, yeah, I mean, because he had that one defense and that seems like what happened with him. So who's third in your power rankings?

I guess so my numbers are pretty soft right now because I've only done a little bit of really trying to digest what the, you know, the personnel moves are going to mean. But I will say this, that the NFL is flatter than it's been in ever. I don't, you know, the Rams and the Seahawks is one and two across the NFL is not, it's not a hot take. But I think people probably are kind of missing that the gap between them and that next cluster is not as big as it was last year. Some of the minuses for both those teams, I think, are, are being a little bit, you know,

kind of underrated. I would probably have the Rams one, but it would be with a huge asterisk, which is that they have to stay healthy. Last year, of course, Stafford was healthy for a full 17 and he wins the MVP. August, that didn't look like a very high likelihood of happening at all. And so he obviously found something in his training regimen to stay on the field and be, you know, be, you know, as effective as he was. If that doesn't happen again, then, you know, the trap door could open for the Rams, certainly. which again

and their decision in the draft to take Ty Johnson was another head scratcher in the moment but you know you think hard about it and you're like man are they worried that they might need a guy up sooner than later and then you know you hear rumblings in the offseason they're trying to trade for AJ Brown

and they're like wait are they worried about the wide receiver position you know like they're maybe giving you a little bit of signal that things are not as you know perfect for a championship run as you would expect considering how close they were last year and you know Seattle repeating with the tougher schedule and and some of the losses on defense I think is going to be challenging as well I think you have a high floor with their

defensive coaching staff but yeah their offense repeating is is going to be difficult without Walker and with some things still unanswered on the offensive line in my opinion so yeah really no second weapon still either so I mean just asking uh Judarian price to just be the guy right away is a pretty big ask. And then is he even good? Right. Yeah. We don't even know.

Right. Yeah. And losing your offensive coordinator that seemed to be a absolutely amazing fit with Sam Darnold and Jackson Smith the jigba. There's potential for drop off there. I totally agree with you when it comes to the parody in the NFL. It's so funny how fast things change because 2024 might have been the least parody we've ever seen.

We had 14 and 15 win teams all over the place. We had tanking teams all over the place. and then all of a sudden last year was like, you know, a lot of people could make something happen here if you get healthy, if you get the right breaks like, you know, Zach Charbonnet picking up a football randomly and having it be worth two points for Seattle. I mean, there was so many things that kind of bounced Seattle's way last year. Health is the number one because I believe Charbonnet was the only player in their lineup that was out and he's not even RB1 that was out to go into the Super Bowl, which is insane. How does that ever happen and that will not happen to them again? And if they do have offensive line struggles, Sam Darnold is at times susceptible to pressure.

If his running game is not cooking, I still think those are the two strongest teams. But I mean, you make a great point that there's a lot that's up in the air. And it's funny because I can give you some wrong numbers. So like you're familiar with like when I say power rating and I think the audience probably appreciates this. We're not saying power ranking,

which is like, This is number one. No, power rating. Like to finish last season, the Seahawks and the Rams for me were like six and a half, Seahawks were six plus six, which is to say they play a neutral, an average team on a neutral field. You would expect them to be a six to six and a half point favorite. I think both of those teams coming into this season are going to be more like in the four and a half five range with some of the downgrids. And I think that, you know, the Rams again, like have a bigger uncertainty,

which is to say if everybody stays healthy and all of the acquisitions work out, like, yeah, I'll upgrade them to six and a half, maybe even seven, you know, without much hesitation. But an injury to, you know, an injury, the bands around their rating are going to be massive for me this year, which means you just can't touch that price until we are well into the season and you have higher confidence that everybody's getting across the finish line. Right. Right. The next tier is, you know, the gap then is pretty small for me in the NFC. And I'm going to have a huge cluster of teams right around plus two, plus two and a half. Right now my third would be the Niners of plus two and a half.

half. My fourth is, let's see, my fourth is Bears at plus two. I have Packers at plus one and three quarters right now. That's without Michael Parsons. Once you get Parsons back in the mix, he matters at least a point in half to the spread. So then maybe more like a three. And then Eagles are right there for me at one and a quarter right now. And Eagles, huge confidence in that defense, huge questions about that offense without AJ Brown. We're assuming, as we're recording this, that he is not on the team, which I think is a fair assumption. And I think that Eagles offense is pretty questionable without him personally.

Cowboys right there. And so that's a cluster of teams of Bears, Packers, Cowboys, Eagles, Niners, five teams in the NFC that are separated for me by less than a point in the one and a half to two and a half range. I think the Vikings are pretty close with, again, bands that are uncertain but have more upside because you have a defense that you have high floor, high confidence is going to be top five in the NFL, and you have an offense that if, you know, if you have health and success with Kyla Murray could ultimately, you know, clear the top 10,

I think pretty easily in the NFL. So yeah, that's, you know, the way that things are kind of stratified right now, a huge cluster that is going to sort itself out based on injury. and look. I mean, I guess I'm not alone with not having any idea who to power rank third. I had Sanford's initially. Then, well, after the draft, I changed it to Philadelphia because they got Jonathan Grinard and they drafted McKay Lemon. And I know we can't project a rookie, but it feels like that maybe helps a little bit

if they trade away AJ Brown to the Patriots, which has seemed inevitable for, you know, a number of months now. but that because before I was looking at it going, well, who's rushing the passer and who's catching the football. And last time I checked, those things are important. But now we have a better sense of who that's going to be. And they also changed offensive coordinators, which I think could be a massive upgrade because they have looked totally lost at times. And then when they had Kellynne Moore, they look totally on point or Shane Steichen totally on point. So I don't know where Sean Manning.

I covered Sean Manning as a player. I know that his roots are with McVeigh and with Kevin O'Connell. and I know that those roots tend to have a lot of success, but that's all we can really say for a first-time offensive coordinator. So there's definitely questions there. I have one more for you, which is, and I bounce back and forth on this a lot. And this is one, this one's very important to me because it's a long season and there's a lot of challenges and, you know, it's a drag. So I was trying to predict the funniest team of 2006.

Okay. So this one, you can't use your little power ratings for you have to use your heart. You can do that. Use hard elletics with this. Hard elitics, got it. I think the funniest team of 20206 is going to be the Atlanta Falcons. That is my guess. I had them last in my power ranking for the NFC.

I respect Kevin Stefansky a lot. Another guy that I covered. But I think that just screams hysterical disaster. They have two quarterbacks who can't stay healthy. They've got all these weapons who are super good, but an offensive line who's lost a bunch of guys, Drew Dalman, Caleb McGarry retires. So having quarterbacks who can't get guys the ball, having blockers who aren't that all that particularly good, a division that's bad and they haven't really been good in that division. I just think it sort of screams zoo, circus, clown show. But it's a high bar in the NFL when a team is having a Deshawn Watson, Shudor Sanders,

quarterback battle. So it is a high bar. That's a fair point. So the other problem, I mean, you know, funniest to watch with, you know, two left-handed quarterbacks, it is going to look funny in Atlanta, no question. But, no, I said, the only thing I can push back on, and this isn't anything positive about the Falcon. I mean, Falcons could win this division with eight wins.

And I don't think anyone would or should be shocked. But the other thing that makes a team generally funny is, like, People have to care and there has to be a light shined and attention. And right now, like the NFC South looks like the kind of forgotten division. And it's been that way for a while. So it's not even really that outrageous to say this. But yeah, it's a, it's a little bit of a division that's lacking some light. You know, the likelihood of a giants or a jets and a Browns just because of the, you know,

the spotlight in New York and, you know, the clown show in Cleveland are, are all higher, would all be higher likelihood for me. I'm going to go in a different direction, though. I think I really like the potential for funny coming out of Indianapolis. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Love the owner. Love, love the, you know, kind of the memeable faces on the sidelines wearing the headset.

And, you know, expectations apparently are somewhat high, despite the fact that their quarterback. is coming off of an Achilles and generally relied on mobility and now we'll presumably won't have that. Like there's definitely some some chaotic universe where, you know, they're the fourth best team in the South and, you know, things aren't going great with Daniel Jones under center and people lose their jobs. And then we have we have funny names hired as interim coaches and, you know, yakety sacks playing on some, you know, some of the, some of the things that could happen.

But yeah, I think that the chances of your funniest team not coming out of New York this year are pretty low, just based on what's going on with both of those franchises right now. Announcing interim head coach Dallas Clark will now be. Exactly. Yes. That's right. That's right. Bring Jeff Saturday back.

What's he up to? I have another team that is never. really on this list, but suddenly arrives, which is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Oh, yeah, that's a great call. That's a great call, actually. I mean, McCarthy and Aaron Rogers back together when the reason in part they broke up was because it became sort of comical between them. And there was, I forget what, there was one report. That's already. Was it that he was getting massages and not showing up to meetings or something, Mike McCarthy? I forget or falling asleep in his own. There was something really is the

ludicrous that was reportedly happening. And I've always been a Mike McCarthy defender because when you look at his actual production, it's like, man, like 12 wins in Dallas a couple times and top offenses. And yet it always ends up being funny. Like, how about Mike McCarthy mismanaging seven games straight and losing and Aaron Rogers blowing a gasket or something? Rogers was funny to watch last year. Remember when he got knocked over by an offensive tackle and he went completely crazy on the guy?

because he's like, I'm too old to fall down. Like, why did you come back if you were too old to fall down? So, which I feel, I understand it, but like, my goodness. So that relationship. Steelers are great. That's a great dark horse. They're going to be in our faces too because they're the Steelers, you know? And yeah, it's already hilarious that Aaron Rogers is out there saying that one of the reasons he came back is because they brought in Mike McCarthy, which means that the Steelers hired Mike McCarthy, presumably.

least to make sure they could retain Aaron Rogers? What? For what reason? What did I mean, I mean, congratulations on winning the week 18 game against the Ravens and getting a playoff spot. But like, we saw what happened when he was up against legitimate pass rush. It was not good. And now he's going to have legitimate pass rushes all throughout this division.

Those games are going to be hilarious. He got the ball out of his hands so fast last year all the time, just because he was like afraid to get hit. And now he's a year. older. I, yeah, that, that has, that spells trouble every which way. And, yeah, the fact that Tomlin's there, they're not there now to, you know, kind of keep the floor at eight and nine, you know, you could definitely see the trap door open for

them. That would be, that would be very, um, uh, and, you know, not enjoyable, but, uh, it could be hilarious. That's what I'm saying is that we need, we need that. We need a jets with Rogers. We need a team that is just melting into. the sun to keep it light. So before I let you go, Drew, it's been very insightful and fun to get together with you,

as it always says. But at the end of each one of these shows that we've done through the years, I usually ask you for something bold. And the fact that it actually happened eventually with Kyler Murray ending up with the Vikings, I need something bold. Like what is your, it doesn't have to be Vikings if you don't want, but what's your offseason been banging the table for? No one else is saying this.

but Drew Dinsick, like, what, what is that take? Oh, man. Well, I think the Saints are going to have a top 10 offense. That's that one's pretty, you know, a little bit, you know, a little off, out of the norm just because I think, you know, I'm not like a Tyler Shuck, like, truther. I don't think he's long-term top 10 quarterback in the NFL, but they clearly put weapons around the kid and he's got decent protection.

And I think Kellan Moore is running a really good scheme there. That looks like they have the pieces to score some points. And I think they're going to have to score points because I think people are expecting that what you saw from the defense to the end of the year last year from the Saints was a lot better than it actually was. I think a lot of that was opponent driven. So to me, the Saints are kind of an interesting team to watch as far as exceeding expectations scoring points-wise.

But I'll give you a bolder prediction, which is that, let's see, What's the real high profile game that the Vikings have in the middle of the season this year? Bill's. Bill's the Bill's game. The bills to me are wild paper tigers this year, by the way. I don't think bills, I think they should clearly be the second choice in the AFC East after the Patriots and they're lined ahead of them for some reason. I don't think they've solved any of their problems. But yeah, the Monday night game in Minnesota, week nine, Kyla Murray takes care.

of a very, very weak past defense in that contest, puts together kind of a marquee performance in prime time on Monday night. I think mid-season, Kyla Murray, top three MVP candidate. Whoa. You can put that one, put that one in Penn. All right, all right. See, what happened? I was trying to find, so I used to not really lean into the video element

until everyone said you have to lean into the video element. So it's somewhere an audio version, and I was searching and trying to find it. I'm like, where was this? I would love to play the audio. I couldn't find it. We both know it happened. Um, but this one, this is on video. We've got it. I can easily search it on YouTube, uh, to pull it up when Kyler Murray is, uh, third in the MVP, whatever. Top three. He could be first. Who knows? Uh, who knows how sideways things go for everybody else by that point in the year. But yeah, eight, eight weeks into the season, uh, Vikings are six and two with some impressive wins, including a defeat of the bills on Monday.

football and Kylie Murray is your top top three MVP choice at that point it is extremely specific and we'll see if it actually happens uh drew dinsic the deep dive podcast and NBC sports bet it is always super fun to get together with you you have very unique perspectives and analysis on these things and I love it man so we will absolutely do it again soon dude thanks for coming on absolutely and best luck to you and the Vikings