Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - NFL.com's Eric Edholm talks Roquan Smith trade demand and the outlook for Vikings rookies

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

Matthew Coller is joined by NFL.com writer Eric Edholm, who discusses the Bears going into tank mode and having to trade linebacker Roquan Smith. He talks about whether it will work out better for Chicago to fall to the bottom of Minnesota to remain competitive and a comparable for Justin Fields. How does Edholm expect Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr. to perform in Year 1? What training camp narratives is he buying around the NFL? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, as always, along with, now this is going to take some adjustment, period, NFL.com's Eric Edholm, formerly of Yahoo Sports, formerly of Pro Football Weekly, when, since we're both old now, Eric, I can say way back when I was young and reading you at Pro Football Weekly, but congratulations on joining NFL.com. Happy to see it. Yeah, thank you very much, and I appreciate it.

I'm still getting used to the sound of it, which is a good thing, obviously, and I left a great place and went to another good place. I mean, I'm very blessed and lucky to be here, and it's been fun kind of getting my feet wet. The real work is just starting, so let's get on in. Let's get dirty, man Let's, let's get dirty, man. Well, I think you're in the best shape of your life here. And during this camp, you know, you know, I think that players figured out that we made fun of them with that and they don't say, yeah, they don't really say it anymore. It's also not, it's also not a question where

you're like, are you in shape? Like, yeah, I think they are. They play football. Scale of one to 10. I mean, you know, how are you doing this season? Like shape-wise. I mean, how are you? Yeah, we've been forced to recalibrate our questions and they've been, you know, they've come up with ways to parry our questions and it leads to some other bad questions.

You know the game, man. It's a hamster wheel. We go through these cycles. It happens in politics. It happens in sports and music. And so it's all the same game, I think. Sometimes you have to ask 10 good questions to get one good answer. And that's the art of the game. But I wanted to talk with you about, especially since you're in the Chicago area and have closely tracked the Bears comings and goings. The news of the day is that Roquan Smith wants out of Chicago.

And I think that it's a smart idea for Chicago to not pay Roquan Smith. Why would you pay a player who you're not going to really be able to use in the cheapest years of his contract, which are usually the first years, because you're rebuilding this thing really from a big pile of ash. Once you've traded Khalil Mack and you've lost the Keem Hicks, it's like it's over. So you have to rebuild it. Their second best receiver is you. So, I mean, they're not going to win any games.

Why would you pay someone, especially at a non-premium position? So I think it's smart for Ryan Poles to play hardball here and kind of tank the possibility of signing Roe Kahn Smith but I guess what I wanted to ask you is when you compare what the Bears are doing to the Vikings not doing this to not burning it down to a pile of wreckage I guess what what is your feeling because both teams had that opportunity and both teams wanted Ryan Poles as their GM and the Bears ended up just ripping this thing to shreds and the Vikings are a veteran team that is planning on being competitive. Yeah, it is fascinating to see the two different approaches. I think, you know, and you could argue, obviously, neither front office

is completely so long- term on their quarterbacks. And obviously it's apples to oranges because we have Kirk Cousins, you know, well into his career with a large salary versus Justin Fields, an unproven guy that you're still trying to figure out with a with a regime change. So, you know, that's different, but there's also the same kind of end result, which is they're still thinking about the possible replacement at that position. And to me, that always, you know, defines what your direction as a franchise is going to be, right? Are we set at quarterback? You know, like those little maps, right? You know, are you feeling sick today? Yes, do these things.

No, do this, right? It's the same way with how established you are at quarterback. And I think that what the Vikings may have seen is that, you know, even if Questy may have let it slip that, you know, you're always going to be looking for more, the fact that you do have Kirk Cousins who, you know, has proven that he can put up big numbers fairly consistently year after year even if he always you know leaves you wanting a little bit more you know in a year where

Devontae Adams was traded the Bears seem to be in a full rebuild you know we don't know how established Detroit is going to be maybe they feel like they can sneak up on people a little bit you know there's just hasn't been I mean you're right next to it, obviously. There just hasn't been a lot of buzz or, you know, vibe around the Vikings. I don't know that people know what to make of them this year. So it is going to be fascinating to see what the end result is. But long way of saying that even though we need to wait to see what's going to happen with Roquan and maybe the Bears are just playing hardball, I think your overarching sentiment

is right, which is if you're a contending team, if you're close, maybe you pay the guy, you find a way, you make some hard decisions. If you're not, then you consider all your options, which includes possibly trading them. Right, and if you're a really competitive team right on the edge here, then you should trade for Roquan Smith

because he could probably help you. But it's funny about that, that this sea change of going toward more of the ML, MLB or even NBA, I guess NBA was probably ahead of this. Hockey has kind of always been like this, like you're either all the way in or all the way trying to get a top draft pick. And the NFL was really not like this, I think, until recent years where teams sort of came around to this idea that like, we need to be really tearing it down. Miami was the most aggressive and now has lost the draft pick because of it. Maybe don't try to buy off your coach or whatever. Like, I know that that's not entirely what that's about, but like Steven Ross, I feel you. And I

think what you did was right, but like, don't be so blatant about telling your coach to lose on purpose. But, you know, even Cleveland, people like, oh, it didn't work for Cleveland. Like the hell it didn't. I mean, they had an 11 win season after they had been bad for so long. And then, you know, now in a position, unfortunately, with the Watson situation, it's gross, but like to trade for an elite quarterback and everything else, like that's where you want to be. That's why you do those things is to set your salary cap, to be able to do it. So in some ways I look at the bears and I say respect, but also your quarterback, though, you need them to be good. How will you know if he's

good when this is what you're giving him? I think that that part of it makes it difficult to completely buy into what they're doing, as opposed to, say, Miami that just threw Ryan Fitzpatrick in there and said, go get him, Tiger. Right. Yeah, that last point is really interesting. Not necessarily the Fitzpatrick part, but yes, I mean, the part about the Bears evaluating their quarterback. I mean, that's even led some people around here, rightly or wrongly, but still it's gotten to the point where people are wondering, does Ryan Poles even like Justin Fields, right? I mean, it's almost like he's, you know, some people have suggested set him up to fail. I don't think that's quite the case. I think internally their belief is that they have better solutions to some of their problem areas than

people realize. We'll see if that ends up being true, right? They have offensive line issues. Tevin Jenkins, they draft in the second round, is kind of in limbo. We don't know where he stands. You know, he's been mentioned in trades already. Just figuring out who their front five is going to be is going to be an interesting process. Then the receiver situation, the fact that there's hair pulling or, you know, sort of hand-wringing about Nikhil Harry going down and getting hurt, and this is like, oh boy, now we're in trouble, kind of gives you an indication of how thin things really are, right? Even if Darnell Mooney is a nice little playmaker and Buelis Jones ends up being, you know, puts all the jokes to the side about him being 25 years old and ends up

being a pretty good player. Okay, who else, right? Byron Pringle's been dropping the ball in camp. You know, we don't know what Daz Newsome is yet. Equinemius St. Brown, same thing. So, you know, other than the run game, what do you truly have? And arguably Cole Komet at tight end, although I'm not there yet on him, but how do you know, right? You're asking a lot of a young quarterback who was kind of already put through the blender last year with all the mess of just not knowing who stood where on the quarterback depth chart and who was going to get the first team snaps and when that was going to happen. It was, you know, you lost a year with Justin. Now you're prepared to lose

another year with him essentially you know we were talking about Miami and who this compares to to me is like Ryan Tannehill where the Miami situation was really bad for him and I see some similarities in their game like Tannehill holds on the ball too long but he's a great athlete he's got a cannon uh Fields is a better runner but Tannehill can definitely run uh but you ended up with like adam gaze is his coach and it's just like what are you even doing there and then he goes somewhere else and it ends up working out i think there's a lot of quarterbacks like that and fields kind of strikes me as that guy where there's enough there that you could see him succeeding but he's not going to be somebody who you just throw into this horrendous situation and he just like instantly overcomes it.

Yeah, I love the Tannehill example you just used. I hadn't considered that, but I think that's a really smart observation because, you know, obviously it took till arguably his second team, you know, he had flashes and there were times when he looked pretty decent in Miami, but overall, I think you'd say disappointing. And, you know, it took a second team to kind of, you know, coax it out of him to get out of that situation to switch conferences and get a team that played to his strengths as best they could. Now, you know, is Tannehill any great shakes? Arguable, right?

But still, I think there's a lot of truth to that. And it's a great reminder that just because a quarterback fails in one place doesn't mean that he can't succeed elsewhere. And we saw, you know, and we've seen in numerous examples over the years feel free to use it at nfl.com if you want to uh you can steal that one uh now you know when you were talking about the the vikings and their situation you talked about the same way that everyone talks about it which is like well you know i mean yeah about a v a Vikings podcast and they could maybe, and there's, you know, Devante Adams and I don't know. Here's what,

here's what I'm going to challenge you to do. Okay. Because, because the national media of which you are a part of is NFL.com. That's every take all the time. And I don't even disagree with it. I'm just saying that like, that's every take on the Vikings. So here's your challenge. I want you to come up with a hot take all the time. And I don't even disagree with it. I'm just saying that like, that's every take on the Vikings. So here's your challenge. I want you to come up with a hot take about the Vikings. Give me, it doesn't have to be that they're going to win the Superbowl or

whatever else, but something regarding the Vikings, because every take is, well, Ryan Tannehill, not Tannehill. Yeah. Kirk Cousins is the 14th best quarterback and maybe Kevin O'Connell.

And maybe, maybe hot take me. They'll be better than people think. That's my hot take. I think Detroit will too, though. So I'm trying to, you know, I'm in that phase where, you know, you sort of say to yourself, I have general ideas of where I think teams are going to finish, but I haven't sort of put the ink on records and things like that. I mean, first of all, it's not like they play some, you know, ridiculous slate of quarterbacks. You got Aaron Rodgers twice, but again, maybe a weakened version given what they went through this off season. I think they have Josh Allen on the schedule this year, if I'm not mistaken, you know, Dak and a few other pretty

good ones, but you know, they, they have enough, I think of a, I don't want to say a soft schedule, but a reasonable one where I think they can win some ball games and maybe be better defensively than we think too. I mean, there's still some projection in the question of whether there's a true pass rush, whether they have the cornerback depth. I happen to think their safeties are really nice. So I obviously love the pairing of Smith and Seane, if that's how it ends up being. But yeah, I mean, if Andrew Booth can step up as a rookie, you know, and have a strong year, that's nice. That's a nice thing to have right away to add to your defense. And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I kind of see that plus the offensive

weapons to fall healthy. And I say, I think they're going to win more games than they lose. I'll say that. I don't know that they'll be much better than 9-8, but you know what I mean? Like that's kind of where I see them going. I promise if I thought they were a terrible team, I would tell you straight up, you know me. I mean, I may soften the edges a little bit,

but I'm going to at least tell you what I think. So I just think they're kind of being overlooked a little bit but i'm i'm gonna at least tell you what i think so i i just think they're kind of being overlooked a little bit um and that maybe it was some of it was a zimmer effect and just the fatigue of of everything that had transpired over you know a couple of years i would say prior to him getting uh let go i like what happened there what happened there was you came in hot with you're gonna be better than people think And then you got to maybe nine and eight. Well, I, yeah, I guess that's the question. My, my, my question would be what, if you were to pull like a thousand pretty well-informed NFL fan,

what tell me, what, what do you think they would cumulatively come up with for the Vikings record? Maybe I'm, maybe the lack of buzz is kind of, of put them in a light that I don't necessarily... You know what I mean? Maybe I'm underestimating how good people think they are. No, I think that we have this answer, right?

Is the Vegas Lions, that they are set by the sharpest people. And the sharpest people think that they are a nine-win or eight-win team. And so that's what people think of them. I guess if you were trying to come up with a hot take, the natural hot take is that that's way too low and that they could be way better or that's way too high and they could be way worse. And we're giving way too much credit to a rookie coach and so forth. But what ends up happening is the truth usually ends up being somewhere in the middle of that. So here's me though, knowing that that's a reasonable take, but also sort of trying to fight my way through everything,

always tumbling back down that hill to, well, maybe they'll win nine games, right? Because I think though, here's maybe the take. You can react to this one. I'll try, I'll try. If they don't win 11 games, it's a pretty big failure because of what we just talked about, that they had the opportunity to rebuild and to take the Ryan pulls route in

Chicago. Maybe not like to this level, but they could have reset a lot of things. And instead they said, no, we have to have Harrison Smith back and not just back, but on like the highest contract for safety. We have to keep Adam Thielen. We have to keep Kirk

Cousins for another year. We must stay competitive. We must try to try to, you know, chase an NFC championship or Superbowl. So if you are not way better than what the sharp people in Vegas think, then you failed pretty badly. That that's how I'm viewing this season. Right. And here's the thing you could argue that if You could argue that if you don't think you have a shot at winning a Super Bowl, and I know how big is a shot, 1%, 5%, 10%, you have to make that determination, right? And I know obviously Vegas comes up with those kinds of lines too, right? But if you don't think you have a somewhat reasonable chance to a get in the playoffs and be do some damage when you're there i mean it's like you you should almost always default to to cleaning house i think i mean again maybe that's a little bit too extreme maybe i'm

compensating for my lack of a for my lukewarm take earlier, but seriously, I mean, I, I mean, unless you can see, all right, this is just a group of young, young players and this is going to take a year to kind of farm out how everybody fits and everything. That's a little bit of a different situation, I think, but yeah, I mean, in their situation, if you don't feel like you have a, even a sliver of a chance to win a Superbowl, then, then you could argue that the stasis is the wrong call. Folks, training camp is here,

and there's no better way to represent your Purple fandom by going to sodastick.com and checking out all their Minnesota sports-inspired goods. The best football designs, in my opinion, are Randy Moss' disgusting act and the Purple people-eaters look. But look, there's lots more for you to check out at soda stick.com s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com t-shirts hoodies hats

whatever you're looking for use the promo code purple insider at checkout for 15 off your purchase. Yeah. And I think that like, it doesn't have to be the Miami owner is telling the coach to lose on purpose. It can just be as, as much as this veteran player is not worth 19 million on the salary cap. We have to move this player and then that's it. And then we'll find someone else. And so this is a good, this is a good discussion here as well, because I was thinking about this with Roquan Smith as I was seeing the dialogue on Twitter, as there always is on Twitter. But it was like, you have half of the people saying,

no, it's actually good to get rid of Roquan Smith and not pay him. And the other half saying, you can't bleed talent because that's just another position that you have to fill. And I think that there's a way to navigate that as a like rebuilding team that is not banking like for the bears it's a very easy choice for me it's just like get rid of them there's no way you should be paying that guy at that position but with the vikings they made a lot of similar decisions that i thought you know

we we just talk about any good players if they're irreplaceable, but a lot of times, like when they signed Delvin cook to that huge contract, it was like, Delvin cook is amazing, but like, there are other players. I think that's always the best example. Like there are other players who can do this. Uh, and I think that the Vikings maybe fall in love with their own guys a little bit, and they just didn't want to, they didn't want to believe that you could draft another receiver who could fill adam's theelin shoes or or something right so i think that there is a space where you can competitive rebuild in a real way not just say it like quesia da fomenta did yeah right oh and and some of that may be hey look we have a first year head coach let's not

strip and bear of talent right i mean unless we're so convinced this is the next you know Don Shuler Bill Belichick or what have you I mean let's let's support him with with these veteran pieces but at some point those things are going away and you better be on you know have a better feel for it you know he's obviously a younger head coach too I can remember talking to him as a rookie player at the NFL premiere weekend whenever he came out of the draft, though, four or whatever heck year it was. I don't even know, maybe a little later than that. But, yeah, I mean, like it wasn't that long ago, right? So it's certainly part of it.

There is that scale of, like, do we want to throw our first-year head coach to the Wol wolves and give him a 38 man roster? Or do we want to maybe swallow hard on some of these contracts and say, all right, we're going to bite the bullet and kind of take this thing now. We'll kick the can down the road, so to speak a little bit and approach it that way. I don't know. I mean, that's certainly something to consider maybe. I think that that is an important point that if you give Kevin O'Connell a horrendous roster to work with uh things can get dramatic real fast with bad rosters and uh you know setting up your coach to at least have a competitive season gets his feet wet and maybe you can manage

the other things and the way to do that was another thing I wanted to ask you about was the young players on their roster, kind of starting with this year's draft. I think that if you're beginning on competitive rebuilding and you're saying, where should we put some of our assets into the cornerback and safety position is a pretty good place to start. Safeties, I tend to think it'd be a little more replaceable, but not great safeties. So you're taking a swing at that with Lewis Seen. But I don't know if we talked about this from your perspective and view on Seen and Andrew Booth and rebuilding that secondary, because it was kind of a back and forth of, I really think they maybe should have just drafted Jamison Williams, but I also think they did a good job with these players in getting Lewis Seen and Andrew Booth Jr. Yeah. I mean, I, I liked, I was maybe, I don't know. I don't, I don't sit there and check everybody else's draft rankings or, you know,

compare notes. I mean, I, I look around of course, like anybody else who does this, but I try not to let other people's rankings affect what I put down on paper because I want it to be mine and I want to be able to defend it if it comes to a situation and admit that I didn't despise Kellen Mond coming out of college. So, you know, things like that. But I think I had seen at number 20 or 21 overall. I mean, he was one of my favorite players in this past draft class. I mean, you know, enforcer versus the run, enough range to cover large tracks of land on the back end, you know, I think had blitz potential that wasn't necessarily shown. I mean, he's got the, you know, the student of the game type makeup and all that. And he just, you know, the dimensions, the athletic ability, you can't draw him up much better. You wish he had a little bit more ball production in college and he played on

a historically great defense. So there was, you know, I mean, certainly some questions about how much he benefited from that and things like that. So, you know, it's, I get that the question marks about that a little bit, but otherwise I say I think this is going to be one of the better safeties in the league. And the crossover with Smith will help a lot. You know, Andrew Booth, I wasn't quite as enamored with as some people were, but obviously, you know, good length, good athletic traits.

You know, you wish you would have seen him work out. I believe he had some kind of leg injury or something that prevented him. But, you know, I started making more plays on the ball, you know, made some plays in the line of scrimmage. I would say that the, you know, energy that he brings to the field is pretty tangible. You know, obviously he played competitive high level football and high leverage games and that had to, you know, they played combo man and zone. They did a lot of different stuff there. I liked both a lot. I just, I liked seeing more than most people that I could tell. And I like Booth maybe a tiny bit less than, than some of the others as well.

Yeah. And Booth has been impressive so far. And uh he i think that what you see really is the footwork is really really good like there's just not a lot of separation that guys are getting uh where he's getting thrown off a route or something like that and the fact that he does have that energy that he brings to practice like you sort of take note of that like you know there's a lot of guys that get real excited but when it's a second round pick and they have confidence and swagger to them yeah as a corner you're going to take notice with scene it's a little bit of a slower process and partly because cam bynum is very good i think uh he's done a great job filling you know filling that spot and setting a high bar for scene to clear

and so we're just starting to see scene get uh opportunity it's impossible not to do that of course get get opportunities with the first team and i think that that will continue as we go along yeah but how how they work that out with bynum and if scene is like there right away um that will be something that we're kind of watching but i i mean i agree with you it's like from the player that they got at 32 was a good value and a good player. So there was sort of like, let's separate these conversations from would you have rather had the receiver and not given him to the lions?

Right. This now another question on the young players though, is what in the world happened to the third round of the 2021 draft for the Minnesota Vikings? I mean, now Patrick Jones is getting some second team reps at outside linebacker, clearly the number three or four outside linebacker, if that's something that matters to you. But you know, like he's clearly ahead of like

Janarius Robinson and all the other guys that they brought in, but Wyatt Davis, I mean, does he exist? Is he a real person? I'm not entirely convinced that he is. He has basically never left the third team. Like not last year, not this year. Kellen Mond, I think that's what you get with third round quarterbacks. It is what it is with him. Like you're Kyle Lalletta-ing here, Davis Webb.

Like there's always draft Knicks are like, I think I see something. You're like no you don't um but uh i guess i wonder about like was that was that a maybe a factor of a lot of guys didn't come out so the third round was more like a fifth round or just bad luck for the vikings or did they make mistakes there like this this third round is basically a ton of players who are just not gonna matter to them yeah i mean i I mean, I think, you know, depending on how Davis Mills does in Houston, I'm trying to think of some other guys from that round who've played and actually done something, right? I mean, was Nick Bolton? No, he was a second-round pick.

Yeah, the point is right off the top of my head, I can't even think of anybody in that entire round who's, you know, Jalen Mayfield, the kid who started for Atlanta last year, is already being benched and was, you know, I mean, like, doesn't feel like it's a good situation there. And so he's another one who flopped out. So, yeah, it's possible. I'd have to go back and look a little deeper at that. It was interesting obviously that was the year where we had you know Micah Parsons Jamar Chase you know these guys who step right in without even having played a college football season and dominate and then you have other guys who are you know top 75 draft picks who can't even sniff the field so

yeah quite a disparity there and and again even we had know, players drafted below that who were standouts and terrific. Elijah Mitchell last year for the 49ers. You know, Trey Smith, a little unusual with the injury situation with him, was a six-round pick starting on the offensive line. Amon Ross St. Brown in Detroit was, what, a fourth or fifth, fourth-round pick. You know, Royce Newman for the Packers started games too last year I mean you know so there were players drafted below that who have turned out to be turned out to be pretty darn good but again off the top of my head it's like that third round just feels like coincidentally maybe there's a factor with the underclassmen but a morass you

know it's not been good yeah maybe maybe just a bad luck or maybe the, the edge of players that teams thought had potential versus the long shots where you kind of draw that line for second, third versus fourth, fifth and so forth. Amin Raas St. Brown was a weird one though. I remember seeing people like him and being mocked much higher and then dropping. I don't know why it was. And then, you know, the lions end up getting a steal there. So I,

yeah, I don't, I honestly don't know either, but I know that when we talk about the competitive rebuild and everything else, it's like, they don't have a lot of young talent to work with on the roster. They have young players.

And I remember somebody tweeted like, Oh, well they've got whatever a average age or something it's like those young players have to be good like yeah right that's part of it and so when it comes to like retooling this roster to tie into our bigger conversation i think that has to be a factor that it's not like you can just say oh move on from this guy move on from that guy because we've been developing joe whoever they really outside of this draft class that's showing some intrigue and maybe someone like cam bynum and kenny wong

you know running back but there's there's just not a lot there as far as young talent on the roster which also means that if they have some injuries that that's where that's where this thing has and can still come apart. Yeah, and that's always the biggest X factor too. Like you look at the depth charts, you say, wow, they got all these early draft picks, established star, any team, whether it's the Vikings or another one, you said yourself, pretty good, right?

One injury happens, a second. Baltimore Ravens are a great example, right right and I was kind of lulled into the thinking that they had actually drafted better than some people thought the last couple years but that they're young players second third year guys were maybe stuck behind established starters and that when they got their chance they'd be turned out to not necessarily be true last year we saw it on defense we saw it in the backfield we saw it in a few you know offensive line even for Baltimore which has really never been a huge issue for them. So not never, but, you know, in the last few years. So that those depth concerns will just crop up out of nowhere,

right? And you can never predict injuries. You can never predict to what position they'll attack themselves. So, yeah, I mean, it just, it really does. You have to look at that second team and how much you value them is pretty telling. But, you know, that's maybe another reason why they took the approach they did of like, let's trade down. Let's let's gather as many useful, talented football players. Let's not get too hung up on positional. Yes, we want positional fits, meaning like this guy does what we're going to ask him to do, but not like positional needs. And I always think that in the long run that that's going to end up being a savvier approach. But you're right for this year. Who knows?

Yeah, right. They couldn't just turn it over to the next wave at a lot of different positions because they just weren't in a position to do that uh okay before we wrap up i want to ask you boom or bs when it comes to players that i've seen talked about a lot throughout training camps around the league uh starting with trevor lawrence i just retweeted an article from uh john shipley who you probably follow yeah it covers the jaguars writer does a great job there and uh he wrote about how Trevor Lawrence has been super legit so far in training camp and I I would just say without having seen a single practice and only read what John wrote that that is probably pretty meaningful to have a coach who knows what he's doing to match up the talent and like this is what you needed to see from Trevor Lawrence I'm totally buying that he could take a huge step forward this year. Absolutely. I mean, I think when I, when I would sort of put the screws to

some of my scouting friends and say, all right, like, I don't want to just hear that Trevor Lawrence is a generational prospect. What do you think his biggest weaknesses are? You know, I had more than one person mentioned that adapting from Clemson's offense to the NFL was going to be a little bit of a leap, right? They had kind of simplistic designs, and there wasn't a whole lot of diagnosing. A lot of the stuff was kind of predetermined for him in some respects. Again, some of it was nitpicking, but I think there was something to that. So you add that plus the whole Urban Meyer debacle and the lack of a plan last year

and losing ETN and not having enough weapons and having offensive line issues you know I just where do you start they didn't even know what to do with James Robinson like what the kid had a great year as a rookie for a bad football team running the football right so I think a good coach might have an idea of how to use the guy so last year was so I mean like you you can't go anywhere but up and the the coolest part was that his week 18 start against the colts was maybe either his best or second best game of the year so he at least knew that he was he went through the the blender and got chewed to pieces but somehow still found ways to play his best football at times down the stretch so he had a

little momentum coming into the year. Doug Peterson comes in. They go hog wild and free agency, offensive line, receiver, tight end, you name it. And ETN's back, and he's got another year in his belt. It's like the perfect formula for improvement. Plus, oh, by the way, he's talented. So, yeah, I think we should see a big step up from him, even if he still probably has work to do by the end of year two where we say,

you know, he's much better, but, you know, he's still got room to grow. Right. You know, the thing with Lawrence that I liked similarly to Joe Burrow, Burrow was better in his first year, but it was like the guy was in a horrific situation and fought through it. Like he did not, by the end of of the season he wasn't a puddle and i and i did think at times justin fields was a puddle they're just like this guy wants to go home right now he's not fighting through this and that concerns you like trevor lawrence seemed to

never let it get to him at least publicly i'm sure it was driving him crazy but it's like that's the nfl is you need to have this ability to overcome stuff. Even when you're a good team, there's a lot that's going to come. And for him to do that and get through that and not be thought of as a complete train wreck or the next Josh Rosen at the end of the year was kind of impressive. So I I'm definitely buying that now. Zach Wilson is another one. The Vikings play Zach Wilson. are you buying that Zach Wilson looks better because of course he has Tyler Conklin as his tight end now hey I've seen some Tyler they were raving about him oh yeah that is good he can catch the ball man are you buying Zach Wilson hype I'm

buying Conklin for sure though I don't know if I don't know if I'm buying into Zach Wilson but no seriously though yeah you're right I mean Conklinklin's impressed them and has a shot to start. I know they have Uzama and then the Jeremy Rucker kid they drafted in round three. But those three, all three guys should play. And yeah, he's going to have a lot fewer excuses next year if we don't see a pretty, I don't want to say cavernous leap, but a pretty big jump in his play and his consistency. He was a little bit better after coming back from injuries. Seemed, I think, cut down on the sacks and the turnovers after that. But the first part of the year was, and he got all the reps last year. So it wasn't

like, okay, this wasn't a field situation where he was kind of thrown in having not worked with the first team. No, Zach Wilson spent his whole offseason working with the ones pretty much. But, you know, there have been times where Joe Flacco has been sharper in practice from people I trust that I've read there and haven't been able to see him in person, obviously. But I'm looking forward to the preseason just to see if there's a little bit less YOLO ball and a little bit more maybe control chaos, because we still want him to be an innovator and a playmaker that's what made him so exciting at byu but you also know that the you know running to your right

throwing to your left you know behind the armpit isn't going to necessarily fly uh until you have a few more skins on the wall and kind of get a little more comfortable but the weapons are there i'm i'm very softly buying right now i would say that's a good way to put it and i like you buying i think that wilson benefited from patrick mahomes just like lighting the league on fire everyone's like oh let's look for the guy who could do all this crazy stuff with his arms like well you know he's a little smaller than patrick mahomes and maybe uh you know play played in a covet year where they had a bunch of easy opponents and, like, everything kind of went his way.

I would love to see him succeed because he's a super fun player. Yeah. But I'm a little hesitant on this one. But I do think that the way they've set up their team, we'll know. Absolutely. Like, when you have a great tight end like Tyler Conklin, I mean, you can't, I mean, but really though, like they've given them players.

And, and so now if you screw this up royally, then you're probably just not good. They have a system that's favorable for quarterbacks. So, um, yeah, I,

I, I like softly buying or very skeptical still, uh, but would love to see it. Okay. Last one. Are you buying the restoring of the roar in detroit will they restore the hey i watched a hard knocks clip the other day of jamal williams

emotionally breaking down the huddle and he was you know getting tears in his eyes talking about how that's not who they are they're not as bad as they were last year um i uh i think it's i think it's fun to talk about dan campbell's team surprising everybody yeah um but i'm also like lions so where do you stand on the restoring of the roar i i am more enthusiastically buying in on the lions than i am zach wilson but i am not going you know this is not like Bitcoin 2000, you know, April of 2020. Everybody's got to buy it. Like, we're not quite there yet. But, you know, I want to see what Ben Johnson, the first year OC,

like kind of the mystery man in the NFL, like, you know, who is this guy, right? Clearly, Jared Goff benefited from Danbell calling plays down the stretch he went for the point where they're gonna have to move on from him too he's our guy and he's at a good camp like that's been the is people are shocked like is it just the lions defense isn't that good or is goff sort of finding a little bit of comfort here i don't know i don't want to give him you know go too far in on that but he he looks confident now that he's got some footing there a little bit. The options in the receiving game should be better. DeAndre Swift healthy could be very good.

Offensive line, I would say top five group, maybe, you know. Defense, questions. Secondary, linebacker, that's really where – that'll define whether they're you know five and twelve team or uh eight and nine team or whatever i mean i think that really could be the difference right there in in three or four wins i think uh wayne fonts will be proud of them by the end of the year yeah the restoring of the roar but uh that they won't they're not like a real contender it'll be more like wow the lions went nine and eight or eight nine and we're you know in the hunt all the way to the end maybe

maybe eagles like from last year where we sort of acted like the eagles had a great season not really it's just like but they did anybody who does better than we think we just want to absolutely crown them so i think they're the Year favorites. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Right. Okay. Just to wrap on this, what's one where you've been watching the Twitter updates and then you're quote tweeting, say, I told you so. My draft eval was right. All you fools weren't buying.

And now in training camp, I am being vindicated. Who's that? I think I did that the other day with reggie gilliam the bills like number he's like their full bag yeah i saw that i was proud of you that was like the brand of the show i hey listen anytime i can get a sleeper on draft in the seventh round where i was like hey i was higher on that guy i'm gonna point it out forget the other 12 dozen guys that i missed off right let's put those to the side for a minute. That's how you get to NFL.com. Exactly, right?

Come on, credit right here. Let's go. Yeah, no, I'd have to think about that one a little bit. But, I mean, my all-time biggest one was probably Dak Prescott. I mean, I had him in the 30s in my rankings. I thought he should have been a late first-round pick. But, yeah i just some of these guys i'm trying to think of somebody young who has really kind of stepped up in a way that's

that's made old dad proud here uh for me it's kind of sky more like okay yeah i like sky more a lot as an idea for the vikings and just like i'm not going to call him the next Debo, but he was sort of that playmaker guy. And, you know, kind of interested on that one. I would say, hmm, that's a tough one to really endorse. You know, there's probably a few that immediately, I mean, I like Jahan Dotson a lot. Like I couldn't really talk myself out of him. I didn't have him crazy high on my rankings,

but there was this reaction when the commanders took them, I think 16th or 17th, whatever, pretty relatively high in the draft. And, oh, you take a small receiver that high. There was so much like, wow, what a dumb pick. I was a little bit surprised that there was – and he's stepped up and looks like one of the top three receivers there and a playmaker. So we'll see on on that one but that's an interesting one yeah you always have to pick a few guys that you uh kind of want to see draft analysts be wrong about yeah right sure

uh well as as maybe you've noticed from our conversation you can read his work at nfl.com uh and uh also on twitter at eric underscore ed at home of a self aggrandizing follow on Twitter. But no, I know me too well, man. Right. I'm only kidding because for so long I have and I mean this just respected in such a great way how you go about draft coverage. Like there's a lot of gross ways that people go about draft coverage and you doing the work. You're always the first person I want to read when it comes to players. So I appreciate that.

I try to be fair. I try to be honest. I used to be a little bit too soft on guys and I realized, you know, you're going to regret it later. Right. And if you're wrong, guess what? You're going to everyone's wrong. So you might as well be wrong with conviction.

I appreciate you saying that. It's a, it's very nice to hear those words. If you're wrong, they'll do a tick tock, making fun of your report. And then that's the only, but follow them on Twitter at Eric underscore at home, I think. And, uh, I really glad to get together with you again, man. And we'll do it again soon. You got it. Anytime, man.

My pleasure.