Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Nobody lose your head about the Vikings backup QB battle

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Matthew Coller talks about how there's no reason for hot takes or social media rage over Sean Mannion or Kellen Mond's performance and what former Viking QB JT O'Sullivan had to say about his showing. Also we look at Pro Football Focus grades from the Minnesota Vikings' opening preseason game and what they say about the position battles and particular players and then answer questions about Ed Ingram draft takes, how to evaluate preseason games and more.  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel  Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here. And I want to start out the show by going over some of the PFF grades and some insight into the preseason game. And then we will get to fan questions. It's going to be a very exciting week here on the show as the Vikings are going to practice against the San Francisco 49ers. So we'll get a San Francisco perspective on the practices and where Trey Lance stands. And even though these two teams do not face each other this season, they will be racing for potentially a spot in the NFC playoffs. So the 49ers, I think, are relevant to talk about

as they're not necessarily favored in their division, but could be more of a wildcard team. So we'll get perspective on that as we lead up to the second preseason game. Also, Mike Renner from PFF scheduled to come on the show as well and talk about the young players for the Vikings, the progress they're making, and what we've seen so far in the preseason. All right, I want to begin with this. Let's not lose our heads, everyone.

All right. The things that have been said on Twitter about Kellen Mond's performance are so mind blowing at this point. We've got straw men arguments all over the place. We've got people raging against the backup quarterback machine and we have people who are going way too far to criticize Kellen Mond and people who are going way too far to defend Kellen Mond. And as always, the truth is kind of the truth that we have always known about Mond so far. And I want to begin with that. I mean, maybe it's a good idea to do like tweets about Kellen Mond that I got today. So I decided to step in a bee's nest and share the great JTO Sullivan from QB school and share the video he made breaking down the performance by Kellen Mond and showing some of the things

that the coaching staff would be looking for that he did not do particularly well. And then looking at other stuff where he did make good plays. So for example, JT pointed out, and if you don't know who he is, a former NFL quarterback, he played a little bit for the Vikings, 49ers, Lions. He was on a bunch of teams, even played over in the NFL Europe. So JT O'Sullivan has been around, and he's also a guy that runs one of the most popular YouTube's breaking down quarterback play during draft season, an absolute must to go look at his analysis of the quarterbacks that are coming

into the draft, everything else like that. There's nobody who's creating content who does it with more background knowledge than him, having been on a bunch of NFL teams. And also, um, in a way that you can understand it, that it's not so overly complicated in terms of the techniques and the reads and everything else that you're struggling to keep up. So a high recommendation for the QB school. So he does a 20 minute video breaking down Kellen Mond. And one of the biggest shortcomings of his performance was in just throwing the ball on time to the right places,

which has just been an issue. And when Kellen Mond talked with us the other day, he said that Kevin O'Connell has told him he needs to speed up. He just needs to hit that back foot and know the read and know what he's looking for and let it loose. And there were multiple opportunities where that should have happened and then it didn't. So he either checked down or he went to a different read. That was early in the game.

And of course, later in the game, he completed a lot of passes through a long touchdown on a beautiful throw to Albert Wilson. You see the talent that Kellen Mond has in his arm in which we've seen in practice a number of very hard throws, you know, good, good release and letting it go. Nice passes, but it just doesn't seem like it's on time and to the right place enough. Now, the question is, could it be developed? Can it be improved over the years? I don't know. I don't know that any of us knows that.

There have been quarterbacks in the past who have had this issue and have not gotten off the ground and they end up in the USFL. And there are other quarterbacks who have overcome some issues like that and have ended up as good backups or potentially even spot starters. I think without an ability to anticipation throw, without a backing of some incredible college career, without 6'5 and 240 pounds and rocket arm or any of those things. It's hard to see a team at some point buying into a player like this to be their starter, but that's not what the Vikings need. They need a backup quarterback for now, and they need a backup quarterback probably for the rest of his rookie contract. And then we'll see what happens with his career. As of this moment,

I don't believe we came out of this game with a huge change in the QB battle because the end of the game just is not being evaluated by the team. And here is not in a serious way, not weighted in a serious way. And here's how I know. The Arizona Cardinals let Kyler Murray call plays. Like, that's where we're at with preseason. Kansas City was letting a safety kick their field goals. I mean, that's preseason.

So we have to look at the things that would matter to the coaching staff and things that wouldn't. And JT's breakdown was excellent just on how that timing issue and how that inability to just let the ball go at the right time to the right place, to the right receiver, how that impacts the offense. Even if on TV, he throws a short pass and it's a completion and the guy gets like 11 yards.

Well, that looks great on the PFF grades, which were very good for Kellen Mon. That looks great on the statistics in the box score, but that's not what was supposed to happen on the play. And that's a key point. So will it be developed? I don't know.

I don't know. But in the short term, you need more than that in order for that person to be your backup. But I wanted to just make the point that as we go through the rest of this, take a deep breath or just look at yourself in the mirror a little.

If you're about to fire off a super ragey tweet at somebody about the backup quarterback situation, if you're about to yell at your kid or yell at your dog because you're upset at what someone said about the backup quarterback because you wanted the backup to succeed. Relax. Okay. This is not what's determining the Viking season or seasons in the future. Just watch the preseason for the receivers or something like, just don't, just don't do it. Like imagine being blocked by me because you tweeted me about Kellen Mond. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. So anyway, let's get to, but I highly recommend going to watch that video on YouTube if you want

a super intelligent, very informed breakdown of what Kellen Mond did well and what he did not. So let's look at some of these PFF grades. And I know that you guys already behave yourselves on Twitter anyway, so you don't need to be told by me. I'm just amazed that we do this every year and we never learn. We you know, my, my favorite preseason performances so far, the guys that I liked in the draft is like, yeah, that's kind of how it goes, right? You can sort of make preseason, whatever you want it to be. But I think people get so juiced up for football and in the mode, when they see people putting on jerseys, they get in the mode of now I'm in at now I'm now I'm at 10 out of 10 football rage let's go let's fight somebody on this internet over a football thing okay save it for week one save it for week one nothing really happened in this game that changed our minds about a whole lot

okay so uh Kellen Mond graded very well by PFF, an 84 grade. His box score was very good, quarterback rating good. Two big-time throws, no turnover-worthy plays. So on paper, a solid performance for Mond. Not as much for Mannion, but he only went 8 for 12, 79 yards, and graded a 53. You're not going to get a whole lot of big grades on just throwing it to the right wide-open person right in front of you, but you might get graded well by the coaching staff for doing it. You see the discrepancy there? Like if someone is coming wide open over the middle and Sean Mannion drops back, hits his back foot, releases it, hits that guy, PFF is giving you a zero grade. They're not giving you

plus or minus. But if Sean Mannion were to throw to the exact wrong spot and it turned into an amazing catch, well, the coaching staff is going, oh, geez, what? That was not what he was supposed to do. And even though it worked out, that wasn't what you were supposed to do. And the main thing for the backup is doing what you're told. So that's kind of the, and of course the competition matters here too, but that's kind of the discrepancy maybe and how you would use a pff grade in context versus not to try to evaluate this qb battle like just because one guy graded higher than the other does not mean that someone has emerged now this week if we see mond or manion execute in the 49ers practices way better then we we'll have a good sense. And if say Mond starts

the next game against San Francisco and he takes more reps, then we'll have a good sense. But in this case, it was 16 to 14 and drop backs. They said even, uh, and they got even as far as reps, uh, the running backs. We don't have to really break down because we know they were good. But of course, the blocking is always kind of a big deal here when it comes to using PFF and using PFF grades to try to figure out what we saw from the team. And I think the biggest one that stuck out was Ed Ingram had the highest second highest run blocking grade. Blake Brandel had the highest. But the second group was just really terrific with their blocking. Austin Schlottman had actually a good day when it came to the run blocking. So that's, you know, I don't know, might factor in a tiny bit when it comes to their evaluation of who's going to be that backup center.

Assuming that, you know, the backup center is going to be Schlottman or Reed, and they're not going to trade for someone. And it's just going to be Garrett Bradbury starting. Um, so Ingram had a standout day on paper by the PFF numbers as well, but most of the second group did, uh, Garrett Bradbury was actually fine, but only played on a couple of snaps. Uh, you know, look, look, there weren't a lot of other performances to really talk about on the offensive line. It shouldn't come as any particular surprise that Wyatt Davis got one of the lowest grades on the team,

a 40.8 pass blocking grade, but we just don't really have much to discuss when it comes to Wyatt Davis anymore. I think now that you've gotten two coaches to look at him and lo and behold, evaluating players was not a huge problem for the Zimmer era. And Wyatt Davis just doesn't look like he's going to make this team at the moment. So that's worth noting. When we look at the wide receivers and how they played, Myron Mitchell came out as the top graded receiver. Then Elbert Wilson, Dan Chisna on two targets only came out came out as the top graded receiver then elbert wilson dan chisna on two

targets only came out pretty well uh as the third highest graded in terms of receiving grade and then tristan jackson after that but this is very small sample size stuff only just worth a peek at how pff evaluated it but you know not much you could do there you you saw the guys make the catches there's not a whole lot you can put as far as weight into a grade when we're talking about three targets. But those guys kind of rose to the challenge a little bit. Some of the backup wide receivers played quite well. Tristan Jackson with the twos,

but Dan Chisna got some action early in the second half, and he's kind of interesting as somebody who is insanely fast track fast can catch the ball, but is not at all a developed wide receiver yet, but he's been working on it for a couple of years. So will they keep him as a punt gunner? I thought he had one particular play that was good as far as punt gunning. So will they keep him as a punt gunner and a depth receiver? If he can prove that it's worth, you know, being a depth wide receiver on the defensive side. Now this is where we can get a lot out of the grades. Jordan Hicks was the

best graded player. He looked really good. Harrison Phillips, same thing. But after that, Jalen Twyman did quite well, didn't register a pressure, but had an 80 grade. DJ Wanham should be playing well in the preseason here. Somebody who's been around for a couple of years. Interestingly, guys that stuck out with pressures, Patrick Jones and Armond Watts, did not grade well by PFF. Only a 52 grade by Patrick Jones and a 47 by Armond Watts. Surprising because both of them had multiple pressures. Patrick Jones led the team with four, but did not grade that well in part because of

his tackling, that he missed the tackle. So that would bring his grade down. I think the snap count said something. Andrew Booth Jr. and Louis Seen got a lot of work, 34 snaps each, 25 in coverage. But as we've suspected in the initial watch, they just weren't targeted. Only five targets between them. The longest completion against either one was 16 yards. That was the one where Booth got the two penalties.

Not much you can really go off there, but they did get a lot of playing time, which means they wanted to get an extended look at them. And as I mentioned on the show yesterday, it was kind of my feeling that Cam Dantzler got a lot of work. He did. He had 26 snaps in the game where the other starting corner was not playing. So clearly they want to get a look at both of those guys. They got the worst grade, if you were curious, was Chaz Surratt. Not a huge surprise there. And one of the best grades was Brian Asamoah.

Again, not a big surprise there. If you watch the game even fairly closely, then you saw Asamoah making some plays and Chaz Surratt struggle. And I think that Surratt might not be on this team. And Troy Dye also played 34 plays for a guy who's right behind the starter to play 34 plays probably means they wanted to look a lot at Troy Dye to consider whether he was going to be on this team as well but linebacker depth outside of Asamoah who's really started to emerge here uh not really giving a whole lot of confidence, I guess, you know, behind Eric Hendricks and Jordan Hicks. So that's kind of a look at how everybody did by the PFF grades, which I think are particularly insightful when you have, you know, I don't know, 60, 70 guys, whatever number it is,

getting into a game that we can't watch every single one of them. So there's a nice little snapshot of how everybody performed during that game. So there's a nice little snapshot of how everybody performed during that game. So there you have it. All right. We've got a lot of fans only questions to get to. So why don't we jump right in a real quick note? The Vikings are not practicing on Tuesday. So if you're listening on Tuesday and waiting for press conferences, well, you're not going to get them yet. They won't be happening until Wednesday. Also, if you go to the Purple Insider Twitter, purple underscore insider,

we are giving away two tickets to the game on Saturday between the Vikings and the 49ers. So if you want to go there, and thanks to our friend of the show, Jake, who donated the tickets. He couldn't go to the game or didn't want to go to the game. And so he donated the tickets for us to give away just as a longtime listener of the show. Cannot thank Jake enough.

He's been a huge supporter. That is a friend of the show, folks. You give me stuff to give away. You're a friend of the show. So I appreciate Jake so much for that. If you go there, you'll see how. What you have to do is quote tweets. If you're on Twitter, you know what this is. Just quote tweet the tweet about Mr. Mankato

and give your answer. And then you could potentially win these two tickets from Jake. So thanks so much. And, uh, let's get into those fan questions. Jeff via the email. He says, I haven't done a deep analytical study on this but it's always seemed to me that the first preseason game was very telling in one important way finding the gamers when a player is doing well in practice oftentimes his position coaches want to see if he can hold up against actual competition at game speed the guys that move up and down during the game are worth noting. They are either proving that they are ready to play in the NFL or proving

that they aren't there yet. Definitely not definitive, but much better information than you'll hear from coaches. It can confirm or dispel the opinions you are gleaning from practice. So how do you evaluate the first preseason game? Win or loss, who cares? So what do you consider worth watching? Yeah, I think that's a good observation, Jeff, that when it comes to that first preseason game, what you want to see is that the players who have been doing things in practice that are good end up doing those good things in the game. I mean, it's not super complicated, right? I mean, this especially goes for wide receivers because those are the ones that we can see the easiest in practice is a guy catching passes. Does it look like a guy's getting open? And if that's the case,

and a good example here might be someone like Tristan Jackson, who's come up a few times on the show and you know, he's a UDFA that came over was with Los Angeles a little bit and comes over here and he's made a couple of plays in training camp practices that doesn't mean that we are crowning him the next Adam Thielen or something but if he goes out and make makes plays in the preseason game and gets open against other competition at full speed, that all of a sudden puts the guy on the map a little bit. It does not mean that he's locked in to be a great player in the NFL, but it does mean that what you've been seeing in practice, which is that he's, I would call mildly intriguing,

that he continues to be mildly intriguing as a potential depth wide receiver we have seen plenty of times where guys have done well in practice and made some catches or gotten some pressures or it looked like they were covering their man pretty well in the secondary and then they get out there and all of a sudden it's different because you aren't going against the same players all the time there There's certainly an advantage to, if you're a wide receiver facing off with the same corner day after day. And I think this is why Kevin O'Connell tries to mix one versus twos. So guys see different players as their opponent, but you know, they're your teammate. Like you've been practicing against them day after day,

you know, some of their tendencies already. Whereas going up against somebody from the Las Vegas Raiders, you don't know them as well. Uh, and like you said, the speed is going to be full game speed, not like 90% practice. And that's not to say players aren't going hard in practice, but it's not the same as actually getting tackled when you go over the middle field, uh, as a wide receiver, for example, or actually bringing down theled when you go over the middle field as a wide receiver, for example, or actually bringing down the quarterback when you get to him as a pass rusher, as opposed to just, well, that looks like that would have been a sack and that guy had to hold up. The first preseason game gives us a great snapshot of that. It's not everything. And we've seen

before in the past, somebody not have an amazing first preseason game and then emerge a little later in the preseason, but it's our first snapshot of it. It's our first look at it, and usually if somebody's going to be a good player in the NFL, they're going to stand out to us. We're going to be able to see it in these preseason games. So I think as far as what's worth watching, the wide receivers end up going to kind of the top of the list because they're the easiest to see whether they're making catches, whether they're making plays. And just if anybody emerges that you didn't necessarily

expect, or if anybody confirms the things that you've been seeing, it's not that the first preseason game determines where everybody is at the end of the cut down or whatever, but it does kind of reset the depth chart a little bit to, okay, this guy who's been doing something in practice, he proved it. That's interesting. All of a sudden, now this guy has a chance to make it when maybe we weren't really sure before, or now I want to start paying attention to this player when before I was kind of going, eh, I don't know, he's getting some second team reps, but we'll see. So I guess that's it.

It's really just looking for who makes you look at them is the best way that I can put it. All right. On to the next question. This is from, and hopefully I say this right, uh, new who Babu on Twitter. Uh, let's see. I'm a diehard Vikings fan. I watch every single game, regardless of outcome and watch every snap of the preseason. My question is how do I tell if someone is performing well and who is performing poorly when it comes to the second, third and fourth stringers against each other, essentially,

how do I watch preseason football? Yeah. So this goes to kind of a little bit of the last question of you don't have to try to look too hard when it comes to preseason football, right? I mean, if you want to, you could get your DVR and you could study a certain guy that you're interested in and watch every play and go back and say, well, you know, how did my guy, this right tackle perform against the guy he's going against? Did he shut him down? Did he give up the edge? Did he, whatever, but most people even as die hard, um, don't want to do that, don't really get any enjoyment out of that.

Like you don't have to study this as if it's like you're scouting for Bill Parcells and he needs one more player to help him win the Super Bowl or something, right? Like this is very much sit back, enjoy the fact that football is happening and wait for somebody to come to you is how I would put it with preseason football. And even from my perspective, I'm going to go back and watch the game again. And I'm going to see what is said after the game and the press conferences and so forth. That's kind of, that's like what I do for you is watch everybody closely. I'm going to look at the PFF grades. I'm going to look at the box score.

I'm going to sit you right and see if there's anything I can spot about the interesting players to give you a review of how certain guys performed or certain people stuck out. But as far as you watching it, being a Vikings fan,

let somebody show you that they deserve to get your attention, I guess. And if you're really interested in a player, try watching them on every play. This is something that football fans usually don't do and have no reason to do. But when you're really interested in somebody, let's say it's Louis Seen. Safety can be a little hard to see on TV, but let's say it's him or Andrew Booth. Look at them on every play and just see what you can pick up on and kind of watch how they move or, you know,

when targets come their way or whatever it might be like, grab yourself a guy on each second, third, and if there is a fourth team, uh, second, third team and watch that guy closely and see if there's anything there. That's kind of what I would say. But make them, you know, make you pay attention to them. And the great example is like those depth wide receivers. You don't have to work super hard to watch for if someone's going to stand out. That's how I would advise watching it is get yourself a Diet Dr. Pepper, sit in front of the TV and make someone wow you.

And that's probably the most fun way to watch preseason football. All right. Onto the next question. This from Culver underscore Matthew. Let's see. After drafting Brian Asamoah, I remember Kwesi Adafo Mensah mentioning how he reminded him of JOK on the Browns.

And I was curious to know what exactly of JOK of JOK on the Browns. And I was curious to know what exactly of JOK's role was on the Browns and what we could expect from Asamoah if he develops. You're talking about Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoa, who is a second round pick of the Browns. What we could expect to see from Asamoah if he develops. Well, let me call up Ow up Owusu Koromoa and see like where he lined up because I'm not super familiar with what his role was last year I know that he was impressing people but I have not like dug deep into what he did for them he was only listed at 215 pounds which is actually pretty similar to Asamoah so he played almost 600 snaps, had a pretty good PFF grade, had, let's see, a decent amount of pass rushes, 55 pass rushes, 322 coverage snaps. I won't just read all of his stats, I

promise you. But in looking at how he was used on defense, where he was used on Cleveland's defense, he was mostly used in the box as a linebacker and then every once in a while 62 snaps as a slot corner and on the defensive line is presumably a rusher 58 times so a couple times a game just lining up on the line of scrimmage and pass rushing so basically Owusu Koromoa was just a linebacker I think that it's a little bit of a mythology of the hybrid player. Like I just can't think of that many guys in the world who have ever been these hybrid players that we talk about all the time. Oh, he can do this. He can be a safety. He can be a linebacker. He can do it. It is so hard to do one thing in the NFL that if you can master one thing, then you can

be in the league for a very long time to do multiple things. It's like the, why don't we just move this guy to that position? Like, you know how many guys have successfully moved positions in the NFL and had success in the history of this entire league? Like, you know how many times that there have been players who we talked about as a linebacker safety hybrid corner something. You know how many times that there have been players who we talked about as a linebacker, safety, hybrid, corner, something, and then the guy just, it was like Mark Barron. Remember him? Where it's like, well, he's, you know, a safety slash linebacker.

He can cover like a safety and hit like a linebacker. What ended up happening? Mark Barron just got turned into a linebacker. And the same thing happened with, gosh, there was a guy for the Giants that was the same sort of conversation. And he just ended up being a linebacker. And the same thing happened with, gosh, there was a guy for the Giants that was the same sort of conversation and he just ended up being a linebacker. And that looks like what Olusu Koromoa was for Cleveland, just a playmaking undersized linebacker who looks like he had some success in that role. But with Brian Asamoah, I think the same thing where he is undersized and he's clearly very quick and very explosive, but the idea that he's just going to go out and like

move to safety on a play. I haven't seen him at safety at any play, uh, or that he's going to cover wide receivers in the slot. That's a major mismatch. Even if he is quick and undersized, it just somebody who's always played linebacker. You can't just put them on a wide receiver on an Island. Uh, you're probably going to have to play him in zones and things like that. And what you're looking for for Asamoah is to just be quicker than a traditional linebacker would be and, and maybe cover some more ground and be able to overcome his size. So I think that's what you're looking for. And I don't know, I'm going to look up what Brian Asamoah ran for a 40. Um, because I, you know, I think that what people are sort of discovering is, uh, let's go here. Uh, yeah, four, five, six. So a very, very fast 40 yard dash for a linebacker.

I think what people are discovering is that how the linebackers perform has a lot to do with your front four. So you can take these guys who are a little less beefy and you can put them in there and they'll still make the tackles that need to be made. As long as your front four works out pretty well, but most linebackers, if they have to take on a guard that's totally free and is coming to hit them, most linebackers aren't going to perform all that well in doing that. There might be a handful that could take them on. So I think that's like the theory about Brian Asamoah.

I don't know that it's going to be some crazy modern hybrid role. If it is, I mean, I'll be surprised, but I think what they're looking for here is kind of the next Eric Kendricks. Can he be as good in coverage as Eric Kendricks? I don't know. That's a very high bar that Kendricks has said, but I think that that's what they're looking for is we've seen it with Kendricks where when the front four is great, he could just track guys down and get free and make tackles and then be really good in coverage. And also a lot of the role is, Hey, they're throwing a swing pass to this guy, close the gap and make that tackle, right? Uh, or a wide receivers coming across the middle and you have to chase him down from behind before he is, you know, escapes and gets a big yards after catch play. Can you do that running a four or five? Like, yeah, I mean, that gives you a better chance

to do that than somebody who's running a four seven and is just getting blown away by a wide receivers. Um, if they find carve out some really, really unique role, then congratulations to them. They found something that almost nobody has in the NFL. I mean, Micah Parsons will probably get brought up by a lot of people. Well, look, he's a linebacker, but he rushes the passer and all those other things. But again, there's like one in the league that is like that. And even Owusu Koromoa, there might only be one Owusu Koromoa in the league. And even that guy only plays three snaps a game in the slot or something like that.

And as far as I saw on his page from PFF, he didn't have any safety snaps. It was all in the box, occasionally at slot corner and on the defensive line. So maybe Asamoah is kind of a package guy for certain types of situations, passing spots. But I think that what you're just hoping is that he becomes like similar in some ways to what Eric Hendricks can do for the Vikings. All right, let's see here. This comes from at stock market skull one. What level of team success would validate the blame Zimmer narrative?

Yeah, I think that if the Vikings were to have, I think it's entirely dependent on the offense because the defense is a better group of players right now than it was when they actually got into the games and went through some injuries and things like that. If they are healthy, that's going to determine where

that defense is going to go. So if Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter play 17 games, that's way different circumstances than Mike Zimmer getting, what was it? 10 games out of Griffin and seven games out of Hunter and the year before zero games out of Hunter to the point where we're talking about, you know, a Fadi Adenabo starting and Jaleel Johnson starting like injuries have played a big role in what's happened to the defense the last couple of years and the lack of development and so forth. But if they randomly stay completely healthy, like say they did in 2019, I don't think we

can go, oh man, Ed Donatel was way better at defense than Mike Zimmer. It's like, well, no, they were just healthy. And Ed Donatel has a good system and Mike Zimmer had a good system, but one of them had players and the other one didn't. That will be a determining factor for sure for this season. So to me, it entirely points to a couple things. One would be game management. If they are vastly better at when they're going for fourth down, when they're punting,

when they're kicking field goals, all those things. If they're way better at that and that results in wins, then we could say, okay, that was a big improvement for Kevin O'Connell. If the locker room handles adversity the way that they say they're going to handle adversity, it's always very easy when things are going smoothly to say, yeah, this new guy's approach, it's going to help us handle adversity, but then let's see what happens when it comes along. Because I don't think that Mike Zimmer over his career made things better when they were getting really tense. And, you know, my first year on the beat was 2016 and they were five and O,

and then they ran into some stumbling blocks and it just all came apart. Right. And that happened a bunch of times throughout his time in Minnesota. Not every time in 2017, they lost Delvin cook and Sam Bradford and made the NFC championship. So it wasn't every time that Zimmer made it worse, but it was enough times to say that this team needed maybe a different approach at times during Zimmer's era. And the other part would just be, and you know the answer here, on offense. If Kevin O'Connell leads the fifth best offense in the league with the same exact players, save for Irv Smith wasn't in last year, but Tyler Conklin was good.

And the offensive line might be a little better. You're not playing Ole Udo at right guard. Either one of the right guards at least has like played there before. So we're at least played guard before. Ole Udo had never played guard before. Ingram was a left guard in college, except for I think his freshman year. And, so he's having to move positions there will be some growing pains there but if he's in at least it's someone who's played guard before but other than that it's the same exact players on offense and if O'Connell comes in and leads the fifth best offense in the league and let's say they have the 12th best defense or something and they end up with

11 wins then i think we could say reasonably that's what they needed with kirk cousins to be better than with mike zimmer and that he does deserve the criticism for holding back cousins now some of this will be uh figured out based on the defenses that they play. If they play a bunch of poor defenses like they did in 2019, then maybe the stats will be a little better. But I think it's getting into the top 10 and having the offense drive your success and being a team that sort of puts the foot on the gas pedal when you've got a lead and closes other teams out. You know, I saw an article that came out about, you know, one score game luck. And of course the Vikings had said, well, you know, they didn't have that much luck

last year and they should have been better. And so forth is like, well, look, I get that. And I get why statistically that's a thing to say, but in so many games, all they had to do was score one more time and couldn't do it in the Dallas game that they lost to Cooper rush, like put the foot on the gas pedal and score one more time when you've got the football and instead couldn't do it. Now who's that on. If they do it this year, then we can look back and say that, you know, part of the conservative nature offensively, when we get ahead, we're going to run the football, even think of like the New Orleans playoff game that they won. All they need is one completed pass in a first down. And Mike

Zimmer calls up three runs. Like even those little differences, if they end up adding up to 11 wins, 11 is my bar for a good season. A lot of people can win 10 Christian Ponder won 10 like it happens 11 when you're a legit contender 11 can win a division like that's that's for wins and if it's driven by offense and not say just kind of randomness uh if they end up with the 14th best offense but they get crazy luck when it comes to facing a bunch of backup quarterbacks or horrible teams like say Philadelphia did last year and they win 10 I'm not gonna go oh my gosh see everyone it was Zimmer we're gonna say like was a lot of the same but things broke their way so you want to see the offense and the decision making in the games and the culture that they're setting be the thing that drives the success and then we we can say, you know what,

the new guy did correct all the things that the last guy did poorly. So I guess it's not just what level of success in terms of victories. It's also kind of how you got there as well that we'll be looking at that. But, you know, I also want to say that it's just the thing that always happens. Whatever the new coach does is always better than the old coach, always in forever in football. And you know what? Sometimes it is. And sometimes it's not with Matt Lafleur in Green Bay. It was, however, that was also paired with them hitting out a bunch of draft picks. So, you know, like who knows, but I think, you know, like Matt LaFleur in green Bay is a good example of a guy who did come in and correct a lot of the problems of the old school coach who had been there for a very long

time. So that does happen. There are other instances where they try to go the opposite way of the last coach and you get different results like Jim Caldwell to Matt Patricia in Detroit, for example. So, uh, yeah, but I think that's something that we'll be kind of monitoring all year is, is the blame Zimmer, uh, validated folks training campus here. And there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to soda stick.com and checking out all their Minnesota sports inspired goods. The best football designs, in my opinion, are Randy Moss's disgusting act and the purple people eaters look. But look, there's lots more for you to check out at sodastick.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. It's from at Bob Vikings for the fans. Only podcast might be a sensitive topic, but Ingram was generally panned for both his off field quote issues. And doesn't feel like a strong enough of a word and for being a huge reach from everything that you and others have said he's pushing to start. Is he trending to turn out better than the analysts and consensus expected? Or is he only looking to start because the Vikings and the interior O-line is hot garbage?

I understand that he should start based on the value the Vikings gave him, but many knocked the Vikings and the interior O-line is hot garbage. I understand that he should start based on the value the Vikings gave him, but many knocked the Vikings for the pick. How is he stacking up against that? Just curious how to read in comparison to say Wyatt Davis. Yeah. Well, everyone loved the Wyatt Davis pick and that instantly blew up. Uh, but you know, I think that when it comes to the draft, the minute for me, the minute the draft is over, we all look at a few things to try to determine how we feel about the process of the draft. Did they make smart decisions here? because historically if you reach you have a better chance of busting or a higher chance of busting if you reach compared to what the outside world thought like think of it in this way is like how vegas sets its lines based on sharp betters right so you have the same thing where the the

sharp betters aren't always right but they're closest to right. And the draft analysts, as we have definitely gone over on the show, are not always right, the wisdom of crowds says this player was a massive reach. Then the odds of that player succeeding are low. So that's the discussion right after the guy's drafted. As soon as the guy gets to training camp, then we study him as a player who's on the team and nothing else. I don't look back and go, well, you know, I thought that guy was going to be a bus. So I'm just going to say he stinks forever. And no matter what, or what, you know, it's like, no, he's just a player on the team and that's it. His draft

status doesn't really matter. At least, at least to me, uh, you know, people are more interested in draft picks because they got excited about them on draft night. But to me, it's just, this is a player on the team. And is he going to play or is he going to be good? But I think that as far as his odds to overcome that criticism that he was overdrafted, I mean, I don't know. Like everything is percentage. It's maybe based on his talent and his physical ability and the consensus,

the odds of him working out are 30%. And if it was somebody else who had a little better physical skill and the consensus liked him more, it could be 50%. But we're still talking about a coin flip versus a one in three. It's not, it's not that like nobody is saying because they went against the consensus. This guy will never succeed. There's no chance. He's not, it's not that like nobody is saying because they went against the consensus. This guy will never succeed. There's no chance. He's just going to be horrible because you went against the consensus. He's going to walk out on the football field, fall over and cry and roll over and quit football. Like that's not how that works. We can only work with the information that we have at the time. And it's all an odds game that said i don't know he's got a handful

of first round or first team reps and that's it so far i don't know whether he's gonna succeed and outperform his draft status is there a chance yeah it's probably 30 chance that he that he does but also like draft even if you were drafting a fourth round guard so you said like oh most people project him as a fourth-round guard. Well, a fourth-round guard also probably doesn't mean you're a complete bust already. It just means that people didn't see an upside for him to be a potential star. So he could come in and be average, and then everyone will go back and be like,

ah, see, you hated that draft pick. Like, okay, well, if you draft an average guard in the second round, I do hate that draft pick because that's something that's easy to replace. So it's a very nuanced conversation, I think. And is he showing something so far? I guess he must be for them to give him some first team reps. They're not giving him all the first team reps, by the way. It's still more Jesse Davis than it is at Ingram.

And we'll see, we'll see how that ends up playing out. If he wins the job and he plays somewhat competently, then in the short term that will have worked out for them in the bigger picture of value. If he's just okay, then it's not good enough to spend that high of a draft pick when you had other needs at premium positions, especially long-term edge rusher, wide receiver corner. Like there were, there were more needs than that. Um, so I think you could still look at that even if it works out and say, well, okay, but who else was there? Like, were there, it's kind of like Irv Smith, right? Where Irv Smith is a good football player.

It hasn't really worked out yet because of injuries, but if AJ Brown is right after you or Debo Samuel, I can't remember the order right off the top of my head, but if like there's a premium position player who was still on the board, who was a great prospect and you took the non-premium position, then we can still say, well, yeah, but you may have made a mistake there, even if the guy works out. So I guess long way of saying that when we analyze where they drafted someone, the decision we made, I don't think it's as simple as just saying,

hey, if the guy doesn't absolutely blow, then they nailed it. Right. so yeah i i guess that's the best i could do is that it's just a little bit it's a little bit complicated uh so far he's getting some first team reps and i guess you just sort of you know shrug your shoulders like we'll see you know right like i don't know i think he's got to become very very good in order to justify that pick especially with the other risk that was being taken there, which the criticisms, as you said, were fair. So I guess that would be my entire process of analyzing draft picks. As we go into a time in this preseason game where that's a major part of it,

is analyzing draft picks. Like, you know, Louis Scene is a good example of somebody that you know a lot of people had on draft boards a little bit higher or in this ballpark and someone at a you know we're going to balance that whole thing like a non-premium position but maybe someone who is a great prospect that could be valuable for you in the first round and how good does he have to be in order for that to work out, right? Which is probably, again, pretty good because you made the decision to trade out of the top. So there's all that context that goes into it.

And so I don't mean to really kind of go off on this. It's just that we always tend to try to simplify everything. We always boil it down to a very like, you got that wrong or you got that right or right it's like well there's there's more to it than that so anyway deep breath here we go uh matt via email here can you really tell anything about running backs from practice reps i get it kenny wong was fast but can he hit the right hole, bounce off and break a tackle fall forward? Seems odd that they rarely used him last year. My answer would be definitely, you can definitely tell in training camp. One is the first,

first step, right? Like the first quickness. Is it there? So with Delvin cook from day one, I remember doing a story about this that from day one of training camp his teammates went oh my gosh i remember talking to adam thielen at his locker about like when did you know delvin cook was going to be good he's like i don't know first day looked over there and saw him run was like whoa they they say the same thing about like randy moss somebody's going to be special. They realized it right away. The first practice, oh my gosh, this is something different. And you see that with burst and speed, but also you can tell if someone's hitting the right hole when you're watching it in training camp practice, based on what ends up happening. Like if the guy

gets a pitch and tries to cut it back, it just goes absolutely nowhere. I mean, yeah, if he's doing that over and over again and it doesn't look like it's working, then you're going to question that and wonder like, is there anything there? If it seems like he's executing it how they want. And I also look at the coaches after the plays and things like that. But if it looks like he's executing the way that they're supposed to do it, then they'll find space and they'll find holes. Falling forward has got some value, I'm sure. But that you can't really know. Shredding tackles, sure.

Like balance when you're getting hit. All those things you have to see in the preseason game. But you get, just like everything else at practice, you don't get all the answers. You get hints. So with Kenny Wongwu, I think he's looked incredibly fast again. He has gotten enough reps with the twos and ones to make me think that there might be something there. Uh, not using him occasionally would be a mistake. It does look more like Alexander Madison will be running back number two but not mixing in kenny

wong when making him a part of this would probably be a mistake the other part of it is though you have so many good players on this team who are you setting aside to to work in wong woo and how much is something that kevin o'connell is going to to factor. I think that if in these preseason games he looks really good in the backfield and he's looked good in practice, that there's maybe more rotational opportunities. The funny thing is that somebody was talking in the fantasy universe about Sean McVay and how McVay didn't really do rotations all that much. So that might be one thing that we're surprised by them not rotating as much as we expect but uh you get those flashes and you get a snapshot from training camp practices

and then you see what happens but i think based on how he ran in a limited sample last year how he kick returned like there's some special playmaking ability it's just they're going to have to balance like how much of this do we want to make about Kenny Wong Wu, how many plays per game and you know, how can we mix them in? And also you try to be unpredictable too. If it's every time Kenny Wong Wu comes in, he's going to get the ball on a reverse or a pitch. Well, that's not going to work out, right? Because other teams after a game or two are going to figure that out. So it's a, it's a bit of a tight rope, but I've liked what I've seen so far when he's been out there and now how much he's going to get the ball sort of yet to be seen, but I think might be determined by the preseason game

to some extent. All right. This comes from at Jim Penda. Hey, Matthew, keep up the good work. Loving the podcast all the way from the UK. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you very much. Where would you rank Jefferson and Thielen in current wide receiver duos? Do we all on under appreciate Adam Thielen? It wasn't too long ago. He was arguably a top five wide receiver in the league. Uh, yeah,

I think that in Minnesota and I, and this might be your front, you're from the UK, so you don't, don't necessarily, uh, understand fully the Minnesota effect. You go out to training camp and 70% of the jerseys are Adam Thielen. I mean, locally, I don't think he's underappreciated at all.

I mean, if you talk about nationally, maybe as far as the projections with fantasy and things like that, they're not projecting him as high as he necessarily deserves. Before he got hurt last year, he was on pace for more than 90 catches. And I know on pace is like a, you know, sort of dicey statistic. But yeah, I don't know that underappreciate is quite right. There's a reason to wonder about his production when you get to a certain age like if you go back historically we always talk about running backs and 27 years old well with receivers when you get to 32 33 it's hard to find too many receivers that after 32 33 34 are really still performing at a peak level.

And I don't think we're going to see the 2017 or 2018 versions of Adam Thielen ever again, but now we're kind of settling into a really good like possession receiver role, which I'm sure would irritate Adam Thielen being as competitive as he is to hear possession receiver. But the numbers indicate that, that as far as your average depth of target, your yards per reception, that Jefferson is the guy that goes down the field more.

And Adam Thielen is going to make more of the underneath and intermediate stuff. But from what I'm seeing in training camp, he's still getting open all the time and he's still making plays all the time. I think that late career, Larry Fitzgerald and late career, Adam Thielen have a lot of similarities. And I don't mean completely late career.

I just mean the second half of his prime with Larry Fitzgerald. So maybe the outside world isn't quite giving enough attention to Thielen. As far as where they rank in wide receiver duos, you know,, that's gosh, it's something I haven't really thought about, uh, ranking stuff. We should rank stuff maybe more often on the show. Uh, let me look at the PFF grades from last year to give me some ideas here. Um, as far as receiver duos, well, Cooper cup and Robert Woods were up there, but he doesn't really have, uh, Alan Robinson and Cooper Cup now. Um, I mean, it's gotta be pretty high, right? Like Devante Smith and, uh, AJ Brown might be a good one.

Uh, certainly Jamar chase, uh, in Cincinnati and, uh, T Higgins. That's a pretty good one. In fact, last year, Jamar Chase ranked 11th overall by PFF, and T. Higgins was 8th as far as great. And we probably underappreciate that T. Higgins averaged almost 15 yards a catch and over 1,000 yards for last season. So, yeah, I mean, I think that there's, as far as duos go, the Vikings absolutely have one of the top duos in the NFL

and have for the entire time that Kirk Cousins has been here, which is, you know, kind of a separate point to say like, you know, that sometimes we talk about what they haven't done for him, but they've certainly given him the best wide receivers. Godwin and Mike Evans deserve to be talked about as a top duo. So maybe, maybe like in the top five top duos, Hunter Renfro and Devante Adams. Renfro is, I don't want to say underrated necessarily. He had a hundred catches last year though. So, you know, the Raiders are going to bring two guys with a hundred catches. So I think probably, probably in the back end of the top five is where they rank.

But yeah, I'm not sure it's, I'm not sure that we're underrating Adam Thielen rather just looking at him and saying, you know, by the history of this game, it's going to be tough to keep up quite the level, uh, you know, that he's been performing at in the past. I think that's fair. Uh, let's see one. Let's, let's get one more question here. Let's see. Um, let's go with, uh, me at maniacs midway here who has stood out the most to you so far on the front three for defense. Oh, the front three is going to throw me off. Cause it's really, they're really not, they're really not doing that very much. Like they're not doing the traditional three, four stuff on too many reps. I've seen some every day that have Armand Watts, Harrison Phillips, and Delvin Tomlinson out there all at the same time, but not that often. As far as the front goes, Harrison Phillips, especially, and this might be because he's

going up against Garrett Bradbury, but Harrison Phillips has looked particularly good to me on the defensive line. Delvin Tomlinson sort of is what he is. Armand Watts, I can't tell if he's different from watching training camp practices, particularly against the interior offensive line of the Vikings. I can't say for sure. Like he emerged last year as somebody who could get after the passer. I expect that to happen again, but I don't know that he's been out there for enough reps in the 3-4 base to say. He looks like he's going to be out there when it comes to their pass rushing package,

like what Mike Zimmer used to call the NASCAR package. The defensive front is one where they need somebody else to show up outside of those guys, outside of Tomlinson, Watts, and Harrison Phillips. And I've seen a little Jalen Twyman. I've seen him flash a little and preseason is going to be big for him. Aside from Twyman, it just doesn't look like they have a whole lot of interior to work with there. It doesn't look like there's anybody who could possibly get after the passer. And as far as like run stuffing prowess, hard to say from watching training camp, but

they have to hope that those guys stay healthy and the health records for Harrison Phillips and Delvin Tomlinson have been pretty good. So I think that what I've seen so far from Harrison Phillips is that he looks like exactly what he was in Buffalo, which is not some sort of pure pass rusher, but he is very powerful and he's quick and he's just got this like massive barrel chest that I think helps him push the pocket. You know, that kind of thing. He's a really, really big, tall guy. So that's a nice addition for them. And last year when they lost Michael Pierce, there was just nothing else. So if you've got a healthy

Harrison Phillips and Delvin Tomlinson, that's pretty good. And Armond Watts, whether he can make something out of this, a rotational role or not, we'll see. But I kind of expect the same thing from him, which would be he's pretty good at getting to the passer, not elite, but there's something there. If he has to play a lot, you're probably in trouble. And other than Twyman, there's nobody else that I would say has flashed or made me go, Oh man. Yeah. I think that this guy, you know, could be the next, whatever, uh, appreciate that question. And all of the questions from you guys, feel free to keep sending them, go to purpleider.com and the contact us or go to, um, you know, my Twitter, send me a DM, just let me know it's fans only and I will include it on the show. So thanks everybody

for all of your questions. Remember the five-star reviews have been coming in. That's great. I thank you so much that you guys have been doing that on iTunes. It really, really helps other people find the show. So thanks so much. And we will talk to you soon.