Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Now is Justin Jefferson the MVP? (A Fan's Only podcast)

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Matthew Coller answers fan questions, from Justin Jefferson's MVP candidacy to TJ Hockenson as WR2 to whether the playoffs impact the Vikings' future plans and much more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is a fans only episode as I record this after the games were played on Christmas Day. Because honestly I just can't stop watching football or talking about football. So here we are, right? A very exciting day, weirdly enough. And the Packers are in this, and this week matters. I don't know that I would have expected that.

I was debating my own travel schedule regarding the Packers game just because earlier this season I thought, well, look, Packers are completely out of it. They've fallen apart. But I guess we should have expected that they would find a way to make this thing interesting. And if you are all into the disrespect game, the Packers are favored at Lambeau Field. I guess we can't make fun of that because the last two times the Vikings were not favorites recently, it has not gone their way. But suddenly, this game has some energy. the Vikings were, you know, not favorites recently. It has not gone their way, but suddenly

this game has some energy. The Philadelphia Eagles lost. So the Vikings are still a possibility, a long shot, but a possibility for the number one seed. They are battling for the two seed as San Francisco also won against Washington. And so the Vikings need to keep winning to hold off San Francisco for the two seed. And if green Bay wins, and then they play Detroit in week 18 and they get a little help. Can you guys imagine Packers Vikings divisional round us or not divisional round first round wildcard round at us bank stadium. Can you imagine that oh my gosh yeah i mean that's like for drama purposes i i don't think that's what you want if you're a vikings fan i think what you want is the worst possible team that you might want washington i don't think you mind

facing the giants again because the vikings are i think a better team than the giants even though new york outplayed them at times. But Daniel Jones had to play one of the best games he's ever had in his career to be in that game, and the Vikings were still winning by eight in the final moments. And then, of course, he leads them down for a game-tying drive. But as well as they played at times, I think when you look at those two teams on paper, the receivers, the Giants have so forth that you would feel the Vikings still have a pretty good advantage in that game. But Packers Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium is now on the table as a thing that could actually happen. And speaking of that, I mean, the Vikings now have a chance this week to make sure it doesn't happen and they can all but eliminate.

I mean, I think they actually can eliminate the Packers depending on how things go with the other games. I mean, talk about like how you would draw it up, right? Going to Lambeau Field with a chance to put the final nail in the coffin of Green Bay. And yeah, I mean, it's funny how we were talking about these last couple of games. Like, oh, well, you know, are they sort of glorified preseason games? And all of a sudden, this is not that. And we'll see what happens as far as Chicago goes. That will depend maybe on whether San Francisco wins

and if they can get that number two seed. I think that the Giants win probably motivated them to go for it as far as the number two seed and continue to play the starters and beat Chicago in the final week. And, you know, there is something to if you can have a 14 win season, that is something to put on your resume. But they will need to go to Lambeau and beat the Packers and Aaron Rodgers, who all of a sudden are surging. They got three interceptions against Tua, who seemed to not be on the same pages as wide receivers and this late in the season. That was very weird to see. But I was watching that game thinking the way Tua threw it all over the place

that the Vikings should have success again. But Rodgers kind of looks more Rodgers-y than he did when the Vikings faced him early in the season. And first half versus second half, Aaron Rogers has been different since Christian Watson has emerged as a good receiver for them. So this game already is very, very exciting for New Year's Day. And if the Vikings are going to play on almost every holiday, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, and you know new year's day make them all exciting and of course they have done uh just that in the previous two so this will be good this will

be a fun week as we dive into it but let's get into a lot of your questions uh that i got after the game because there's some really good ones here so we'll start off with uh jonathan on twitter who asks how many wins does this team have if Justin Jefferson had got hurt for the year in training camp? We were talking about this in the press box the other day, and I think I came up with four or five, and someone else said two. I mean, when you look, like,

if you asked how many games did they win this year that weren't because of Justin Jefferson in most ways. And we have to assume that other players in his absence, K.J. Osborne, for example, would have stepped up at some point. But I think they could have won the game against Detroit. They essentially did without Justin Jefferson playing like a superstar. Other than that though, the Jets game, he only had 45 yards. Arizona, he only, and I'm saying only like hilariously, only had 98 yards and every other game he has been the offense. I mean, every other game he's going over a hundred yards and I don't think anyone who would have replaced Justin Jefferson

was going over 100 yards on a weekly basis. So I think the answer is that they would have had very few. This would not be a great team. It might be a fringe playoff team without him. It's always possible that somebody like K.J. Osborne would have taken a huge next step in that role or that Adam Thielen would have more catches I mean he would have had to this year if Justin Jefferson was out so you

don't have to take away all of the yardage and all of the success they still would have thrown the ball a lot but Jalen Rager would have had to be the number three wide receiver or I don't know Jalen Naylor I guess is the next guy on the depth chart behind him. Maybe they would have had to keep Amir Smith-Marset. I mean, it would have been a very, very bad season, I think. I mean, when you consider that every win has been outside of one by one score and how much Justin Jefferson is worth to this offense, and maybe this is part of an MVP conversation it's going to be really really hard for him to make a better case than Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen especially with Patrick Mahomes losing Tyreek Hill in the offseason and still putting that team in

position to either be the number one or two seed in the NFC and he's going to throw 50 touchdowns and 5,200 yards or something. I mean, it's just hard not to give him the MVP, but if you're talking about, if you took this player off of this team, what would they be? You can do the same thing with Mahomes that you can with Justin Jefferson. They probably still would have won a handful of these games considering that some of the opponents were playing backup quarterbacks and so forth, but they have not run away from people. They've needed Jefferson in every clutch situation and no more evident than what they did against the Giants.

Two catches on the final drive on third down and longs and, you know, taking a screen pass for 17 yards the way that he did. Just really, I mean, what more can we say about the way that he's played? But he is that valuable to this team that you go from a 12-win team to probably barely scratching and clawing for the playoffs. There are only a few players in the league that you could compare in terms of quarterback worth to Justin Jefferson. And I'm not trying to take away from Kirk Cousins' performance by saying this,

but you do have to think like how many quarterbacks, if they had Justin Jefferson, would look totally different. And this is why circumstances just cannot be talked about enough when it's quarterback success or failure. When you look around at offensive systems, wide receivers, when you have the world's best wide receiver, a guy who is challenging Randy Moss for the greatest receiver in franchise history, and who already is putting his name among the best players ever to play this

position. I mean, take that away. And we're probably singing a very different tune about kirk cousin season i think we would have been talking about another 500 year from him where maybe some of the statistics are actually even a little better because they're playing from behind and so forth uh as far as you know quarterback rating and efficiency numbers. But when it has mattered the most, it's always been Jefferson. Just think about all the moments, like in Miami,

where he comes up with a big catch. In Washington, comes up with a big catch. Just time and time again. Even the New York Jets game that I mentioned, I'm probably wrong. They probably would have lost that game because he had to do a Chris Carter toe tap. I mean, this is just one of the best seasons any football player has ever had in NFL history. And it's, I mean, it's been like, you were, you're going to tell people about it forever. What you've seen this year from Justin Jefferson.

And, uh, as I mean, as much as we had talked about it previously, this giants game just kind of put me over the top to like, we are witnessing something with this season that, yeah, that if you didn't have it, you're probably talking, I mean, 12 and three, is it seven? Is it six? I mean, even if we're being reasonable, it's probably seven or six. This team has some flaws that that man makes up for every single time, it seems. And, I mean, Kevin O'Connell said after the game the other day that when he scored that touchdown, which was an unbelievable route, that he just said, it's a privilege, man. And that's all you can say.

And I remember a hockey coach telling me one time that a lot of coaching comes down to, does your great player make a great play at the biggest time that you can coach all the things you can scheme all the things and kevin o'connell has done a marvelous job scheming justin jefferson open and i've never thought that more than watching cliff kingsbury on a key third down just send deandre hopkins down the sideline into double coverage so you know be happy with that as well They hired a man who knows how to get a number one wide receiver open. And I was a little skeptical that Justin Jefferson could put up better numbers

than he did last year at the beginning of the season because those were already all-time great numbers. And, wow, he has blown that away. But, you know, a lot of that does come down to, do you have that guy and they don't and the vikings have that guy and that's why when we look at point differentials and different stuff like that through throughout trying to figure out matchups and do they have a chance to win the super bowl and all those things that is one thing that you cannot account for is in every big spot

you have a player that cannot be stopped. That's just a factor that you cannot weigh in. Also, I did want to mention that somebody earlier this year said in a question, and if you're listening, I downplayed this a little bit. I sort of said, I don't know if I can really buy this. Asked about the Packers in 2019 when they hired Matt LaFleur and they went 13 and three, but they played a lot of close games. And I kind of said, I don't know, they have Rogers and it's just, it's just hard to make that comparison with a new coach and maybe a team that didn't put up the best numbers, but found a way to win 13. Well, your comparison was right on whoever asked that question and tweet me

or something and remind me who you were because you were right on with how this has played out. And I saw Aaron shots from football outsiders who I hope to get on the show at some point to talk about how crazy this has been this season, because we referenced DVO a lot from football outsiders and some of their metrics. But he tweeted out a chart of the teams that have the, the biggest gap ever between wins and expected wins. And the Vikings are right now number one since 1970 for his metrics. I mean, how crazy is that? And the

Packers from 2019 were actually right there as well. So that was a great observation. What I thought in the way that they started the season was either they would get way better in the middle of the season and they would start winning some of these games by a lot or either they would get way better in the middle of the season and they would start winning some of these games by a lot or that they would just completely fall off because that's almost the way every one of these teams happens that wins a lot of close games. And instead they just kept doing it. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, uh, I made the joke about how the franchise went to the fork of the road and went straight. Um straight as far as this offseason, this last offseason. But it's kind of like this team has sort of, usually you go to a fork in the road when

you win a lot of close games where you either get better and you start blowing people out or you just fade and regress. And they said, no, we're kind of neither. We're just going to keep winning every game by one score. What a season. Anyway, appreciate that question about Justin Jefferson. But yeah, the answer is not that many. This comes from GWag0405 on Twitter.

Hopefully that's how you say it. Could KJ Osborne not getting the wide receiver two role be holding back the offense? I wonder if Thielen is slowing down a bit and maybe a better fit for wide receiver three and in the red zone, the respect for Thielen with this franchise may be keeping it from happening. So that's an interesting question. I think that they are different players from the perspective that KJ Osborne really needs to be a slot receiver. And Adam Thielen has always been an outside receiver.

So if I check on this on how often KJ Osborne, his career has been in the slot, and this doesn't mean he can't do it, but last year he did struggle when he had to fill in for Adam Thielen. Let's take a look here. How often has he been in the slot? So 58% of the time, almost 60% of snaps KJ Osborne has been in the slot. So the, the number two thing, I think that Thielen kind of, it's, it's more of just who's the outside receiver and who's got to play inside and Thielen can get off of the line of scrimmage. And I think he could still create some separation, but he's just not a downfield threat at all. So opposing defenses don't have to worry about that.

Now this is where, to your question, I think this could play into it, because after that touchdown that KJ Osborne had against Detroit, and really the game he had against Detroit way back in week three, where he had five catches for 73 yards, in my mind, it was like, okay, that's how they're going to use him. Like he's going to run some of these deep routes from the slot, which is totally a thing that you're allowed to do. And that never really materialized. And then last week after they got him some quick passes, we talked about it on the show.

Hey, this is a great idea. They should use them on some of these quick throws and get them rolling on, on sort of short screens and maybe some slants and get his yards after catch going. And then they target him four times for 17 yards against the Giants. So that really never materialized either. And I think that this whole time,

the entire offense is just built around Justin Jefferson and the number one wide receiver and everything else is just sort of tert Jefferson and the number one wide receiver and everything else is just sort of tertiary and they need someone to have a good game so there isn't really a number two wide receiver and if anything it's TJ Hawkinson has become the number two wide receiver and I'm curious about this I'm going to look this up while we're talking here because TJ Hawkinson seems to me from watching like he's lining up as a wide receiver kind of a lot. Let's see here.

He's actually in the slot. Yeah. Okay. This is amazing. He's in the slot. Oh, that was it. That was in Detroit. Let me look here.

He's in the slot 34% of the time and as an outside wide receiver, 14% of the time, which if we do our math, almost 50% TJ Hawkinson is lining up as a wide receiver. So it's really kind of wide receiver two by committee, but I think it's become TJ Hawkinson is really the number two wide receiver. And we saw that in this last game that 13 catches 109 yards. That was the most receptions in a single game ever by a vikings tight end by the way but it's almost like can you even call him a tight end with as often as the guy lines up in the slot or at outside wide receiver and he rarely ever blocks on passing plays pff has this data it's

kind of amazing that he's running routes on 86 of the the dropbacks. So he's almost always going out for a pass from somewhere. I think we should look at him as really the number two option as a possession number two wide receiver. And then Thielen and KJ Osborne are kind of the third options. Yeah, you would definitely prefer that there's more of a down the field kind of guy, but everything is really designed to send Jefferson deep down the field and then throw underneath otherwise. And that's kind of how it's worked out. And, you know, the passing game is not still not as efficient as you'd like it to be. So is there a world where they should be putting more focus on KJ Osborne after seeing

what he can do a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I think if you're making that case, like that's pretty, that's a pretty good case that somebody else needs to have a big game every time in order for them to be a very good passing game. Right now, the Vikings are ninth as far as expected points added through the pass. That's pretty good. That's not, well, that was going into this week. They haven't updated the stats yet since the week hasn't finished out. Or wait, no, is it 15 games?

No, they have. Okay. So they're ninth. They're ninth in the overall, I would call it efficiency, but sort of the value that their passing game has brought on the whole. Normally teams that make the Super Bowl are in the top five. I think Cincinnati was maybe a touch outside of that last year in the same kind of range as the Vikings. So they could stand to be a little more efficient. And I think KJ Osborne is the one area where you'd say that it's been a little bit less than we expected and maybe there's more there. And every time Kirk Cousins talks about him, it sounds like he agrees with you.

It sounds like he wants more KJ Osborne in his life because he was kind of like, Hey guys, you know, I've kind of been saying this since training camp. He had a great training camp. So I think that, I think that everything runs through Jefferson to the, maybe to the point of their detriment at times where it's like, you kind of forget about other people, and then TJ Hawkinson becomes a secondary option. But it is definitely wide receiver two by committee at the moment, with Hawkinson more emerging as the number two option. Folks, we had some friends over this holiday, and my wife and I cracked open some Liquid Deaths at nine in the morning.

And let me tell you, that drew some strange looks, but it was also delicious and refreshing. The Liquid Death Mountain Water and Sparkling Water comes in a tall boy beer can, and that'll have people asking some questions sometimes, but it's also saving the environment. Liquid Death gives 10% of profits to bring an end to plastic bottles. So every time you're drinking from the can, you're doing a little bit of good in the world. So go to liquiddeath.com slash insider to find out more or get Liquid Death at Target, Hy-Vee, 7-Eleven, or Whole Foods. Again, liquiddeath.com slash insider. This question comes from Dustin.

Does this team's immediate future rest on what happens in the playoffs? If they make it to the NFC Championship game, I could see them bringing people back and restructuring or extending contracts for cap space, even drafting a wide receiver in the first round. If they lose wildcard weekend or get embarrassed in the divisional round, would they trade or release veterans and let Kirk's contract run its course and start looking at drafting a quarterback in the first round? I think we've kind of gone past go with that a little bit. Maybe. I don't know. Like it's hard to put myself in the headspace of Kweisi Adafomensa, who is an analytics person.

And you know that he's looking at these numbers. And what we have to understand about people who make decisions in the nfl is that they don't make them on hope and when they do they usually break you know blow up in their face or end up sort of breaking down a team just in general and causing problems if you're making you know kind of hopeful decisions so they're making objective decisions based on data based on evidence and if this team loses in the first, I think it will be very easy to say that the evidence on the whole beyond their win loss record suggested that they were a pretty flawed team this year.

If they go to the NFC championship, yeah, it's a lot harder to say that they were flawed. It's a little easier to say maybe they were just blessed or had the right combination to win some of those games close and they could continue doing it in the playoffs. I have a tough time thinking that you can win 13 games or maybe 14 games, depending on whether week 18 matters or what they do this week and so forth. But let's just call it 13 that you can win 13 games and be the number two C in the NFC and then say, no, we're going to make a lot of changes. I, you know, there have been teams that have had this happen before and the following year they've come apart and yeah, it's like 2019 to 2020 where they desperately tried to patch it back together after they lost some players due to the cap.

And we've seen this movie before, and we've seen other teams do it before, where they tried, like, hey, we got this far, and now we're going to try to bring in this guy or that guy, and then it just doesn't work out. It's always funny to go back. Let me see if I can find it. There's a website that does, like, standings on this date. Let's see. And I, and I wonder about last year, like the NFL standings, maybe I won't be able to find this on the fly, but the NFL standings for last year on Christmas would be kind of fun to look at because I mean, just look at

like how different that everything was and how different it could be. Okay, so I can do this through football reference. So you're just getting me searching a lot of stuff on the fly and trying to figure this out. But maybe I'm going to have too much trouble trying to figure this out. But, you know, it's just, it's okay. I can do this. I can do this. Everybody hang tight.

I can figure this out. December 25th, 2021. Let's see. We'll get this down and we'll get our answer. Show standings on December 25th last year. Okay. So I think what we find is that, let's see, the Green Bay Packers. I mean, that's a good example, right? That team last year had a point differential that was pretty underwhelming for a championship caliber team. They were 12 and three, same record as the Vikings. And now of course they lost Devante Adams, whereas the Vikings will not be losing Justin Jefferson this off season, unless something absolutely crazy happens,

but I'm pretty sure he'll be back. Tampa Bay Buccaneers were 10-4 on this date. The Arizona Cardinals were 10-5. Think about this. Now, this is your nightmare scenario right there. The Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams were 10-4 and 10-5 on this date last year. Look at those teams right now. Because they pushed all the chips to the middle of the table, they had a lot of older players, and it was their year to go for it. Now, one of those teams won the championship.

The other team fell apart in the playoffs and is a disaster. So it's kind of like, who are you going to be? Because the Vikings will probably be one of those two teams, right? They either come apart early in the playoffs or they go and play for a Super Bowl. But, I mean, if the writing is on the wall there, you would have to do a lot to change the reality that a lot of players are older and expensive, and it's going to be harder to hold this thing together through next year.

But if you win 13 games, how can you go to ownership and say, well, you know, actually, we don't want to pay Patrick Peterson what he's going to demand because he's been amazing, but, or look, Zedaria Smith is expensive now, or hey, Daniil Hunter has been great. I think he's been great. I think it's been a little more subtle greatness than it has been in the past with like more gaudy sack numbers. But I mean, his PFF grades have got him in the top 15 in the NFL at his position, but

he's going to need a lot of money. Adam Thielen's contract. What are you doing with that thing? There's a lot of stuff that, I mean, and of course at the center of this, the price tag for Kirk cousins, I know we talked about this,

but he's going to want a five-year contract extension or four-year contract extension. That's looking at a hundred plus million in guaranteed money and if i'm his agent after this season i'm going to say you guys asked him to win he did nothing but win show me the money and that is not going to be the easiest situation for the vikings as they address their future which is why the next couple of weeks i mean just don't think about the future for the next couple of weeks. It's all about right now.

It's all about winning these games and living week to week with this team. Because I think that we've already passed the point where you could argue. Now, if they had gone 5-1 to start the year, 6-1, 7-2, those types of things, fallen off in the second half of the season ended the year with 11 wins maybe 10 and then lost in the first round you could have said all right well look it's just not working it's just not enough but are you going to tell justin jefferson that the quarterback who got him to 13 wins and who got him to the record in the nfl for receiving you're gonna say no actually there's someone else we need to draft.

Like, I don't know. I think you've just gotten to the point where you need to keep riding that train. And I think that goes for a lot of things. I believe, yes, that they will bring everybody back, and they're going to argue, hey, Louis Scene's going to return. Andrew Booth's going to come back. You know, I guess maybe you found a ball player in Duke Shelley. I don't know.

But more likely you're talking about some of the draft picks. Hey, we can add this guy or that guy or move this money around and try to go for it again. I think that's what you're looking at for next season. So whether that works or not, we'll address in the offseason. But there was a threshold for me that once they cleared it and it was probably the Colts game where they really, or this last week where they cleared it, where you just said, like, they're not going to, they're not going to look at this. Like they're going to rebuild at

any point. They're just going to keep taking swings. So based on recent history, you really have to hope this year works out over the next couple weeks. So that's what makes it fun, right? Like, this is intense. This means a lot. Okay, this one comes from our friend at Pat the Pingu. Says, I've got a hot take for fans only pod following another heart attack inducing game. Justin Jefferson is the most important player on the team he plays for in the NFL, a.k.a. MVP. Kirk throwing to Justin Jefferson would be better than my homes

throwing to Thielen, KJ Osborne and Jalen Naylor. No, no, no, it is. It is a hot take and I respect it and I respect hot takes, but I'm going to read you who Patrick Mahomes wide receivers are in just a

second. As soon as I can call them up. Because I don't know that, you know, when we watch the same team all the time, that we know other teams' rosters and stuff like that. But here's your, other than Kelsey, we know Kelsey's great. Juju Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdez-Scandling, Noah Gray. Anybody know who Noah Gray is? Nicole Hardman, Sky Moore, Justin Watson, Jody Forsten,

Kadarius Toney, who almost never plays. Those are the players that Patrick Mahomes is having this season. If you take Mahomes off of the Kansas City Chiefs, they are a completely different franchise. They are the number two team in scoring, number one team in offensive yards. That's the difference right there, is that the Minnesota Vikings throwing to Justin Jefferson all the time can be a top 10 offense. Patrick Mahomes can give you wide receivers that are just guys from other teams that other teams let go, who were number two or number three

receivers for other teams and have the number two scoring offense in the entire NFL. But we're comparing Jefferson to Mahomes though. Like think about that. Like think about how many, how many quarterbacks is Justin Jefferson more valuable than, and it might even be his own included. So it might be like he's out of 32 starting quarterbacks. How many was he more valuable than this season? I don't know. 20 of them. It's yeah. It's, it's, it's crazy to think about, uh, how valuable he's been. And if you're putting him in the conversation for MVP, I do not disagree with you after watching all of these games. I can't say Patrick Mahomes is one of the most valuable players ever at the

quarterback position, which is the most valuable of all the positions. So it's hard. Like when you compare anything to that, it's like, okay, well, you know,

Joe Montana or something, you know what I mean? Like when you compare anything to that it's like okay well you know like joe montana or something you know what i mean like when you you're talking about someone who is in the range of the greatest quarterbacks ever your john elway's your montana's your tom brady's that's not something a receiver is ever going to be able to achieve uh just the jefferson averages 130 yards a game or something, but that's only a third of the offense or a fourth or whatever. It's probably like 35 to 40% of the Vikings offense, if that. So that's opposed to Patrick Mahomes, who's like 90% of Kansas City's offense. It's a different conversation when you're talking about it against the best quarterback in the league, but that doesn't take away from easily the offensive player of the year in Justin Jefferson and a unbelievably valuable player. Folks, if you didn't get the Minnesota sports attire that you need for the playoff run for Christmas, go to

sodastick.com. That's S O T A S T-s-t-i-c-k.com and check out all their great football designs for hats hoodies t-shirts and use the promo code purple insider at checkout uh next question comes from sarah says do you think if t.j hockinson keeps getting better that uh irv smith is out as the tight end yes yep i think uh t.j Smith is out as the tight end. Yes. Yep. I think TJ Hawkinson is the tight end for the Vikings next year. He is under contract, which can we just stop and talk about how the Detroit Lions gave the Vikings a great football player and how absurd that is?

I mean, draft day trades are different. Draft day trades are, here's my guess. Here's your guess. We'll see what happens. And we don't know, like the Vikings might've loved Jamison Williams. I think that's even possible that they did, but they looked at the value and said, well, okay, we're taking our guests. We're getting chips. We're turning them in or we're getting dice rolls, we're taking our guess. We're getting chips. We're turning them in or we're getting dice rolls and we're rolling our dice.

You're going to do it. We're going to do it. Nobody knows how it's going to work out. Okay. That's very different in my mind than saying we have this really excellent football player. Would you like him for multiple seasons?

I mean, I think that Brad Holmes has done a tremendous job in Detroit. But that was a highway robbery by the Vikings. And Kweisi Adafo-Mensa crushing his first real trade for TJ Hawkinson. I knew he was good because we've watched the Vikings play against Hawkinson. I don't think that I knew that he was this good to go up and moss somebody like he did. And here's Detroit fighting for a playoff spot where they might play you in the first round. And your number two receiving option, who is on pace as a Viking for 110 catches.

I saw someone on Twitter, like you gave him to a division opponent. Wow. Detroit, even when Detroit's competent, there's still Detroit in a lot of ways. So to your question, I know that's just me rambling, but to your question, yes. Irv Smith, I think his time in Minnesota is done. He never really fit to begin with. He's been hurt constantly throughout the season, and there's always been a lot of potential there. We might see him in another place two years from now where we're

going, wow, that Irv Smith Jr., the guy the Vikings drafted in the second round back when, now has 78 catches for the Seahawks or something. I don't know. They have no offense. Somebody, whatever. It doesn't matter. Arizona. But he hasn't been a fit here. His contract is up after this season. Even if they get him back this year, he's only going to play a handful of snaps per game. In fact, you would rather have Johnny Munt to tell you the truth because Johnny Munt catches the ball when it's thrown to him on a quick pass or a play action or something like that, but he can do all the blocking.

That's not really Irv Smith's thing. I kind of like when they went big the other day, when they had Hawkinson and Johnny Munt on the field and even threw in some C.J. Hamm at times, I thought, like, I actually kind of like this combination because you could still throw with Jefferson and Hawkinson out there as two legitimate options, but you've also got the beef as well and the blocking ability hockinson is a proven pro bowl excellent nfl player who's probably like the sixth best fifth fourth best

tight end in the league somewhere in that range he's not kelsey's not kittle but he might be right behind those guys and irv sm Smith is just a failure to launch. I mean, we've seen it a couple times in training camp, but it has never really come to fruition in the NFL. So I wouldn't be shocked if someday that it does, if he could stay healthy. But I think he's done after this year in Minnesota and that they will be bringing back Hawkinson on his fifth year option. And then they'll have to have a discussion about signing him to a long-term

contract extension after that. But I would not be surprised if this team wants TJ Hawkinson, KJ Osborne, Justin Jefferson, and drafted receiver X to go forward in the future. And I mean, you can't argue with that group of weapons. I'm still just sort of shaking my head about Detroit giving up this player.

And then we did on the day that it happened. We did. It's like, really? They're giving their division team a good player, huh? Okay. Not a great choice. Okay. Next question from Juan.

And you know, like, you know, it'll be different. Here's how you know it's different. If the wild card round happens and they play Detroit and TJ Hawkinson catches the game winning touchdown, then you know, it's all different. Then all curses are off the table at that point. I mean, the kicker made a 61 yard kick to win a game. Like you're already feeling like these curses are a little, they're wobbling in the corner at this point.

But if Hawkinson catches a game winner and Jamison Williams drops an open pass or something, like, okay, all curses are off. This one comes from Juan. He says, should the Vikings be aggressive on fourth downs to continue drives and let the defense hold their own with short fields? In other words, should we forget about field position

and say, screw it uh it sounds crazy i know but hear me out the angriest i've been as a vikings fan was the 2019 san fran divisional game the niners ran the ball down our throats and held possession all game it felt hopeless i'm terrified that a great team like philly dallas or san fran can do that to us again these methodical offenses have the ability to keep our aging defense out on the field and extend drives and wear us out and then go for the kill shot. The worst thing for this team

is to have our best weapons on the sideline. Our current defense is aging and terrible in the open field. You've talked about how much space they leave open in the middle of the field, and I think it's the perfect things for teams to exploit in the playoffs and dominate possessions. The Giants did this a bit where they found soft spots and kept moving little by little.

Right, and if they hadn't fumbled or committed a penalty or two, that could have been a totally different game. And Juan says that the defense was useless until they had less grass to cover, which has kind of been who they have been in the red zone recently. It's a compelling argument, my friend. It really is. It really is. It is a very compelling argument to say, why would you give San Francisco or Philly or

Dallas or even whoever you're playing in the wildcard game, especially those teams, the ball where they can drive down the field dominate the possession run up the play counter which we've talked about how many plays this defense has been on the field for and actually against the giants because of the couple of turnovers i didn't mention the interception uh they only were on the field for 66 plays so they actually kind of got a bit of a breather and more of an average game in comparison to the 80 or 90 play marathons that they've had happen in recent weeks. But I don't have a case against it only to say, I don't think they would do it, but I've always thought that where coaches overthink it way too much because of how bad

it looks in real time is when you have a fourth and two or something and you're at your own 40, it just looks so bad. If you fail, it feels like, Oh my gosh, what did you do? But so many times, even when you turn the ball over there, the other team feels like they have found money and they end up kicking a field goal. I don't know why that is. And I guess I would have to study it. I've always thought that going for it in that middle range of between the 40 and 40 is just an absolute must every time and partly because teams move the ball so easily now if you have the best defense in the nfl i get it use ryan wright punt it down to the other two yard line but you make a great point that even when Ryan Wright did that a couple of times against the Giants, one time sort of accidentally, it did not matter. They

just picked it up and they just moved it down the field. And I mean, the Giants offense came into the game, I think 20th in the league, and they moved the ball on the Vikings defense like they were number one in the league for a lot of that game it was over 400 yards again daniel jones ended up with a great overall game outside of that interception i mean dak prescott is in a completely different universe than daniel jones i mean he's a superstar and jalen hurts is competing for the mvp and you know brock purdy but is but that offense is built on this type of stuff is just quick passes over the middle play actions misdirection getting guys yards after catch and then having long drives that's what san francisco does so well and it's one of the reasons their defense is so dominant they're

always fresh because their offense is on the field a lot or at least that's my perception i i love this point and i think it's something to consider. I just have not felt like Kevin O'Connell is some next level galaxy brain in a good way. Like he's seeing the matrix and he's doing everything different. I don't think he's doing the job badly when it comes to coaching. There are some timeouts here or there where I think he should have it back. There are some times where I think that he's overthought it a little bit on certain play calls. Fourth and two is the right decision,

but you're throwing the ball down the sideline. Like maybe that's Kirk. I don't know. But if they had lost that game, we would have been talking about that a lot. Like what happened there? Sometimes you could just run the ball for a first down, but considering that you have the universe's best wide receiver, a running who can break one at any time kj osborne who's been great on these

third downs and fourth downs and short yeah i mean going for it on fourth down and then giving your defense a short field to deal with where they just need to what does he say like toughen up or something or tighten up whatever he says he says it. Um, but like tighten up right there. It might work. I mean, it might be something that works. I buy this entirely as a great strategy. I don't think we'll see it. I don't think we'll see the way that he's managed games change in part because it's worked and he's, you know, they put a lot of emphasis in being the situational masters and they have absolutely dominated the tightest situations. But if the plan is, hey, you're going to get it and keep drives going and win, or if you make a mistake, you're going to hold them to a field goal.

You're going to try to trust your defense in the shorter field. It's a very boomer bus strategy for a very boomer bus team. Like I like it, but if you're listening to the saying that you don't like it, I get, I get you because you have one of the best punters in the league. And also you're thinking like, what if the defense doesn't tighten up against those better quarterbacks or better offenses. And then you're just getting blown out. So that it's, it's a high variance strategy for a team that plays high variance type of football, where it's a lot of like Justin Jefferson or nothing. It's a lot of three and outs or amazing touchdown drives. It's a lot of interception or give up a long drive or a touchdown or make a red zone stop

after a 75 yard drive. Like a lot of those things are not really the most consistent, efficient way to do things anyway. Um, so you kind of would increase the variance there, but look when the Philadelphia Eagles had a backup quarterback in and they were playing with found money, what did they do? They went for all those fourth downs. They hit on them. It had, they not, they would have called Doug Peterson a fool. They would have said, what is he doing? Like, why is he going for these fourth downs with Nick Foles and failing? But it was the right thing to do.

So Juan, I like the way you think, man. I think that's good. Okay, let's see. Let me get in another question or two here. Look around. Oh, okay. in another question or two here uh look around oh okay uh at dr mr e says uh although it looks like uh let's say oh okay says um uh let's see i don't know how far back this goes because i too was a 90s nfl fan uh any 80s games i watched were as a child and i was probably sucking my thumb uh we

see a lot of players referring to other players as future Hall of Famers. For instance, on the current Vikings roster, Harrison Smith and Patrick Peterson have received this pseudo title. I have all sorts of thoughts on this, but let me start with a few short questions. When is the first instance you remember a player being called a future Hall of Famer? That might be a question for judd or mark the guys who've been around a little bit longer uh it's obvious that peterson could retire today and just wait the minimum and don the gold jacket i feel like harrison smith is there too so who else on

the vikings has an even outside chance of cementing this title as future hall of famer and what would they need to do to get there i am hesitant to use use it on Harrison Smith because we've kind of been over that a little just because the standard he isn't currently meeting the standard of other hall of fame defensive backs. That's not to say I don't think he's great or that he's been a total game changer for this defense for many, many years, or he's been one of the most consistent, excellent players in the league. It's just that his resume based on the awards and things like that does not match up to hall of famers. And there's, that's again, not my case against them. It's just the reality in comparison to history. Patrick Peterson has a great argument for it by the hall of fame monitor on pro football reference, i mean one of the best arguments ever for it is

patrick peterson whereas harrison smith is probably too far down the list at this moment he really needed an all pro this year and didn't get that and to not have the pro bowl as a first team pro bowler that that's going to hurt him as well if he doesn't get another pro bowl i don't think he's making the hall of fame so sometimes guys refer to it because they think that like hey like i'm playing with this great player he's a future hall of famer he's 33 years old and that's what i see from his career and it's just a way to like give someone the highest compliment which of course harrison smith totally deserves i don't expect nfl players to be like well the hall of fame monitor i'm bro football right like that's not how they think they think look at the pro bowls look at what this guy NFL players to be like, well, the hall of fame monitor, I'm bro football, right? Like that's not how they think. They think, look at the pro bowls, look at what this guy's like to be around. That's a hall of fame caliber player. Uh, so, you know, maybe there's like the Terrell Davis rule or something with Justin Jefferson, but he's going to need many more years to make the hall of

fame. I don't think there's anybody else who is on this roster that would get that discussion. I mean, I think that, um, Daniel Hunter is somebody when you look at his age and we can still talk about like how funny this is that Daniel Hunter is still, when you look at his age, and we can still talk about how funny this is, that Daniil Hunter is still not crazy old. I think he's 28 at this point, and for the longest time, it's just been like, how old is Daniil Hunter? Still not that old. That guy could be, if he can rack up, if he can accumulate the statistics. The injuries certainly hurt him for those accumulation stats.

Of course, Adam Thielen is him for those accumulation stats. Of course, you know, Adam Thielen is sort of a short run. Eric Hendricks is probably not there yet with just one, or won't ever get there with just one all pro and plus 30 linebackers usually don't have a great case. As far as who else I've covered, I really don't know. I mean, I've covered obviously some really good players like Everson Griffin. That's a ring of honor type of guy. Um, when I was in Buffalo, they had Mario Williams and I think he's a little bit short as well, but he might've been called something like future hall of famer. Uh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason why they're hard to come across and they're why there's an extremely high standard. So you don't have it like baseball where it's like, um, relief pitchers making the hall of fame from the eighties. You

know, it's like, come on, really? You know, it's goose gossage, really a hall of famer. Like, I don't know if you're a Viking or if you're a Yankees fan, like maybe you're mad at that, but it's like, really? The guy thought the guy was just a pretty good relief pitcher. I think that the NFL wants to avoid that at all costs. And sometimes they go too far where there's a backlog of excellent players. And that's what we're talking about with Harrison Smith, where there's a backlog of defensive backs who are really, really good that did not make the hall of fame and may never make the hall of fame because that's just life with the pro football hall of fame. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, Jefferson, Jefferson, if he continues, even some version of this will make

the hall of fame for sure. I don't think even with a Superbowl that Kirk cousins would, uh, usually counting numbers are a big thing. I mean, he, you know, he would keep playing. So maybe, but I don't think Matthew Stafford's going in and they have similar careers and Stafford has more of the counting numbers because he started from the time he was a young player. Yeah, there's, there's nobody else that it's, it's, you don't run across them very often. I mean, even someone like Terrence Newman was so good and had such an amazing career, but no one talked about him like that.

It's really only like Patrick Peterson and Harrison Smith, the guys who make all pros. But it's an interesting discussion. I think Hunter is the outside chance for sure that over the next couple of years, if he continues to get 10 sacks per season year after year, but even that, like look at Jared Allen. I mean, he's one of the best sack artists of all time and he's still on the outside waiting. So, you know, they're trying to make his Hall of Fame push now time and he's still on the outside waiting so you know they're trying to make his hall of fame push now but he's he's still waiting there so not not too many of those guys in football anyway uh great stuff guys really appreciate all of those questions continue to send them purpleinsider.com or at matthew collar on twitter actually wait did i get one more today

i i could save that for another episode okay i'll save that for another episode i was trying to poke through and just get the most recent ones out there so anyway great stuff guys really appreciate all the time hope you all had a great great christmas and uh we will talk again soon