Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - O'Connell, Adofo-Mensah talk cutting Jaren Hall for Brett Rypien and 2022 draft

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press break down Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's press conference and Kevin O'Connell's sit-down with beat reporters on cuts, the decision to waive Jaren Hall in favor of Brett Rypien and their deep dive into the 2022 draft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. I'm Matthew Pollard here along with Dane Mizutani for a Porch podcast. We just drove from TCO Performance Center following a conversation with Kevin O'Connell and press conference with Kweisi Adafomensa. And now we are here to talk about everything we learned about what went wrong with the 2022 draft, which was the main focus of our conversation but i want to start in a slightly different spot which is with jaron hall i think it

came as a little bit of a surprise to some that the vikings decided to cut jaron hall and to sign brett rippin who was with chicago but he's also been with several different teams, including the Jets, including the Denver Broncos. I remember seeing him with the Broncos in a joint practice like four years ago, which just tells you how some of these journeyman quarterbacks really bounce around. But it sounds like they want Jaron Hall back. As of this moment, we don't have news on him

coming back to the practice squad. I would be very surprised, though, if he ended up anywhere else. So your take, Mr. Mizdani, on the handling of the backup quarterback situation thus far. Yeah, I will say I was surprised at first in a vacuum when it comes out that Jaron Hall has been waived because I thought he was impressive through the preseason. I thought there was kind of an investment in his development. And when you first hear someone getting waived, you kind of assume like, is it over for them? And it's clear it's not. Why I think it was actually kind of a smart, like functional roster move to do it the way they did is because now all the practice squads are

filled. And while Jaron Hall might not have been claimed off of waivers anyway this week, now there's a very low chance he is because a lot of times these teams have filled out their practice squads and it looks kind of the way they want it to look. Claiming Jaron Hall at this point would then have to move some other things around. So it gives you a better chance to get him through waivers. But I think what was a takeaway from today was that they're still kind of invested in his development, but they don't want him to play. So how invested can you be in his development when you're not willing to play him?

That's a question that I think they will continue to ask themselves as they work and progress to kind of grow Jaron Hall into a quarterback they hope he can be. If it's a backup, I don't know. But looking at kind of the whole approach and how they've handled this backup quarterback situation now, I think it is interesting that they bring in a guy like Brett Rippon and they obviously already have a guy like Nick Mullins in. It shows kind of how last year and how everything went wrong

has kind of shaped the way that they want to kind of design this quarterback room. In a perfect world for the Vikings, Sam Darnold would be the quarterback all year. He would excel, and you wouldn't have to be thinking about making a change at any point. If they have to make a change at any point because Sam Darnold is bad, they're screwed. They're screwed either way. But I think bringing in Brett Rippin, having Nick Mullins on the roster, you at least give yourself at least these guys have played NFL games before.

It looked so bad with Jaron Hall. I don't think they wanted to go there with him. And it does leave me kind of wondering, are they thinking about making another move at some point with backup quarterback? I don't think they wanted to go there with him. And it does leave me kind of wondering, are they thinking about making another move at some point with backup quarterback? But there's clearly an investment in plan B. Whereas before it was kind of, you rely on Kirk Cousins and his, you know, durability to get through the season. And if he gets hurt, you're screwed.

You're still screwed if Sam Darnold gets hurt or if Sam Darnold is bad but you have to have a plan b as last year showed and I think this is kind of a kind of a step in that direction um at the expense of Jaron Hall's spot on the roster right now yeah I think it's always important to remember that uh we love to react to preseason stuff and I think for certain people it matters. It mattered to Tristan Jackson. It mattered to Taki Taimani. But when it comes to quarterbacks and quarterback stats, I think that we have enough evidence over our times covering the team and certain instances where there have been major arguments within the fans

about backup quarterbacks that just throwing to a wide-open receiver who then runs 40 more yards for a touchdown is not going to mean that there is actually something there with a player and with jaron hall i agree that they have invested enough in him where they would want him back on the practice squad and in an ideal scenario someday jaron hall is their backup quarterback but we're now two years into this and they don't trust him to be on the field i think we can probably call it at this point a lot of precincts are reporting that jaron hall's not a backup in the league that he is more of one of those guys that

bounces around as a number three quarterback everybody likes him he's a professional he could go in the preseason he could give you reps and what I thought he did a really good job of is giving Tristan Jackson a chance, giving Trent Shurfield a chance, allowing for the coaching staff to be able to evaluate those players and ultimately make those decisions because he played well enough under those circumstances. But it's pretty clear from this move that we don't really want you anywhere near the field in an actual football game which is fine because most people are not capable of doing that i don't know that brett

rippin is going to be any better than what jaron hall was based on his handful of career times getting in actual games it hasn't gone particularly well it's a little more physically gifted he does have an arm yeah if i remember correctly but i also think that anytime we're talking about backup quarterbacks, screwed is usually the thing 90% of the time. There's probably five or six teams in the league who could say, you know what, if our starter went down, we could survive it. And most teams that are in a decent place with that, they're usually good teams.

So like the Pittsburgh Steelers last year, they were not entirely screwed when they had to go to Mason Rudolph, but they were a really good football team, especially their defensive side was one of the best in the NFL. And if the Vikings were going to survive any non-Sam Darnold games, unless they make a major change and get someone who is significantly better than Nick Mullins, they're all kind of Nick Mullins. I mean, when you look at Nick Mullins' career stats, it's actually kind of funny to compare him to other backup quarterbacks because he has just as good or better numbers than a lot of backup quarterbacks. When you look at box score

stats. Now, if you look at something like PFF or QBR, those turnovers and turnover worthy plays usually crush his grades. They may go out and look for somebody else. Tyler Huntley got waived. He got the Ravens to a playoff game where they might have won had he not fumbled at the goal line. But we're still all talking about different versions of Josh Dobbs for anybody else that you could bring in at this point. So I guess my question is, do we think Sam Darnold could play a full season? Because he has not been able to do that throughout his career.

And that's what they're going to need if they're going to have a chance to make the playoffs, is Sam Darnold to remain healthy and not have any point during the year where Kevin O'Connell walks into a meeting and says to Josh McCown, should we bench him or should we keep going with this? Because when Mullins threw four picks, they did bench him for a Jaron Hall that wasn't anywhere near ready. And I just want to say that there is a little bit of misremembering how that went. I thought that if they believed that Jaron Hall was ready, then sure, it's fine to play him. But now they've talked as like, oh, well, you know, it was too bad.

We pushed him into action. You didn't have to play him but now they've talked as it like oh well you know it was too bad we pushed him into action like you didn't have to push him into action not the first time they did when he got hurt but not the second time they did that as a reaction to bad play which makes you wonder could sam darnold have a point in this season where they get frustrated and decide to do something else because throughout his career he's had those massive down streaks at times yeah it's certainly possible like i would hope they would use last year as a case study not to do that like not to be so reactionary and i get it last year when you were in that fire kirk obviously goes down josh dobbs was amazing and then he was not amazing at all Nick Mullins was a disaster with some

roller coaster fireworks in between so I get like the pressure cooker of like let's try this guy um but I would hope that even if Sam Darnold struggles at times and I think he probably will because they're like he just he's a walking turnover at points in his career with a really nice arm so i think there's going to be times where you might have that temptation of like should we should we do it don't um i think that barring injury sam darnall will play the whole season for the vikings because they learned from last year um I think that there's going to be times where the fan base might say, can we do something else? And that's when I want people to think back to August 29th on the porch when we talk about the backup quarterback always seems better in theory, but you're screwed if the backup quarterback has to play. So unless, like you said, unless the Vikings go out and get a top-tier backup,

and I don't even know who that would be right now because if you have a top-tier backup, you're keeping them, then there really is no reason, even if there are ups, if there are downs with Sam Darnold, that he shouldn't just play out the string. Injury is obviously a different story. And I've been kind of bullish on Sam Darnold. I think he's going to have his best season to date

because that's not that hard to do right now because of the weapons he has around him. But I do think it's going to be more of a rollercoaster. I just hope they're willing to stay on the rollercoaster and not jump off and go somewhere else because I don't think

just because it worked with Case Keenum once upon a time I think people think that roller coaster and not jump off and and go somewhere else because i don't think like just because it worked with case keenum once upon a time i think people think that you just switch the backup and it's gonna be fine more often it looks like last season than you know the horseshoe case keenum year so to answer your question in a long-winded way yes i think sam darnold plays the whole year for better or for worse. Okay, let me throw a scenario at you that just came to mind as you were talking about this. Let's just say that the Vikings start out 1-6, okay?

But somehow Sam Darnold hasn't been that bad. Let's say that he has like an 88 quarterback rating, and he's been okay but will reichard missed the game-winning field goal one week not that that could ever happen that would never happen possible based on what we've seen in training camp this is why it's a hypothetical uh but let's just say you know maybe they uh had the other teams that they play that are very good just outperform them because houston's a betterperform them because Houston's a better team because Green Bay's a better team and they lose six one score games and Sam Darnold played well and another team

that has high expectations gets its quarterback hurt and they call and they say look you know we are we're we're five and two we're winning winning our division, whatever team X. But our quarterback just went out for the year. Can you trade us Sam Darnold? Is it worth looking for someone who could play the rest of the way? Because I don't know that Nick Mullins could play all those games. I don't know that Brett Rippon, and I definitely know that Jaron Hall can't play all those games. Is it worth trying to find someone who has started multiple games over their career to be ready for that potential scenario where you need a quarterback who can keep you fairly

competitive the rest of the way but also hey they're offering a second round pick and you don't have many draft picks for next year like this is something that could happen to them yeah it could i see someone something like that happening? Probably not. But I think the crux of that hypothetical is probably reason enough to at least canvas the market on a backup quarterback that isn't Nick Mullins, that isn't Brett Rippon. Because generally speaking about backup quarterbacks in the past I haven't

cared because I don't know if it really matters if you have to go to your backup quarterback but this is a weirder year and obviously the calculus changed when J.J. McCarthy got hurt but yeah I think if there is an option out there that you, you being Kweisi Adapamense, Kevin O'Connell think could help the football team perform at a higher level than any combination of Nick Mullins and Brett Rippin, you should do it. And I don't mean trade draft capital cause you don't have a lot of it,

but if it's Tyler Huntley sitting out there, Mike White sitting out there just any guy that that you've seen flashes over the course of their career that look better than Nick Mullins I think it's worth exploring that avenue um if Sam Darnold is good through the first seven weeks of the season they're one in six like this hypothetical talked about and a team offers you a second round pick I would be interested what the Vikings do because it would be kind of a departure from what they've done in the past to just say like you would be quitting on the year at that point you're one in six so you might want to quit on the year anyway but they've never really quit on a year. So it would be interesting to see that kind of play out. But I think to your point about just like having that conversation, that hypothetical

and the discussion and discourse it creates, like, yeah, it's probably worth trying to see if there is a different backup quarterback out there. Just because I don't feel great if Sam Darnold either goes down or is rollercoaster up and down Sam Darnold about the options behind him. You're very much straining yourself on this. You're trying. I guess they should try to get somebody. It's just because backup quarterbacks, it's so hard to get, like, yeah, they need to go do it.

Like, because they're just, they're backups for a reason, and the available ones aren't good. So, like, yeah, if they could get a guy better than Nick Mullins, they should. But that sounds better in theory than than being able to actually execute it Sam Darnold is starting for this team there's not 32 competent starting quarterbacks much less if you are if Sam Darnold was a backup as he was in San Francisco he's one of the better backups in the entire league but that kind of shows you the fact that he was a backup last year and no one made him a starter just where this whole

thing is with backup quarterbacks in the nfl which means that we shouldn't spend much more time on this people just love backup quarterbacks love talking about them and uh also this is the windiest porch podcast so i apologize if uh if we've got a little wind noise coming in but the running back situation now is kind of interesting so we heard from Kwesi Adafo-Mensa about the running backs and why Kenny Wongwu didn't make the roster but Miles Gaskin did and the answer is that Miles Gaskin is going to be the kick returner a veteran player formerly of the Miami Dolphins that hasn't played a whole heck of a lot in the last couple of years but i also got the sense that

they like that miles gaskin could play multiple things on special teams and they didn't say it at any point but i think we could infer that miles gaskin can block a linebacker or safety should they run free at your quarterback as happened with kenny wong woo when he got absolutely steamrolled against the raiders and i think that wong woo when he got absolutely steamrolled against the raiders and i think that wong woo had something like i don't have the stats right in front of me but there was something like eight pass blocking snaps and four pressures or something something like that i just don't think that they could trust him as anything more than a kick returner but it also sounds like they don't think that the kick return is going to be the same

they they seem to feel that the kick return is going to require a more physical element to it and Wong Wu is a pure speed guy he's not a run between the tackles he's not break tackle type of guy and it may just be different but it also sounds like they could trust Gaskin and they must have been sure that they could get him to the practice squad because when they cut him and there's only two running backs, you're looking around going, well, who's going to play running back here? But I guess they're going to elevate Gaskin until they have to sign him to the 53. And I still think if there's another running back out there

that they have to add to that position. But what was your feeling on how they handled the running back room? Yeah, I think they tried to make it about Myles Gaskin as much as they could. Kweisi Dapamensa talked today. Kevin O'Connell talked today. They tried to make the roster decision to cut Ken Anuang more about Myles Gaskin. And I guess I kind of see it like, yes,

Myles Gaskin's more accomplished as a running back and you can theoretically play him at a point in time during the season. Whereas I don't think you'd feel comfortable doing that with Kenny Nwongwu. But what I'm saying when I say that they tried to make it about Miles Gaskin, it was about Kenny Nwongwu. It was about the things that he can't do. And if you had a crystal ball and told the vikings kenny noong was going to return five kickoffs for a touchdown this year they would have kept him on the roster but i think they nobody really knows what to expect

with this play and nobody knows how teams are going to handle it. So it's not enough to just say you're a really good kick returner, your spot on the roster is safe because they need you to do more. And Kevin O'Connell said something interesting. It was like don't think about the 53, think about the 48. Basically think about the people who are playing on game day. And Myles Gaskin is going to be a guy playing on game day because he can do a lot. He can kick return, which is what he's going to be a guy playing on game day because he can do a lot. He can kick return, which is what he's going to be for them.

He can personal protect on punt. He can play running back if you have to have him do that. And if he is playing running back, he can pass protect in a way that I don't think Kenny Nwongwu could, or they didn't feel the full trust in having Kenny Nwongwu do that so like it was surprising when Kenny got cut on roster cut down day but then when you hear them talk about it actually kind of makes sense like part of me was what are they going to do for kick return now like and I think the idea is like try and have it be a play that matters, but it probably is not going to be a game-breaking play enough to make up for all the deficiencies that you lose

keeping Kenny Nwongwu over Myles Gaskin. So it's kind of crazy we're talking so much about a third running back, but it does like show kind of the insight of how you roster build in the NFL. Like they have to do more than just one thing. You have to have more in your bag than just one thing. And while Kenny Nwongu has one thing he does really well, Myles Gaskin has three or four things that he does pretty well. And that weighs out and wins in the end. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR

code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular visit uscellular.com slash built for us to get started and when you can't project what that kick return is actually going to look like. I think that made it more difficult. If this was 2006 and you knew that he was going to get 58 kick returns this year for the long kick return where he would have the full ramp up and he would be able to get the motor up to 100% like he did with the couple kick returns for touchdown,

I don't think there's any chance you get rid of him because those players used to be major assets for teams if you had a great kick returner that was a nightmare for your opponents they had to worry about all the time but then once they start kicking out of the back of the end zone that reduces uh your value and then now with this first of all we don't know how much they're even going to kick off how many opportunities they're going to be and we also don't know as clearly what the skill sets are that are going to be the best for those uh for this new kickoff and it might just be being able to break a tackle or two it might just be being able to be the second guy which i think is a factor too if there's two guys back there you need a blocker and are you playing 10 on 11 or are you

playing 11 on 11 and if it's wong woo maybe you feel like you're playing 11 on 11. This is the deep in the weeds football that happens right before we get a real game to talk about, I think. But that was the most notable cut. So we did get some answers on that. Now, we should probably shift to the 2022 draft portion of the program, which, you know, sometimes every once in a while we'll get accused of being a little too easy on the team. This was a this was a full grilling of the organization on what went wrong in the 2022 draft. And to their credit, they could have said, guys, the draft picks go wrong all the time. Have you seen Dwight mcglothern like have you

seen our undrafted free agents who uh we've gotten right or all these other draft picks that we've gotten right uh but instead there were a lot of introspective answers from quesia da fomenta and kevin o'connell and i got the sense dane that they have thought about it a lot they have thought about what went wrong so we had this wide range of things from Kweisi Adafo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell anywhere from the fact that O'Connell had showed up a week and a half before the NFL combine when he got hired in 2022 to there was a mention of how random the draft can be and I always go back to Lewis he looked like a good prospect to me even though i

thought they should have just stayed and picked but it's not like they picked some random guy from akron or whatever they picked the guy from the best defense but it sounds like they really did a full deep dive of themselves an analysis of themselves of what went wrong to get that draft so sideways outside of hey if jaylen naylor's good it'll look a lot better or ty chandler but to go so wrong at the beginning of that draft and quesadilla fomenta made a kind of an interesting metaphor where he said that he had asked kevin o'connell about how they came back from down 33 points and he had felt that way when he took over as if he had to solve every single problem and this actually resonated with me because I

remember on draft night saying if you draft for need you're chasing your tail except for a quarterback of course but if you just say I've got to fill a safety position I've got to fill a safety position, I've got to fill a guard, I've got to fill like those are not the premium positions, number one. But also, oh, I've got to trade down because I have so many needs that I have to fill every single one of them right now. And I've got to resolve the cap long term. It feels like remember when they said Irv Smith was swimming when he got here? Yeah. Irv Smith got released. That's one I had wrong i thought that was

going to work out but i think that uh i think quesadilla fomento when he first took over was trying to solve every single problem at once and he was trying to accumulate enough draft capital to set up the entire roster with one draft completely for the future and did not realize that that's impossible to do because he was a first-time general manager that's what i took away from the discussion about the 2022 draft with these two guys yeah and i think it was interesting that they went so deep with us like that they were willing to like obviously they're going to be introspective behind closed doors and talk about this draft the fact that they were willing to talk about it on record to us was very surprising to me

i appreciated it they probably didn't need to do that it opened the door like you said for a pretty big grilling from reporters asking follow-ups and why did you know what about this part of your process has this part of changed that part like there was a lot there because they kind of opened the door for that i do appreciate the accountability i appreciate that that wasn't we're not talking about the 2022 draft class so the draft is random let's move on there was at least a want to or what felt like a want to be accountable 48 hours after you cut your 2022 first round pick three weeks after you traded your 2022 second round pick. I did think the metaphor was like, I see what Kweisi was talking about,

about how he talked to Kevin O'Connell about what was it like to be down 33-0 against the Colts. How did you come back? I understand the crux of why that metaphor clicked in his head. What I will say is you weren't down 33-0 walking into that roster. There was a lot of talent there. You went 13-4. So maybe not the cleanest metaphor, but I understand it at its core, what he was talking about and you're right it was he tried to solve everything he tried to he said at one point have a 33 point

play with the way he built the roster and i think that's an interesting way of like reflecting on that draft because when he reflects on that draft it's pretty clear he's reflecting on it similarly to how everyone reflects on that draft, which is you almost got too cute trying to fix all your problems at once. And I guess I can understand a first year GM thinking I got it all figured out. I'm going to, I'm going to do this.

We're going to trade back the drafts random. We want to draft a safety to replace Harrison Smith down the road and Kyle Hamilton's right there but if I trade back I can get Lewis seen and pick up some other draft picks to fix out the rest of the roster it just shows like it's not a math problem it's not something you can plug into the computer and spit out an answer and I think it's something that Quasey has learned to his credit over the last two years. And it's been a hard lesson along the way because when you whiff on your first and second round picks from your first draft, not only is it going to be something you have to answer for for the rest of your tenure as the general manager, but it's something that impacts the

roster moving forward. And we're seeing that kind of happen in real time. But I really did think just today walking into the facility, it was going to be more about this season, what to think about the roster, the 53 that you landed upon, the 17 practice squad people, how is Sam Darnold going to project it. Instead, it was kind of like group therapy about the 2022 draft. And like, I need to go back and listen and watch because there was a lot there. It's not something that's going to be able to be turned so quickly because there's a lot to unpack there.

But I appreciate that we at least get to unpack that. So there's two ways that I would look at this. Maybe a slightly better metaphor might be that you think about we're doing the podcast on the porch here. When you buy a house and you're not a homeowner yet, Dane, but you will be someday. There's always things if you get not a fixer upper, but even just any house you buy, there's always things you need to do. To your right is the garage we just built. And I had to put together a studio in the basement and the day you buy the house you want to fix every single thing you want to resolve every

problem you go through with a person that looks like deep into the house you know and everything and he'll point out 50 different things and you're like oh i gotta fix this i gotta fix this i gotta fix this and what you have to do is one it's it, it's one, one bite at a time. Like, yeah. All right, let's do this first. And then next you have to organize what the most important are. And you have to kind of have a long-term plan for that, but you have to do it patiently because you can't resolve every, or you're going to go broke. You just bought a house. You can't, you have to, you have to organize what are the most important pieces that I have to fix right here. And maybe instead, one of the most important parts was getting young centerpiece talent rather than just a lot of players. That's one way that I look at it.

And that's how they've done it the last couple of years. I mean, they just stuck with Jordan Addison. They didn't trade down. That's a centerpiece player. They also this year trade up for Dallas Turner. That's a centerpiece type of player and those guys are easier to fill in around they're hard it's hard to find Dallas Turner it's not as hard to find Theo Jackson there are safeties out there who are smart and tough and good and you can fill in the other positions so that's one way I look at it the other way I look at it is guys let it go because this could have just as easily been a great draft when you go back and look at the draft analysis 2022 draft analysts people who do this professionally

looking at the draft and grading it out thought hey good trades down you got a lot of good players Andrew Booth on a lot of boards was top 15 Louis Louis Seen was in the top 20 in a lot of boards. It looked like even from a lot of the analytics people, they said the numbers match up. Maybe overdrafting a guard was questionable, but some of the other players they got in the middle late rounds, everybody liked the idea of Brian Asamoah, this undersized linebacker who's going to play in this Donatello system.

Look at him run sideline to sideline. And sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders. Now, I mean, I appreciate the reflection and for them saying to the public, here's what went wrong and here's how we corrected and we worked through our process. Also got Brian Flores. Maybe that could be helpful as well in evaluating your players. But there's another part of it that says don't overcorrect. Think about it this way. If I'm in this house right now and the other night there's the tornado warning going on. If I got hit by a tornado in this house and it wrecked the entire thing, I would probably say, you know what?

I'm not going to buy that house right over there because I got hit by a tornado. But what are what were the chances of me being hit by a tornado i shouldn't over correct and move to wisconsin of all places just because i got hit by a tornado in minnesota and something completely random happened and i don't think that they have wildly over corrected but they have it to some extent and if the dallas turner things go goes wrong that's something i've defended a lot i like dallas turner as a prospect a lot i like trying to get a piece of a position that's so valuable and if you want a good one you have to pay 30 million dollars for so all that made sense but they spent a lot of draft capital to get there and that seems like an over correct from trading down to get lewis seen so what you don't want is them chasing their tail

of saying what isn't that a vegas thing like don't chase your losses it feels like a little bit the last couple drafts they have chased their losses a bit one more thing this really doesn't matter it just i know that everyone would have preferred to have kyle hamilton jordan davis in the long term of this team there's always hits and misses they found theo freaking Jackson, who can play. Cam Bynum they didn't know was good. Now they do. Josh Metellus they didn't know was good.

Now they do. If you swap one of those guys and it's Metellus was bad and Seen was good, we'd feel totally different about the front office. Instead, it's like, oh, okay, well, now they're a failure. They don't know how to draft, all those things. I don't think that this had that much of a long-term impact, which is why, as we were talking about it, I was like, can we move on? Can we talk about Trent Shurfield making the team or something?

I just wanted to kind of like, I'm so exhausted of this discussion of 2022, but I do wonder now after today, after, as you called it, the therapy session they seem to have with us are you guys over it now like have you guys moved on from what happened there because maybe after lewis scene gets cut they can finally just put it in the rear view yeah i do think lewis scene and moving on from him signals a turning of the page and if today and this is probably giving us too much credit but if talking about it publicly and addressing it publicly is a way that they can finally get it off their chest and i think we're all better for it because i don't think anyone really wants to

talk about the 22 draft class anymore i certainly don't i know diehard fans are going to live and die with that one forever because when you don't hit on a first round pick, when you don't hit on a second round pick, you just do the little, let's go back and look at who was selected around that number. We could have had this guy or this guy or like, I get it. Like would they have liked the draft picks to hit?

Yes. But I think Kevin O'Connell hit on a little bit of what you were talking about with the overcorrection. And while I think every decision you make in the past should have at least some impact on how you perceive or move forward in the future, he also talked about the process and if we are doing what we believe in and we're sticking to these certain parameters and rules and and values that you can feel good about the way the draft so i i think he was almost saying like we're going to take accountability for this we definitely have reflected on this but we're not going to overhaul our draft strategy for it you kind of did this year by trading the farm for Dallas Turner by even trading up one spot and trading some pretty valuable capital to get

JJ McCarthy I'm okay with that because they are premium positions and if they hit we're not going to care about the third round pick or the fifth round pick that you traded or the third other fourth round pick that you traded to move up and get a valuable position. But I do think it was like kind of two like diverging paths of like, we've reflected, we're accountable, we're not going to change our process. And it all kind of jumbled together in something that I really think needs to be like further unpacked, you know, at a later date, because I don't think anyone left that press conference feeling like huh i got a moment of clarity here like it was a lot in in 15 to 20 minutes of both guys um but to your other point about it doesn't matter it's right like the san

francisco 49ers drafted trey lance traded up to get trey lance and got brock purdy would they have liked to get brock purdy got Brock Purdy would they have liked to get Brock Purdy with the last pick in the draft and taken I don't know whoever the best edge rusher was at three yeah they would have but they're they're fine like teams miss on draft picks and it's something we have to live with and I get it like the armchair general managers at home have never missed on a draft pick in their life but it happens and fans have to move on reporters have to move on head coaches have to move on general managers have to move like the 2022 draft class happened and it didn't work out at least on the top half now we probably have

to just kind of go forward and i like i said to start like I think moving on from Lewis Seen allows you to do that he was always going to be on the roster and therefore you were always going to talk about like it's the fifth safety on the roster and you drafted him in the first round like now he's no longer here he's in Buffalo so we don't have to talk about him anymore we don't have to talk about Andrew Booth anymore and I think we can hopefully as a group just move on from that draft class after this weekend. You know what I think sticks with people so much is that I don't think as human beings we are very good at acknowledging randomness even when we know it's there. Yeah, that's fair.

That even Kwezi Adafo-Mensa in the first conversation he had with us at the Combine, I asked him if he felt that the draft was random. And he said, yes, but I think that there's ways we can sort of push our odds a little bit better than maybe the next best team. But he acknowledged that all the history, all the studies that have ever been done on this thing say that you just can't predict with any level of strong accuracy what college players are going to do in the nfl because it is a fully different universe and yet when it goes wrong you go man what did i do i should have done something totally different and uh yeah i guess that's kind of why we want to go over it over and over again who could they have picked what were they thinking why did they take this player but now that it's over with i look at this roster and

think from top to bottom on the 53 my first question i guess i didn't know we were doing this this 2022 draft really because i was like how do you feel about the timeline you know and i was like i'm happy to see everyone back at school or whatever and it was like oh i didn't know this was a funeral that we were uh doing here for the 2022 draft class. But how do you feel about the time? And by the way, real quick, real quick, also comical with this whole thing, that there's so much attention for a failed draft pick. But he mentions J.J. McCarthy confirmed everything that they ever could have dreamed of. And we just were like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But back to like Asamoah, right? Like back to this safety that doesn't matter because you have the best safety group in the entire league. It just was sort of, I don't know. Can we change the subject? But, you know, it was interesting to hear him say that about J.J. McCarthy, that they feel like they got even more than they expected. We've had some obstacles here today. We're down 33-0.

We're battling through adversity. Audio-wise, we're down 33-0, and we're having to work through this. But what else were you thinking about? Your first question and the way he talked about the timeline, the current roster, his belief in the current roster, I agree with, I think. Like the timeline, the current roster, his belief in the current roster. I agree with, I think. Like I think the hard part about that conversation is everything hinges on Sam Darnold and whether he's good or not.

But if you just look at the roster top to bottom, like go position by position. And I've done more 53-man roster projections than God over the last month. So I know like position by position, you break it down, lots of talent on this team. And I think that at the premier positions, they have talented players. So it could work if you get good play from Sam Darnold because the roster as a whole is a pretty talented roster. I think when you hear him talk about J.J. McCarthy the way he did today, saying he's confirmed everything we know, when you hear Kevin O'Connell talk about that in Cleveland at joint practices,

saying there's no doubt in my mind he's a franchise quarterback, that's going to always kind of be the biggest what-if of this season for me, is that if Sam Darnold was bad the fail safe was that we got to see it and maybe J.J. McCarthy would have looked really good and maybe he will in a year now but because the roster was so talented and because J.J. McCarthy showed flashes I'm always going to kind of wonder like what could it have looked like if it doesn't work out with Sam Darnold now if it does work out with Sam Darnold, everyone will be happy. They'll be like 9-8.

They'll be flirting with the playoffs. And I think Minnesota would be thrilled with that. But if it doesn't, I'm always going to think, like, this roster is pretty talented right now as currently constructed, despite the 2022 draft class. And I just, it sucks that J.J JJ McCarthy got hurt. I don't know. Like, I don't know why that's how this whole thing, like this thing circled back to is, but it sucks that he got hurt because I think that there was potential for this to be really exciting no matter what. And now it's only exciting if you get above average to good quarterback play from a guy who's been kind of topsy-turvy his whole career.

So talented roster. The most important position on the roster, though, is the quarterback position, and that's still a big question mark. So I thought it was interesting that Kwezi Dalfomensa referenced over-unders, which is something that I wrote about and talked quite a bit about when I was out in Vegas with Murph, because the 6.5 number is so interesting to me and i think that he was tying this into the roster in general that the knowns of this roster can get you to a certain baseline the jonathan grenards the andrew van ginkles the justin jeffersons but whether you

have a good season or not is going to depend on the unknowns which is of course the biggest one sam darnold he didn't say that but that's who he was referring to is the biggest unknown but there's also the other part of the jaylen nailer the uh left guard blake brandle the there's a number of players here and i wrote about that today like there's a number of players here and i wrote about that today like there's a number of players here who will move the needle even someone like ty chandler is likely to have to play uh with aaron jones and at this moment we really don't know what ty chandler actually is and whether he can move the needle or not and be a part of a duo because if they have a great running game

with two unstoppable backs who catch the ball and pass protect and everything else, but the range of outcomes is very wide on that. They could feel halfway into the season like Ty Chandler is just not playable, or they could feel like they've got something really good here. I could see both, and we've seen both from Ty Chandler and even Jalen Naylor where we've been coming in here and telling you how good Naylor's been and their confidence is high in him. But it might get hurt in week one.

Like there's just a lot of unknowns with the roster, the biggest one being Sam Darnold. But just to go back to the McCarthy thing. And when you hear them say that, like, yeah, he was actually even exceeding our expectations. I don't think it's lip service based on what we saw and how adamant they've been about it as opposed to because we know what it sounds like when a guy fails now we've got a big enough sample size like well it's i'm really he's a great person and we've got a plan for him and that's not with jj mccarthy it's definitive and it's concise this is the guy and uh i had this vision in my brain of the vikings go they drop to two and four and it's time and mccarthy goes 500

the rest of the way but you totally see it and then there we go on to on to the next year where it's going to be exciting and the fact that you don't have that button to push, the fact that we don't have that infusion of energy into the season, and it all relies on Darnold, I felt like you could sense that nervousness in Kweisi Adafomensa a little bit with the way he was talking about it, because he knows there's a lot of good players here. He knows even that the linebacker position they've got guys and

they picked up a really good corner in stefan gilmore and that there's spots where they're very strong as a roster and i think overall despite the 2022 draft happening they they are good top to bottom and if jordan love came over here and play they'd be talking about this team as you could win 12 games with them but that's not where you're at with the quarterback and i think that in that building there is a ton of nervousness that if sam darnold does not outperform anything he's ever done before none of that's going to matter and then we know gotta keep coming back to it that the owners want to win and there will be heat on these two guys if it fails,

even if you did a lot of things right and that one position went wrong. Yeah, and I think that's a good point about the 2-4 start. If J.J. McCarthy came in, you finished 7-10, 8-9, missed the playoffs, the tenor would be different because you at least got to see what the future looks like if they go seven and ten and it's just kind of like blah like yeah there's gonna be it's it's a hot seat situation for quayse doffaminson i think he knows that like and that's where you keep going back to the jj mccarthy injury and yeah it sucks for for us who cover the team for fans who cover the team,

for fans who watch the team. It sucks for Kweisi, though, because that was part of his plan. Like, the plan that he's finally got to execute, and he's mentioned that a couple times, that basically he had to build the roster in a certain way before he got to move forward with the plan that he wanted to move forward with as far as constructing this team but this plan this time horizons that they talk about coincided with getting a bridge quarterback who might be able to outperform what he's done in the past and pairing him with a first round pick that you can always turn to if things go bad with the bridge you don't have that anymore so that that's why like you are right there is pressure you can feel it you can feel the tension i also think like this whole

past two months like has been filled with tension and once we get to september 8th like we can actually just start talking about games and i think that inherently will ease some of the tension until you start losing which will then inherently will ease some of the tension until you start losing which will then inherently bring back some of the tension but I think right now we're just we're we're trying to project what this season's going to look like and that's hard to do and that's scary for the front office to do because you don't know what it's going to look like and you don't have like you said that button to push and say, we're selling hope now. It's time. This is the guy.

This is the 21-year-old that we've hitched our wagon to and we're ready to go. You don't get to see him now until he's 22. So the plan that was in place has now changed, and you kind of have to reap the consequences of that. I think the biggest thing, though, that we could still take away for this entire training camp is that in 2025, they will start the season with J.J. It matters 1% in comparison to 99% what we saw from JJ McCarthy. This training camp ends up being, in my mind, still a big success just to know. And trust me, when we see it go bad, we really know it's not going well with the quarterback. And that's why I'm saying that it matches up with what Quacey said, what Kevin O'Connell has said, that they can be confident in that.

It still makes this a pretty big victory for them for this entire training camp, and that's way more important than a lot of the other nuances that we can get into. You made a promise to me at some point that I want paid off right now. Got your phone next to you. My phone's over there. My phone's over there. My computer's over there. So pull it up. Pull it up. Pull up your phone.

Schedule. I was told that you were going to pick the schedule. Okay. And we're going to do rapid fire here because it's been quite the breakdown podcast. Let's do it. But I want you to run through rapid fire. And I'm just going to tell you,

somebody asked me the other night on the live stream, find nine wins. And I found them. I found nine wins. It was find nine wins and i found them i found nine wins it was a battle but i found them so i want you to go game by game you don't have to give a long breakdown just wins and losses what you think they will do in the year 2024 on the spot so we're gonna try and find nine wins i don't know what's about to happen you don't have to try you don't have to try i just want you to look at the game and then pick.

I don't want you to try to find nine wins. No idea what's going to happen over the next two minutes, but let's go. Giants, week one. I think that's a win. I'm just going to count the wins. I think that's a win week one. Niners, week two, loss. Texans, week three, loss.

Packers, week four, loss. Texans week three, loss. Packers week four, loss. I had to find one out of two there with the Texans and 49ers to get to nine. Okay, that's fair. Jets week, that would be five. Yep. I think they can win that game. It's in London. It's weird.

And I'm not sold on Aaron Rodgers. Like, I think Aaron Rodgers, there's a London it's weird and I'm not sold on Aaron Rodgers like I think Aaron Rodgers there's a chance he's not even playing by that time because he's coming off an Achilles tear and he is old and the Vikings now have Brett Rippins they have no answer exactly so we'll give that a win and that's probably being a little generous but two wins heading into week five week six Lions loss week seven rams loss and then this is where it kind of turns the schedule gets a little so they are two and five they're two and five here's the question if they're two and five though because you start to talk about the turn of the schedule

are they trading aaron jones are they trading harrison phillips are they trading cam bynum for for the sake of this exercise they're. But that is something that they should consider because last year, I think they should have traded Daniil Hunter at the deadline when it was clear they aren't going to make the playoffs, when your quarterback goes down, when your star receiver is trying to fix his hamstring, nurse it back to full strength. But they're 2-5 now, and for the sake of this exercise, they're not trading. Okay.

Heading into the Colts, that would be week 8, 9? It doesn't matter. Colts, that's a win. You're at home. I think it's going to be a tough win because I think Anthony Richardson and Jonathan Taylor, I think there's a lot to have to scheme against. I'll bet on Brian Flores there making life hard on what is essentially a rookie quarterback in Anthony Richardson. So that's three wins on the road against Jacksonville.

I think that's a win. I don't believe in Trevor Lawrence either because I like if I don't believe in Aaron Rodgers, I think Trevor Lawrence sounded really good, and there was regression last year. I need to see it again. I need to see Ascension to believe it. I think they can beat that team just with the team that they have, the top-to-bottom talent we talk about. Golf trip, though, for us.

Golf trip, yes. So four wins there, but we get to golf. That's fun. Titans, that's a win. I don't think the Titans are very good. Bears on the road, I think that's a loss. Now, I will say, like a spoiler alert, in 45 seconds, I'm going to pick them to win at home. But Cardinals at home, I think that's a win.

That's six. Kirk Cousins return to U.S. Bank Stadium. I'm picking a win because I think that Kirk Cousins I think that'll be a big game I've seen him in big games I think there will be some nerves I think Brian Flores will get after him I think if anyone knows how to stop

Kirk Cousins it's the Vikings and people on the Vikings that have played with him for six years. So we're at seven. Maybe I'm going to get to nine. Eight. I already told you. Vikings are beating the Bears at home. That's eight.

Seahawks on the road. That's a hard game. But we'll say nine there with the win. And then they lose to the Packers. They lose to the Lions. So I found nine wins. And I had to get a little creative to do it. But put on the spot, I think what that exercise shows is it's not crazy

if they get good quarterback play to overcome even what will look to be a slow start because of the talent they have. Clip this up. When they finish 5-12, we'll remember the porch pod. But, yeah, I think what I just showed by picking the schedule is that the team is talented and that they could, in theory, be a playoff team. Again, it all hinges on Sam Darnold, which is a big, big, big what if.

But I'm excited to see it play out. I love this exercise to have people pick just because I like to see the wheels turn. I like to see the logic of, well, you know, no, probably not, maybe. And then when we get to the season, we have no clue how it's going to end up playing out. And nobody else does either. I've mentioned that when I was looking at that six and a half there were i think three teams that were six and a half over under last year that made the playoffs or had at least nine wins but there is a ceiling when vegas thinks you're going to be this bad there is a ceiling no team won more than 10 i think that

was a six and a half win team and you are are also assuming good things for Sam Darnold. I think in that scenario. So what this really does for everybody who picks the schedule and how you have to kind of fight your way to nine wins is it shows you how hard it's going to be with the schedule that they have. But because it is the Minnesota Vikings, you just never, never,

ever know what is going to happen. So I am really looking forward to you and I postgame East Rutherford, New Jersey, everyone. That's where we will be doing our first real postgame podcast of the year. So make sure you're paying attention to that. And I'm excited, man. We have done how many how many podcasts have we done since the last game like 25 probably yeah it feels like it's been a long long time so I am completely ready for football no more talking about past drafts only talking about future games I'm really happy about

that so Dane Mizutani thanks so much for your time and stopping over to the porch and thank you all for watching slash listening and we'll catch you again next time football