Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Our 2023 predictions (part 1) include Byron Murphy Jr., Kyler Murray and the Super Bowl camp

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison go through Matthew's hottest (and not as hot) 2023 predictions, starting with why Byron Murphy Jr. will be an underrated signing and talking about who lands the No. 1 overall pick and much much more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider and Matthew Collar here along with Jonathan Harrison, another Hot Routes here live on YouTube. And Jonathan, I know you caught the last couple of nights where we went over all my correct 2022 predictions. All I remember is every single prediction being dead on to the point where people were just amazed. They were writing articles in The Ringer about it. And it's just incredible. One man predicts 50 correct things in a row about the NFL with nothing wrong. So that was the last couple of nights on here.

It was a pretty fun time going over all the things that I predicted for last year. Maybe actually the sunglasses will help. By the way, the Oakley sponsorship was just for the summer. But the thing is I don't have to give them back. So I'm just vibing. I'm going to keep doing Hot Routes with the sunglasses. And I also wanted to mention that a couple episodes ago there was a question about Hot Routes and the feed that it's in and that sort of thing. It's always been in the Purple Insider podcast feed over the summer because we are going to relaunch it toward the beginning of the season in a little bit of a different way with somebody that has been on the show a number of times.

So that's kind of in progress. So, you know know keep your eyes out on the the hot routes feed but for now it's going to keep going because we're just talking a lot of biking stuff but um we are going to carry on with predictions week and i have other fun stuff coming as well i talked to the old takes exposed guy on twitter uh also i've got tage seth coming up who's going to give us analytics on how to make predictions for this year. What I did was I wrote down a bunch of things that I think that nerds will think is going to happen this year. And I'm going to have Tej tell me if that's right or not. And Kaylee Kaler is going to talk quarterbacks. So a lot of fun stuff coming this week, Jonathan.

But you have gone over my first 25 predictions for 2023. And before you quiz me and break down the predictions of mine for 2023 that stuck out, how did I do? Were you thinking, like, okay, maybe you're wearing those sunglasses too often and it's affecting your brain? Or were you like, you know what? I can see a lot of this stuff. I tried to be bold without being insane. You know know what I'm just disappointed there's no Mike McCarthy hate in the in these predictions so far so I'll let you pass because there is still a part two so you better have one a Mike McCarthy uh negative prediction coming up in the next 25 otherwise we'll be seriously angry on the social media side but

I think you did good there's a lot here that we can definitely talk about to dive into, not just Viking stuff, but across the NFL as well. So I'm excited to get started here. I'll give you a tease for the second part. And if people want to read all of them, you should become a Purple Insider subscriber to the newsletter, which also not only gives you access to all of our articles, ad- free in your

email every day, also the Friday mailbag, but we launched a chat on Substack for Vikings fans, where you can chat just directly with me with other really cool Vikings fans. You don't have to deal with trolls or a for you tab or whatever other crazy things happening on Twitter. So purpleinsider.com, you can find it there where to sign up. And I think you can participate in the chat, even if you sign up on the free side, which is a cool little feature there. Anyway, there is something Dallas related, and it's sort of a backhanded Mike McCarthy compliment, but not really. So you'll have to read that tomorrow. But for today, you tell me, I told you that Hot Routes Tonight is just you pick predictions and we'll talk about them for 2023. I've made 25 so far and I feel like every single one of them is maybe potentially the perfect has given me one to ten for how accurate my predictions were from last year. So I would love you to give me the one through ten on how accurate you think these are going to be.

So if you think that I'm going to be completely off and I'm a total psycho, then give me a one. If you think it's a great prediction, then give me a ten. So where do you want to begin, Jonathan? Let's start off with a Vikings one. Let's go with prediction number two you had on the top 25 here. Byron Murphy Jr. will be one of the best signings of the NFL offseason. Do you want me to read what you said here or let's just dive right into that one? Yeah, why don't we dive into it? Because then you'll be taking half of my reasoning for the prediction but um although it was fun to read what i read or what i wrote last year you know like oh uh geno smith and drew lock will win like no games for seattle forget them and then they uh got to the playoffs with geno smith but uh that was not one of the more accurate predictions but as far as byron

murphy jr i'm only getting a three for the first grade on that for hotness which I understand because it was a good signing but it really went under the radar like who's talking about this signing around the NFL he has a very low cap hit for this year much higher for next year but if he plays well then he's going to be worth that cap hit I like that he's a very aggressive corner like he's good at blitzing historically throughout his career he's a physical player he's a good tackler and i also think that i have always had this theory you know this jonathan we've worked together for a very long time that when a team is bad and when a coach is bad that it has this like trickle down type of impact and it affects everybody,

brings down everybody's play. So Byron Murphy Jr. was playing for just the joke of the league last year in Arizona, a head coach that doesn't care about defense at all, a defensive personnel that was totally disastrous. And really throughout that entire time that he was there, they were not good defenses. And if you look at his usage, every year it's different. Sometimes he's an outside corner. Sometimes he's a nickel corner. He doesn't even know year to year what he's supposed to be doing.

And so far he has been, as Matt says in the comments, league average. So far he has been. But this is the boldness of the prediction is that he will be one of the best signings because he will not be league average anymore under Brian Flores. Now, I know that this is a flawed defense, and it could have some problems pressuring the quarterback if Daniil Hunter isn't here, but it's about the defensive coordinator. It's about his usage, and I also think that, you know, signing a guy who's only been in the league a couple of years and is 25 because he came out when he was fairly young,

you could have another five or six years of his prime where he's good if this signing ends up working out. So I like Byron Murphy Jr. I am high on that signing and I don't think it's going to make them some sort of elite defense or anything. But at the end of the year, we might look at cap hits and prices paid for free agents and go, yeah, a lot of teams kind of overlooked Byron Murphy jr. Who turned out to be good for the Vikings. Yeah. I think I, I, I brought it up because hit looking at his PFF grades and some of the stats from this last season, it's an interesting one because obviously,

like you said, it wasn't a great season. You look at his numbers, no interceptions, a 105.5 quarterback rating when thrown in his direction. But when you look at his PFF grades, they really, they seem to like him and seem to think that he improved year on year. I mean, he had his best coverage grade in his career last year. He had his best pass rushing grade from that position last year. So I think it could be interesting. And I guess the question for me off of it is, where do you see him fitting in in that cornerback room? Because he's not the typical taller cornerback. He's only 5'11", 190. So he's kind of on the smaller side. He's not the typical Mike Zimmer cornerback that we've seen drafted over the past seven years. Where do you see him fitting in, in this Vikings defense?

Also, you have to give your one to 10 on the hotness as well for the, the feedback. But I think that Kevin O'Connell talked about this a little bit in, I think it was OTAs or mini camp where he said that he is going to be the nickel corner. And then when they're playing in base packages, he's going to be outside. So he's always going to be the nickel corner and then when they're playing in base packages he's going to be outside so he's always going to be on the field and teams only play in their base package like 25 of the plays usually it's just specific run situations and so

forth but they're going to take somebody else off the field and not him because he is their top corner uh in floris's system nickel corners are really important i think really really important he uses them as kind of a chess piece uh to match up um to match up with you know you see a lot of receivers that are motioning into the slot all the time but also to blitz and to play a big role in run defense so this is a very important role. Dan is giving me a six for that one. Thinks he'll be better than average at a really good price. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not saying that they've got, you know, Minka Fitzpatrick here or Darrell Revis or something.

But, you know, although I guess Fitzpatrick's really become more of a safety. But not the next Antoine Winfield necessarily. I just think it'll be a really good signing. So I agree with you guys. It's not the hottest take I've ever had. Well, I'm sure Jonathan will find some more bold ones that I came up with for this episode. But I guess I just think that with all the things

that have happened this offseason, if they had had a normal offseason where they didn't send all their players packing, and by the way, does Delvin Cook have a job yet? Where's all those $12 million offers for this elite player that i was told about that he was still super elite and anyway that's not the point but uh if this was a normal offseason i think we'd be talking a ton about like what a big signing byron murphy is and how a lot rests on him it's just that when you send out delvin cook and adam Thielen and everybody else, then,

you know, that kind of goes under the radar that that happens. So what do you think on the hotness meter? I'll go a five for now. I mean, like you said, it went under the radar. There's not a whole lot of hype around the pick because, or the, the signing because of how this off season has played out, especially with all the bodies they've moved out, especially on the defensive side. There's, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of excitement for what this defense is going to be this season, as opposed to what it could be in the future down the road a little bit because of kind of all the youth and all the just changing pieces on that side that we haven't seen this much change on the defense in a long time. So I'm going to give it a five for now. I'm going to

stick with that. For the next one, let's move on to the second pick here. I'm going only two predictions later. We'll move on down the list a little bit later. Arizona will pick number one in the 2024 draft and take Caleb Williams. I'm going as hot as this one is. I think I'm going with a four because everybody kind of expects Caleb. Everybody expects Arizona to be really, really terrible. But I've got another question off this, but I just want to hear your thinking of as to why Arizona will pick number one. Oh, you nailed it. They're terrible.

I mean, they are really terrible. And, you know, poor Colt McCoy. He doesn't deserve this. Where's Ryan Lindley? Where's John Skelton? Somebody else needs to take the arrows for this year. They hired a completely inexperienced head coach who, you know, you just couldn't drop into much worse of a situation for Jonathan Gannon.

Really, really tough there. If you were hiring somebody that had some experience, maybe they could kind of grind their way into not relevancy, but competency maybe. But when you have a new guy who is just set up here with absolutely nothing, the cupboard is completely bare. And one of the first things that your team does is cuts DeAndre Hopkins, which he wanted to be cut and didn't want to be there. It was going to be an ugly situation if they had tried to keep him.

And I also think didn't Buda Baker has to be traded as well. They didn't do that. But again, another very unhappy player that maybe they end up trading at the deadline or something. They have no talent. It is a bad, awful, pathetic, sad football team

that doesn't even have its quarterback that might be able to get them to five or six wins just by being really talented and an entertaining player. They might even be fun, but poor Colt McCoy's just got to go out there and play football with nothing around them. They don't have a great offensive line.

They don't have a good running game. They don't have – they got nothing. And I just think that they did this on purpose, which is totally within the rules and totally fine, but is setting them up for a really tough spot. The hot part of that is that they bail on Kyler Murray. And I don't know where, where he's at with his recovery. Maybe he'll come back halfway through the season. If it was me, I would not want him coming back halfway through the

season. But I think that if you're Kyler Murray, unless it goes way better than you expected, you've got to be like, come on, man. I mean, I'm the number one overall pick. I've had some highs, some very high highs, actually, during his career. 2021 was the peak where through 12 games or so, people are talking about him as a potential MVP. And yet his coach was just always overmatched year in and year out. And look, you know, I don't like to make excuses and so forth but i think if you have like an argument for i could have been better with better coaching and a better

franchise i think you can make that argument uh when you come from the arizona cardinals who were one of the teams by the way that did horrendously on that nflpa study and i hope they fix their broken floorboards in their weight room or whatever. I mean, when you compare it to what someone like the Vikings have, and this is a situation that I'm keeping one sunglass on, which is Kyler Murray

and what's going to happen there with his future. But I think if you're them, the smart thing to do for their new management is move out the expensive quarterback who you kind of know what he is. And if you can move in the expensive quarterback who you kind of know what he is and if you can move in the quote generational talent he's the best quarterback prospect since uh what trevor lawrence i would say or he's kind of up there in that andrew luck trevor lawrence kind of ballpark

where everybody thinks he's going to be really good and you get him for cheap i think arizona's in a great spot it's kind of like don't blow it don't don't blow it don't draft anywhere outside the top two because you're not going to be any type of uh playoff contender but you know with the kyler murray thing i really do think that has potential legs short legs for kyler murray but potential some potential there if the vikings are indeed moving on from Kirk Cousins, but they win too many games to have a high draft pick. That might be interesting. That's kind of where I was going next with my question. CJ McCauley in the chat, uh, says other set or adds another point to it. Who does anyone want Murray's contract? Murray's got an incredible

contract to deal with for the Cardinals and whoever takes him next. If everything goes to plan for Arizona and they get that number one pick, where do you see Kyler Murray landing next season? Because it's going to have to be a trade. They're not going to cut him because that's too much of a cap hit, obviously, to cut him. So who do you see trading for him next offseason? The Minnesota Vikings. What did I just say? Now, you know, I understand that that contract is a problem. The thing about contracts in the NFL, and I know that we've talked a ton about Kirk and how much he makes. When Kirk got here, the Vikings had two legitimate seasons with all of their stars where they didn't have to get rid of anybody to try to

win the problem is they didn't win that's the that's the problem and they couldn't add the extra pieces after that and so forth and we've been over that contract thing but kirk is a better quarterback so far than what kyler murray has been during his career kyler murray is far more dynamic and more gifted physically than kirk cousins is So what you would be aiming for is to put one of the most exciting quarterbacks and talented quarterbacks with Justin Jefferson and go for it. You can always go for it in the NFL. That's the thing about the salary cap and everything else. You can always go for it. You can always move money around. You can always make that one last signing if you want to. But the wheels eventually come off. And so with the Vikings, when they did all those things to move all the money around everything else,

the wheels eventually came off after the 2019. They had a two-year window to win with Kirk. They didn't do it. And then they were just in you know, in a very tough spot after that. So I'm not a hundred percent like advocating for this and saying, Oh yeah, go, you know, go do that after this season. So much can change. Who knows where everybody's at after this season. And I also have some reservations about Kyler Murray and his, his leadership and his playing style, which I think is, is very erratic at times and has been a roller coaster uh i also think that it's the closest you'd be to being a super bowl contender in a really long time to have a quarterback with that talent to pair with justin jefferson and the rest of the playmakers that you have so anyway that's you know that's kind of a down the road point if

that starts to seem serious i'm sure there will be other teams but it's hard to say like who's going to be just looking to draft someone like half half of the nfc i mean san francisco but you know their their salary cap situation's hard i don't know i mean i i one of my predictions that i don't know if you were going to mention or not i think was that san francisco still wouldn't know who their quarterback was after this year and that could be kyler murray well. But would you trade him in the NFC is another conversation. So there's a lot of different layers to that prediction. And I wasn't that that's not one of the predictions that he would come to Minnesota, but you took me down that path that I think it's not completely absurd to think that that

could be something of interest for the Vikings. But I mean, the most likely scenario remains the most likely scenario, which is that the Vikings draft somebody. But if they end up with 10 wins and they're in the playoffs and they can't get one of the top quarterbacks, then what do you do? Then you start investigating other ways around that. And I don't know. I mean, Derek doesn't think that O'Connell would like Kyler Murray. I'm not I'm not going to put myself in in O'Connell's shoes and try to say what he doesn't or does or doesn't like as a quarterback. I sure know that Murray, if you look, I mean, it is just remarkable how the narrative changes on a player. Just go back to 2021, not that long ago.

And people are talking about Kyler murray as an elite quarterback halfway through the season and then their team completely falls apart and nobody except for the best of the absolute best all time can transcend your your talent of your team so anyway uh that was definitely an off-road for that prediction but arizona is going to be terrible and pick caleb williams and trade kyler murray And they might have the, uh, the one and two picks because they also have the Texans pick, uh, as well, first round pick as well. But that, uh, you, you don't think so because of a, another, uh, prediction later on, uh, that I, that I didn't choose here. Uh, my next one though, you said the Detroit lines will go 12 and5 and fans will call themselves Campbell Crazies.

I'm not going to worry about the Campbell Crazies part yet. I think this is a pretty hot one. Although looking at their schedule, I'm starting to think it's not. But I'll go with an 8 here. This is a pretty hot prediction here that the Lions will go 12-5. Granted, they are in a pretty weak division in the NFC North. They won 7-1 over the last eight games of the season, if I'm remembering correctly. a pretty weak division in the NFC North. They've got, they won what? They were seven and one over the last eight games

of the season, if I'm remembering correctly. And they had a top three offense in the NFL. They've only gotten better, it seems. I'm excited to see what happens with the Lions, though it is Detroit. So they got that going against them. What was your reasoning for thinking 12 and five for the Lions this season?

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You'll notice I'm wearing Honolulu blue here for the line. No, that's not. It's just a regular shirt. But I just think that when you look at their roster, they brought back pretty much everybody from last year that did have that hot run in the second half of the year. I don't think that that was really fluky. I think it was more of them coming together. And they've added a lot to it, especially in the secondary. That team's major

issue over the last couple years was that they just couldn't cover anybody and you saw in all sorts of matchups with the Vikings that they couldn't cover anybody part of that was Matt Patricia being their coach but they took that roster all the way down to the screws and it's hard to build the defense we've seen that with the Vikings it's hard to build the defense we've seen that with the vikings it is difficult to build the defense it usually takes a couple of years of drafting players like aiden hutchinson who looks really really good and then signing free agents and this year they signed cameron sutton who uh you know we had i think is one of the potential guys for the vikings at cornerback but one of the best cornerback free agents i I mean, they made a bunch of really, I think, savvy signings.

They drafted players to help them right away, even though the positional value of the players they drafted was a little bit sketch. Those were really good prospects. Jack Campbell and Jameer Gibbs, those guys could step in and play right away and make a difference. I think that they have by far the best roster in the NFC North. And I also think that Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson, they know what they're doing and they do know how to build a culture where the players feel like they're all in the same boat with Dan Campbell. He just has a way of connecting with

them. And I think that public facing, he kind of looks like a lunatic sometimes, but behind the scenes, I think him just having their back and being a former player in the similar way to kevin o'connell i i think that those two guys have a very similar type of approach to this job except for dan campbell could beat up kevin o'connell like that's the difference is if they fought o'connell would lose by a lot but that's the that's the difference if you've seen dan campbell up close and o O'Connell is a big guy, he's like six, five people have said, I look like O'Connell. I'm like, I'm six, like one.

And my hands are half as big as him and he's he like towers over me. But anyway, Dan Campbell would, would beat him up pretty easily. He would beat up almost everyone pretty easily. So that's the only difference. But I think that they have a lot of similarities otherwise, and they have the best team. So I'm going for it with them. And I've always felt like it's just the case that we talk about teams like this, and you're always just one offseason away, one rebuild away, one player away from turning around a long stretch of badness. I mean,

I think that the Raiders might argue against that and maybe the Jets to some extent, but I mean, just look at Buffalo. They missed the playoffs like 19 or 20 straight seasons or something. And then their team came together, they got the right coach and they've been really competitive for the last couple of years. So I don't think that them being the Lions actually has anything to do with anything. I'm not saying they're going to win the Superbowl. I did make a Superbowl prediction. It's not them. But I do think that they will be decidedly the best team in this division despite being the Lions. They've also got a pretty easy start to the schedule. Bob in the comments says, watch the Lions start 0-6.

Look at the beginning of their schedule. Sure, they start at Kansas City, but it's also week one. Anything can happen in week one. Lions could pull off an upset there. But then they have Seahawks, Falcons, both at home. Then they go to Green Bay. They get that one out of the way. Carolina Panthers, and then the Tampa Bay Bucs.

They could legitimately be five and one to start off the season. And then they go into the rest of the schedule that their toughest team may be in week seven in the Baltimore Ravens. You have the Chargers at week 10, but we know going at the Chargers or going to LA for the Chargers game is always a home game because they don't really have fans there. So they don't really have a very tough schedule at all. The Cowboys week 17 also may be the toughest test down the stretch besides the two Vikings games. So I think they, I'm agreeing with you,

they legitimately could be one of the better teams in the NFC this year, not just the NFC North in the entire NFC because of what we saw over the last half of the season last year and kind of just looking at their schedule. So yeah, I'm going to give you an eight, but I'm starting to lean a little bit down the scale because of looking at just their schedule alone leads me to believe that they might pop a couple wins that you didn't expect them to. Next one for me, this one, you start off this prediction saying you want to get nuts, let's get nuts. Sam Howell will throw for 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns. This one's a burning, scorching hot 10 prediction for me. Why are you predicting Sam Howell for 4,000 yards, 30 touchdowns? Turn up the, the crowd is throwing tomatoes. They're angry.

They're booing. Yeah. Bring it, bring it, bring the booze for the Sam Howell prediction. I'm putting my stake down in the Sam howell camp pretty much because i think that there's a reason why they decided to stick with them that is one of the most incompetent franchises in the history of the universe of people collectively playing sports together but i don't think that ron rivera is either a tanking or be a complete dope. I mean, I think that he's not one of the best coaches in the entire NFL, but I don't think that he's brain dead. I think

that what they saw last year from Sam Howell behind the scenes and in the time that he got a start where he was actually very good, that they liked what they saw. And that offense has some playmakers. Curtis Samuel has not really come through for them exactly, but he's still a good player. Jahan Dotson showed that he can be a good playmaker for them. And Terry McLaurin, one of the better wide receivers in the league. This is not a playoff team. This is a team that's probably going to be playing from behind a good amount,

which means that Sam Howell is going to have to throw a good amount. As far as I know, they don't have anything super special in the backfield. As far as running backs go, I think the running game is going to be fairly limited. It's going to be on Sam Howell's shoulders. And the weird thing about him is I thought watching him at North Carolina that he was the best quarterback in that draft class. And Kenny Pickett was the only first round pick Howell drops all the way to the fifth round I'm not really exactly sure why I guess the

NFL just didn't buy into any of those guys Malik Willis Desmond Ritter but if you had asked everybody after the 2021 season this is kind of the theme with Byron Murphy with Kyler Murray and Sam Howell is we sometimes overreact to what we just saw. He had a horrendous team in North Carolina. He didn't perform the same, but he was supposed to be considered a pretty darn good prospect and just sort of fell out of favor with the, I guess, with the NFL teams as a top prospect quarterback. But that talent might be there. I think he has arm talent.

I think he's tough. I think he can run a little bit if you've seen what he did in college. So I'm going with it. I mean, first, there's no reason not to because if it goes sideways, oh, well. But I'm not just doing it to do it. I'm doing it because I think he'll have the opportunity in a lot of games where they're playing from behind to throw a lot of passes. He's got the playmakers to do it.

And there must be something there because look at the quarterbacks that were out there this offseason. There were quarterbacks that were out there this offseason. There were quarterbacks that were out there this offseason, like Jimmy Garoppolo. I mean, you've got to think that Ryan Tannehill might have been in the conversation. They could have drafted somebody. Derek Carr was out there. And who knows how much they chased them. They clearly did not want to bring Carson Wentz back as no one does

want to have Carson Wentz on their team there were other options and they decided nope we want to go with this guy we've seen enough and if it was an inexperienced head coach and if it was a team that was tanking like Arizona or whatever I would say okay well they're just trying to lose they don't care or their coach doesn't know what they're doing which might be the case in Atlanta with Desmond Ritter I'm not sure but they just have to be doing this because they saw something last year that makes them intrigued by sam howell so i want to be the first on the bandwagon if he becomes a good quarterback or even if he just has one of those john kitna years like is that a great comp for sam howell as john kitna like undersized guy maybe

not the biggest arm or anything but kind of has the same vibe maybe just like i don't know gritty little quarterback who throws for 4 000 yards because his team's playing from behind i like it yeah kyle in the comments seems to agree with you washington defense will be good and keep them in games look at what their d-line did to the vikings o-line last year they added a cornerback in the draft to sleeper wildcard team. There, he's going maybe a little bit step further than you will with that one. Other comments about this prediction, need a drug test caller on this one. That's probably fair for 4,000 yards and 30 touchdown.

CJ says, caller's prediction shows he likes to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight look i mean if you want bold if i say oh well byron murphy will be good you guys are like what who cares that's not bold i mean what are you talking about so you got it i mean you got to go like a little bit risky at some points you're right kyle they actually do have a pretty good defense i it's just that their overall team is not really uh i think i guess you could call him a sleeper wild card but i i've i look at them as more of like a seven or eight win type of team overall and that he's gonna have to throw the ball a lot is probably gonna have to be the case so but you're right their defense last year did cause a lot of problems for

the vikings so we'll see we'll see. But I just, I sort of one of those, maybe I got a feeling about a guy and if this feeling is completely wrong, I won't be that surprised. But if it's completely right, then next year we can do the same exact show and be like, remember, remember told you about Sam Howell. Let's stick with the quarterback conversation. A couple of picks later, you said Will Levis, the guy who dropped out of the first round, dropped out of the top 10, like people were predicting leading up into the draft drops all the way down to the second round tennessee takes him early in the second round you say he will be the starting quarterback in tennessee by week eight i'm going to give you a seven out of ten

on this one for hotness i just think tennessee's in a real bad spot um they have seen pretty much all of their talent walk out the door they tried getting julio jones last year which is really desperate and sad at that point and didn't they trade like a second round pick to get julio jones and he did eventually yeah oh yeah he was on tank bay oh that's right yeah that's right last year um so they've been kind of fading there right i mean they made the playoffs that year that they had Julio, right? And then last year, they drafted Burks to replace him. And that didn't go particularly well either. It's just been the last two seasons where they've been sort of sliding down the regression mountain. And was Adrian Peterson a Titan at one point or something i mean 2021 i want to say it just uh you can look that i swear adrian peterson put on a tennessee titans jersey at one point in 2021 and you know last year we saw tan hill get hurt and banged up a lot during his career they just don't have a very good

football team and if they are three and five or two and seven, it just turned it over to will Levis because that likely means Tannehill hasn't played that well. It's also worth mentioning that Ryan Tannehill is actually really old. I don't know if we think of Ryan Tannehill as being really old. He's like as old as Kirk. He's like 35 or something. I mean,

this guy's been banged up. He's been past his prime with Tennessee. He had that rich Gannon bump where he sort of had this like breath of fresh air in Tennessee, goes to a new location, has a couple of really good seasons. But usually when you have that doesn't necessarily last for a very long time. And I think that's Ryan Tannehill when he doesn't have the talent around him. I also don't that derrick henry is going to be anywhere near as dominant as he was in the past that was really helping ryan tannahill with the reaction and everything else because that's what they built their entire system around so if you're not going to win and you have an old

quarterback and he's probably getting banged up i think tannahill missed a shot when he threw like four interceptions against cincinnati for that team to ever go anywhere because that was actually a really good team and i think they won the afc that year and you know that was what was that wait what year was that no that was 2021 wasn't it that they won the afc it's so bizarre what a strange year that was that was probably their last shot they had like a three season run and that was like their last shot to go anywhere with ryan tanhill i think it's over and they will just say you know what all right uh will levis let's see what you got uh adrian peterson did play for three games for tennessee and he wore the number eight of all numbers so i'd be oh my my gosh. Wow. See the Tennessee is of all 32 teams. If you're asking me to remember

things about a team, the Vikings have not played them. When did the Vikings last play the Tennessee Titans? I don't know. Is it the Sean Hill game? Is that the last time? I don't remember any other game against the Tennessee Titans. I feel like the last game was in 2016. I usually, I have a pretty good sense for a lot of these teams, but that one I'm trying to rack my brain about which year things happen and everything else. Uh, but yeah, I think it was the Marcus Mariota interception to Eric Hendricks when Tennessee had a chance to put that game away in 2016. Okay. Follow-up question here off of Tennessee. Uh, since we're talking NFL here. Is Mike Vrabel a good coach?

I mean, they won, as you said, they won the AFC two years, or at least in 2021, they won the AFC, a really weak AFC South, two years in a row, finished second last year in it, second and third as well in his years. Is he a good coach? Yes, I think he is. I think he's a very good coach? Yes, I think he is. I think he's a very good coach. And, you know, when it's a beefy gentleman like Dan Campbell or Mike Vrabel,

who need to fight, by the way. We're talking about Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg fighting. Those are the last two people on earth I want to see fight. I want to see Dan Campbell versus Mike Vrabel. Now there's two dudes who should throw down but i when you're an old school football player from the 90s there's just a reputation that comes along with that and a gruffness to both of those guys where you go like oh and you know they're not like a lafleur or merc bay a zach taylor they're just these old football

dudes but i think that he handles his business pretty well there and they got every ounce out of ryan taniel that they possibly could have and it was really just what happens with teams this is what we're always talking about is the rises and falls all the time where you build up a roster you have your shot if you don't make it then you probably are going to have to rebuild at some point and trading aj brown was pretty much a sign yep it's over here and they still almost made the playoffs that's that's my thing about vrabel why i would say he's a good coach is if you go expectation versus what they produce going into every season i'm sure that they've outperformed their expectation almost every single season that's one of the ways to kind of use a

vegas line it's not really a predictive thing where it's going to tell you what teams are going to do perform their expectation almost every single season. That's one of the ways to kind of use a Vegas line. It's not really a predictive thing where it's going to tell you what teams are going to do, but you can use it as what did people think of that team going into the season? And I doubt that people had the Tennessee Titans as good as they were for that short window of time. It's just going to be tough for him and everybody else.

Cause it's not a good football team. And I also don't think that will Levis can play uh so i mean if if he was good maybe the vikings would have drafted him but also if he plays and is good we're gonna have a talk about that what else you got i've got two more here that is seven you gave that one yeah i gave that a seven i might be i might be leaning towards eight because i still don't trust that will levis is a good quarterback and that he was only thought of highly because just the big arm so i'm always doesn't have to be good he just has to play for the predictions but it's more like a seven that's fair uh i've got two more here we'll start off with the vikings one and end with a different one

uh afterwards you said alexander madison will gain 880 yards and catch 40 passes and more importantly the vikings won't regret cutting delvin cook exactly 880 yards bet on that gamble on it put all of your money take out a loan don't tell your wife 880 yards no i don't know uh i it it could be more than that he could end up being the bell cow. The history of Los Angeles, I was looking into this. They usually kind of did in McVay's offense stick with one running back. But when O'Connell was the play caller in 2017, a listener pointed this out to me that they had a definite rotation and they used their running backs in the passing game a lot. And I think that last year, Kevin O'Connell wanted to with Delvin Cook, but he just wasn't what people thought he was when it came to receiving.

That never materialized as him being anything more than a screen option. And he really didn't have very good hands. And I think that Alexander Madison, and he made some good catches along the way. He's a great NFL player. But in comparison, I think Madison catches the ball really well and is good out of the backfield so I think they'll use him that way and the rotation is going to be real and Kenny Wong Wu Ty Chandler these guys have explosiveness and they have big play ability Madison is a grinder but they're going to want that change up say like if you had Leroy Horde and David Palmer came into the

backfield and they're going to want that, uh, the sort of thunder and lightning type of thing. So I don't think he's going to gain like 1500 yards or 1200 yards or things that we would expect from Delvin cook. It won't be like that, but there could be much more of a Latavious Marie and Jarek McKinnon type vibe to this. I don't know which guy is going to be Jarek McKinnon, but the, the, the smaller, the quicker back to go along with the bruiser and the Vikings running game will be fine. And it will probably be more efficient than it was last year because it almost felt like at times they thought that they just needed to give Delvin the ball. Are we passing fine? Do we have to run it here? Probably not, but it's first down and Delvin hasn't run the ball much we passing fine do we have to run it here probably not but it's first down

and delvin hasn't run the ball much and there's just an obligation to play him all the time and to give him the football all the time that they will not have this year and also i think it is a sign too that with the nfl not signing delvin cook to a big contract that they saw what we saw because they have the tape they have the data and they don't care what your favorite hot take artist or water carrier is saying on twitter or on nfl network or on anything else or espn what they care about is winning football games and making good signings and paying out money to players who they think are going to help them and fit in with their team so if he wants to be a bell cow back who makes 10 million dollars and nobody's buying into that uh and i think ultimately we'll look up

and cook will probably be helpful to some team i'm not saying he's gonna be garbage i think he'll be helpful to some team but they won't go oh my gosh delvin ran for 1800 yards for the jets and we were just so foolish to let him go. I don't think that will be happening. Do you think he signs before training camp, or it's going to be a couple days, a couple weeks before the season starts? I don't know. I mean, he's got to be getting pretty antsy to find a team, and reportedly he has an offer on the table.

He might just have to take whatever is on the table for him i would imagine that's from miami who seems to have been connected to him from really day one but if you're miami you've got raheem mostar you've got some other running backs there you want to improve your running game but it's really all about jaylen waddle and uh tyree kill so i don't. I think he's probably just going to end up having to take a contract that they try to make look better than it is with the money.

And that's the best he can do is when certain reporters get the terms from his agent texted to them, they will look way better than they actually are. That's another prediction that we can throw in there as a little bonus. That's almost like a bunt single with that one for sure. Finally uh sean mcveigh will step away from coaching after missing the playoffs

to get one billion dollars from amazon to be a broadcaster exact he has the money yep he is his agent has texted me the exact terms it's one billion dollars for a lifetime contract he has a free spaceship to go once we put life on mars uh brought to you by amazon and everything so uh you know i think with mcveigh that the fact that he was thinking about it during the super bowl year and last year just from what i've read about where he was at. It seemed to really be weighing on him. And there's something to, if you're Belichick, this is it for you. Football, this is it. There's just nothing more to that dude.

He's just football. He's been football his whole life. His dad was football. This is that guy. And no matter how many championships, he was going to come back the next year and try to win another championship but in comparison someone like Bill Cowher or John Madden they won their Super Bowls or Super Bowl and said all right let me get into this broadcast thing and if I go back I go back and never did and became very good broadcasters especially John Madden one of the

all-time greats I think Bill Cowher's fine. He still wants everybody to punt on fourth down and run the ball more, as 90s coaches would. But they just took the broadcast careers and enjoyed their life. And McVay could be John Gruden-ish, where you get burned out by that fast rise and that success early and everything else. And then 10 years later, you get the itch to come back. And I thought Gruden was a disaster mostly with the Raiders, but caught on to what NFL offenses were doing

and their offenses were fairly successful with him. So I don't think if you're out of the league for a few years, you just disappear, especially if you're broadcasting and you're staying locked in and everything else. He could absolutely do that. He could step away, go into broadcasting for a while, and then decide in his future. I also just think the Rams are going to be bad.

I don't know. I just have a really tough time. That team has like 75 million in dead cap. If that's wrong, someone correct me. But it's a lot, I think, which is what happens when you go full Rams, as Kweisi Adafo-Menzo once said. When you go all in, you are really, really risking having it blow up. And last year and this year, I think, are going to be those blow-up seasons.

And for somebody who's used to having so much success and being a wunderkind, I think failing is really, really hard. And from what Derek says about Alexander Madison I agree that Alexander Madison in comparison to Delvin Cook at his peak is not the same running back but I also look at what Madison did when he was starting for Delvin Cook and it was always good I mean there's maybe one game against Atlanta that he started that they fell way behind and he didn't get many carries. And I think a game against Los Angeles that he struggled, but there's a Seattle game where he was great until they had him run behind Drew Samia in the biggest moment of the game. And he's, he's been really effective in the games that he's been in.

I would not just discount him. And there's another element of this too, that running success is not always how much agility and vision you have. Although I don't know about the Delvin vision. I think Delvin was the lightning. I think that's what it was, is that if he got the ball, I mean, the second he touched the football, it was just gone. It was just off. It was like, it was just so fast with his the the acceleration for me and

then the the ability to break any tackle he was so hard at his best to bring down madison's not that guy madison is not top speed either i mean he's not going to go 75 yard touchdowns he's going to get caught from behind he's just not that guy but i don't think that has to mean that he's not like good at what he's doing and and good at pass blocking and good at catching passes. And then mixed with other guys. I don't think anyone thinks, oh, yeah, this is your 1,500-yard running back. But we've seen successful running games, and the Saints were this way for a long time with Kamara and Mark Ingram.

Mark Ingram might be a comparison for Alexander Madison, just a pounder, you know? We've seen those guys have success in multiple running back type of systems, plenty, plenty of times. And Leroy Horton certainly falls under that category. So the other guys have to step up though. It can't just be him is my thought, but I've always had a good amount of respect for Madison is a decent player.

Yeah. The Vikings don't need Madison to be the next Dalvin Cook, the next Adrian Peterson, because they're not focused on running the ball anymore. They're focused on getting the ball to Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison or KJ Osborne or TJ Hawkinson more than they are having a 1,500-yard running back. So if Madison does put up 880 yards and can get you what he got you the last couple seasons, eight yards per carry, and just be a better run blocker and catch the ball every once in a while, more than Dalvin Cook did, then you have your self-success and you're not going to miss Dalvin Cook one bit. And yes, did look it up.

The Rams, $75 million in dead cap this season. Where do, if, if your prediction is correct, which I'm feeling it is maybe the $1 billion mark is a little bit high, but if he does move on, if he retires and it's just a poor season for the Rams again, where do they go? Cause they don't have draft picks. They've got a ton of dead cap. They can't just move on because they're not going to get any draft or they're not going to be able to tank and have it work because they can't just move on because they're not going to get any draft or they're not going to be able to tank and have it work because they don't have that draft capital uh where do they go from here yeah and uh jalen ramsey's not there and i think matthew stafford retires and then they got to go to the bottom that's the only option there's really no other route uh if stafford has

a good year and they struggle then maybe he might want to play somewhere else or maybe they could you know grind it out for another year but that's the thing when you go all in you have to win or you're in trouble for years it doesn't mean your franchise is just a dud forever but you know I had some experience in covering Buffalo when they did the all-in thing around Tyrod Taylor and they got to eight wins one year they may have gotten to nine you know another year with him but they went and spent all this money on a bunch of different dudes they traded multiple draft picks for a first rounder and they just said you know what we're ending this drought hell or high water no matter what

and then eventually before they drafted Josh Allen they had to really rip it all down you remember that team where they first drafted Josh Allen and they played Nathan Peterman the first couple of games lost by like 40 points. I mean, that was a rough year for them. Miami was this way. They were, you know, they had to tear it all down. So a lot of teams did Detroit before they traded Stafford, they kind of tried to go all in and around Stafford and Matt Patricia. And, you know, a lot of times that's what happens. You just have to tear it all down when you've cleared your peak, that's life in the NFL. So I think they will.

And that's where I don't think that Sean McVay is going to want to spend three more years building it back up. That's why I made the prediction. I don't know. I mean, Sean McVay hasn't told me, but did you want to mention my Superbowl prediction? I made my Superbowl prediction was the first pick. That's what I was going to end off here is I was going to add in one more here. You know,

I said, we were done. You said Cincinnati Bengals will win the Superbowl. Go ahead. The floor is yours as to why Cincinnati will be the team that beats the chiefs in the AFC. Oh, I mean,

as great as the chiefs are, no team has gone back to back since the new england patriots in 0405 and winning the super bowl it's really really absurdly ridiculously hard to do and cincinnati was this close and maybe if they don't clip a dude out of bounds uh just what was it i mean he was probably three feet out of bounds or something. It was a penalty, but that cost them in that game. They have been this close neck and neck every game with the Kansas City Chiefs. They are right there with them. And they're one drive away from beating the Los Angeles Rams, winning the Super Bowl and being right there with Kansas City. That is the rivalry of rivalries in the entire NFL right now. And I think that this is Cincinnati's turn. And they're also a team that's been so close so many times, but this is the last year think of Joe Burrow being insanely cheap. Maybe the way he's going to get an extension next year, he won't make that much, but he's going to be really, really cheap.

They've spent, they've built up the offensive line. They've built up the defense. They've got the best playmakers possibly in the entire NFL. A good coach who's been able to get them deep into the playoffs and to the Super Bowl. They've got it all. I just think they have everything. I think they have the best roster top to bottom, even better than Kansas City, even though the Mahomes factor.

If Kansas City went back to back, it would just be another pelt on the wall for my homes as making his argument for the greatest quarterback of all time. But I don't think burrow is that, that far behind him with the weapons that he has and the setup that he has. So I'm going to go Cincinnati. I don't think that's that hot. I think it's a little like a little warm, but I don't think it's any more than maybe like a 6, possibly a 7.

I mean, I think that they're probably a top three Vegas odds team to win the Super Bowl, so it's probably not that hot. Yeah, I don't think I would go 6. I may go 5 just because they are one of the favorites in the AFC, but they would still have to get past the Kansas City Chiefs, who are the team in the AFC until they're dethroned and right now uh it's going to be tough to do that because Patrick Holmes is uh leading the charge to make to make uh the case to be the greatest quarterback of all time uh incredible and as for Joe Burrow 11 million dollars is all his cap hit is this year and then 29 next year and then obviously whatever extension they come up with afterwards is going to be astronomical for him. But yeah, I think the Bengals have as good of a shout as

probably the chiefs. I don't think many other teams besides those two teams should be favorites because of how they play. I mean, the Eagles will be in there just because they're probably outside of San Francisco, the best team in the NFC, but San Francisco doesn't know who their quarterback is. So right now, Philadelphia is going to be the favorite, again, as much as I know that pains everybody outside of Philadelphia. And you know that, okay, so Kyle says the Bengals are fifth in Vegas odds. So yeah, that's not a crazy hot take. No, it's not.

Dallas is going to, this is going to be my prediction for tomorrow. Dallas will go into the playoffs, is the favorite to come out of the nfc that is the prediction i'm not saying that they win i'm saying that they will enter the playoffs as the favorite okay so let's get the nuance there and if they may blow it with mike mccarthy in the playoffs then so be it that does happen from time to time um but i think i actually think that there will be a little regression for Philly and that Dallas is every bit as strong as they've been the last two years. In fact, maybe better than they were with their offseason moves. So that's one little bonus.

If you want to read all of them, go to purpleinsider.com. You can see them there. Also, tomorrow night, around the same time, about 8, eight, 15, somewhere in there are going to go live again. And I'm going to go through my 25 other predictions. So we went through a handful today. I'm doing 50 total and, uh, we're having a lot of fun with it. Keep an eye on the, on the channel, on the podcast feed, a lot of stuff for predictions week. And also if you missed my conversation with, uhto sullivan uh or my article where i wrote about jto sullivan who runs qb school uh great great discussion with him awesome interview so uh that was on the written side make sure you go check that out and purpleinsider.com and check

out his channel qb school cool dude so thanks everybody for watching this has been really fun to get together with you guys for predictions week Week. And next week, it will be hardcore previews, the hardest of the hardcore leading into training camp. So we're almost there, folks. We will talk to you again soon. Appreciate everybody joining.