Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Ben Linsey breaks down the Vikings' quarterback schedule

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

The NFL is releasing its schedule later this week so Pro Football Focus analyst Ben Linsey joined the show to talk about the quarterbacks the Vikings are set to face this season. Are there stats to suggest Justin Fields will be better? Zach Wilson has to take a huge step forward. Did we see the best of Mac Jones last year? How about Matt Ryan in Indy? Tua in Miami? Plus Matthew answers fan questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show, a return appearance for Ben Lindsay, analyst from Pro Football Focus. What is up, Ben? How are you? I'm doing well. Can't complain.

Got the draft in there. So now we've got a little bit of downtime, a little bit of make up some storylines over here for the next few months. Well, yes, you will rank players

by every possible way. You can rank them by the coolness of their names by their pff grades uh let me ask you a question about grading drafts so in a previous episode we had a survey where you had to fill it out and that was what your draft grade for the vikings is do you ever go back and look at what you said about teams drafts or do you just move on and forget about it forever i probably should go back and look at what you said about teams drafts, or do you just move on and forget about it forever? I probably should go back and look, but in reality, I kind of just move on.

And there's some, there's some instances where two, three years down the line, you go back and regrade the draft class. And then that's when I sort of look back sometimes and see initially what was said about it. But for the most part, just sort of put that in the past and start evaluating them from their rookie year. Yeah. I mean, for us, it's kind of the same way where it's like, okay, on draft night, we give our initial takes and then all of those takes

don't really matter the minute that they step on the field for training camp. I mean, we've seen guys go from, you know, totally unthought of draft picks that we're like, who cares? And then they become stars. And we've seen many times where a guy is supposed to make a huge impact right away and never even steps on the field. How about even all the time spent last offseason talking about Kellen Mond? And then he steps on the field one time and was the backup for Sean Mania.

But that was all we talked about right after the draft. Oh, they drafted this athletic quarterback. I mean, I think that that, that happens a lot. So even though it's, it's crazy entertaining to talk about the draft, it's, it's kind of over really quickly of all of those takes. And then we readjust as soon as they get on the field. Yeah. I mean, the reality is we, we spend so much time studying the draft, looking into the draft, but we know a lot less than we, than we think we do. And then once they get to the NFL situations change, they get thrown into, into different schemes, different situations. And a lot of that impacts sort of how they play along with just their, their talent, their skillset and things like that.

Yeah, no question. So I want to get into the quarterbacks the Vikings are facing because people are trying to preview the schedule by putting it together on leaks and hints. I don't have the brain space to try to do that. I know the Vikings are playing week two against the Philadelphia Eagles. There's your scoop that they announced yesterday. So anyway, but I want to look at the quarterbacks that the Vikings are playing because it's really interesting how some of them are unknowns in a year where not a lot of teams are going to start rookies they're still unknowns

but I want to get your reaction on something because I haven't talked about it on the show yet uh things that were said by anonymous executives about the Vikings draft okay I don't know if you saw this piece by Mike Sandoe in the athletic but every year he talks to these people around the league and gets their reactions and uh here's here's one that sort of stuck out to me. Uh, one executive said about what Casey did trading down. He says the league already knows that you're an analytics guy. So you're probably going to want to trade down. And then with your first trade, you go far from the traditional point system. So it sets a tone. Maybe our first offer will always be lower to the Vikings because we know it's quasi and we'll want to trade down.

What is your, what is your reaction to that? I don't think there's, there's that much to buy into there necessarily. I do think maybe they could have got more just because so many teams are reliant on those older charts um just just based off trades we've seen in the past in the first round but the vikings still got value uh based on a lot of the more recent charts in that trade down and i think quest he's in a

situation where he understands what he's doing like i don't think he's going to be made a sucker by these other gms like like that was sort of implying um so I don't think there's a there's a ton to read into there because they still got value and they're going to keep getting value as long as they're they're relying on the more updated versions yeah I think that there's debates to be had about what they did and um you know I I've sort of said hey if it was me I might have just taken Jameson Williams and thrown him the football but uh you know like like you said based on the analytics charts they got good value it reads to me more like people in the league um are kind of hazing the rookie uh and i've also heard from some people that you know that maybe it feels too long time NFL scout people who worked their way up

through the front office, that quasi kind of jumped the line and there's a little bit of a saltiness over it. And some people that don't want to trade down with him because of that, they sort of want to say, how about you earn your stripes in this role? And that's a dynamic that I think that you could never really see coming. And there's not a whole lot you can actually do about it if you're Kweisi Adafo-Mensa that other people in the league

are jealous of you or don't like you. Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate that he's been billed as the analytics guy. I mean, he's talked that he's worked in a lot of the other more traditional sort of football guy scouting areas while he was with these different teams before. But it's going to keep going back to he's the poster child for the way the league is shifting. And there's still a lot of old school football guys in front offices and scouting departments who aren't going to be super fond of that and that shift because people don't like change, right? It just really comes down to that.

No, yeah, I think that that's right and there's sort of been a traditional ladder all along for how one becomes the general manager of a team and he does not have a traditional background so i think that there probably is some of that uh baked into those comments so anyway let's talk about quarterbacks uh we were, let's see, when did we talk? Maybe a few months ago about the quarterback annual. So people should really go check that out. All sorts of incredible statistics there. We broke down Kirk Cousins in the quarterback annual.

I want to talk about a few other of these quarterbacks, starting with Justin Fields, because the biggest thing to come out of the Chicago Bears offseason is that they have not done a whole heck of a lot for Justin Fields. However, the play caller for Justin Fields last year was a truck fire. So how do you manage these things with the numbers that you have from Justin Fields last year and try to figure out what he might do in a different offense, but not with a vastly improved offensive line or group of weapons. I think the big thing with Justin Fields was that rookie year. It wasn't great from an overall numbers perspective,

but there was a lot of positives to take away in terms of him creating and making big plays on his own, which is what you want from an elite quarterback. That's what you expect. His big time throw rate was, was up there near the top of the league. Positively graded play rate, that was up towards the top of the league. A lot of negatives with that, but at least you saw the high end, and that's something you can build on. The issue is that offense just is doing nothing around him to support him

and to really let him develop in that second season. The offensive line, they're really relying on Tevin Jenkins, Larry Borum to take big steps at tackle. The interior offensive line is shaky. The receiving core is one of the worst in the league. So in one sense, you can say if Fields really is the guy, he should still improve despite all of that around him. But like sort of like what you saw with, with Watson in Houston, right. That wasn't a great situation, but he made, he made that step forward. You can say a similar thing with fields, but they're really putting a lot of pressure on him to do that,

even with a new offensive system. And I just really don't see that offense being much better next year than it was in 2021. What doesn't really add up to me about what the Bears did this offseason is when your quarterback has this issue about holding on to the ball too long which Deshaun Watson had to may still have I haven't seen him play football in quite a while Russell Wilson has long had this so there are quarterbacks in the league Joe Burrow got sacked a ton last year who have overcome this problem. But what Seattle did for a long time was said, meh, about the offensive line. And it seems Chicago is taking the same route. The difference is that I think that Russell Wilson is a much more polished all around type of

quarterback. And his sacks came a lot from just trying to escape Justin Fields. You saw a lot of sacks looking like he just didn't really know what to do with the football. The last thing on earth I think you want to do is leave him with a putrid offensive line. And yet they did not go out of their way to like load up to really stack on these players. And it feels like to me that even if Justin Fields shows improvement,

that it's sort of going to be capped. And I think we'll be difficult even for us after this year, unless he's shockingly better to say whether, oh, they hit on this guy or they didn't hit on this guy. Yeah. And that's really what you want to avoid with, with young quarterbacks. You don't want to get into year three and still not really know like, like who this guy is is he who we should

build around in the future and the thing about the Bears draft is in a vacuum I like what they did I like the Kyler Gordon value in the second round I like Jaquan Brisker I think their secondary is going to be a lot better but their top priority this offseason needed to be building around fields and they waited until I mean you can say essentially day three, the Milos Jones pick, I don't really know how much that's going to help them at wide receiver. You can say they waited until day three to address the offense. And that's just tough to get behind.

I know Ryan Poles wants to take it slow and build things up the right way. He wasn't given a great situation to start. But it's tough for fields. Have you ever run across any statistical indicators from rookies that point to their second year? Because I think this is really hard. Most rookies are God awful in their first year as quarterbacks, even guys who turn out to be great. And I remember last year going into the season, there were film studies and everything else like, Oh,

it looks like Joe Burrow might not have the arm strength to play in the old NFL. And then it looks like he did. So is there a statistical way to look at something that a quarterback did in their first year and say that that points to disaster or that points to maybe future success? I think sort of one thing I found when looking at quarterbacks this year is it's really tough to succeed in the NFL if you're holding on to the ball for a long time. And you pair that with not throwing the ball downfield, not pushing the ball downfield, because if you're holding on to the ball, you need some of those those big plays that that variance that you're relying on. And guys like Zach Wilson last year in New York, he was holding on to it, didn't push the ball downfield. And really a lot of sort of guys in that category, you look at the list of names,

it's some of the worst quarterbacks in the league. So I think if you're sort of in that category, that's not a great place to be. That's not where Fields was. He did push the ball downfield, like we talked about a little bit earlier with those big time throws as positive positively graded plays um so i think that's at least something to be optimistic about whether or not they have the offense for that with a bad offensive line with receivers who can't really get open downfield um remains to be seen not super optimistic about that that. Yeah, I mean, it usually means

that you just don't know what you're seeing. Like this was the Josh Rosen thing where you'd be like, throw the ball, throw the ball. Oh my gosh, why are you not throwing the ball? And then sack. And it turned out, I think, with Josh Rosen that he just didn't know what he was seeing. Everything was happening too fast for him

at the NFL level. And it was just kind of over. Now you mentioned Zach Wilson. The Vikings also have Zach Wilson on the schedule. Admittedly, I did not watch a whole heck of a lot of Zach Wilson last year because jets, I did watch the game where Josh Johnson came in and played great, but it wasn't like, uh, they were on national TV too often. The Vikings didn't play them. Uh, but Zach Wilson was so much fun to watch at BYU. But then you go back and sort of think about the circumstances and their schedule was really easy. And he kind of just chucked the

ball down the field a ton. But I also don't want to call this one because I do think that the guy has exciting arm talent to work with and they actually have put better things around Zach Wilson this year. How do we evaluate that one? I mean, I think Zach Wilson's rookie season can be summed up by the fact that Mike White came in and looked more comfortable and better in that offense than Zach Wilson did. And like you said, the talent is there. I'm not ready to give up on Wilson yet either. I'm interested to see how he does this year, given what they've done around him on offense it's the exact opposite of Chicago they've went out they add Lakin Tomlinson they draft Becton Elijah Barrett Tucker the last few years on the offensive line build up that group Corey Davis Garrett Wilson a lot Elijah Moore all recent investments at wide receiver he has talent around him they should

be able to have a good idea next year if he's the guy and the big thing with Wilson and what he needs to show is it just that he's more comfortable in structure and sort of taking what's there rather than holding on to the ball uh and really those sacks those interceptions the negative plays just cutting down on those because he still showed flashes outside of structure of the guy that was at BYU you're just going from a big jumping competition to the NFL and also a worse offensive line significantly worse offensive line relative to that competition from BYU to the Jets so I still think he has a chance but there was a lot of concerning things in that rookie year but doesn't

it also feel like there are quarterbacks who clearly should sit for a year, but then nobody ever wants to do that. Like they'll talk about it and they'll be like, yeah, maybe he should sit for, this was the Trubisky thing. We're going to get Mike Glennon and then we'll sit him for a year. And then like four weeks into the season. Okay. This is horrible. Throw in the rookie, but I don't know that that's always good for quarterbacks. I mean, Zach Wilson, if there was any that that's always good for quarterbacks I mean Zach Wilson

if there was any guy that should have sat for a year it was probably him because of the jump in competition that he was being asked to face I also think that because of this he's the hardest one to predict because it is so much different and you could see him having that season and having some experience and it looks like just from some of his numbers i mean they're not good at all but like down the stretch maybe it was a little better like he started to get it and i think that uh if you were one of those people who was tuning into every byu game to see zach wilson like maybe i was doing uh that's that that it's not time to bail yet but i do think if he looks like absolute garbage this year,

then you have to say, all right, man, we gave you everything we possibly could. Yeah, yeah. And I think he did show a little bit down the stretch. And the thing in terms of starting quarterbacks their rookie year or sitting them, the reason to sit them is you're afraid that they get in there, they're overwhelmed,

and they start to develop bad tendencies. And that's why the Bears went into the season thinking they were going to start Andy Dalton because a lot of the same concerns going into last year were there with the offensive line, with the receiving core, and they were afraid he was going to go in and it was going to be a David Carr situation, and it was just going to ruin him. So I think that's sort of the big reason to sit a quarterback like Wilson,

whether or not that's what actually ends up happening with him, we'll see. You know what the funny thing about David Carr is? He is the example of this, a guy who comes on to a team that was an expansion team and he just got sacked and sacked and sacked. But I never saw Derek Carr play. Like similarly to Zach Wilson, they were just never on tv ever and i've even gone back on youtube and tried to find derrick carr games i can't find them i have no idea whether that was actually derrick carr's fault the offensive line i think we assume it is but i have no idea and then of course derrick carr's

on tv so he'll be like hey it wasn't me it the expansion team. I just think that's funny that he's, he is the name that gets brought up all the time for like, well, he got ruined early on. It's like, I don't know. None of us saw it. Yeah. To be transparent. I haven't watched a lot of David Carr either. So I'm just, I'm just sort of parroting a storyline there. Right. Nobody has, nobody has except for people who were on the team with Derek Carr. Let's talk about Mac Jones a little bit on the schedule for the Vikings.

This is why the Viking schedule and their strength of schedule is actually really hard to figure out because there's so many games against quarterbacks that we just do not have a definitive answer yet on. And if all of them are bad, then your schedule is much easier and vice versa. But Mac Jones last year, clearly the most nfl ready once again the theme here uh they didn't do a lot to really improve the supporting cast around him uh and i

think there's another question here too that even though mac jones looked really good last year is there an extra gear to mac jones or did you kind of see as a rookie because we always assume that someone will just get better and better and better at football, but remember like Baker Mayfield had a good first season the next year he was down. Then the next year he was up and then the next year he was down. So it doesn't always work that way. Um, what do you, uh, what do you think about Mac Jones year two? Like, is there an extra level to him? I'm not sure there, there really is an extra level to Mac Jones. I think his rookie year

was what a lot of people expected, um, that you were going to get from him. He came in as a mid round first pick. He's, he's a guy you want to bring in on a rookie contract, a guy that you can win with on that deal and build around him. He was accurate. Um, and you saw a lot of that early in the year, he sort of fell off a little bit down the stretch. But I think the biggest thing for the Patriots in building around think Jones is just sort of a guy who's going to get the ball out accurately with timing. He had some really impressive throws. You think about that Browns game in particular, but he's not going to put the team on his back,

create outside of structure that you're looking for in an elite quarterback. Right. Now, I do wonder, because it does happen where these guys transform their bodies a little bit there was that picture when he was in college where he had a similar body to me um i do wonder about that like in terms of mac jones like he's not thought of as a great athlete but he's also not an absolute joke of an athlete like you go into that off season you improve a little bit and he's got the you know the the funny thing is that everybody wants the running quarterback we get down to the super bowl and even the nfc championship game has jimmy garoppolo and matt stafford neither one of those guys runs uh joe burrow i think had 150 yards rushing but one thing everybody has is a lot of weapons if you're going to be that

execute the offense quarterback and that's where like getting more tight ends like Bill Belichick what year do you think it is like that last offseason and spending like a drunken sailor to get more tight ends and and not trying to get in the mix for some of these great receivers that have been available I really don't understand their approach. Yeah, and the tight end thing is really interesting just because they didn't even use them. They went out and drafted Johnnie Smith and they ran 12 personnel at like a bottom five rate in the NFL. It just doesn't make any sense why you would go get and spend all that money on Hunter Henry, Johnnie Smith, and then not use them on the field together.

It's not like they have bad players in the receiving core. Like I like Kendrick Bourne. I think he's good for what he is. The same thing with Jacoby Myers. But those are like number three, best case, number two options. And it's really tough to win with a quarterback like Mac Jones when that's what you have to work with. We were trying to power rank teams the other day and seeing like where the Vikings should

rank in this conversation. And we ended up with 18th where the Vikings were, but the Patriots, we couldn't fit them in ahead of the Vikings. Is that how you guys kind of feel about that team? I mean, it seems like the Patriots are really threatening to sink into mediocrity here with Buffalo, the clear cut. And then the other team's improving quite a bit. We'll get to Miami here in a second. But it just seems like the Patriots are kind of destined to be this middling team.

Yeah, I think that's right around where they are, especially with how loaded the AFC is compared to the NFC. If you're just looking at where, where teams are expected to finish. I think sort of middle of the pack is right about where I'd put them. Cornerback on defense is an issue, especially for a team that wants to play as much man coverage as new England does. They lose Stefan Gilmore and JC Jackson in two years. And now it's,

they're going to have to change how they play or else it could get kind of ugly on that side of the ball and uh that is if uh mike mcdaniel knows what he's doing in miami now they have another sort of decision year they get tyreek hill they drafted jaylen waddle so this is a loaded offense that last year for only god knows why had two offensive coordinators so uh everybody liked what brian florist. He got fired under bizarre circumstances, but I don't think it's really debatable that their offense was not that good. Tua was a guy that when he was coming out, everyone talked about, well, he can execute your offense. He sort of talked about as what Mac Jones quickly became. They have given him

now everything though. And if he can't figure this out then he's just bad but do we have a good read on how good he actually is yeah I I don't see him all that dissimilar to Mac Jones I know he's he's viewed um he has more of a sort of negative uh viewpoint right now uh than Mac Jones but that Miami Miami offense has been bad the last few years, especially the offensive line, consistently one of the worst units in the league. You have concerns about Tua's arm strength and can he make all the throws, but just in terms of executing the offense and getting the ball out accurately, I think he can do that.

And unlike New England, Miami has legit weapons to work with on offense. They add Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddell. That's a lot of speed to stress defenses with Mike Kosicki. They improved the offensive line with Teron Armstead, Connor Williams, hoping some of their younger draft picks can step up. I think that group has a little bit more upside with New England, especially with Tua getting another off season. I mean, he was jerked around as a rookie with Ryan Fitzpatrick in the starting lineup. He was in and

then out. Um, so, so getting another off season where he's the guy and he can go in, I think he could, could take a step forward with Tyreek Hill. Um, how do we even put a number on what Tyreek Hill does for you? Because being able to get him the ball on passes where you don't have to try all that hard and have him run them for touchdowns. I mean, this is like Patrick Mahomes is as great as everybody says. I don't expect him to fall off the edge of the earth. At the same time, he's had somebody that's been pretty darn helpful for him.

It feels like not only is it going to be decision time for them and they'll know by the end of the year, but also halfway decent chance that if anything goes wrong in Buffalo Miami is standing right there if they're even remotely competent with a rookie head coach yeah Tyreek Hill is it's just such a massive addition to any offense not just because of what he can do when he's targeted but the attention that defenses have to pay him and now you put him on the field with Jalen Waddell and that's that's a lot of speed for defenses to deal with you can't cheat the one side necessarily because the other guys the other guy's going to hurt you deep so I understand it from Kansas City's point of view and

and why they made that decision. It's a tough call. But deciding for more depth in the receiving core and getting the extra draft picks, the extra cap space, essentially adding three receivers this offseason compared to Hill. But it's just such a massive addition for Tua and that offense. And I do think there's some upside to the Miami offense. Okay. So of the ones that we've talked about, these guys who are, I guess, unclear and maybe, I don't know if you want to throw Daniel Jones in this mix. I don't, I think we know what Daniel Jones is and maybe it'll be better if their roster is a little healthier and they'll say,

look what Brian Dable did. Daniel Jones is the real deal, but I don't think he is of those quarterbacks that we discussed though, so far which one do you think has the best chance of us at the end of next year going like, wow, that guy really proved that he's the real deal. I think it's, I think it's fields. Even though he has the worst situation, just because I believe in Fields the most as a quarterback. So, yes, you're putting him in a rough spot with that offensive line, with that receiving core. But just in terms of what he can do as an athlete, what he can do from an accuracy standpoint, he can make all the throws, the arm strength there so if he goes and the bears offense is even average um i think i think i would say i would feel it's out of those four okay let's let's wrap up on this rapid fire because there are uh quarterbacks also on the viking schedule who uh have changed locations so give give me your like one set or one sentence hot take on some of these quarterbacks. Well, why don't, why don't we start with Daniel Jones?

Maybe you disagree with me. How do you feel about Daniel Jones with a head coach who maybe not be a sociopath? I am higher on Daniel Jones than, than most people I still would not give him a big second contract. Okay. That makes sense. I mean, Joe judge was as horrendous at this as you could possibly be and he did lose his receivers and stuff but uh to me it's like

ryan tannahill 2.0 at absolute best and like you said that's probably not something you want to pay for uh how about matt ryan indianapolis colts quarterback i think it's one of the bigger quarterback upgrades of the offseason just in terms of ryan in atlanta that was that was a bad situation the last few years their offensive line he was getting hit constantly and i know indianapolis has some questions some more questions on the offensive line than they've had in the past. But bringing in a veteran with his skillset, I think they can compete in the AFC. I think so too. And having an offensive line, having a running game that good that I don't generally think running games help a ton, but that good it might for the quarterback. How about Carson Wentz commander? Carson Wentz commander.

I mean, it's an upgrade for, for Washington just because Heineke was that bad. But Wentz is who, who he is at this point. He's, he's going to hold on the ball. He's going to make too many negative plays like interceptions at the one yard line that turned into pick sixes.

So, so I don't, it was an overpaid by Washingtonhington and uh last one jaylen it hurts so good in philadelphia does he take another step and are they legit we put him we put him and them ahead of the vikings in our power rankings sort of projecting that he improves a little but that that roster and coaching staff improves as well. But are you buying Jalen Hurts? I think the Eagles are probably going to end up drafting another quarterback next year. I think that's why they traded for that extra first-round pick.

Hurts is going to be fine. It's a good offense around him. The offensive line is good. They add A.J. Brown. But I think that Tampa Bay game just kind of shows you his inability to see the whole field and make all the throws. And that's the big, big concern with her. So I think they probably end up going quarterback next year. I mean, isn't it amazing how many franchises are set up to basically be able to say to their quarterbacks, buddy, if you couldn't throw to Devante Smith and A.J. Brown, then you're just not our quarterback. There's a bunch of those situations.

And I think that if you thought that this year's quarterback market was crazy, it feels like almost every single year is going to be like that from here on out, that if you're a team that has looked at some quarterback like Carson Wentz and you're like, well, we played Taylor Heineke last year. It's got to be better than that. There's going to be a lot of that. I think in the future where teams go, Daniel Jones, nah, Jalen hurts now. And then some of the team is like, but for us. Right.

And so I think every year is going to be kind of crazy. Any questions for me, Ben? I am a good, how are you feeling about the Viking season next year? Well, look what we do every year is we pick the schedule when it comes out, as everyone else does. It is an obligatory thing. It's like giving a draft grade. You have to do it.

And as I go through it, what I try to do is I try to not keep a number in mind. I'm not trying to get them to a sheer number of wins. I won't spoil it, but I don't know if I'm going to not trying to get them to a sheer number of wins. I won't spoil it, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to get them to as many wins as Vikings fans want them to be at. I think that I'm going to probably end up around where Vegas is. Vegas has them at eight and a half wins. And that's my guess. So it just, you know, it, it just feels like in order to have a great season, they have to have all these quarterbacks that we just talked about all be quite bad. And those teams be quite bad and then play bad that night or day.

Because there's just I think that their schedule actually isn't that easy. It's a lot of good rosters that they're facing or teams that have improved a lot. So I don't know, know man what do you think yeah it's it's a lot of uncertainty changing coaching staffs um sort of hoping that the the cornerbacks hold up hoping that booth stays healthy uh peterson doesn't fall off a cliff um so yeah i'm sort of right there with you right right middle of the pack slightly below well you're the math people. I mean, I remember doing this exercise last year and saying, what are the odds that X, Y, Z and L all go right? And let's say they all are sort of 50% chance. Well, four things have at a 50% chance. It's not very good. Right. And then all those things didn't come to fruition and they

missed the playoffs. And I, I feel a lot the same way this year, but I also covered a team that in 2017, we entered the year thinking this is probably like a nine win team. Aaron Rogers got hurt. They won 13. So, you know, it's the Vikings,

man, you never know, but you do awesome work. And it was great to meet you at the combine, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. I had a good,

good time out there in Indianapolis. Great to see some people. You go under the Brad Spielberger category of taller than you look on zoom. Yeah, absolutely. I had a good, good time out there in Indianapolis. Great to see some people. You go under the Brad Spielberger category of taller than you look on zoom. Yeah, we've got, we've got a couple of tall guys over here with Brad, with Steve, Steve's a giant, like an actual giant. Steve is legit six, eight or six, nine. So real quick, Steve at the combine, I told the story at, at the combine, but it was his hero growing up was like Mark brunel and so he saw mark brunel and the other guy some of the other guys forced him to go say hi so here's mark

brunel who's like six one just like staring up at the giant steve say like it's great to meet you man so like mark brunel had to be so shocked who knows if he was like drinking beforehand too because you know you're out places. So poor Mark Brunel. But anyway, so you fall into that category, but people can read your stuff. PFF.com and at. PFF underscore Lindsay. PFF Ben was already taken.

You hate to see it. Ben Brown. Ben Stockwell. Oh, okay. An OG. Head of analysis. Yeah. No, you can't.

You're not like the draft pick who could just pay for that one. Nope. No, that's a Ben's an OG. So great. Well, great to have you follow, follow him at PFF underscore Lindsay then on Twitter.

And we'll do it again soon, man. Thanks for your time. Hey, before we wrap up, going to get to a couple of your questions in just a minute, but just wanted to remind you to go to soda stick.com. That is S O T aT-A-S-T-I-C-K,

our loyal sponsor. Check out all of their great Minnesota themed gear for your playoff run in hockey or for baseball season. If you're headed out in the nice weather to a baseball game, that is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, SodaStick.com. Hats, t-shirts, hoodies if you need them for a cool evening in the summer. SodaStick.com has you covered. Okay, I didn't want to fall too far behind on all of the questions that you guys sent me through Twitter or through emails. So I'm continuing to try to get through them before we kind of lose track of all of the draft questions.

So let me open a Diet Dr. Pepper. All right, our first question comes from at writer Churchill, loyal reader and listener to the show. Many think the draft was very Spielman-esque, if that's true, and a big if. Can we intuit any similarities, but which have ownership directives as the cause? Well, I think it's very hard to figure out if there were any ownership directives when it came to the NFL draft. I mean, I think that if

the Wilfs wanted Kweisi Adafo-Mensa to draft a quarterback, then they would say, all right, this is the year you are drafting a quarterback. They would all agree on that. And then they would do it. But from the results, I think we know that they looked at the quarterback class and said, this year is not really the year to be doing that. Now you could still second guess, not picking Kenny Pickett. I guess we'll see how that works out. But clearly all the other quarterbacks were not worth a first round pick, not worth making your future franchise guy. I think that is the type of decision that would come from ownership or would be a conversation with ownership. Everything else. I'm not sure that that's really how it works in the draft. I mean, somebody said, and I think it was smart,

maybe it was George Shahuri from PFF, that there are 52 players on the roster that are picked by the general manager and one that's picked by the owner and the one is the quarterback. So I think everything else would be the front office, Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, the scouts doing things the way that they wanted to do it. Now, picking out massive differences between a Rick Spielman draft and a Kweisi Adolfo Mensah draft is difficult. I mean, you're only talking about a handful of players that they picked and going into it. One of the things that we wanted to come away with was, all right, let's learn about Kweisi Adafo Mensah. Let's look into the hearts and minds of the new front office. And then they pick some players and go, all right,

seems like they wanted to trade down. Seems like they had their own value on certain picks that maybe the rest of the league didn't share in some instances. You know, the second trade that they made with the Packers, they did really well value-wise. They appeared to reach on a couple of picks. I think a lot of teams do reach on a couple of picks. They didn't go entirely for the highest positional value on every one of their picks. So there wasn't a clear theme.

Oh, this is how they are making it so much worlds different than it was before under Rick Spielman. But I also think there's some devil in the details and maybe how things were operated inside the draft room, which we don't know, or toward the process of making their draft picks and deciding what they wanted to do. Maybe that was different from what Rick Spielman did, but you know, you still end up with a trade down, which Rick Spielman did last year. You still end up with some, you know, pretty good prospects at the top. The rest of them we'll see. I mean, it's kind of like everybody's draft when it comes to this, right? They didn't take a wide receiver early. They didn't take an edge rusher early. Those are similar things to what Rick Spielman would do. They took an edge rusher with a big wingspan

that's projectable later in the draft. They took a sixth round wide receiver. Those are similar to things that Rick Spielman would do. So, you know, I think that just looking at the list of players, it is pretty hard to figure out like what the major differences are. It's probably some of the nuance in the way that they approached it. And, you know, I guess we'll see how it ends up working out. I mean, everything is such a small sample size. Like even when we talk about the consensus board and all that, I mean, it's clear from the history that if you go against the consensus board, then your chances of a bust are higher. That does not mean that it's guaranteed

to be a bust every single time you do it. The same with if you get a player who's free falling for maybe some strange reason, like DK Metcalf did once upon a time. It's possible you get a huge steal. It's possible that you don't. Like these things have all happened to the Vikings. Got a really good email from a listener about, you know, the times that they would have reached, the times that they would have drafted best player available with the consensus board. And when you look over the list, I mean, there's sometimes

they didn't, it worked out. Um, and sometimes they did and it didn't, I mean, everything is small sample size when it comes to that. So you're trying to kind of play the bigger picture, which is, I think what Kwesi Adafo-Mensah was trying to do, but this draft class, they needed to hit, but it, I don't think tells us all the answers that we were looking for when it comes to how quesia dafl mensa is going to handle things but i would say i don't see this as the owner saying you have to draft the safety like that that would be very surprising to me if they had done enough research on lewis scene to say that's the guy we want all right this comes from uh at you vike that one david another loyal listener uh i'll be in a sports betting state this summer and was

thinking about betting the vikings under eight and a half wins going into the draft i was convinced that i would get optimistic about the team now Now my pessimism is reinforced. Did the draft change your projection of the team at all? It did, yeah, go down from nine to eight and a half in some places on betting sites. So maybe it did a little bit for them. I don't know if that is because of the trade back and if the Vikings had say, I don't know, traded up and taking the top wide receiver in the draft, maybe the line would have moved the other way. I don't know if it's worth that much. It probably isn't. Gambling experts, I'm sure, would tell you that for the draft, you don't want to change it to whatever it was after free agency, just because the draft

generally those players and it does happen. Your Jamar chase has happened. There's a rookie of the year every year without Mac Jones last year, the Patriots, if they played Jared Stidham, probably win four games. So it does happen that rookies make a big impact right away, but oftentimes they're not changing the entire outcome of a season just based on having them fill a need. For example, last year, you look at, they draft Christian Derrissaw. Now Christian Derrissaw showed some signs right away that he should be able to play. Also allowed something like five sacks, had some rookie

moments mixed in, had an injury mixed in, and Christian Derrissaw really had nothing to do with the Vikings final win loss total. So it wouldn't have moved at all after they drafted Christian Derrissaw last year. And it really shouldn't move now with Louis seen. He is the type of player that comes from a pretty advanced defense that might be able to step in, might be able to have a big impact, he is the type of player that comes from a pretty advanced defense that might be able to step in, might be able to have a big impact, but is it more than what they would have gotten out of say Xavier Woods, who was an average player last year? I mean, if it, if it is, then it's a huge boon for this team. But normally you're talking about some upside,

some good plays, some bad plays with all rookies. And it's really years two, three, four that you see those guys start to make the impact. So, no, it really didn't change anything that I thought about what this team is going to be. And we were just talking about with Ben Lindsay trying to pick, you know, the win loss and all that for the season. If you had asked me to pick the schedule before, or you would ask me to pick the schedule after I would not have changed the projection. Eight and a half is a really good one though. I mean, Vegas is good at their jobs. Their aim, Vegas's aim is to always, you know, win half the time, right? Like be right down the middle, more than, more than half the time. I be right down the middle more than more than half

the time i mean so their their aim is to be as accurate as possible and eight and a half for this roster because you have to bake into that number that things go wrong players get hurt uh you know things happen we saw that a lot last year and they're pretty thin if things happen. So, you know, I don't blame you for going under. I personally, as a non-gambler and a not person you should take gambling advice from would probably stay away from this number because it's, it's just good. It's just exactly where I think I'll end up putting it when I go through the schedule. So yeah, I mean, if you're going under because you're really unhappy with the way the offseason went, that might be a bit of an overreaction to the way the offseason went.

If you were a person that wanted them to go all in on a rebuild and totally revamp this thing, and you're unhappy because they didn't do that, maybe don't overreact and say, well, they're going to win five, right? But there's a lot of factors that go into this that are hard to predict. New coach, a lot of new players on defense, new defensive coordinator, all those things, a schedule that we were just talking about is very hard to predict because of the amount of players who might take a step forward or might not. So that's, it's not a bet that I would necessarily want to make, but it certainly eight and a half wins feels about right. And, uh, it did not change with the draft. All right. This comes from Joker man. 5,000 says, okay, clearly the Vikings had specific players targeted in order to shore up the pass defense,

but no offensive skill players until late day three. Is KOC that brilliant? Kevin O'Connell, that is. I don't know. And that is, I think, question number one going into this season, isn't it? How brilliant is Kevin O'Connell? How much different can the Vikings offense really be? And I say that as clearly some skepticism in my voice

because I think that his predecessors have done a lot of things that are good for Kirk Cousins and have helped Kirk Cousins. Now, that does not really include Mike Zimmer demanding they run more. It certainly doesn't. So that's not to say that Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak and Clint Kubiak were not influenced by Zimmer.

That's not to say that there weren't a lot of Sundays where we were frustrated at the order of operations coming out, running the ball, running the ball, running the ball. Or even the way that they adjusted last year in the second halves of games was frustrating to watch at times. Um, but you know, when you look at it, I was looking at this, uh, earlier today, let me, let me pull it up here. The play action performance by Kirk cousins, you know, play action is a thing that, um, you know, you, you, you kind of see like the, the schematic geniuses boosting up quarterback performance with play action. So I'll give you a, an example. And I, Taylor Heineke, when he was using play action last year was a phenomenal quarterback. Like

Taylor Heineke is not anywhere close to a phenomenal quarterback, but when he had play action, he had a 122.3 quarterback rating. He was able to operate as a great quarterback with play action. When Taylor Heineke did not have play action, hold on, let me scroll over 68 quarterback rating. So when he really had to play, um, and, and things weren't dialed up for him nicely, you know, Taylor Heineke really struggled. Now, Kirk Cousins does not really struggle like that without play action, but Cousins was the number one graded by PFF play action quarterback last year. He averaged nine yards a pass. He had a quarterback rating of 116 i mean it's not like and his rating was 98 without play action so that it's not like again it's not like he was atrocious without it it's not what

i'm saying but what i'm saying is that it's not like clint kubiak gave him nothing to work with he had a big improvement every time they were using play action and drawing up that scheme. So how much the scheme can truly change to make this wildly different? Um, yeah, I, I'm not sure. And I also think that, you know, some of the things with McVay's offense are amazing and seem to get receivers open all the time, but it's not like they just ran rough shot over the league. Like I think the NFL has made some adjustments to the things that were so successful when McVay first took over that now I think face a little more pushback, which may be why Matt Stafford is the quarterback there and not Jared Goff, because they couldn't just scheme things up anymore. They knew that they had to get a little bit more.

So they are making that bet for sure that Kevin O'Connell and his culture and his scheme, that these are the things that are going to take their offense to another level. And I mean, I think, you know, there's so many off seasons we've gone into and said, hey, what about one more receiver? And off seasons we've gone into and said, Hey, what about one more receiver? And think about two of the last three years, Adam Thielen has gotten hurt 2019 and 2021 for a decent portion of time.

And there was just nobody to step in. You know, KJ Osborne, I think is a very good number three wide receiver, super useful player in the NFL can make big plays from time to time. But number two receiver, you're talking about going up against a top corner in the league. And it's not that he made no plays, but they saw the offensive passing game really start to slow down when Adam Thielen was out. And, you know, they're kind of taking a risk here, hoping that everything goes according to plan with health and that Kevin O'Connell has different ideas that are going to significantly change how they produce on offense and put it under possible that they do.

And I think there's improvements to be made, how much they can jump. Can they jump from 14th to 7th to 5th? Like if they can do that, then they have a chance to be legit. If they go from 14th to 11th, then you're probably talking about a team that's in a very similar spot. But I have to say, Joker Man 5000, I am very surprised by this. I would have thought going into this that they would have said to Kevin O'Connell, what do you need? Do you need some more wide receivers? Do you need an expensive center to block for Kirk cousins? Do you need something more than just the same old guard competition? And instead they've pretty much put all the chips on Irv Smith returning and Kevin O'Connell dialing it up. And my impression of O'Connell is that he is a very smart offensive

mind, but you know, when you get in to those tough spots in the real games, then, you know, we're going to find out, I mean, this is somebody who wasn't calling plays last year, which I don't think is a huge drawback on him, but it's just relying on a lot of things that I tend to believe what Pat Shermer used to say about the, it's really the players and not the plays. And they have a roster on offense that's somewhere between a 10th and a 15th best roster, and it's his job to make it better.

And since they made that bet, we have to hold them to that, right? Like if they finish 13th in offense and win eight, nine games, then we have to say, you guys really neglected that side of the ball and opted to add another run-stopping defensive tackle and another veteran linebacker instead of a receiver. And you decided to draft, um, you know, secondary positions as opposed to a receiver earlier, which didn't necessarily have to be their first pick. So those are things that we'll be sort of tracking along the way. All right. This is from at Liam K plays on the face of it. The draft seemed very similar to the previous regime. Is there

anything we can look at in the players drafted to suggest that they are looking for different qualities and may be informed by an analytical approach, or is it too early to tell? So this answer is actually yes. So when you look at the athletic scores, which we talked about so much in the lead up about using those relative athletic scores, which just compares how somebody scored in their combine events versus the rest of the people in the combine that year. So I'll pull this up for you because Rick Spielman would talk about using this, not this exact website, but a very similar theory. And yet he would go against it pretty often. So let's take a look at 2022 and the scores that some of the Vikings players had. So the low, well, they did have a couple of players that were not super high. But, you know,

one of them is a running back. The other one is Vidarian low. It's a late round tackle. And then the second round guard, those guys are not that high. Everybody else though, Lewis seen 99th percentile, incredible athlete, a Caleb Evans, the guy that they've sort of been mentioned for reaching on 96th percentile, Brian Asamoah, 89th, Nick Muse, the seventh round tight end, 88 Jalen Naylor 81st so they have every player is above the 50th percentile um but uh Ingram is 74th and then uh let's see and then everybody else is kind of in the 60th percentile so let's compare that to to the 2021 draft and see if that's different because well no not really not not oh wait no hold on hold on sorry did it wrong did it wrong give me a break okay let's look at just 2021 yeah so for example it's not super super different like kenny wong woo was 99th percentile

janarius robinson were the only two players above 90 and there were four players above 80 everybody else was below that um so Kenny Wong who obviously was the insane athlete of the group but even somebody like Chaz Surratt that is supposed to be that kind of explosive player more like an 80th percentile and then Jalen Twyman was 44th. Patrick Jones was a fairly high draft pick, 62nd. Amir Smith-Marset, 68th. So, you know, I think it's subtle. I think it's subtle. There's probably a little more emphasis on it,

especially with a pick like a Caleb Evans that's a real swing at somebody who's a great athlete who is playing at, you know, the SEC level. I think for the first time this last year. And so they're taking a shot on his, uh, his upside. But again, it's kind of hard to look and say, well, they clearly did this. It looks like it's slightly leans more that way by the players that they drafted it. Now, does that mean that that's everybody that they had that they wanted to draft? Like, I don't know.

So, yeah, I think that there it's a little sharper in that way. OK, this is from at social or dirty. Is the Vikings decision not to add a quarterback in the draft? A, an endorsement of Kellen Mond. B, endorsement of Kirk Cousins. C, a reflection of the poor QB class, and D, all of the above. It would be, I think, far and away C. Because, I mean, look, Kellen Mond, I mean, he could show up this year. I don't want to be totally dismissive. Players develop.

But he is very far away. Very, very far away. If they brought back Sean Mannion, that means that they don't think that there's going to be a huge next step for Kellen Mond. And if they're playing Sean Mannion late in the season over Kellen Mond, that means the previous coaching staff watched him every day in practice, as Mike Zimmer so bluntly said. watched him every day in practice as Mike Zimmer so bluntly said and they decided nah we're gonna go with the veteran who has proven that he can't really win games in the NFL Sean Manion so they would rather play him because at least he knows where to throw the ball and how to line everybody up and to operate an offense now they played a good defense and things kind of got off on the

wrong foot there from the very start, but they didn't feel like Kaelin Mond could even get people lined up and play. So he would have to take a massive, massive step. So I don't think it means anything about Kaelin Mond. Certainly not an endorsement. And look, if he takes a big step, it'll be an interesting story to cover. It's not an endorsement of Kirk Cousins because they only signed Cousins to one more year for an extension. If they had signed Cousins to a three-year extension, then I think we're looking at it a little bit different.

But they still set themselves up to draft a quarterback for next year. So it looks much more like it is an indictment on the poor quarterback class, which everybody agreed with them in the entire league outside of Kenny Pickett going to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I don't think that it's saying, oh, this is Kirk Cousins is a Viking for life because we didn't draft a quarterback this year. And also, I mean, if they had evaluated

one of those quarterbacks to be really good, I think it's very possible that they would have taken them. They just didn't. That's not me speaking from hashtag sources or scoops or anything like that. I'm just saying that, you know, the situation they're in with Cousins under contract for just one more year would have potentially lent itself to them drafting a quarterback if they really, really wanted one of those players. But they obviously did not, and neither did all the other 31 teams. So I think it says much more about that. Plus, you know, next year, everybody's talking about that quarterback class,

and I think that that influenced a lot of teams. This comes from at Sam the yellow man in terms of the consensus board how concerning is it with the sheer volume of reaches what do you think it shows in terms of Kwesi's drafting style comparing to the athletics board the Vikings overdrafted by a net amount of 183 picks total, which seems alarming. Well, Sam, yeah, I think, well, one thing I think it says is that Kweisi Adafl-Mensa has his own process, and that process does not involve looking at what the public says

or the draft analysts in the outside world, which I think that most, if not all teams feel exactly the same way. However, even though there was no wisdom in crowds with the quarterbacks this year, there is wisdom in crowds in general of seeing which players that you should not reach on. And the Vikings did reach on some, I think that of that 183 picks though, a lot of it goes to Ingram because everywhere you look, nobody thought he was a second round pick. So if they reached badly on one guy and that guy doesn't become a good player and the first two guys, which they didn't reach on become good players, it won't really matter. But I think that it does say that like

this statistically proven thing was ignored. Um, there's enough of a gap there to argue that like he wasn't only going to pick players that were in the general area of the consensus because of what the research says about it. Um, that is going to go with his own scouts, his own film, his own analytics all combined together. And then there's the other part too, that when you're trying to collaborate, that means answering to a lot of people and trying to make a lot of people happy. So if scout X wants this player, scout Y wants another player, your senior advisor wants a certain offensive lineman because that's what he played in the NFL. Then, you know, maybe you're trying

to make everyone happy as well as do the things you want to do analytically and smart versus the draft capital that you have. But I think, I think we did learn. So I guess I was saying earlier that, you know, I'm not sure how much we learn, but we did learn that Kweisi Adafomenta is not going to look at the consensus board and compare and contrast as he's making picks and say, you know what, guys, we like this player, but the consensus board has him as a fourth.

We're trying to take him in the second. I don't think we should do it. That does not look like that's going to happen. So I guess we to take them in the second. I don't think we should do it. That does not look like that's going to happen. So I guess we could take that away from it. But also since so much of that gap has to do with a Caleb Evans was a bit of a reach, not too concerned there because it's the high upside athletic reach. So that's, that one should be more okay, but it's more based, it seems, on one particular player. And I don't think one player necessarily destroys an entire draft. All right, let's get in one more.

Let's see here. This from Nurse in Time. Would you rather have the Vikings draft or Jamison Williams, Drake Jackson, Travis Jones, Zion McCollum, Malcolm Rodriguez, Quinton Lake, and Jeffrey Gunter alternate reality. If they don't trade down from 12, well, some of those players, I don't know who they are, but the first three, um, Jamison Williams, Drake Jackson, Travis Jones, that would be reloading on the offensive line and getting, I'm sorry, the defensive line with Drake Jackson and Travis Jones and getting a star on the offensive side, potentially at wide receiver in Jamison Williams.

I, the draft that you lay out is the one I thought they would have to tell you the truth. I thought that Kwweisi Adafo Mensah would look at this defensive line class, look at his own defensive line in the potential future and say, you know what? We need an interior rusher like Travis Jones. We need a defensive end like Drake Jackson and Hey, Kevin O'Connell, thanks for coming to Minnesota. Would you like this speedy wide receiver? That's what was kind of my best guess going into the draft is that that how they, it was how they might approach it. And that was not how they wanted to approach it. And I think that one thing that was quoted when we were talking before from what the executive said, one thing that was quoted that

I think is true is that they decided that they were trading down and that was what they were going to do. That they looked at the roster, said, we need more players. We need to rebuild the secondary. Ed Donatel needs a secondary like everybody in the world. So we're going to do that. We're going to trade down, going to reload. And that's what we're doing regardless. Now, again, they did not get destroyed in this trade, but compared to past trades that were similar, they did not get the same kind of value. And so if they kind of committed at the start, we're going to trade down out of this spot if, and we're going to go find the best offer and do it. It feels that way. I'm sure they would say

otherwise it feels that way though. So if that's the case, then I think that that's, you know, probably why the draft didn't turn out maybe how we thought it might based on some of the things of the past, like, you know, Kweisi Adafo-Mentz's past teams in San Francisco and Cleveland loading up on the defensive lines. I probably like your draft a little bit better. Uh, but at the same time, it's like, we're going to find out. And we have to kind of keep coming back to that. Like, don't think that this is decided today just because it feels like we know what it's going to be. Right. So the players they drafted could be great. Jamison Williams could be bad. Jamison Williams could be great. The players that the Vikings drafted could be bad. Like we just

don't know. And I will always come back to that because we won't find out until we actually see them on the field, whether that turned out or not. I like your gamble a little more to get the wide receiver specifically and the defensive lineman, because I think the only way to stop great quarterbacks is with great defensive lines. They don't have a great defensive line right now. They have solid run stuffers on the inside and really good pass rushers on the outside, but it's not like this loaded, the pass rush is coming from everywhere type of D line. And for the future, there's a lot of questions there. So I thought that they would go that way. They decided not to, and now it will play out.

And I know that is such a cop-out to say, but it's kind of like the reality of the thing. They decided they wanted to load up the secondary. We'll see if that works. I don't think that's a terrible approach by any means, because you also need to stop the pass from the back end. The Vikings had a lot of sacks last year, still got roasted a lot. So anyway, well, glad I could get some extra fan questions in. We'll do more total fan podcasts later.

And of course, I'll throw it out there, you know, on Twitter sometimes, or you can send me emails or DMMS on Twitter and ask whatever questions you got. And I'll probably do another episode, but we also have a lot this week still to come. So as they say, stay tuned and we'll talk to you later.