Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Mike Renner talks opt outs, Hot Routez touches on Kirk Cousins's future Hall of Fame chances

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

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Matthew Collar here along with Mike Renner from PFF and the wonderful Two for One podcast, which covers the NFL draft in college football. Now, Mike, what's the deal with college football? What is happening? Man, I mean, like anyone listening's guess is as good as my guess. I have no insight info. Anytime I feel like we're

trending the right way, there's just a gut punch. And I think it's going to be, I think we're going to play college football and not, I don't think everyone's going to play college football. Obviously like UConn already has dropped out. It might just be, might just be like SEC, Big Ten. It might not be even every Power Five conference, but there will be football games this fall. I feel strongly about that at least. So here's the Gophers, and I want to get into a couple of Vikings things with you, especially the idea of Ezra Cleveland playing guard, but here's the Gophers. They have this great season. The program is on the rise. Oh my gosh, finally, the Gophers have a football team worth caring about they have a first round wide receiver who is about to light the NCAA the F up and then COVID comes and Rashad

Bateman opts out and now what um give well first give me your take draft wise on Rashad Bateman because I think he's got a good chance at a first-round pick. And then how that impacts the Gophers with him opting out. I love Bateman as a prospect. To me, he's in that sort of DeAndre Hopkins, Michael Thomas vein of wide receiver where they're a little bigger, you know, 6'2", 210, I think. Like, just strong and to where big enough that, you know, when guys get their hands on him, when cornerbacks get their hands on him, he can shrug them right off. He's strong enough to do that to where he's not going to get physically overpowered, but also kind of light enough. And at that size, another guy like a Devontae Adams,

kind of similar size, were light enough where he can get off the line of scrimmage without even, you know, needing that power. And he has the quickness still to separate there at the line and along his route tree. So that body type that uh even without the high level athleticism i think we're going to be kind of looking back on his career in the nfl sort of like we do with deandre hawkins michael thomas in the draft wise where it's like how those guys fall to where they did they're just good at everything about their receiver position except they're not elite level athletes i think that's rashad bateman non-elite level athlete probably going to drop to the i was talking about this with daniel jeremiah that he probably like the 25 to 35 range in the drafts where he probably comes off the board

but then he's going to get to the NFL and be very NFL ready like a guy like AJ Brown was last year where I just think he has that all-around skill set that that's what you want you know you don't want you don't need to chase out a lot of athleticism sometimes you just need good football players now is it just me mike or in recent years have we seen this kind of happen a lot with good receivers where they end up in the second round or they end up in the third round because there's something missing but the bigger picture on the guy was a football player a really good football player seems to go missed i don't know if it's just the randomness of wide receivers but it seems like some of the first rounders who are taken end up being busts and we end up finding a lot of gems a little later on in

recent years see it i think it comes down to the athleticism aspect of it or just the traits aspect of it everyone in the first round wants to swing for the fences like that's like that's kind of a universally held idea is that you don't draft this guy who's an average athlete or has these average traits in the first round even if he has exceptional ability on the football field it's shown that he can win against high level competition so I think that's just sort of the way the NFL works and the wide receivers position especially it's it's called a skill position for a reason like it takes skill to get open to run routes to haul in contested catches not anyone who's just fast is able to get open at the NFL level as we've seen repeatedly so I think you see teams chase those traits too

much as opposed to just getting those good football players yeah I think that's a good point and just as an aside before I ask you a couple of other questions about the Gophers and where they're going to be at, Justin Jefferson, I feel like, is the two things coming together. Like he has sort of a natural football player skill. When he's got the ball in his hands, he can make plays. He has the contested catches. But also, a surprisingly good athletic profile that I think could help him step in right away, even if things are a little bit wonky here with this offseason. Yeah, I think so. And I came around on the fact that, yes, a lot of his production was from the slot last year, and a lot of it was not necessarily, you know, it wasn't necessarily him beating a guy one-on-one,

which is, I think, the most translatable aspect of the position to the NFL. If you can beat man coverage, you'll beat man coverage at pretty much any level. So he didn't face a ton of that, but I do think when you saw him have to get off the line of scrimmage against press coverage, and yes, pressing the slots a little different because you have more options in terms of going inside-outside, more release package that you can do, but I just think he has that, like you said, the physical aspect of it to get offline scrimmage easily and that's going to translate well to the NFL so I do think that he can make an immediate impact even if it's going to be a very new role for him there this upcoming season so let me bounce back are the Gophers screwed by the way before I ask you about other

stuff yes I mean he was baiting in that offense what they do relies on lot of times, one wide receiver beating the guy across. Like, I think it was the most RPO-heavy offense in college football. Like, they ran it on the most amount of plays in an RPO. You got one guy you're going to, like on a slant route or maybe a go route, and he has to win against that one-on-one matchup to make that RPO viable. And no one that they have now is going to win the way Rashad Bateman won last year. They were so good because they had two guys that could do that, and Tyler Johnson and Rashad Bateman.

So replacing both of them in one offseason, I think you'll see Tanner Morgan's numbers slip here. Do you think he's legit? Do you think he's an NFL prospect, Tanner Morgan? His arm strength and release right now are just his arm strength's not great it's released a little wonky and I think he's still like accuracy will can still get you in the door but I don't think we're talking about like legit NFL prospect I don't think he's anything more than like a day three guy at this point so if you were uh a first round potential draft pick

would you be opting out at this moment like Rashad Bateman did? Like, what do we think of these decisions? I mean, I guess I would, if I were in that position, I would assess how my college was handling COVID first and then sort of decide. But, you know, we're seeing some guys that are going to be very high draft picks, not put an extra year on tape. And I wonder how the NFL will look at guys who have done this so I guess it depends on truthfully where I see like where I'm at in my college career first there's not I don't think all first round draft picks are all first round grades are created equally to me Rashad Bateman he had a year of elite production and he already showed that he

could do a lot of things about receiver position I don't know where he was going to push his draft stock he's never he's not going to run a 4-4 you receiver position. I don't know where he was going to push his draft stock. He's not going to run a 4-4. That's not ever going to – he's not going to get to that level. And if you're not going to get to that level, you're kind of capped out in what he's going to bring to the table. Someone like Rondell Moore from Purdue who hasn't played in two years, who's rumored to be possibly opting out, which he's going to a bad team,

but he could legitimately take his draft stock into the top 10 to 15 range. If he comes back after being injured last year, to me, that's a little different. I just still think he's a first round talent. So Mike go on the first round, even if he does opt out. But to me, if I'm on that borderline can really make myself some money. I go try to make myself some money because again, it depends on your situation and who else is in your life. But if you're like on your own, on a college campus,

not going to interact with any elderly or anyone else in your family, by all means, I would be out there playing, trying to make some more money. How much do you think this is going to impact just analysis for teams when they look at who they want to pick? I mean, I think of how many guys have emerged in their final year, even somebody on the Vikings that's very exciting for this year, Armond Watts. I mean, the guy didn't play for his first couple of seasons, and then he gets one shot. He's very good.

He ends up getting drafted in the sixth round, and now looks like he can start on the Vikings potentially. I mean, there's going to be a lot of those stories that might be left in the dust if your school doesn't play or if you opt out or just if they start playing and then have to shut things down. Yeah. That's the thing. We're not going to get near – we're kind of screwed here at PFF.

We're not going to get near the sample sizes we've had in recent years, and scouts are kind of screwed with not being able to – they can't, during the fall, make contact with these guys if they're not on college campuses. They only can go to college campuses, too, so they won't be able to have that sort of inside info, get a lot of background info. So it's just going to be weird and it's going to put a lot of teams behind the eight ball.

But like you said, it's going to put a lot of players who were either going to have breakout years who are good. It's going to, it's going to make the draft do more of a crapshoot than it ever was. If we really don't have a season this upcoming fall. Right. And you remember my draft nihilism already thinking that this is random and this is why

the Vikings should have 15 draft picks because you never really do know. And this is going to make it a lot harder. And I will be fascinated to see how you guys put together a draft guide this year with all the statistics. That's going to be pretty strange, I think. Yeah, it's going to be weird to the fact that if there is not a fall, like I got my player ranks right now, they really shouldn't change. This is it.

The work has been done. I'll coast right into April then if that's the case. What do you think of the idea of playing in spring? I just don't think that's viable. With football, it's as demanding as it is to ask someone to play in the spring and then play in the fall again next year. I just think that would be too much to ask on someone's body, and I don't think that's a good idea whatsoever. But the one thing I think of is, like, if you were making decisions based on the few who get drafted, which is like, what, 2%, when maybe for the majority of college football players, there might be a case to wait because it's 99% who are not going to get drafted. Well, I'm more so just saying, I guess you would have to switch it to spring then year round.

I'm more so saying like those guys who play in the spring, so a sophomore who plays in the spring and then has to play in the fall again, you can't ask a college kid would have to switch it to spring then year-round. I'm more so saying those guys who play in the spring, so a sophomore who plays in the spring and then has to play in the fall again, you can't ask a college kid to have to. Get back to the conversation in just a minute, but first I have to tell you about something very cool from our friends at SodaStick. You probably know them for Minnesota sports-inspired hats and shirts and hoodies that are screen-printed in Minnesota, but but Soda Stick also has artwork as well. You're going to want to check out their Man Cave prints, 20 by 24 prints representing everything Minnesota sports,

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Now, Gary Kubiak revealed to us the other day that Ezra Cleveland has been practicing at guard. Now, I still find it to be mysterious whether it's right or left guard, because right guard seems weird to me that you would move him across the formation to the other side from left tackle to right guard and then ask him to figure that out with almost no offseason. But whether it's right or left guard, what do you think of the idea of Ezra Cleveland potentially winning a job at guard? Man, I guess, I mean, I think he will.

Like, that's where he will. I would rather kick in Riley Reif at this point, probably, at guard. Because you drafted him, you think he's going to be your left tackle of the future, I would hope, they drafted him i think you would want to get him the reps there as soon as possible now if you don't if you you test him out there and he doesn't look like he's ready then by all means go move him to guard but i wouldn't just throw him in at guard without ever seeing him at left tackle because uh i mean riley reeves not going to be there too much longer ezra cleveland realistically could be there the next decade. And so I don't think you want to mess with him,

especially flipping sides with him. I think you would want to keep him where he played in college. But that's just my opinion. I think he'd be a very good guard, though. Obviously an upgrade over Pat Elfline. Well, and that's the thing is at the moment, Gary was saying that, you know, the four starters from last year are going to begin camp as the starters, which would include Elfline. And we don't know where Drew Samia is in this mix. We didn't see

a lot of Drew Samia in his first year. He ends up playing Week 17. When I looked back at his Week 17 tape, it was kind of, okay. I was actually more impressed with Ole Udo, of all people, who's a sixth-round draft pick. Yeah, that's a deep cut for you. But I guess what is it that you like about Cleveland playing guard? Because I also believe that he is their long-term left tackle, and you would worry about stunting the growth there potentially. But then again, if you're a player, I don't know if that is going to make any difference. Like if you're good at this already at guard, you should be able to move out. Yeah, I think what he struggled with in college was being able to deal with some quicker edge rushers

and being able to sort of cut down that space between him. He was good when he got his hands on you. He's good like right at the point of attack. I think he plays strong and he's obviously incredibly athletic, one the most athletic linemen in the draft if not the most in terms of what he can do movement skills perspective so uh those all sort of play on the inside as well like I think he can that's not a huge worry for me and it might even protect him more and and help him early on in his career from that perspective in terms of just performance but I still do think you want to get him the reps where he ultimately will end up yeah yeah I mean so that two years from now you're not still going through these growing pains right but from the

perspective of you need someone on the interior to be able to pass block which last year was just simply not the case Garrett Bradbury was getting steamrolled and I don't know about you but I have a tough time after watching his tape back and I did a recent piece on this where I looked closely at it. I have a tough time believing that Garrett Bradbury could ever be an above-average pass blocker. Like, I think that he's got a long way to go to even be average with as much as, it wasn't just the size element, but he's got very, very short arms. He's got like my level short arms and you have to be really technically awesome to be that undersized and face the heat that you're going to face. That's the thing. The whole, so him and Elfline are both

for their position, like about as short as it gets. Like Elfline is a center that they're kind of just throwing at guard, hoping that it worked out. Like he should have been a center all along in his career. Bradbury is just, doesn't have a great anchor, really thin like frame for an offensive lineman. Like he is a center, another guy who's a center only. And just those short arms, that's just not a good combination. That's not like they drafted him purely because he was the best outside zone

center and they were going to earn more outside zone. Like that was a very like fit this guy into our scheme who fits well in that. But it was purely for the run game. It was never for – he was never a first-rounder in terms of pass protection. That's why we had him not in the first round. That's why we had him as, like, a third into your offense line. So, I agree with you. Like, him ever becoming an elite-level, it would be a very big surprise.

Yeah. And this is exactly why you have to improve your pass protection at the guard positions because teams already by the end of last year, we're starting to line up sort of more three technique players at the zero and go right over Garrett Bradbury. So they could try to take advantage of him. We saw that Zedarius Smith at one point was lined up over him and it was just like a nightmare for Garrett Bradford.

That game, he didn't have a chance. Like, Kirk Cousins didn't have a chance with the interior pressure. It was every single play. Both games against the Packers went exactly that way. I got two more things for you, Mike. One is P.J. Hall, because we kind of moved quickly past the Vikings trading for P.J. Hall and then him failing a physical. So, first of all, tell me what your favorite P.J. Hall moment was as a Viking.

But what went wrong with P.J. Hall? Like, this is my reporter instinct here. I'm very proud of it that I said on the podcast and wrote, like, hey, look, if another team is trading a second-round draft pick in its third year, don't expect him to become John Randall, okay? Like, there's a very low chance of that. But what went wrong with P.J. Hall? It was never there.

Like, I think that's what went wrong. Excuse me. You never should have been a second-round pick in the first place. He was a guy who was drafted in the second round because he ran a 4-7 at 320 pounds or whatever that was like that's it like the tape his production at gosh where is it Sam Houston State not good like legitimately if the guys if you're drafting on the second round from Sam Houston State he better be the first guy you see on every single play, just mauling guys. It wasn't the case.

He was actually just like not an impact player there back in college. So I think that was the biggest thing. He was always a guy who needed so much development. He was a freak athlete, but he needed so much development. A lot of times those guys, they've been playing football their whole lives. If they haven't developed into a good football player by the time they're 22, a lot of times those guys they've been playing football their whole lives you know if they haven't developed in a good football player by the time they're 22 a lot of times it doesn't happen there's also the element of when the head coach says yeah his body wasn't in good enough shape last year that could be little tiny red flag waving i think and that's one of the things that

we never know in the media or like i guess i won't say never know but you don't get that behind the scenes to say uh you know what was this guy's work ethic how much work was he actually putting in how much was he actually focused on getting better and you don't want to overreact to a guy failing at the NFL level because maybe he was just an asshole and terrible behind the scenes and that's why he failed at the NFL level had nothing to do with actual physical talent on the football field. But, yeah, and I think some of that, again, you can actually, like, see on tape. If a guy isn't, like I said, 22 years old and not good at football, maybe he doesn't have the work ethic or hasn't put in the work to do so.

Yeah, that might be a case of outsmarting yourself. Like, oh, we're going to take this guy because of the upside upside or whatever but the upside isn't there because he can't actually play and this is where beat reporters might become read between the lines experts so when you ask just the generic question well what do you think of rookie x and if the answer is holy bleep he's good like when delvin cook came in all the players i talked to were like oh my god it's unreal and so it's like okay uh but then if you talk to somebody about a second or third round pick or in laquan treadwell's case a first round pick and they're like well you know i mean he's just coming along okay all right gonna keep an eye on this situation uh the last thing i wanted

to ask you about mike was in in this year's's draft, the Vikings took several defensive linemen, and the defensive line is going to be very interesting. Now, without P.J. Hall in the mix, Armond Watts is probably going to play the nose tackle, or maybe Shamar Steffen, or maybe Jaleel Johnson. We're not really sure, but the door is wide open for someone like James Lynch to make an impact, or for the to move a Fadi Adenabo inside to rush on third downs and have DJ Wanham rush off the edge or even Kenny Wilkes who's a

seventh round draft pick what do we think of where these guys could fit in the mix right away since the opportunity is going to be there yeah it's not it's not great I'll just I'm not gonna share it but I do think James Lynch probably ends up taking snaps at three technique. I think that's where his NFL sort of body type landed him. The other guys, if anyone I'm rushing off the inside, probably Willekes as opposed to Wanham. Wanham was more of a pure edge guy, in my opinion, coming out. I think Willekes could get it done if you're looking to kick a guy inside.

It's kind of similar to Hercules Marafa in terms of like body type and how they win. So that's where I thought of my, it's like I said, though, this is, it kind of, it's kind of going to be trial by fire there on the interior.

Cause none of those guys are really inspiring too much confidence at the moment. Yeah. I haven't talked to anybody who's super excited about DJ Wanham, except for Andre Patterson, who likes DJ Wanham. So I'm kind of like, yeah, Andre Patterson knows what he's talking about in general, but they've also taken these guys before. Jalen Holmes is a good example.

Jalen Holmes sacked no one in college at all. And they were like, oh, no, it'll be fine. He'll just move into interior and then he'll be great and he wasn't uh so i guess i don't know how to balance this but with with dj wanham another guy that has the length and the arms and everything else but did not have the production yeah and went to the senior bowl and didn't have pass rushing i think that's the thing it's like he does not been you're at south carolina and you haven't learned past rushing moves yet it's a little worrisome and now i guess javon kinlaw kind of spoke to the fact that they didn't develop he

didn't feel as though they developed him much there as a past rusher in terms of he was like having to learn moves on his own so there's some of that and you never again it's another thing that we really don't get uh as people on the outside in terms of what they're actually asked to do. And so they've hit before, though. I think Daniil Hunter was a guy that was in a similar vein, even though Wannab's not nearly at that level athletically, but similar body type in terms of long athletes on the edge. And you take chances on those guys because that length in athleticism, especially in the fourth round, you take chances on those guys because that length in athleticism,

especially in the fourth round, you take chances on those guys because that length in athleticism is far more rare than guys who can actually take on blocks. And so you hope you can coach them to take on blocks, and then you get that rare athleticism too. Who's your favorite bogus comparison that gets made all the time? Because Daniil Hunter is definitely one. Oh, the guy didn't sack anyone?

He's Daniil Hunter. Like, yeah, this is what they call an outlier of a guy who didn't have any production in college. And he's also the biggest freak athlete maybe in the entire NFL. If you're ranking top ten, he's in there. So good luck finding that. And the other one that I love is an undersized three technique. Wow, worked for John Randall.

Yeah, the Aaron Donald. Oh, yeah, right. 280. Or the Aaron Donald. Oh, yeah. 280. Aaron Donald's 280. What's the big deal? It's like that's not small. It's like that's very small. There's not a lot of guys doing it at 280 in the NFL.

Right. Yeah. Aaron Donald's a great one. It's just everybody who's undersized is Aaron Donald. No big deal. Mike Renner, I'm going to say this, that everyone should keep an eye out for what you guys are doing with college football, even though we talked about how messed up college football is going to be. But I am really excited about what you guys are about to launch with college football.

Yeah, we have pretty much the premium stats product that we offer for the NFL. We will be offering for college. Not quite exactly the same. It's actually going to have some better visual aspects to it, but not as much in-depth data as you get with the lead package. But it's going to be a lot more than what you can find pretty much anywhere else. Well, the two-for-one podcast is terrific with you and Austin Gale. You do great work, and it's always great to catch up with you, man. For sure, Matthew. It's always a pleasure.

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Let's be a cold weather team. neck rolls, and grass game jerseys. The good old-fashioned guts was probably the biggest difference in the game. Okay, you heard it. It is time for some more Hot Routes. And joining me, the author of these blazing routes, is intern Paul. What's up, intern Paul?

How are you? I'm doing pretty good, Matt. Just working on my golf game this summer before I go back to school and not working right now, so just trying to get some swings in and watching some golf. We're recording this on Sunday, so waiting for that major championship to finish. So I'm very golf-centric right now. Really don't want to talk about it when it comes to golf.

I had one of those moments where you get in the car after and you go, you know what? I should just never do this again. Never. Nope. I should take these clubs and I should toss them in the nearest body of water and I should walk away and never think about this ever again. That is because of my personality. It only takes like two bad shots in a row for me to get there. So let's not discuss it. But why don't you start us off? What do you got for hot routes today? All right, well, let's slip in a bit of news right here at the front, then we can get into the good stuff later at the end. So Mike Florio reported on Sunday that the NFL remains privately very confident that they

can have a full season, that they will have a full season. The Vikings media, you guys have started to talk to coaches, players over the last couple of weeks. So from your conversations there and just with how the full scope of the league's been going, where's your confidence level currently that a full season can take place? A full season is hard to say with complete confidence that they will be able to get all the way through it

because of the challenges that exist here. But the fact that they were able to get through the first week of everybody showing up without massive COVID breaks across the country, I think are really positive. I mean, we've seen some players go on the COVID list. It looks like it works. If you even have a false positive like Matt Stafford, I know that he was really upset about it and I get that, but it's also better safe than sorry for him to sit out a couple of days of practice to make sure that he didn't actually have it. So to get everybody in these mini bubbles, I think that we can get to week one and then that's where things are going to get tricky.

16 teams at that point have to travel. They have to have lots of people to travel. And then you've got to keep track of a lot of people and make sure that no one is breaking these protocols. But I think it's really important that they saw what happened with Major League Baseball, that your team will not be able to play if you have a COVID outbreak. If you decide you're just going to go to a casino or hang out in the hotel bar without your masks on, you will get COVID and you will end up sitting out. And I don't think that they want that. And I also think that the NFL, as much as you don't love control like this over somebody's, you know,

what they can do in their life, the fact that they're going to find people who don't love control like this over somebody's, you know, what they can do in their life, the fact that they're going to find people who don't wear their masks and that they're putting in all these measures, I think gives them a decent chance at it. And if you think about it, the difference between baseball, you fly into a city and you're going to play for three days there. You're going to be there a while. And with football, I mean, you can fly in on Saturday, play your football game on Sunday, be on the jet and on your way out by Sunday evening. Maybe there's a better chance there. Now, I know that it's about the most context sports you can

have, but if everybody has the same thing in mind, which is get paid and get these games in, then I am feeling more confident, even if I'm not feeling more confident necessarily that this is disappearing soon in America. Yeah, I think this whole time we've been saying, well, football has so much time, they can take so much from everyone else. And then we were getting a little skeptical there. Did they really take much from other teams or from other sports? But I think now I'm starting to come back to that maybe they did because we saw MLB struggle at the beginning. They've seemed to right the ship a little bit.

You're seeing, you saw that with golf. You saw that with some other sports where they started with some positives and have had really good weeks since. So you're hoping that the NFL doesn't have to have one of those beginning things, but what it shows is if they do, other sports have been able to right the ship. You hope if football comes into something they can do what these other leagues have done and kind of be able to make a turn and for the better um so i think that's what we're hoping for

um i still have the same well i still have the same questions about football though how many covid cases could you survive uh if kirkins and Sean Mannion and Jake Browning all got positive tests on a Thursday what do you do are you playing Nate Stanley a quarterback is Delvin Cook playing quarterback I mean how is this going to work when it comes to the positive cases that ultimately will happen and Eric Sugarman the Vikings trainer he got it and he also said people will get it along the way how are we going to contain it how are we going to deal with it and if a team has a center get it on again on a Thursday do you have to quarantine the whole defensive line who went up against him the entire week in practice how about everybody who was in these meetings with him? I still have these major, major questions going forward. But as of right now, I think that the

NFL is doing a ton. They couldn't do a bubble. It's really difficult to do unless they completely reformed how the league works into regional bubbles or a tournament or something. But they are bubbling as much as possible. My other other question is you asked about a full season is when we get to like week eight week nine of this same kind of quarantine feeling bubble feeling for every team do people start to get anxious do they start to go out a little bit more I mean even you know I wear a mask everywhere I go of course but even I feel like oh this is just kind of regular life now a little bit and maybe you you lose that sense of urgency to pay attention to the details to make sure that you don't get it so um you know I still have concerns about the

full season but I think we're definitely getting to the start all right and let's let's put COVID to the side for a little bit now let's get get into some fun stuff. We don't have to discuss all that, that black cloud hanging over the NFL right now. But I know you're having training camp withdrawals. You have to be having training camp withdrawals. You'd be out there right now watching them do just amazing drills. So I wanted to talk to you about those drills. Your favorite, goofiest, most absurd camp drill that you are really really missing right now what is it well let me tell you about the best drill to watch i mean not i'm not joking here like the best if you are a fan and you get to see this then you have seen something really awesome which is corners and receivers one-on-one when they line up before they get into 11 on 11s and it's just Stefan Diggs versus Xavier Rhodes and you get to see Stefan Diggs route running ability and then Kirk Cousins throws in the ball just one-on-one deep down the field comebacks in routes you know things like like all these things that really show you the incredible explosiveness and attention to detail and then you get to see the guys who aren't on the team or won't make the team and the

difference between Adam Phelan or Stephon Diggs and, you know, the guy who is undrafted free agent. And then, you know, sometimes people surprise you there and that's where you really get the feeling, okay, this guy might actually be able to do it because he is roasting some corners every day in this drill. That is the most fun one to watch, I think, by far. The most hilarious is easily when the offensive linemen practice their cut drills. Oh my gosh. I mean, there is a giant donut. It's a six-foot donut, and they roll it out,

and the offensive lineman, a guy who's 300 pounds, has to run at it and dive and knock it over. It's super funny, and imagine if somebody was not a football fan, seeing that for the first time like they didn't know what was even trying to be accomplished. It was just a very, very large man running at a rolling donut and knocking it over. There are a couple of videos that we grabbed from last year's practice on this and tweeted them out if people want to go back and try to find them. I'm sure if you just search my name in the word donut, you can find some of these drills, but it's tremendous. Yeah, I love any offensive line drills. The blocking sleds, they're just pushing them yards and yards down the field.

Anything with offensive linemen is my favorite. And then going back to the one-on-one thing, I totally agree with you. When that happens, it seems like everyone, no matter what they're doing on the field, just seems to turn their head and kind of start looking. It's definitely the most animated parts of the practices. The guys are drawn back and forth. Obviously, we've seen that in previous years with certain players, but that would have to be the one I was thinking of, too, is the one-on-one drills. It brings out the most personality in the guys. You can tell there's a lot of monotonous drills that they go through during training camp, but that's one that both guys seem to really enjoy that they're doing. And so whenever you're getting away from just the stretching and hitting the different bags and doing just the walkthroughs when they can do some of those things.

I think that's when you get the best out of the guys. Yep. You're right. Being able to hear it too. If you're standing right there. I mean, so I've been on the sideline, I mean, I don't know, 50 feet from it and you can hear the, the, the feet, you know, like are hitting the ground with so much power on these routes and you can hear them making contact with each other with the pads and helmets and everything else. That's impressive.

Also, when Daniil Hunter does one-on-one blocking drills with anyone or Everson Griffin with anyone, it's like good luck to the offensive linemen going up against those guys in one-on-one drills with no help. That's pretty fun, too, to see the raw power of players like that. Well, another staple of training camp is always hard knocks. I am a lover of hard knocks. I'm sure you are, too. And we're still getting a hard knocks. They're filming with the Los Angeles Chargers this year. And it got me thinking, because this is obviously going to be a very interesting year for them to film and kind of to see what they're doing right now maybe inside look that we're not exactly getting so what

would have been the most entertaining viking season maybe the one since you since you've been here since you've kind of gotten that inside look what's the most entertaining viking season that hard knocks could have been there for yeah for the training camp and leading up to it i mean yes yes well the most fascinating would have been 2016, because that's when Teddy Bridgewater gets hurt. And that's when Teddy Bridgewater also throughout training camp in the preseason, looked like he was about to take that next step toward being a star. he gets his team to the playoffs and played very well in 2015, not necessarily for your fantasy team, but when you go back and you look through the tape and you look how he played to the score and didn't turn the ball over and played like a young game manager should, but he was ready to break out. There were a couple of games in the preseason where he made wow throws.

One was against the Chargers and Stefan diggs was running a deep cross and he put more velocity and touch on that ball than i think all of 2015 so he was taking that next step and then he gets hurt in a non-contact injury of which there are still conspiracy theories out there that maybe somebody stepped on him and nobody wanted to ever tell the media that someone stepped on him because that player would always be the guy who stepped on Teddy Bridgewater. But, I mean, there were ambulances at Winter Park. It was a situation where Teddy could have lost his leg. And then you immediately turn around and trade for Sam Bradford just a couple of days later.

And think about the turnaround for that for Sam Bradford, who was miserable in Philadelphia after they drafted Carson Wentz. And then here comes Bradford onto a new team, and he has to play in a game two weeks after showing up to the Vikings. And then, you know, I know that Hard Knocks doesn't go into the season, but him winning that game to open U.S. Bank Stadium against the Packers, like really something, really great storylines early in that season. Of course, it fell off later, but that single event there would have made it by far the most interesting.

The only other one I would say is probably 2018, where being at camp every day myself, we had the sense that something wasn't really right there, that the offense couldn't fully grasp or connect with what John DeFilippo was trying to do and that the offensive line was going to be a big problem and so Super Bowl expectations NFL Network and ESPN everybody's coming in every day and they're talking about Super Bowl or bust Super Bowl or bust and yet the real story was you know there's something a little bit off with this 2018 team, so I think both of those probably would have been good years. Yeah, and I don't think

last year would have been particularly interesting, other than the fact that I think we would have had a full episode on the kicking situation, lots of disgruntled Zimmer looks on the sidelines at the kicking competition, so if we could have one episode on the Vikings training camp from last year, that's what it would have been. And you would have had Stefan Diggs kind of starting to, his stuff start to boil over a little bit. You'd get probably a lot of Herb Smith, like Darren Waller treatment that he got in last year's hard knocks.

So a couple of different things, but yeah, I definitely agree that Teddy Bridgewater one is the easiest one to just kind of pick out of it and say that would have been really interesting and would have been definitely interesting to see how the inside of that locker room and the inside kind of handled that dynamic. Yeah, the Corey Vedvik is one of my favorite days I've ever covered at training camp just because the crowd gave him a standing ovation after making a 60 yarder off a tee, which every NFL kicker can do.

But there was like this, I've never, there's two fields out there and one of them is kickers and punters. And sometimes players like who are hurt working out on the side. And then there's the 11 on 11s and players going through drills and all that stuff. I've never turned around to look at the kickers and punters before Corey Vedvik showed up. And so we were watching Vikings interns try to catch punts and taking odds on whether they could catch them or not. It was a randomly exciting day for a guy that immediately showed he was not an NFL kicker slash punter slash holder at all.

So, yeah, that would have been a fun behind-the-scenes episode of Hard Knocks. I was – last summer I was at training camp as a CARA 11 intern, and I was there, that kind of sequence, right when he got there his first day. And my job was to keep a camera on Corey Vedvik all day long. We had another camera that was doing other things, but I was solely just anything. The Corey Vedvik beat. Absolutely. We were all on that that day.

So he's got a special place in my heart for the amount of footage I have of him kicking and stretching and punting, just doing it all. So I'll always remember that training camp. Does that footage still exist? I would love to tweet that out and be like, what a day. It has to exist on some internal computer in the Care 11 servers. If they haven't deleted it already, maybe they've scrapped everything Corey Vedvik off their computers,

which I wouldn't be surprised about. But moving on to our next hot route, ESPN and NBC recently released their list of potential Hall of Famers. I saw you tweeting about it a little bit. So I wanted to just kind of take that to the Vikings angle. I'm going to give you a couple names of current Vikings. You tell me percentage chance they think we could make the Hall of Fame. Maybe they would make your Hall of Very Good that you had earlier this offseason. So I think the first one is kind of the obvious one,

Daniel Hunter. He seems, at least in my mind, to have the highest percentage. Maybe he's not at the body of work that Harrison Smith has at this point, but he seems to have the potential to be that type of Hall of Fame player. So if you could put a percentage on it, where would you put it? I'm going to double-check something right now just to make sure that if I give you this stat and it blows your mind that I am 100% accurate in giving it about Daniil Hunter because we know that last year he set the record for the most sacks by the age of 25. And so he is, as we record this, 25 years old and 285 days, okay,

which, again, is sort of mind-blowing. Afadi Adenabo is 26 years old and 123 days. So Afadi Adenabo, who we're talking about is a, well, hey, this player could emerge here. Daniil Hunter is younger than him by almost a year, and he has 50 sacks or whatever already in his career. I mean, that is the type of 54 and a half sacks one hunter has. That is the type of career trajectory that says Hall of Fame, where you're setting records, where you're doing things that no one has ever done before. And somebody like him who came into the league so young could play for 10 more years in the NFL.

He could triple this total and he could have a chance, honestly, because of the way he keeps track of his body. He's had no injuries so far in his career. I mean, he could be trending toward competing for all-time sack numbers if he stays on this trajectory. You never know what could happen to somebody. But if I were to say who has the very highest chance, it's Daniil Hunter. I'm never going to try to predict the future and say 99% chance or something. But, I don't know, 75, 80% chance, this is exactly the way that Hall of Famers usually look. So I mean, I think there's a

great chance of Hunter being in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I just looked it up where he ranks career all time in his sack numbers. He's already 154th. If he gets around 10, 13 sacks, he's going to be in that top 100 after this season. So if you think he still even has, say, five more years of peak production, he's going to vault himself into that top 50, that top 40. And then if he keeps going, which he has a very good capability of doing, that's when he's going to get in that upper echelon. So I think that 80% is kind of that number. That 20% is just maybe he gets hurt, maybe something happens where his production falls off, but he seems like a sure, as close to what the Vikings have right now is a sure thing for the Hall of Fame and definitely probably already

locked onto the Hall of Very Good for the Vikings. Number two, Harrison Smith, more of a longevity case in his instance and see how much longer he can do it. But you've talked about it on previous pods in the last couple weeks, just the amount that he does that maybe always doesn't show up in the stats about how much quarterbacks maybe think he's going one way and he's in the complete opposite spot. So that's a little bit different if you don't have the numbers, which he still has a lot of great numbers, but where would you put him in the percentage chance? This is where Pro Football Focus is going to help a lot of guys

because it really sharpens our view on how good we know they are as people who watch them all the time. I mean, any Vikings fan will tell you Harrison Smith is one of the best players in the NFL, but if you didn't have somebody sort of an outside source looking at the details as opposed to just interception numbers, tackle numbers, I mean, what do those do for us with a safety? You've really got to see it with Harrison Smith. The thing I wonder about with him is, does he get the recognition because there are a lot of cases where he doesn't make very high on certain lists NFL 100 where he isn't I mean in 2017 I thought he had a good case for defensive MVP of the entire NFL and he did not make the first cut of pro bowlers I mean just kind of I don't know he goes under the radar he is um Harry the Hitman, right? I mean, that's just like what people think of is sort of this understated guy,

this quiet guy who is not a self-promoter. He's not on commercials or anything else like that. He is not out there all the time having people write articles about him, and he's played on the defense with a lot of stars. And when you play on the defense with a Daniel Hunter and Everson Griffin, Xavier Rhodes got a lot of attention over the last couple of years when he was an elite corner that Harrison maybe didn't get the credit entirely he deserved.

And I wonder if that holds him back from being in the Hall of Fame. But, I mean, two, three more years like this, and he will put up a case for it. And I asked the PFF guys, and they tend to think that he should be right there because he's been a top three player at his position all the time. And I think he brings even more value than just someone who gets interceptions. Like Anthony Harris is the perfect example. Harris is great, really, really good.

But he doesn't do everything that Harrison Smith does, and I think that goes for a lot of safeties in the NFL. Yeah, I think Smith almost needs some sort of breakout moment, whether that's a big interception in the postseason to kind of just get him on the map for some of the other teams, or some of them just nationally. He's been so solid but you're right he doesn't have that recognition that so many other players get so if he were say the Vikings make it back to a NFC championship game and he comes up in big moments to where people are remembering his name a little bit more you think that could even help him a little bit because just going off the numbers

and how important he is to a defense he's as valuable as anyone in the league really on a for a defensive team so he seems to just need like when as valuable as anyone in the league really on a D on for a defensive team so he seems to just need like when you're putting together that Hall of Fame highlight reel he needs that one clip that is going to be at the beginning of it or at the end of it that really people remember so I think that that's where he just needs that little bit more but I'd say he's right around like a 40% chance you can see it kind of going either. I'd say he needs to do a little bit more right now, so that's why he's probably below half, and he's getting up there in age. So you just don't know what you have in these last couple years.

It's a good point because someone like Troy Palomaro did a lot of the same stuff, but he played with flair. He was very popular. He had the hair and everything else, and he was in a lot of big moments. He was in Super Bowls, Super Bowls, Super Bowls. I don't know if he played in two, but he was in playoff games all the time. He was making big interceptions in playoff games. And with Harrison Smith, it's not his fault that they haven't been

in a ton of playoff games. But since the start of his career, see, they lose in 2015, didn't make it 2016, didn't make it in 2018. And then last year, one playoff game, and the Minneapolis Miracle game will always be remembered for Case Keenum and Stephon Diggs. Everybody else just goes kind of in the wash with that one. So I think it's a great point that just by circumstance, he is not thought of it that way. If he had one pick six in a playoff game that everybody remembered, then it would probably up his profile.

But it seems like it's only the people who really, really pay close attention who know how good he is, and that makes it harder for you to get in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, and he was kind of the last name I had to have a really good shot. You could maybe make a case for Adam Thielen if he keeps going for a while, but there really wasn't anyone else that I felt comfortable kind of putting in that tier. I don't know if you have any other names that you think you'd want to throw out. I do, and this might surprise people, but Kirk Cousins. I mean, Kirk Cousins is putting up numbers that year in and year out that are

predictable for the most part. And he's always kind of in that same range. He has incredible health. I don't think he's ever missed a start for an injury and now a playoff win. If he gets more than that and continues on this trajectory of year in and year out, putting up big numbers, then there will be a conversation about whether Kirk Cousins belongs in the Hall of Fame eventually. He's going to play until he's 40, I'm sure. He's just not had these catastrophic injuries. He's not been beat up.

I mean, think about the difference between him and Rodgers for injuries. Kirk Cousins, I mean, nicks and cuts. Aaron Rodgers has had the broken collarbone. He's had a bunch of other things go wrong for him because he holds onto the ball longer. He tries to make more athletic plays where Cousins seems to know how to chuck and duck, I think he said in his first press conference with the Vikings. But you think about that. I mean, if you continue to put up those numbers, compare them to say Philip Rivers. Let's say the Cousins has a 13 and three season mixed in with a lot of eight and eight, seven, nine,

nine and seven type of years. And he gets to an NFC championship and plays really well that year and is in the MVP conversation. Let's say that happens, which after last year, it's in the realm of possibility that it can happen when he was already ranked, I think, sixth by PFF and top five in quarterback rating and things like that. So it is in the realm of possibility. If he gets you there, if he, I mean, Matt Ryan is a good example here, gets his team to a Super Bowl, then you're having a debate about it. And I think that those are the comparable potential names for cousins down the road

would be a Matt Ryan and a Phillip Rivers and Matt Stafford too, where you got huge numbers, longtime franchise quarterback, and you have to decide, well, did he win enough? Did he do enough? So I'm not saying that there's like the same percentage chance as Daniil Hunter, who I think is trending very much toward that. But is there a world where he makes the Hall of Fame? Yeah, I think there is. Yeah, you mentioned it right at the end. The name I was going to bring up is Stafford. I feel like he's kind of the all stats, no results thing.

And when you just see the trajectory of his career, like, well, he's going to break all these passing yard records, and he's going to get up there in touchdowns. Like, how do we decide that? Because he hasn't had that playoff success or really any playoff experience. And so obviously Cousins' numbers are lower than that, but his playoff experience is higher, and he's won a playoff game now. And so it's like, how do we kind of judge Stafford?

How do we judge Cousins? So he's another one of those guys that I think the public perception just needs to shift on him a little bit, because even though we've kind of debunked it a little bit, I think nationally it's still like can he win the big game can he win the primetime game and so that would have to shift a little bit but I would say if he gets one of those 13 and three seasons he's comparable to a Phil Rivers who it seems like most people feel good about putting in the hall of fame so yeah it's just going to take him a several more years of pretty decent play.

But then, yeah, I agree that he could be up there. But he's, what, 31 now? He's going to turn 32. It wouldn't surprise me if he ends up playing eight to ten more seasons in the NFL. And if any of those eight to ten, because you talk about the narratives, if any of those eight to ten that he reaches a Super Bowl, it blows up the narrative that he can't win. And I don't know if it did that for Matt Ryan, but I think that it did. Like Matt Ryan didn't blow a 28 to three lead. Matt Ryan got them a 28 to three lead. And Matt Ryan has a great chance

in my mind of being a Hall of Famer. Well, there's your comparison. A lot of years of Matt Ryan in Atlanta are seven to nine, eight and eight. Same with Phil Rivers with the Chargers. And now Rivers has never gotten them into a Super Bowl, but he has gotten them to, what, an AFC championship maybe once? Maybe not. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out when he was playing on the torn ACL. I don't think that was an AFC championship game. It is interesting that, I mean, he's never taken his team all the way,

and he doesn't have that thing, like can he really win, but Cousins does. But if any of those years go right, then it's going to blow up all those narratives for a very long time, and then you've got a shot. And I am not telling you that Kirk Cousins is one of the three or four best quarterbacks. He will not at any point in his career be a top five quarterback. Every year of his career, you'll be able to go through and say, well, this guy's better, this guy's better, this guy's better.

But it's almost like the baseball player who accumulates a long period of time of being the seventh best outfielder in Major League Baseball or the tenth best starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who ends up with 3,000 strikeouts or something like that like that might be Kirk Cousins so I mean I wouldn't put it at a super high percentage chance I might go like 20 right now but I think it's it's within the realm of possibility we also don't know how stats are going to change how offenses are going to change in the position over the next 10 years. But it's interesting to look forward and say, you know what, this guy's been so healthy that it gives you a shot if he remains with, especially with a team like the Vikings,

that always seems to put a lot of good people out on the field. I mean, even 2021, we could set expectations at being right back in the playoffs, and then he's got that shot of making it happen. So it's interesting. Yeah, and Cousins hasn't had the Julio Jones that Matt Ryan has had or the Calvin Johnson that Matt Stafford had early in his career. So if he definitely had one of those, you could see those chances go even higher. Finally, our final hot route I'll go at is we've discussed at length about the Vikings kind of having a wide

range of outcomes, especially like the Eric Eager pod. He had them at 6-10. You had them closer to 10-6. Just kind of we can see a lot of possibilities for him. And then you had Jason Wilde on your pod about the Packers, and he had talked about them with similar potential. So it got me thinking, what NFL teams do you feel like are the most volatile with how their season could go? They could be really good and they could be terrible. Where are you at on that? I'm going to start AFC.

I think that the Pittsburgh Steelers could be really good or really terrible. Ben Roethlisberger coming back off the injury. Of course, he is in the best shape of his life, Paul. I don't know if you've heard from that. Best in like 13 or 14 years. That survived COVID. That was not killed off by COVID, the fact that football players will say they're in the best shape of their lives,

even though they had the very strange offseason. But you could see Roethlisberger coming back and playing really, really well and having some players emerge as weapons and Pittsburgh still winning the division, maybe. I mean, the Ravens are by far the favorite, but being a playoff team, being really good. Or you could see Roethlisberger just being totally washed and that roster not being strong enough overall. And, you know, maybe Mike Tomlin loses the locker room or something. I don't know. I think Tomlin is too good of a coach to go 4-12. But if he gets bad quarterback play again, you're probably not talking about a very good season.

Cleveland is also in here. Denver is also in here. Indianapolis is in the same thing because if Phillip Rivers can't play anymore, then they could go 6-10 after, you know, actually having a very strong team. In the NFC, it's a little bit harder. I mean, because I feel like I have a good sense for where everyone stands, but maybe that team is Atlanta. Like, maybe they're the sneaky team that could surprise us and go 11-5, and we're like, Wade, we thought that, you know, that division was going to be owned by New Orleans, and all of a sudden Atlanta snuck up on them and New Orleans went 8-8 or something.

Philadelphia maybe you could actually see being kind of bad. I don't know. Do you have NFC ones? Because I have a good feeling on the AFC ones, like Denver. If Drew Locke stinks, they have a really darn good team, but they could still go 4-12. If Drew Locke is great, small sample, I don't know where to stand on Drew Locke. If he's great, then he becomes their longtime starting quarterback,

and they win 10 games, and they're second in that division to Casey. I mean, there's a lot of ways that that one could go. But NFC, I kind of feel like I've got teams locked in. Detroit, would Detroit be your top pick? Well, for the NFC, what came to mind, and it's a little bit of a stretch, and it's not exactly one team. It's more of a division. But the NFC West feels so volatile in how teams could finish.

Like anyone in there, San Francisco, Seattle, like the Rams, I don't have a good sense on. The Cardinals, I don't really know what to do with them. But if you told me the Cardinals did really well and they were 10-6, 11-5, or they just kind of got swallowed up by that division just because of how many other good teams there are, I could see one team not necessarily being that bad, but they just get

punished by their division that they kind of fall off. So that was where I was going. Another one, kind of an outside chance because I think the team around him is really good, but we saw some, just a little bit of some troubling things from Drew Brees to end the season with his deep ball and things like that. And if he's just doesn't have a solid season, I don't think they'd fall to one of the worst teams in the league, but I think they're expected to be up there with, you know, if Tampa's really good or something like that. So if he falls off, I think that could be kind of a surprise.

Maybe they're not horrible, but 8-8, 7-9, just not something you'd expect after what we've seen from the Saints the last couple of years. The right answer is that Tampa Bay, because you don't know if their coaching staff will cheat to help Brady or not. A-O. Got to get the Tom Brady slander. Thought about, I mean, I actually had this thought, like,

oh, he doesn't have a coach who cheats anymore. Is that going to work? Tampa Bay has a really good roster, though. This isn't just Brady shows up and, you know, you're like, oh, well, he's – that would be like Favre going to the Jets. The Jets weren't that great, and Favre goes there and he gets hurt. It just doesn't work out very well. This is a great team that Tom Brady is going to,

and that's where it's hard to see them going like 6-10 or whatever. I think it is – Arizona is an interesting answer. I just feel like I have a lot of these teams pinned in, and Steven Ruiz and I talked about this the other day on the show, that the NFC is just not super compelling. If we're mentioning Detroit as most interesting teams, then yikes. That's just, you know, I mean, that's, I think the North is, the North has its own storylines. But I've got, I kind of feel like I know where I am with a lot of teams.

Maybe Seattle, but Russell Wilson gives you a floor. So if they have a terrible season and it all blows up in their face, you're still, you know, 10-6 or something or 9-7. So honestly, yeah, well, one more thing before we go honestly I think it might be the two teams that we've spent the most time talking about is the Vikings and the Packers we kind of go by them but now as we're talking more about it they seem to have maybe the nuts they could have the kind of not steady quarterback play that we've kind of looked at in the other divisions and said well that gives them a floor um We know Kirk Cousins gives us a certain floor,

but it's lower than I think others would be. And if the rest of the division is bad, one of these teams, Packers or Vikings, could really jump up, and it might not even be a product of how good they are. But the fact that Mitch Trubisky is still on the Bears, still doing his thing, Matt Patricia, that whole situation isn't going well, and one of them could get vaulted. So that was my final point. Well, a very well done hot routes.

I feel like you are a guy who has gone out to the driving range and spent three hours a day on the driving range. That's like you practicing your hot routes. And so now after you've gotten the reps and the muscle memory of doing hot routes, you've really got it here, Paul. Great job. Let's hope this isn't my career round and then, like my golf game, I go out next week and – The worst. It's the worst. Yeah. I hate that.

Let's hope that doesn't happen. That is the most frustrating thing. This exact thing happened to me this summer, and it happened to my buddy Chad Graff, who comes on the show. Chad and I played. He had all the luck in the world. Everything went right for Chad that day. And then he got on or I texted him about it. I was like, how was your next round? Garbage. Terrible.

Of course. That's how it goes. That's golf. That's why no one should ever play it. Intern Paul, great stuff and thank you all for listening to this episode of Purple Insider. Sports are coming back. So are your chances to bet on your favorite teams and events. Major League Baseball finally kicking off,

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