Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Mike Renner talks us into the 2022 Vikings draft class

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Matthew Coller gets together with Pro Football Focus' draft expert Mike Renner about the camp progress of Lewis Cine, Andrew Booth Jr. and the rest of the Vikings draft class and they play a game of talk me into, which includes Mike asking about the Packers' demise.  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, welcome to the first episode ever performed in a public park. Matthew Collar here with Mike Renner is not in the park. He's in his house. But I'm having some construction done and it was far too loud for me to podcast inside of my house. So due to the commitment that I have and the fact that it's summertime, I am in a park and I hope that the audio sounds okay. Mike Renner, how are you? I'm doing great. Audio sounds great. And I don't think I'd be legally allowed in that public park.

So glad I'm not there with you. Kidding. I don't even want to ask any follow-up questions to that. But no, there is some hoops. And actually one of them is only like eight and a half feet tall. So if I can get rim, I know you would have basically a slam dunk contest. But if all of you are not familiar with Mike, pro football focused draft analyst and soon to be host of the Talkin' Ball podcast.

Now, you know that I was a huge fan of the tailgate and previously, I forget what it was, with Austin Gale. And I should know this. It was tail, what was it before tailgate? Two for one draft. Two for one. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. So a long time listener of that, but Austin Gale, our friend now with the ringer. So you are starting the talk and ball podcast and I'm excited. This is going to be a solo venture for you. It will.

So it's not technically. So I guess it is solo. It's going to be me every podcast, but like, it's also going to have a guest every podcast. So it's going to be a rotation of just different nfl people honestly we have we have for one of our very first episodes kevin o'connell coming on so oh that's awesome oh okay well that's a great tease then for this show i didn't even know that before you came on uh you'll have to

try to match austin gale's though, which I think is actually impossible for normal human beings. No chance. Yeah. No chance. I would have loved actually, cause I actually already interviewed Kevin O'Connell. I would have loved for Austin to have interviewed him because they couldn't be on different sides of the energy sort of spectrum.

O'Connell just seems like this super nice, super, just like caring dude. Who's like passionate, but like in a low key way, whereas Austin's passionate in a high key way. Yeah, I think that with Kevin O'Connell, just my general observation about how he handles himself is that he is more calm in a practice than I've ever seen any coach ever be. I've never seen a coach when there's fumbles on the snap, not be screaming his brains out. And O'Connell has kept his cool.

But I also think that behind the scenes when he's watching the film, this is just my guess, that there's probably some MFs in there. I think like ball coach is going to ball coach no matter how nice he seems on the surface. But I agree that his tenor in general is really welcomed from a lot of Minnesota Vikings players just because of, you know, who they're coming from with Mike Zimmer. But do you want to give maybe a tease or a highlight of part of your conversation? Well, I honestly I was going to say I can't believe he's not from the Midwest. We actually talked about accents and him, you know, trying to throw in the Minnesota accent, which was pretty good. If you want to listen to it, it's going to come out. Actually, the Thursday, the NFL drops.

So that's going to be – what day is that exactly? I can't remember. Whatever. Whenever the week one is, the Thursday Night Football, that's when the episode is going to air. But, yeah, he seems like a Midwest personality, even if he is from California. Are you buying their direction?

I mean, one of the things we've done on the show, and we'll get to our game. You're going to play Talk Me Into, which people are very familiar with. But one of the things that I've had people do on the show, Mike, is the hot take challenge to try to give me some sort of hot take on the Vikings. And what everyone ends up starting with is like, they could be pretty good, or they might be pretty bad,

but probably like 8-9 or 9-8. And you're like, they could be pretty good or they might be pretty bad, but probably like eight and nine or nine and eight. And you're like, no, that's not that's not a hot take challenge. So are you are you are you buying this direction of bringing a lot of people back, bringing some veterans and sort of the competitive rebuild overall direction? I think they make the playoffs, truthfully. I do. And I think it's because I think this defense is going to be the real deal. I think it's going to be a lot better than what we saw last season. I think the secondary is much improved. And just from what I've seen from Booth, Andrew Booth already,

Lewis Seen already, I don't worry about them having those rookie struggles. I do think they are already guys who can step in and fill a role on this defense. That's really all they needed because of who was filling those positions at times last year. I think it's a playoff team. I don't know if that's a hot take or whatever, but I do think this is a playoff team. There's a lot of reasons to believe this is a much better roster than it was last season. It's like a 6.5 out of 10, maybe six out of 10 hot take. Yeah.

No one's been able to really fully go hot Vikings take so far. I guess the hot take would be like, I think this is a top five defensive end duo in the NFL. I don't know if that's super hot, but like Zedaris Smith and Daniel Hunter, I get that. We haven't seen them play and they have been injured and like health is a lot of, you know, how successful an NFL team team is truthfully especially in an 18 game season but those are both top 10 edge defenders in the nfl last time we saw them healthy so if you have two top 10 edge

defenders you're at least a top five edge duo if not even higher than that so yeah i do think this d-line is going to have a lot more teeth than it did last year. Okay, that's warmer. That is certainly warmer. Yeah, health is the big issue there and also just depth in general. Patrick Jones played pretty well in the preseason game. This wouldn't be a podcast in a park if there wasn't a construction vehicle in the distance backing up. So I'm sorry about that. It's not quite as bad as when I did it in the Chicago airport, which you know is just like completely packed.

So there's people all around me and I'm just like, but Garrett Bradbury, et cetera. You know, like what is this psychopath doing? But anyway, all right. So here's how Talk Me Into works, though, because I think that your hot takes were like lukewarm, but not too bad. Talk Me Into is I ask you to talk me into something vikings wise and you have to do it even if you don't believe it and then i tell you if you've talked me into it and then we switch roles and you ask me to talk you into something so here's what i want you to talk me into to start which is this vikings draft class coming out of this year getting getting an A from the Talkin' Ball podcast. Talk me into that happening.

They got three of the most athletic defenders of their respective positions in the draft at three positions that greatly impact how good your coverage unit is, truthfully, which we would say is probably more important than how good your pass rush is. And honestly, like they got three guys who were ahead of where they were drafted on the PFF draft board. So at that point with their first,

with three of the first four picks, the net at Ingram, obviously the other one that was thrown in there to look very good in the first preseason game. So that point, like, yeah, maybe not your one,

it's really going to revitalize them. But to turn what you had with one first round pick into all those draft picks that they recruited, I think it was a very good, just sound long-term decision. I think that the last part of it, sound long-term decision, is the part that would talk me into it the most, that if Lewis Seen, Andrewoth jr. They'll get in the game. They're going to play this year, but even if they don't start from day one, it's not like panic button, call them all a bust,

say that the draft class didn't work out. I think that it's more of your secondary has been so bad that you had to start there. If you weren't going to draft a quarterback and there was no quarterback to draft in their opinion and many other teams' opinions as well, then it was either get another weapon for Cousins and lean into that or really go kind of all in on the idea of rebuilding the secondary.

And at least so far, I think what we've seen is tools in training camp, but we haven't seen refined players who are really ready to take on like 1 a thousand snaps or something. Yeah. And to go back to basically like, you know, saying rebuilding a secondary, every piece of data. And I think a lot of even just draft analysts would tell you, you would rather have Andrew Booth and Louis seen than one Kyle Hamilton. You know, like you would rather have the two guys in a secondary that are both above average than one guy who's high quality. And then maybe another guy who's, you know, what they were thrown out at times last year. And I'm, I'm interested in your opinion too,

on, on Brian Asamoah, because a super small sample size preseason game, he was one of the higher graded players that they had. And that matched up with just, I mean, of course it should match up with the eye test because people are watching and grading. But when he made a play in the backfield, you saw a jump from him. You saw a burst from him that you kind of look for for playmaking linebackers. But it's also a linebacker, and it's not a linebacker that necessarily should be playing a lot right away. The fact that he's jumped over a bunch of other guys that they've drafted recently on the depth chart, I think says something about him. But I don't know if we talked about this much right after the draft because he was someone that stood out to me right away.

Yeah, I don't think you'll find anyone who is higher on Osmo coming out to me. I think he was a top 40 player on the PFF draft board. So I love the pick. You know, I loved his game at Oklahoma. Now, he's not the most consistent tackler, but when your guy's undersized, when you're 225, I think is what he was coming out, you worry about that guy just not dealing with NFL caliber,

physicality long off the line when taking on blocks, and then NFL caliber running backs who are going to be bigger than him. Guys like Najee Harris, Leonard Fournette are giving 15 pounds to him but on tape he didn't go backwards as a tackler he came in as physical as can be it's like what you want to see from those guys who are 225 and he you know the tackling made on the pin and pull play the pitch outside just wraps him up goes down the ground like that like no dragging just he is down on the ground because that's the kind of physicality he plays with and you saw him take on blocks in the senior bowl the same way he doesn't go backwards

despite being on the smaller side. So then at that point, you don't really care that he is on the smaller side. And then he's fast as hell because of that, because he is 225. He is like an old school safety. So yeah, I was a big fan of his game. I do think he may not be necessarily

your great run defender at every sort of down. You feel great about him in maybe short yard situations, whatever. But he's the kind of guy who can make plays in the running game, make negative plays, TFLs, that sort of thing. And then be an impact coverage player, a guy who you can feel comfortable manning up against tight ends with his length. So, yeah, I was a big fan of the pick. And obviously what we saw in that first preseason game was a guy who you can play in the NFL right now, if they need them to in a pitch. The coverage part of it is so hard to figure out when it's like anybody who

runs fast, you're like, Oh, must be able to cover in the NFL. Right. We also have a lawnmower season out here as well. I don't hear that one yet. So that's good. We've, but we've got, yeah, this, this one is actually pretty good. It's why I bring it on the road or where I'm at now in parks, uh, which is because it kind of compresses the sound and you don't hear too many things in the background. But for me, it's like, we've got children playing basketball happening, airplane flying over me and lawnmower going now. So we've kind of checked off all the, you're doing

a podcast in a park boxes but uh back to the linebacker play i mean i i think it's really hard to figure out who's going to be good at coverage and who's not because so much of it is just an intelligence bit and you know that was really an anthony bar thing but i also think that brian asamoah getting to play behind er Hendricks and Jordan Hicks is really beneficial for him and that's why part of the talk me into is like by the end of this year we're discussing it as as a success I'm not totally convinced that we'll really be able to say that because the opportunity might not arise for some of these guys but I think early returns from preseason and training camps suggest that long term it it will get the renter A.

Yeah. And that's the other thing about linebackers is like, there's so much on your plate at the NFL level. Like a cornerback, you know, has to deal with, you know, a bunch of different things in terms of schematically and a linebacker doesn't really have to deal with too many fewer things schematically in coverage than, than a cornerback does. But then they also have to do things in the run game that a cornerback doesn't have to do. So like the,

the learning curve at a position like that, especially if like you come from a scheme where you weren't asked to do the same things they were in college, which goes back to why it's so difficult to predict who are the guys that are going to make impacts in coverage is because there's just so much on their plate. So really all you're expecting or all you want is for guys to not look like kind of a fish out of water. You want like the play speed to be there. Now, maybe he's not going to

be making a ton of plays on the football just yet, but you want him to not be making mental mistakes early on the gate because I think that at the very least you can sort of expect from a guy coming into the NFL. And allowing for a third round player to develop for a year when they might have to move on from Eric Hendricks after this year, depending on how he is physically, how they feel about his play and also the cost of Eric Hendricks, despite being very good, 30 plus linebackers always have question marks about.

So I think that the early returns have looked good for this draft class. We'll see if Lewis scene starts to emerge and get into the games, you know, or get into those first team reps and maybe shine in the games. He didn't get almost any opportunity because Jared Stidham was not pushing the ball down the field. So it's been hard to evaluate really in practice with Lewis scene. Maybe some of it hinges on that, but now it is your turn. I need to talk you into something. So what would you like

me to talk you into? Talk me into this offensive line being good enough. Finally. Yeah. Yeah. That's always the question, right? It's always the question because it's just been so problematic for so long. What I will say is that Christian Derrissaw year two has been in training camp completely legit. And I talked to Derrissaw the other day. When you think about what he had to go through in his first year, I mean, to come in and not be a truck fire is actually really impressive. And I know that his pass blocking grade wasn't perfect, but one thing with guys who are freak athletes, and I'd be interested in your opinion on this,

but I think that even if they get beat, they recover and don't give up sacks or pressures. I think there's something to that, like with maybe they don't grade perfectly because they allowed somebody to get an edge on them. But I've seen Derrissaw have this recovery ability because of his athleticism and size that I think is going to like really translate and was a good sign in the first year.

So I'm not saying he's going to be Joe Thomas in year two, but I think that he can be above average in year two on the trajectory to be a pro bowler. The interior is so much harder to talk you into because Garrett Bradbury is, it's just problematic. I think the only way I could truly talk you into it is to say that there's going to be another answer there that here, here it is recognizing the problem is the first step, right? And so the, the coaching staff has recognized the problem. So there has to be some steps to prevent maybe Garrett Bradbury from being in there the

entire season. What that step is, I'm not sure because Chris Reed is the backup. He's never played center before in a real game and it hasn't looked good in the training camp practices necessarily, but at least they recognize it. I think that Ed Ingram is going to start again, very early returns on the rookie class, but he looks like he knows how to play. I mean, we'll see on that, but somebody that like has natural feel for pass blocking, which you don't always see instantly. And I think that if Ezra Cleveland even improves a little, that at least you can have on the right and left side of Garrett Bradbury, if he does end up playing center, at least you can have like mild competence whereas before it was just pure disaster the the tom compton's the dakota dozers i mean just guys who literally are like barely above a usfl level and

now you're talking about two second round draft picks a very highly athletic left guard and a right guard at least who has potential to grow throughout the season that's the best i can do if ingram does not win the job and they play Jesse Davis, I've got nothing for you. I mean, just in the first preseason, just gets destroyed right away. Like, that's not going to work. That's Tom Compton-level type of play. But if Ingram is in there and he can settle in in a first year,

then you might actually have, like, the 17th best offensive line. Two things about that. that one I hadn't actually tracked Derrissaw in year two he heard anything from training camp so that's very good to hear I think I was on with you last year right after the Panthers game and you won't find a lot of people who are higher on Derrissaw than me coming out so I've obviously liked some of the Vikings drafts but I think he was 15th on the PFF draft board, maybe 14th last year. Loved the pick. And I was like, you know, what he did based off of, you know, not what he went through all off season, not playing, get thrown in against Brian Burns. Like I was very impressed. And obviously like he wasn't elite shutdown. He wasn't Rashawn Slater by any means

out the gate as an offensive tackle, but given what he went through, like I was very impressed. So to hear that, that's very encouraging. And if you have two tackles, for the most part, your offensive line can't be that bad. It can't be disaster levels of bad if you have two competent offensive tackles. So great starting point there.

Don't test the Vikings. But then the other thing I'll say is the interior offensive line, maybe they're not all good, but you have three if Edgar Ingram does start and not Jesse Davis, you have three extremely explosive offensive linemen. And as much as sort of, you know, it may, that doesn't matter in pass protection. I do know that linebackers know

when they're facing the athletic offensive line and it kind of changes what they got to do. And it helps against sort of like when, you know, wide runs versus downhill runs, like their eyes change and they know if it's a wide run, they're going to have to go quickly. And so you can do stuff off of that and take advantage of that as an office coordinator to where the very least I'm looking for silver linings here. I do think having that athletic of an offensive line is going to basically change how linebackers have to play them. And yeah, and when everything is rooted in motions and play actions and everything else like that, it can have an impact. And one thing we just don't really talk about a whole lot because it's how much it matters

is always debatable. They did not run the football very well last year. And a lot of that came down to that they did not run block as well as they had before. They had built this line with Stefanski and Kubiak to be a great at run blocking and last year that kind of fell apart and they did not have as much success because of that so it sounds like I mildly talked you into this yeah I think I think I'm sold on the Vikings well comparatively sold compared to what they have been yes right like let's let let's not crown them at the moment, but you know,

with Darisaw though, I had a one-on-one interview with him. And the biggest thing that stuck out to me when sitting down with him is the guy just seemed very happy and very comfortable. Like last year, imagine how miserable you must be. You get drafted in the first round and you can't even practice at any point during camp.

And he couldn't go against Daniel Hunter or Everson Griffin in those early practices and still kind of overcame that. The other thing that stuck out to me too for my conversation with him is his prep. Like he said that he pretty much during college, like just, you know, did whatever the coaches asked him to do. But since he's gotten to the NFL, he has basically a, here's how I'm going to handle my game week. I watch this. I watch that. I watch that, which I outlined in the article. And that's big, too, like figuring out, like, this is what I have to do to succeed at this level because I can't just do what I did in college. So I think that he's kind of poised to take that next step. I will say this about Dearsaw.

I think that's why he fell. fell like sort of the not preparing not you know basically being not having the mindset of a you know an offensive line that you want like a killer mindset that that edge to you that offensive line coaches love I think it's why a lot of people were lower on him in the draft process yeah that's interesting so I had a conversation with a former tackle and I asked like do you think that the the like disposition of tackles and interior linemen has to be different? And he said, yes, that like a lot of the tackles are kind of chill guys. Like just, I don't know why it would be so much different. I think it's because the, like the patience required to be a tackle, but the instant violence that happens with a center, a guard, or maybe

we're just kind of connecting random things together. But, but that's the thing about trying to figure it out. And the challenge you have analyzing the draft is how do you know that he's going to learn how to do that the nfl right like he just he figured it out he actually told me that during the pandemic when everyone was locked down he just started watching tape because he had nothing else to do and started getting really interested in studying like other tackles and defensive line like how do you know that when you're analyzing the draft that the guy suddenly becomes kind of a football junkie yeah that's and that's like the thing that you know a lot of times we we read into why guys failed or why guys succeeded and sometimes it's as dumb as that or like that's not dumb but like

as like inconsequential and unpredictable as stuff like that, that you really can't necessarily control or can't account for in the pre-draft process. Yeah, for sure. I want you to talk me into any quarterback from the 2022 draft class being anything. Do I have to? Yes.

Because that's the game. That's what makes the game so wonderful is that you have to, even if you don't believe it. to completely accumulate and with no pressure on him whatsoever, just learn the NFL game. And as we saw in the very first preseason game, he's probably whatever tier of running quarterback exists behind Lamar Jackson. He's in that tier. I mean, he can run away from every defensive lineman that's chasing him and he can

break tackles on defensive backs with these. So like that's a dangerous starting point for the quarterback position. And we've heard about, you know, his personality, his work ethic, all these things. dangerous starting point for the quarterback position and we've heard about you know his personality his work ethic all these things it's very reminiscent of like jalen hertz who he got you know shit on for lack of a better word coming out that they picked him there why whatever and now starting to prove people wrong to a degree now do i think he's still you know

an elite franchise quarterback i'm still pumped to breaks on that talk but that's the starting nfl quarterback and i think maybe that still pumped to break on that talk, but that's a starting NFL quarterback. And I think maybe that's not meeting the threshold that you asked, but Malik Wills is also more physically gifted as a runner and more physically gifted as a thrower. So I think it's a good starting point to have. And again, I got three years, four years to be proven right on this answer. So no one will remember by the time it's all said and done.

Oh, this show never forgets. But the only standard was talking me into them being anything. And I think that, I mean, one of the things that, you know, PFF has been able to study is just the value of the scrambling and, and sort of something that intuitively you always kind of knew of like, yeah, you know, Michael Vick's passing stats weren't always perfect, but my God, the guy won games like crazy. And part of that is like every big situation you can convert, even if everything goes wrong. That's why Josh Allen is so unstoppable. It's like even if his passing isn't perfect, it's third and 11 and the guy gets a first down by shredding two tacklers and running over a linebacker or something.

Right. So I think that the threshold is just lower for passing success if you are an elite runner as a quarterback. Yeah. And the reason why coaches have been so has I don't want to hesitate, but like are so anti guys like that. And even like for able said he took him out because he wasn't passing the football is because to me, it's like the roommate paradox. Like when your roommate, when you wash the dishes, uh, you, you remember that, like you remember what that happening. So when the quarterback doesn't throw the route you schemed open for him, you remember that now when the quarterback bails you out and no one was open on a plane, he scrambles for 30 yards. You don't remember that you screwed up there, which is you not washing the dishes and him washing the dishes. So it's to me like I do think that there's still a ton of value in that.

And that doesn't get accounted for by NFL coaches that hopefully Mike Frabel will come around to by the time it's Mike Willis chance start. If well, just a Titan connection. If he's like vince young or something you can win a lot of football games with vince young but then he has a better personality than vince young by a lot so if you could take somewhere in that in that ballpark of maybe not being the best and most accurate passer but the the problem is just of course like he was in college he was pretty slow on the reads and things like that and even with kellen mond we're sort of dealing with this where mond has a strong arm and he can fire the ball down

the field but if you can't throw on time that will get you eventually that you just like that's going to hold you back no matter what because at some point you have to drop back hit the back foot fire to the right spot you can't always just scramble your way out of it, so there's some limitations there. But as far as being anything, I think that you have met the threshold. Does that mean you're not all in on Kenny Pickett's season against the fourth stringers throwing a short pass that results in a touchdown? That doesn't mean he's in the Hall of Fame?

I'm not. I'll just clarify. But I did love the Steelers fans all over Twitter's reaction to a guy whose average completion was 3.3 yards on the football field against third stringers in the first preseason game. It was incredible. It was incredible to watch. It just never ceases to amaze. Like, whatever level of outrageous preseason reaction, it never ceases to amaze like whatever level of uh outrageous

preseason reaction it never ceases to amaze it reminded me of when daniel jones remember his rookie preseason like people were old takes exposing draft takes already his rookie preseason and yeah he looked good but people were already like oh it looks like the nfl knew why didn't draft media know that's we're we're very close to that on Kenny Pickett right now. Oh, and people love to side with the football men no matter what. Like if the draft analysts didn't like a particular player, it's like the lineman from the Patriots. If the guy becomes good, I cannot wait for the level of like,

see, the football guys really know what they're talking about. And they're like, you know what? I think there's a couple examples of the football guys maybe missing some stuff throughout the years, but I don't know. Maybe we'll just have to look into that. Russell Wilson possibly being too short or whatever. Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick if you didn't know that. But, okay, you know what?

I'm successfully talked into one of them will become something, and I think Willis is probably the only one that has a chance. But beyond a small something, I'm not really convinced. And with Kenny Pickett, I think it is a bad sign that the guy is playing with the third team. You can get as excited as you want. But I once watched E.J. Manuel, and I kid you not, shush the haters after a game-winning drive in the preseason. Shushed the haters. But that meant that he was losing the competition badly to Matt Castle and

Tyra Taylor is the same kind of thing. Like he should be with the second team at least, you know, although if they trade Mason Rudolph, maybe there's a sign, but he should at least be with the second team by now. I mean, we've all seen Mason Rudolph play and we see Mitch Trubisky play too,

but like Trubisky has played well at times over screw, but Mason Rudolph has legitimately never played good football. So we've all seen him play. If you're not beating out Mason Rudolph, things are happening in practice that are not good. Okay, one more for me, one more for you. Give me one more to talk to you. Oh, what I want? Okay, talk Vikings related? It could be anything you want. I'll talk you into anything. It's your call. That the packers offense is going to take a massive step back without davante adams oh wow i don't know if i don't know if i've ever mentioned on the show that you are a packers guy because i don't want i don't want people to think you're hating although you've constantly liked a

lot of vikings draft, so there's no hate. So I'm talking you into the Packers offense taking a step back. Now, you have to understand first. It's a massive step back that's going to hamper them. That's great. You have to understand that in person, at both Lambeau Field and U.S. Bank Stadium, I have watched Aaron Rodgers do things that are physically impossible

to win football games against the Minnesota Vikings. So just for context, I do not believe that Aaron Rodgers will let an offense take a massive step back because back shoulder throws against zone coverage, this man has done things that make no sense to me. And honestly, an honor to have seen so many of his throws in person. But, but I don't know what a Romeo Dubs is. I don't know that Christian Watson will even really play from a guy going from North Dakota State to the NFL and then missing camp. People don't always understand

if you miss time in camp, you are way behind. Like, even if you have some sort of injury, unless you're a veteran player, who's proven in the league, you are way behind. It took Christian Derrissaw. He was practicing at the end of camp. It took him what five, six weeks to get in the game. Finally. I mean, I think Christian Watson coming from his competition is going to be way behind. I mean, you know, at some point too, Aaron Rodgers has to get old. He just has to, and he's doing super weird things to his body already. As somebody like myself who ate pizza hut pizza last night and pizza hut wings, don't ask me why, uh, I know about people's bodies. Okay. And I can tell when a man is doing things to his body, that's not good. No, but really like cleanses and weird psychedelics and all sorts of stuff.

Like eventually you feel like these things and just natural age have to catch up a little. And if he's not the absolute top best version of himself, it might not be that great. And the whole, the whole thing that really changes this to me, that offensive line is not perfect anymore. At a lot of point, if David Bakhtiari never plays football again, they're not a great offensive line. I don't think, I don't know where you guys ranked them. You would know maybe a little better than me by the grades and stuff, but I look at it and say, they've got questions there. They're playing guys that I haven't heard of before who were drafted in the fourth round or something and uh vikings fans are going that's because they're allowed to hold like but i think that that's been sort of low-key the thing that never gets talked about when rogers wins an mvp

or something is like they've blocked really well for him if they don't this year if the running game isn't as good they could take a pretty big step back because those receivers sammy watkins is not reliable for any more than like three or four games a year of being good. And he'll disappear for long periods of time, asking Rogers to get on the same page with rookies who are half his age and maybe don't understand how to work with a hall of fame quarterback. I mean, I think that is absolutely possible that they take a step back massive step back is harder but how did i do i actually am of the opinion and i think it's the last thing you said there the off the line that obviously devonta adams it's a big loss but it's like they got by with a bad offensive line

because they had devonta adams you lose devonta adams and you're starting yosh niman and maybe zach tom a rookie at right tackle. I don't think they can because the beauty was Devonta Adams either drew double coverage or he could get open immediately. And when you have a bat off the line, you either know which way to go with the football, you know where your single coverage is, you know where your space is in a zone that's away from Devonta Adams, or you know Devonta Adams getting open so you can get the ball out quick. I think we could

see Rodgers go back to the kind of hold the ball Rodgers that we saw 2018, 2017, that stretch of play there at the end of the McCarthy era because I don't know who gets open. I am of the opinion it takes a pretty big step back, at least

until the O-line gets healthy. But I do think when Bakhtiari and Elton Jenkins are back, then we could see the offense start to click. Yeah, Jenkins is an unbelievable player. But in week one, you may have to go up against Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter, who have been healthy through all camp. Caught him at the right time. Right, yeah.

And I remember saying when the schedule came out, like this actually might be pretty good because they've got offensive linemen recovering. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's possible. I mean, we have done a good job of talking each other into it. So let me try then for the impossible task here. Talk me into championship weekend. The Minnesota Vikings are playing. Oh man. That one, we're going to have to, we're going to have to take a leap of faith. And you're going to have to take some ayahuasca with Aaron Rodgers in Peru to believe this one. But I do think, like I said, top five

edge deal in the NFL. You're fully healthy throughout the season. That's how you're fully healthy at least once the playoffs start. That's how you get to the NFC championship game. And I'll just say, probably the bigger thing would be the rest of the NFC championship game. And I'll just say the, probably the bigger thing would be the rest of the NFC is beatable. Like I don't think the rest of the NFC is great. You know, you have Tom Brady, like you said, Aaron Rogers has to age at some point. Tom Brady does too. And I think injuries also have to catch up to the bucks who are just like

dangerously thin at this point, the Packers took a step back probably as a team over the course of the off season, the Rams took a step back as a team over the course of the off season. The Rams took a step back as a team over the course of the off season. The Cowboys took a step back as a team over the course of the off season. I think all of those rosters are worse than they were a season ago. I think pretty objectively, you could say that. So that's your best bet is that the rest of the NFC is not that good and beatable on any given know, any given Sunday back-to-back games and playoffs sneak in. That's how you make the NFC championship game. Now that they're in the AFC,

I couldn't, I couldn't even lie to you. I'm not that good of a liar. I'm not that good at persuading people. I could not persuade you, but in the NFC, I think it's a possibility. Yeah. It's, it's more, yeah. It's more like a debate competition type of a challenge if you will, then it is lying. But yeah, I think that that's the best way to approach it. The other best way would be if you look at their schedule and the opposing quarterbacks, you're like, do you believe in Tua? Zach Wilson's hurt already.

Do you believe in late season Joe Flacco beating the Vikings? Or I mean, they just don't face a murderer's role of quarterbacks like Jameis Winston is banged up already. And I don't buy it. There are certain other PFFers like our friends, Eric and George, who love Jameis Winston, but not a big fan over here. I just that he doesn't scare you, I think, unless he has one of those crazy big days. But you look at that schedule and you're like, you know, Jared Goff two times, Justin Fields two times, and whatever the Bears are trying to do with the roster there. And all of a sudden you get to, if you win a big game, if you beat Dak Prescott, if you beat Josh Allen in Buffalo,

if you beat like one big game and you've got a chance to win 10 or 11 games, like I could be talked into that. Getting to the NFC Championship stuff, because, yeah, if the Rams, if, you know, Stafford's elbow is fine or if trey lance is amazing which i'm gonna see you know this week in the vikings practice against them or if dallas doesn't drop back at all there's just more talent on some of these teams that i think is hard and the idea this has always frustrated me i'm curious what you think about it but like when teams are like well let's just get in and see what happens like i don't know if that's really a strategy yeah i mean that's a baseball strategy i don't i don't

see that as necessarily a football strategy like if you're just getting in in the nfl you're you are so far behind the eight ball especially now with the two with the one by like you have to be home field like there just hasn't been i'm trying to think the last one that was was it the ravens that really snuck through multiple away games i mean bangles almost did obviously but like it's going to be difficult to do right even the bangles needed ryan tanhill's worst game and you know a lot of things to go right for them to even go from the four seeds so you probably have to be better than that uh mike renner talking ball podcast soon to launch what's the date on that when is that launching next thursday what day is that i should know i think it's the 25th is that right yeah 25th

next thursday 25th um a lot of cool guests lined up a lot of nfl people a lot of college head coaches um but yeah kevin o'connell is going be, I guess that's the 8th? Is that the first week of the season? Does that sound right? Kevin O'Connell is debuting on the 8th. He'll be on the show. Talks a lot of different things. Talks his career. Talks about how much his wife is upset that he

coached everywhere and anywhere. Played at every different place. He's been around the block, man. He's a very cool dude. Very interesting interview. I'm really looking forward to that. And, uh, of course, follow him at a PFF Mike on Twitter, and I'll be sure to retweet. If you follow me, retweet when that comes out. And, uh, I'm happy that you're launching a new show because I have missed you in Austin in my life. So I'm looking forward to, uh, what you could do with this. Um, so follow Mike, follow the talk about' Ball podcast. And Mike,

we'll get together again soon. This was awesome, man. For sure. And I appreciate the kind words, Matthew. Thanks so much, man.