Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Seth Galina thinks the Vikings' OLine improvement could change everything

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

PFF's Senior College Football Analyst Seth Galina joined Matthew Coller to talk about the Vikings' draft. He dives into just how much the offensive line has impacted Kirk Cousins over the last three years and which Christian Darrisaw and Wyatt Davis could be the answers they have been looking for. Seth explains why he liked Kellen Mond as a quarterback prospects but also lays out the reasons he didn't go in the first and second round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar here. And for Pro Football Focus, Seth Galina, the X's and O's genius, along with covers college football as well. Unfortunately, not in front of his 1980s paneling anymore.

What is up, Seth? I'm a grown-ass man now. I can't be living at my mom's house anymore, so here we go. No more wood paneling, which I know ruins all my credibility in anything in my life, not just football related. So if you want to cut the interview off right now, like that's fine with me. Yeah. And I considered it. I considered it, but I think we'll have to move on. So is this, are you an apartment guy now or is this a house? I'm an apartment guy. Okay. You're an apartment guy now. All right. One step at a time, one step at a time, but I don't know how without the eighties panel

and you'll get dates to bring back to the apartment and things like that. Oh, you think I was getting dates back to my mom's house? Okay. We're going to have to have a talk about that. I've seen the level of detail of your film work. I did not assume you were getting dates. So anyway, the reason that I wanted to connect with you, Seth, was that a few months ago, you and I were talking about quarterback play and we were discussing Kirk Cousins and the draft and things like that. And we talked about how, you know, players like Trey Lance and Justin Fields, they should be put in Shanahan style and Kubiak style offenses, because normally it's been this way to sort of cover up for the lack of athletic ability

of your quarterback, like Kirk Cousins and like Jimmy Garoppolo and Jared Goff and so forth. And I found it fascinating that on draft night, Rick Spielman said that the Vikings offensive staff agreed with you and said that they'd love to see a little more mobility in this type of offense, which was a little bit of a backslap to Kirk Cousins. But let's talk about that just sort of broadly so people don't have to go back and find what we were talking about months ago. Why is it your opinion that mobility can enhance a Shanahan or Kubiak-style offense?

I would say it's just in general it can enhance an offense, and for two reasons. And it's obviously something that the Vikings have just lacked with Kirk Cousins, and I guess with Bradford before that too, is the first thing is escapability. You absolutely need it in the NFL right now where defenses have become so exotic with how they're going to pressure you.

Even the best guys aren't going to be right in terms of how they set the protection, how they protect themselves, knowing who's hot, and all that stuff that goes into playing quarterback before you even snap the football. So you're going to get times when you're going to have to be an athlete and you can't just stick in the pocket and, like, just find your check down.

Like, that doesn't really exist anymore as much as it did even 10, 15 years ago. So you need that athletic ability to, even if I'm wrong pre-snap, I can still be right post-snap. And that comes with, yeah, you can be an unbelievable mental processor like Manning and Breeze and whatever. Those guys are fake. Like don't expect these guys to just exist in the NFL. There's been like 20 of them in the history of the league.

So don't even think about those guys. So if I'm, so like I can be, I can, I want to have a guy now who if something is wrong, I'll make it right with my legs or with, or with my body or something like that. And I, and I think that's just the wave of the future, especially with the lack of practice time with the new CBA. You don't – and just the fact that, look, you get drafted, and I know obviously the Vikings didn't make a first-round quarterback solution.

They did later. But if you get drafted early, you're playing. Like you're not sitting on the bench anymore. So you don't have time to figure out everything. You need to know what protections and all that stuff. Like you're thrown into the fire. You're going to be wrong more often than you're right. And you've got to be able to still make a play.

So that's the first aspect. And the second aspect is just like, hey, you know, we spent a lot of time when I was growing up, when you were growing up, talking about the triple option in the NFL and being like, hey, it'll never work, guys. They're too fast. Everyone's too fast on defense. And then like, it works. We've seen that for the past 10 years. It works. The zone read came in and it hasn't left us. And now, and then you see with, you know, the Kaepernick 49ers teams, they were running a lot more than that. And you'll see

with Cam Newton and some other guys, they're running a lot more than that. And you'll see with Cam Newton and some other guys, they're running a lot more than that. So I think that's the next step is just being able to add those running plays to your offense to even out the numbers disadvantage that offenses have when an NFL quarterback is just handing the ball off, handing the ball off, handing the ball off, handing the ball off. Now they can neutralize those numbers and create an advantage in the running game. So I think those are the two reasons why mobility is important, A, for the escape, and B, because we were wrong, and it turns out you can have a mobile quarterback

running option-type concepts in the NFL. So something interesting that I discovered from the PFF numbers is that when Kirk Cousins is pressured 17% of the time last year, that turned into a sack, which is a very high number. Ben Roethlisberger and Patrick Mahomes, it was under 10%. So they were still getting off throws, even when there was pressure in their face. Whereas with Kirk Cousins if he's wrong like you said and pressure gets through I mean one out of every five times that's turning into a sack

and if you look at expected points added from sacks sometimes they're worse than interceptions and you know Cousins and the Vikings had one of the highest sack rates in the NFL last year and I guess I was going to ask you if if offensive line can solve all of these problems, offensive line talent, because another part of it is cousins was responsible for 15% of his own pressure. And I don't think that that's a thing that's going to change, even though that they drafted offensive line,

PFF had the Vikings is top three, most improved offensive lines from last year. I agree with that. Adding Wyatt Davis, I think is a huge deal for them. And at the same time, it's like this only mitigates some percentage of the problem of having a true statue quarterback. Well, I'm hoping that as a – not a Vikings fan,

but I'm a Kirk Cousins fan. And I'm hoping that it mitigates it enough for a year. And I don't know if it's next year. I don't know if it's the year after. I don't know if it's the year after that. But I think there's – you know, we talk about this as Cousins all the time, where there's a universe out there where for one season everything goes right. And he wins the MVP.

They go to the NFC Championship game. They go to the Super Bowl, whatever it may be. And I still believe that. I'm going to hold on to that for a long time. I think a lot of that has to do with the way I like to look at quarterbacks. And Kirk is a very technically gifted quarterback. Obviously not a lot of physical traits, but the technique is there. It's perfect.

So anyways, one of the things that I looked up before we started talking was specifically, obviously the Vikings have had a bad offensive line in his time there. They got better with Darasov, great pick, trading back, still getting probably the third best tackle on everyone's board. And then taking Wyatt Davis to the third round, who is probably not a third – is it third round? Yeah, third round. Yeah, so he's probably not a third-round player.

There was just a lot of issues with you know was it him was the Ohio State you know offensive line with miscommunication and stuff like that he he'll if he gets his hands on you you're good like he's a he's a very good player um so I think those are two great picks and then so anyways one of the things i looked up was like specifically who is what where is pressure coming and the vikings guards and centers are like the it's like it's like no one even close to how bad they've been and so now you have a situation where he's not like the tallest quarterback in the world he's not a player like he's talking about ben roethlisberger who can who can have a body near him and still get a still get a nice nice ball off um i thought trey lance did a good job of that just it feels like in terms of this class doesn't feel as good obviously trevor lawrence does a good job of that

that's not kirk right so i think he can live in a world where maybe the tackles aren't amazing and they just kind of average and get the job done, though I guess they're probably below average. With Darasol, hopefully that climbs him back to average. But it's the interior pressure that he's just not the quarterback that can live in that world. And then the next thing is you would think just, you know, and I'm sure the people who listen to this podcast know this,

but it was something that I came across that I felt like an idiot not knowing. But you would think that, and this is maybe like a racial bias thing, but you would think that Cousins, he gets the ball out quick, he distributes the ball, he has a pretty high time to throw. Yep. And I think a lot of that has to do with his unwillingness to, or we kind of talked about this last time, but like his need for everything to be perfect. And so if it's not perfect, now he's holding on to the football.

And none of that works together with the offensive line and the the quarterback that's just not a good combination so yeah that's where i'm like hoping that i think with why davis with christian darasaw that just just creeping back up to average will help a bit so that if he does take some more time in the pocket, all of a sudden the pocket is cleaner than it was in years past. Like I said, especially from the inside. I think Bradbury is going to have to take a jump. I don't know who the other guard is. If you're going to have Darasaw and Cleveland on the outside,

young players, but I would hope good players for them. And I think that is where, and again, I say this all the time, that is where you're going to have that universe where Kirk Cousins is a true MVP caliber quarterback because the scheme is there. With the Kubiak shorthand system, it's there. It creates open throws for him. The running game has been dominant. You're hoping the defense can figure out something next

year and they just need that offensive line which they they addressed they got to a certain degree they they got lucky replacing digs with jefferson you know they could have replaced digs with jaylen rager by accident and then we would add issues because they clearly got lucky picking the right receiver. So I think everything is there for him. It's just he's got to be just like 10% less Kirk Cousins-y. And, again, the stuff around him will help him, and I think that Davis and Darasol will help allow him to be 10% less Kirk Cousins-y. I agree that they will help allow him to be 10% less Kirk Cousins-y. I agree that they will help him.

I don't know if they could take away the 10% that causes all the problems. I mean, I think that you super effectively, especially for someone who's asked to come on podcasts all over the league, diagnosed every one of the issues with why Kirk Cousins is a 500 quarterback over his career and hasn't gotten that season where they're in the NFC championship, despite playing in good teams in Washington, good teams here is that you play a game, you play a game like the playoff game in San Francisco.

And I was there for that. And when you have a guy who locks himself into one place in the pocket, it's not just lack of running. It's lack of moving at all. And that 50% number that you bring up, or maybe that's the number that I had in my head, for how much pressure came from just the guard position, it was outrageous how much came from just the guard

and the center position. But also when the guy stands in the same exact spot and never, ever moves, it's like it's a little easier for the tackles to run their guy by because they know where the quarterback will be, but it's harder for the guards because he's never going to slide himself one way or the other. And that's what I find so fascinating about Kirk Cousins. When you're covering him from sort of an objective, like let's put all the black and white kind of

out there and you can find so many things that are really good and then those other things that I think are just the difference between a good quarterback and a great quarterback and so yes they've added Wyatt Davis I gave the pick an A plus I thought 100% best pick in years I think aside from Justin Jefferson and yet at the same time I still have some skepticism because you can sort of talk yourself right back out of it. Like their offense will still focus on the run, which will still put them in second and long and third and long. They still don't have a number three wide receiver who is reliable, and that may change in free agency, but there aren't many free agents left.

And, you know, Amir Smith-Marset is a fifth rounder, so I'm not writing him in as a huge difference maker. People love him, let me tell you. It's a little odd. I didn't watch him, so I can't say anything. Can I tell you it's a little odd? People love him. It's a little odd. He's a fifth round pick.

I mean... I agree. Like, I'm not saying anything. I agree. He weighs 180 pounds, and he's a fifth round pick. So, like, let's see week three of pads, and then I'll say that I'm in. But, you know, with Stefan Diggs his first training camp it was very clear that the whole league made a mistake and maybe that'll be

the case for Smith-Marset but until then you can't really say okay this guy is the guy um but I just think that with Cousins and I know that you've had this take and that you really love his game the reason that they drafted someone else is that 10 that you're talking about and i want to know what you see from kellen mond because clearly they felt like that 10 is the downfall for why they can't get to the next level from being a good team to a really good team and that someone with more mobility and arm strength would be able to do that. Okay. Before we get into Calumon, let me, I just pulled up the numbers for pass protection from guards and centers. Okay.

So this is the past three regular seasons combined. This is cumulative pass block grade by guards and centers. The Browns are number one at 90.4. Okay. Let me scroll down. Let me scroll down. I'm still scrolling. I'm still scrolling i'm still scrolling number 32 the minnesota vikings 43.7 my god and then the 31st the 31st team the seahawks is 54.3

so like there's even a jump there's even a big gap between 31 and 32. I mean, a pressure rate just from the guards and tackles is 20%. It's highest in the league. Yeah, this is like as bad of a group that we've seen. Now, okay, again, we're going to get on. I was curious about Bradbury. I heard, I want to say PFF Steve Palazzolo talk about, it might have been Sam Watson talking about how, you know, with better guards around Bradbury, you could see a better player?

Or is this problem just like, man, he just can't be – he can't block people. Like what's his problem? I haven't watched enough. Yeah, I'll say both. I'm going to say it's a combination. Well, think about this. So you just gave the greats, and that is not shocking to me at all or Vikings fans at all.

We've watched. Look, I mean, it was a crime to play Dakota Dozier for 16 games. You just can't do that. You cannot choose to play that player. There was another reporter I had on who covered him in a different place who was like, that guy started for your team. I was like, no,

not just started, but like from the very beginning, like they elected to start that player and no offense to him. He's an NFL player and deserves respect as a backup. But anyway, so on Garrett Bradbury, I think that when you draft someone now, his weight will tell you 305 pounds from the combine.

That's just not true. There's no chance in this world that he weighs 300 pounds. I would guess he's more like 285. And so when you're facing Kenny Clark, Akeem Hicks, Eddie Goldman, like these big beasts who weigh 325, 330 and more, he just doesn't have the arm length for that. He doesn't have the anchoring ability for that. And these guys just plow him back into quarterback several times a game. And like I said, I mean, you don't have a quarterback who's even going to drift back

away from that. He's just going to stand right there in that same spot. So that sort of compounds the issue. The other part, though, is it's not just that the guards couldn't pass block one-on-one. It's that last year there were communication issues all over the place. Like about midway through the season, opponents figured out if we actually do all our stunts and twists with a linebacker coming up the middle, it's just over. This was not – I watched a play last night of a stunt, and there wasn't a linebacker involved. I wish I could tell you what team.

It was the weirdest thing because the Vikings are sliding, meaning the center, the guard, and the tackle are working in the direction of the two defensive linemen who are stunting. And the defensive end loops around to get inside of the guard. And Bradbury just doesn't – is just like, I guess he's just too slow mentally or too slow physically just to get his body in a position. I just pulled up

not just the cumulative grades from the past three seasons. Looking at the last three regular seasons, there's been 96 team seasons, so 32 times three. The 95th place team, the 2019 Miami Dolphins, at 45.1. That's guards and centers pass block grade.

The 96th team, of course, you know what I'm about to say, the 2020 Minnesota Vikings, over 10 points lower than the 95th place. Like, anyways, I could find a million of these type of stats. It just plays into exactly what we're talking about, which is this guard play and center play has been absolutely atrocious. And you're hoping that with Davis, another year of development from Bradbury, you're just hoping that it eliminates something that is the issue for Kirk Cousins. Kellen Mott.

Yeah. Ezra Cleveland is probably going to be the other guard, by the way. Okay, fine. Because Brian O'Neal is going to be at right tackle, Darisaw at left tackle. But these numbers that you're giving, I have always said, hey, I mean, there's got to be some way to get closer to an average offensive line, like Tampa Bay by PFF ranked 14th last year. Like, can you get in that range and that will help your quarterback?

This is not like, don't even get there. Get to 20. Get to 20 somewhat, right? And now, but that's a little bit of the problem, though, because you mentioned Bradbury and those stunts and those twists and everybody figured out that they're just not good at diagnosing them and so here's Wyatt Davis and the one criticism that I read in the PFF yeah the right like the uh the the breakdown there in the draft guide is oh struggles with some of the you know stunts and twists and knowing where to be and so it's like this is my question is sort of

I think it's going to be the irony of all ironies is when this line really comes to fruition in a year or two years with Derrissaw and Davis and maybe Bradbury continues to improve a bit and you have the you know the tackle set and Cleveland is in his second or third year it's going to be good but I don't know if it could be good next year to the point where it's going to be vastly different than it was last year. But the decisions they've made are so astounding. I mean, they played Drew Samia for three games. I've never seen anyone worse.

I mean, you're a film junkie. Please watch the game against Seattle with Drew Samia. I'm good. I'm good. Thanks. Where he goes all the way on a screen. It was a screen left and right. I'm not kidding.

That happened. That happened. You don't hate yourself. Fair enough. Okay, so let's talk Kellen Mondo. Yeah, Kellen, I think, is a guy that, you know, I put him as my QB5. It's a bit of you feel for the guy because he wasn't in a great situation at Texas A&M

I think the offensive line was okay, it was okay, it certainly wasn't Alabama's offensive line, it certainly wasn't BYU's offensive line, the receiving core, I don't know who's an NFL or not receiving core, and the one guy I forgot his name now, but the one guy

who was their best receiver, was out for most of last season if he injured himself in the Florida game. Tight end's all right. Watermeyer is pretty good. And then there was one game where he just gets locked down by LSU and they have no answers for it. So, like, that, the surrounding cast is just not good there. Jimbo Fisher's offense is more difficult than a lot of offenses of the quarterbacks that

we saw come out this year you saw you know Zach Wilson only throw to the sideline against triple five dbs like all right cool fine but you're not that's not I can't glean anything from that with Mond you you saw difficult offense, routes coming over the middle of the field, in-breaking routes, 90 degrees, backside digs, all those kind of fun stuff when we talk about quarterbacks, but they're more difficult stuff. The second we start talking about reads over the middle of the field,

now you have to start throwing with some touch, with some timing, and all that stuff. So it was a tough situation for him. But the film is not great like at the end of the day you know he's a little robotic and i think justin fields got that tag as well like he always wants to do the right thing go through his progressions one two three four five one two three four five one two, five. And sometimes you've got to shortcut yourself because you have no, there's like sometimes you've got to see something

pre-snap or even post-snap and it tells you these two routes, I've got to eliminate them right away. Or this route, I've got to eliminate it right now. I've got to get to another route. I've got to get to the check down. I've got to do this. I've got to do that.

The thing with Justin Fields is he is freaking uber talented, right? So he can get away with a lot of that stuff. And Kellen Mond could not in a lot of ways. So he ends up, you know, making some mistakes, throwing into coverage. Saw that just too much times. You know, you saw just him throwing behind receivers. It just happened.

It's just like you're like oh you you you get it like i'm like kellen you get it but just stop throwing behind the damn receiver so much um so that that's really my concerns with mont obviously arm strength is there you can you know we talked about being able to have that running ability in both ways i think he can escape and i think he can you can also create some design runs for him i'm pretty sure you know i could leave stuff next time i have a second here but like i'm pretty sure he was like top 10 in or top 15 in the ncaa last year in terms of like non-scrambled running yards brushing yards so like you can do some stuff with him. And I always wondered this. I'm like, hey, what if you put Kellen Mond in Tuscaloosa last year?

Like what does it look like when he has a clean pocket every single time? When Sark is creating these unbelievably wide open receivers, plus those receivers are first round players like what does that look like it's weird because you know the accuracy concerns are are just a tad too much you know what i mean but does he make the same read mistakes that he does if everyone's wide open all the time like i don't know so i think there's there's a lot to like about kellen mond you just have to you have to live in the world where where the supporting cast is really making that big of a difference on him and i'm not sure if it is um and that's why he's the third third round fourth round third round third round and that's

why he's a third round pick because the talent you know, he wants to be a four- or five-star recruit. Started a bunch of years. Comes out of a quote-unquote pro-style offense with Jimbo Fisher. So I think there's a lot to like, but you just have to really think that the supporting cast was that bad. And, like I said, if you put him in the Alabama offense, if you can picture him in the Alabama offense doing what Mac Jones did, then this is a great,

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I'll see you there. I just, I never know what to do with that. Like, do I want to crush Mac Jones for that? And I was not, the thing about this, the show in the last few days is, I was very much, if San Francisco picks Mac Jones, I'm going to just have a meltdown. And they didn't. And they went with the much more talented quarterback. But then I got to a point where it's like, wait,

Bill Belichick picked Mac Jones right after the Vikings. So I'm not saying he's right about everything, but it's like the league clearly valued these two quarterbacks far differently. So they, I think that they are well aware of supporting casts and things like this and every scouting staff in the league said or that needed any type of quarterback said no Mac Jones is a middle first round pick which makes sense and Kellen Mond is a third round pick which makes sense and kind of is where they they were throughout the

entire process I think for anyone who wasn't trying to say they had sources that said Mac Jones was going to be the next Montana or whatever. Right. And so I feel like that difference in you called it robotic. But I look at it as a little bit like sometimes you sort of want to like smack the side of the computer and be like, come on, come on, go. Yes. You know, you got to go. And there's also like a fastball and another fastball and there isn't like a like a change up or a slider but you know it's like so when I watched Teddy Bridgewater play at Louisville I remember just feeling like this guy looks weird playing the position but he looks like such a football player like a guy who played backyard football when he was four years old and then just you just kind of figures it out sometimes and has this anticipation.

I just don't see that natural football player from Kellen Mond, where even with Mac Jones, it's like very natural quarterback type of things. That's because of the way he's almost like his elbows are high and his shoulders are high. I'm talking about Kellen Mond. Yeah, I meant Mack Jones. Sorry, I said Kellen Mond twice. Kellen Mond doesn't look the part sometimes, whereas I agree.

Mack Jones just looks like a flu player. Teddy, don't get me started on Teddy, man. Teddy could choose to be the best quarterback in the league if he wanted to. This is never going to happen. Wait, wait, wait. Explain that. What does that mean? Well, I just feel like he's technically super sound. He throws with great touch.

He can get the ball up and down. He just has to trust himself a little more and throw the damn ball down the field, Teddy. Like, take a chance once in a while. And, you know, one of the problems is, and was so perfectly contrasted in 2019 with the Saints. They both, both him and Breeze, you know, late career Breeze and Teddy at that point were throwing the ball short, right? You know, low average depth of target. The difference was Breeze can consistently hit guys on the money. And Teddy is very accurate, but he's not that accurate. So it was like,

you have to offset that by chucking it a bit more and trying to create explosive plays because if you're only throwing slant slant slant but you're missing three out of the five you're missing three out of six you're not going anywhere on offense where Breeze is hitting six out of six and you can live in a world where this was the thing with the saints they lived in a world for the last three seasons four seasons where there was no negatives so even in the run game there were at one point i looked at some during the season maybe around week 10 11 so much changed but they were their running game produced the least amount of negative plays so now it's instead

of it being second and 12 it's second and eight and instead of it being second and 12 it's second and eight and instead of it being third and eight it's sec it's third and six third and five third and four and then you compound that with drew breeze being a player who could consistently convert third and four is that no one can like again we talked about these fake quarterback like there's a lot of fake quarterbacks out there drew breeze is one of them No one can just convert third and fours like he did, you know, like Manny could, like Brady could. So you have to – so don't put yourself in those third down situations. Again, going back to Teddy, it's like chuck the ball down the field,

see if you can get explosive plays that way instead of being – trying to be kind of like Drew Brees and then just not having the technical skills to do it or the accuracy to do it. So that's kind of my Bridgewater spiel in that, like, hey, you can be the best if you want it to be. But I don't know if that will ever happen. I also wonder with Teddy, like, so he started off in Minnesota

with a coach that wants you to play conservative. I mean, that was running Adrian Peterson more than anyone in the league that year. And it was like, don't turn it over. We have a great defense. That won them a lot of games. So he started out from winning an NFC North title playing that way. And then the knee injury happens. And I think that that was the opinion of Vikings fans and reporters was that in 2016 training camp and preseason, he had started to show that.

And then the knee injury comes. And then there still seems to be, even when he was in Minnesota last year for Carolina, and they almost won that game against the Vikings, but there was still a little bit of hesitancy in his game. And I wonder if that is, if it's because of, like, how he came up, or if it's because of, like, the knee thing still sort of rests over him. It'll be interesting to see him back with Pat Shermer, though. Those two, I think, got along pretty well when he was in Minnesota.

So if he gets to play for Denver and they don't trade for Aaron Rodgers. But we sidetracked away from Kellen Mond here. So let's circle back to that. And so you mentioned the offense, the supporting cast. I do feel like for the next quarterback, if there will be one beyond Kirk Cousins, you get to inherit an offensive line of all top draft picks, Justin Jefferson. Now it'll be late career Adam Thielen, but still good. He doesn't rely on just pure speed, so he'll be good for a long time.

I mean, it is a great situation if Kellen Mond can fix some of those things that you're talking about. I just don't know that he can. I just don't know that he can change from being this sort of robotic quarterback to being a natural type of baller. But the situation and the offense where you get a lot of rollouts, a lot of open wide receivers, it really looks good for quarterbacks to the point where Case Keenum in a similar type of offense went 13-3 once,

and I think that this is part of their thinking of why they would go with Kellen Mond and not pick Mac Jones in the first. Well, I also think, like, do you think that they believe enough, like I do, in Kirk Cousins that you wouldn't take a first-round quarterback? No. No, I don't. No, I don't. Oh, you don't?

I think they're done with Kirk Cousins, honestly. Okay. Because they tried to get Justin Fields. So that to me says that the only reason they didn't go with Mac Jones is because they didn't like his lack of mobility because he looks, at least has that similarity with Kirk Cousins. And so I think that if they had no interest whatsoever in Justin Fields then I would have said well they're kind of playing it by ear here but I think when you want Justin Fields and you try to trade up for him and get beat out by Chicago and they end up with

him that to me says they went into this draft with the goal of coming out with the quarterback and once they couldn't get Fields their next guy guy was Mond, and they got value on him. Yeah, and I think that that would be a good situation because I think after Mond, I don't like any of those quarterbacks after Mond, right? Like my team took Ian Book, and I'm still beside myself. I cannot believe that they would take – especially that high. Then you have like Ellinger. You don't know enough about him. You have like Ellinger you don't know enough about him you have some other guys I don't know

are you judging a book by its cover? oh my god yes the book isn't written yet trust me I'm not judging a book by its cover I have watched Ian Book play there's no bueno are you saying he has trouble with his reads? I don't want to talk about Ian Book, okay?

It makes me mad because I don't understand how the Saints are evaluating quarterback. First of all, first of all, clearly, you know, they talk a big game about Jameis and Taysom. We have our guys. They're in the room. Don't worry about it, guys. And it's like, guess what?

You tried to trade up for whoever, Mac Jones, Justin Fields, whatever. You tried to trade up for just like the Vikings. And then you said, oh, my God, we're still screwed. Let's take Ian Book, who had one of the best situations in college football the last three years, playing behind that unbelievable offensive line. Brian Kelly, you know, creates a good offense for him. Tommy Reese is there too. Like, such a great situation.

And he couldn't do anything with it. He had, like, three good games in his whole career. One of them happened to be on national TV against a backup, you know, Clemson team. But I digress. Well, let's see. I'm going to go for my biggest reach yet, and then we can get back to talking about whatever we're talking about,

is will Ian Book wear sleeves? You know, the book has a sleeve. No, no. I don't think so. Come on. How do I get up? How do I get up? How do I close the Zoom?

Exit out. I don't even blame you. Check, please. This is for the paneling, not being in the background. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so Mond, yeah, that's why Mond is such a good pick because you see something in him. And, again, you go back to, okay, well, what if we gave him the supporting cast

that we think we're going to have in the next couple years in Minnesota? Like you said, a third wide receiver receiver that'll come, that could come. You kind of get lucky with those guys, I think. And then other than that, the offensive line should be really good. It's very young now. So it should be pretty good in a few years if these guys hit. And again, like, you know, that's why that trade back to still take the tackle that you want and then get a guard.

Okay, is Wyatt Davis as good as we think Elijah Veritaker is going to be? Probably not. I mean, that's why they get picked two rounds apart. That's why Veritaker is the first guard off the board and a top 15 guard. That might be a little bit of a stretch, but whatever. But at the same time, you added a pick, right? You added a pick and you still got Christian Dar the same time, you added a pick, right? You added a pick, and you still got Christian Darasov. Like, that's crazy. I'm not like the biggest Christian

Darasov fan, but I think he'd come in there and he'll start right away. And he's one of those guys who I think he'll grow with some better technical coaching. And I think, again, he's big and strong, gets his paws off you and he stops you and this is this is what we want right we want an offensive line so anyways yeah I think it's it's definitely a look toward the future with the Mon pick at probably a good round for him and you're there's just like I said there's just no one else available, I think, even later on in the draft who fits anything that you'd want your quarterback to be that Mond doesn't.

So I think, yeah, I think this was a great – first of all, I think overall, pretty good draft from the Vikings, you know, borderline excellent. And if that's – if Mond is that guy, I think there's some stuff you can do with him. But I think to answer your question about can you be less robotic, tough. Can you be more accurate? It's tough, man. Tough to change who you are this late in your quarterback career. He's thrown a million passes in his life.

That, again, is just my one concern with him. But, hey, maybe you get what I'm saying about Kirk Cousins, where you put him in a universe where everything is perfect for one season, and he has, obviously, more physical tools than Kirk. So maybe that pushes the envelope a little further along. So, yeah, that's kind of what I think about Mond and them. Hey, everyone. I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics.

And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do. Scout Logistics is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads. And if you're wondering what that means exactly, well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America. And we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out scoutlogistics.com or call 855-217-2688, extension 232,

to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. Yeah, my take on the entire situation with how they handled the quarterback in this draft, it's like really nuanced. It's like, well, if the league valued Mac Jones much higher than Kellen Mond, then that just, it just means the odds are much higher that Mac Jones is going to succeed than Kellen Mond. Just by where they were picked and the fact that all the scouting staffs looked at it and viewed it this way, that usually first-round quarterbacks change franchises, not third-round quarterbacks.

I mean, that's just facts of how this works. And if you wanted to move on from Kirk, just tell him you want to move on. Don't text with the girl. Just go cheat on your girlfriend or whatever, right? Don't just – Great advice. Right? Perfect advice. Right? Perfect.

Yeah. Advice. Okay, break up, I mean. You know what I mean, though. Like, don't just text with somebody. Like, break up if you want to be with someone else, right? So that whole thing of sort of playing this, well, hey, Kirk, yeah, we did think we maybe got your replacement, but still go out there and win for us next year.

A lot of teams have tried this, and I don't know that it works. Like, did Davis Webb or Kyle Lilleta, did they, you know, push Eli Manning or take Eli Manning's job? It's like not – usually it's go all in or not. And even with Jalen Hurts, it was sort of like this half measure of we don't – you know, we're not really sure we're getting rid of Carson Wentz, but we might be, so we're – you know, that whole thing. So it's a very nuanced kind of thing. But at the end of the day, if the Mac Jones situation had ever happened, I think I would have been saying,

this is a great idea to go with Kellen Mond because of his skillset, because of the potential upside and how he could fit. Just one more thing. Did you like anybody else from their draft? And I'm sorry if I'm making you memorize their entire draft. You're talking as I am. I don't mean to be doing that. I know that's hard. That's like just sort of a random question at the end. But like you mentioned, some people really, really love Smith-Marset. And I'm sort of –

Yeah, like I said, I didn't watch him. People really liked him. And then with a lot of these receivers, what you're hoping, what you're praying for is, and Smith-Marset is such a good example of that, the quarterback play at Iowa is abysmal. You know, that's kind of like you look at Jalen, we brought him up earlier, we look at Jalen Rager, the quarterback play at TCU that year was abysmal. And you're just hoping that they're actually getting open,

but they're not getting the ball. And that's kind of clouding our judgment. Now you're supposed to be able to look at them in a vacuum and say, this is a good receiver, this is not a good receiver, whether or not the ball gets to them. But that's hard. There's a lot of human biases there. So good receiver, whether or not the ball gets to them. But that's hard. There's a lot of human biases there, so that's hard to do. So I think that's one of the things you're hoping for with a player like Smith-Morse.

Do you buy that, though? Do you buy that? I never bought that. Like, Larry Fitzgerald was catching 120 passes from, like, you know, Ryan. No, I'm pretty – I've never bought that. I skew towards production matters for receivers. Like, if you're good, you'll get the ball.

They'll find a way to get the ball. And if you're – especially in college, like, you should be making plays even with relatively inaccurate balls, right? I think you should still be able to make plays. The other guy is – the weird pick was the running back from Iowa State who's not – who's just – I think he's a speed guy, right? Like pure speed, not a running back. Dree Archer. He's Dree Archer.

So find a place for – did these guys ever pan out? No, not usually. But come on. Maybe they're special teams. Do you remember Dree Archer? Vaguely. Small guy, right? If you played a ton of Madden, you would have picked up Dree Archer because he had like a 97 speed.

Yeah, I'm sure. Trunk Candidate was another one. Remember that? He I remember from my youth. Absolutely. Okay. That's what it reminded me of. It's like, oh, man, on Madden, this guy's going to have insane speed and I'm going to pick him up. there's no one in this draft that like I looked at as a top 100,

top 150 pick that got, that they picked in like the fifth round, which happened a couple of times. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything like that. But like, yeah, there's no one who I thought was that good that ended up falling to him. Jalen Twyman's interesting because he was, he was a, he was a nice looking prospect and he didn't play last year. Part of that really good Pitt defensive line.

And they took him, as I read here, 199th overall. So he's an interesting pick. Davidson, you know, central Missouri, so we don't know. Again, I know some people who liked him, but he got picked in the fifth round. So you're an X's and O's guy, and you do some of the best breakdowns of plays of anyone that I've seen. So here's what I need from you before you leave, because I gave this a shot myself, and I don't know how good of a job I did. So Davidson was a punter slash tight end. I want you to, off the top of your head, design me a play that utilizes punting and tight end play before you leave. You have to do it. Okay, well, this happened one time when I was

playing high school. This is off the top of my head, but it happened when I was playing high school football where our punter was our tight end, just like this, and without telling anybody, he just caught the snap, and he just ran for a first down he didn't tell anybody and he ran for a first down so shout out to ben um shout out to ben do so who plays on my flag football team now uh yeah uh yeah that's it like i that's the that's the closest i can figure out right away is that he can probably run some sort of nice fake punts, right? You can really get crazy and do a third, it's like third and 12, and you run like an end around to him

and then you punt it. Like, I guess you could do that. But besides that, I think there's going to be a split there. I'll say next year, I don't know if this kid's going to get drafted, but next year, the kid out of Buffalo, the Buffalo Bulls, the quarterback's name is Kyle Vantrese, and he punted for them before he became the starting quarterback

midway through 2019, I believe. So shout out to more positional, versatile players out there. I'm just envisioning this like, you know, it's third down and 27. You've had, like, some terrible penalties or whatever, and you're backed up and you just decide we're going to putt now. He comes in motion, comes back. Kirk flips it back to him and he putts. To net, like, 13 yards.

Yeah, right. To net, like, 26 yards. Randall Cunningham did it once and it went, like, 90 yards.. Yeah, right. To net like 26 yards. Randall Cunningham did it once and it went like 90 yards. 90 yards, yeah. There you go. So, Seth, this was super fun. We always have a great time when we get together. And I really appreciate your terrific insight and takes.

And drawing up tight end slash punter play. So that's a great thing. That's going to be my new thing. Yeah, that's right. If I don't see a full article about this at pff.com, I'm going to be upset. So thanks for your time, dude. No, thank you. This is always a fun time.

I appreciate it.