Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Pro Football Network's Dalton Miller ranks Vikings stuff, from Zimmer's defense to cursed franchises

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

Matthew Coller gets together with Pro Football Network's Dalton Miller for a wide-ranging (and fun) conversation about where the Vikings rank in a bunch of categories. Do they have a top-tier defense? Where would Dalton rank the Vikings' uniforms? Where would he rank Justin Jefferson in terms of receivers that he'd want for a final drive... and Cousins for QBs he'd want for a must win. Plus Dalton insanely claims the Cowboys are a more cursed franchise than the Vikings (recently). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and we welcome in for Pro Football Network lead analyst Dalton Miller. First appearance on the show. What's up, Dalton? How are you? Fantastic. How are you doing today? I'm good, man.

I've been reading this offseason, your camp previews, your power rankings. Think you may have ranked tight ends mixed in there. And so I feel like you're the perfect guy to come on the show and not talk about vaccinations. Wouldn't even dream of it. Wouldn't even dream of talking about that. I mean, so I'm trying to like I'm trying to be like the sun coming up the next week after this just miserable storm for Vikings fans last week. And Cousins is back at practice for now. And I promised more or less like if he's back at practice, then we'll wait till there's any other problems to have to discuss it too much at

length again. So here's my idea for you. You like to rank stuff. You like to put stuff in tiers. I want to go through some Viking stuff and you can give me either your snap one through 32 ranking, or you could give me just like a tier, whatever you feel more comfortable with. I think it's funnier if you say like 17th at the top of your head, but you can do this any way you like. So I feel like we should start in the most obvious place. Like,

where do you rank the Vikings in power rankings as you are here now after, I know you did this as a pre-camp but after what are we calling it like room size gates or what you know whatever it is for Kirk Cousins you muted yourself by the way I don't know how I muted myself, but there you go. So, yeah, with the Minnesota Vikings, I really actually kind of enjoyed what they did in the offseason. I think they did a lot to really try to help that defense, especially the defensive interior. When I went through and I was doing all my research before the year last year, I was looking at all the rosters and I looked at the depth chart of the Minnesota Vikings for their interior defensive line. And the only guy I recognized was Hercules Mata'afa. And the only reason I knew who Hercules was is because he was a 250 pound defensive tackle. So that's, that's the only reason why I knew him, but I really liked what they did there.

Obviously things with the secondary at times at cornerback haven't worked out, which is weird because Mike Zimmer has been such a big cornerback guy over the years. At the end of the day, I think they're a mid tier team. I think they're they're right on the doorstep of being a playoff team. I had them at number 14 in my most recent power rankings that actually came out two days ago. And so I had them there for that. And I've really kind of looked at that team and I've liked more and more as I've gone along and really done the research into these teams. Zimmer was so upset last week when his quarterback could not practice because after the first practice of the year, and he saw this group together on the field, he was, I mean, this is one of the happiest press conferences I've seen Mike Zimmer give. He normally is, you know,

kind of curmudgeony and not actually smiling and sort of joking around. And then all of a sudden, like that'll teach you to ever be too excited because Vikings, this is coming around the corner. But I think when you look at position by position on the defense, and if you say everyone here is going to stay healthy, then you have the potential to be a very good defense, which maybe we should rank specifically Mike Zimmer's defense.

And we'll get into some fun ones, I promise, But we'll talk about just, you know, the basic ones first. Mike Zimmer's defense. And I'm just going to give you the contingency that they are healthy for the entire season. Where would you rank? I would rank them at probably around mid-pack again, somewhere around 15. I think that they can go probably get up near the top 10. And it really, for me, comes down to what kind of Patrick Peterson are you going to get? Opposite of Cam Dantzler, who it's funny that Cam Dantzler fell into the third round and then ended up having a really good rookie season because he was a little bit slow at the combine. Everybody freaked

out about it. And that's the only reason he lasted that long because his play in college was fantastic. You know, with Patrick Peterson coming in, it's going to be really interesting to see how he ends up working out for the Vikings. But I think that if he plays half decent, if he gets it back just a little, which we don't normally see with corners, but we've seen guys, Xavier Rhodes was really, really good, even as he was getting towards the tail end of his career, you know, in Minnesota. So I think that if he plays well,

they can be right about a top 10 defense, especially with Donnell Hunter coming back. I mean, that dude is an absolute freak when it comes to rushing the passer. And if you get him healthy for a whole year, you're going to be in business. And your point about Xavier Rhodes when he went to Indianapolis and they sort of simplified things for him, made him more of his own corner, I think, I'm not 100% sure, I'm not trying to watch camp and drop the X's and O's and try to figure out how they're going to play

because that never works with Zimmer. He tries a bunch of stuff in training camp and then usually plays his defense. But I think that his plan is to use Patrick Peterson a little more in his own corner because Peterson sort of slipped up a little bit and told us that earlier in training camp where he was talking about a little more in like his own corner because Peterson sort of slipped up a little bit and told us that earlier in training camp where he was talking about not having to turn around and run with people as much. And I think that that sort of points to it. But when you're looking at the interior of the defensive line, I think it's a very interesting question of like,

is it the right strategy to put 700 pounds of human in the middle in the year 2021? And I mean, teams still run a lot on first down, but if teams are going to run play action or pass on first down out of the shotgun and Michael Pierce is out there along with Delvin Tomlinson and Daniil Hunter is the only pass rusher you have. Like Daniil Hunter can get 15 sacks, but how many can the rest of everyone get? I think it is kind of, kind of a question. No, I mean, it's absolutely a question and it's tough because you don't really have a ton when it comes to the pass rush.

You hope that you get a little bit from Patrick Jones, who is going to be a rookie. You also have Janarius Robinson, who's going to be a rookie, have a ton when it comes to the pass rush you hope that you get a little bit from Patrick Jones who is going to be a rookie you also have Janarius Robinson who's going to be a rookie but outside of Donnell Hunter you really truly do not have a lot when it comes to rushing the passer my thing with this is you have one of the best coverage linebackers in the entire NFL and honestly one of the best linebackers in the NFL and Eric Kendricks and so for me it comes down to the chicken or the egg is it the pass rush that helps out the secondary is it the secondary that helps out the pass rush because I think you know with Harrison Smith who is obviously

still a fantastic safety one of the best in the league Xavier Woods is not as bad as Cowboys fans will want to tell you he is. You know, you're going to get better play than you probably expect to from Xavier Woods. And then I don't know what's happening with Cameron Bynum in camp, but he's another dark horse for me. He had really, really good tape at Cal for four years. So that'll be an interesting one to look at as well. I think that even though the pass rush outside of Hunter doesn't look great, I think that they can do enough. And with those two beefy dudes in the middle, I think they can compress the pocket enough to affect quarterbacks, which at the end

of the day, more than sacks is what you want. Yeah. And I think that you make a good point that it all sort of circles back to Patrick Peterson, that if he is any version of Patrick Peterson, your coverage unit is going to be pretty strong and they have depth with Rashad Breland, Cameron Dantzler, and it's just coming down to, can you get good play out of him? And will Mike Zimmer maybe limit what he's asking him? Or will Mike Zimmer be like, ah, a legendary corner. I've had one of these before locked down the number one receiver every week. And then I think you can get into trouble. I don't think he's going to do that,

but I could also see sort of Zimmer going Zimmer. Like, oh yeah, we're going to have all these new ideas. And like, no, I'm playing my defense. Okay. Let me throw in some, some fun ones. Where do you rank the Vikings uniforms in the NFL? Ooh, the Vikings uniforms. uh where do you rank the vikings uniforms in the nfl oh the vikings uniforms uh i don't think they're particularly good or bad to be honest i mean i kind of like the purple i i think you know again and i hate to sound like a broken record here but they're somewhere around the middle

tier they're somewhere around you know it's too perfect for a team that keeps finishing like 10 and seven or 12 to 16. Yeah, I mean, it's just a it's just a perfect Kirk Cousins, you know, type of thing here. And, you know, when the bright lights come on, it might not be as good. But, you know, when you're going up against the worst teams, you're the mid pack teams, you can compete with the uniforms. I don't think they're good or, or bad, you know, from a design standpoint, but I will say the purple is fantastic. I think it's a great color.

The purple, the helmet, I think when they play and I know the offensive linemen hate this, but when they play in the all whites on the road, I think it's a good look for them. Purple, the purple people eater style purple purple I think was better the way old school than what they have right now. And the ones that they had during the Christian Ponder and Brett Favre era was not good, where they had the little yellow collar.

That was not a good look at all. Who would you have as your top three for uniforms in the NFL? Oh, that's a good question. I mean, the, the chargers, if you're going to put the powder blues gotta be up there. They're unbelievable. They're the best Jersey in NFL history, really. And outside of that, the all black Baltimore Ravens.

Oh, you like that one are, are, are pretty nice as well. And then outside of that, I don't know how many jerseys I really, truly love. The Saints have some good color combinations. I'm trying to think of like the color rush uniforms, too. But like just normal uniforms, it's kind of like the Raiders are classic. Raiders are my number one. The Dolphins are pretty classic as well. The 49ers, especially like when they wear the 90s jerseys are unbelievable.

And then, you know, America's team, Dallas Cowboys, they have some pretty nice jerseys. You have to give it to them. You have to give it to them. And the Steelers as well. I think my top three is probably Raiders number one, 49ers number two and then steelers number three um not not bad yeah it's it's just too it's just too classic

it's the all-time classic logo and then right behind them probably dallas uh i might have the vikings like pressing top 10 on this but there's like a as often in the nfl there's like a middle group that's pretty strong they're like oh yeah i could give or take all of those. And then there's like the very back end, which is just Jacksonville. Jacksonville is the very much. And the Titans, like what? Come on. What are the Titans? The Titans color scheme is fantastic. I don't know why they keep screwing their jerseys up. You hate to see it. That's what that's what it is. Okay. Rank Kirk Cousins, not by just overall Kirk Cousins, because I think I have a general idea of where every person would put Kirk Cousins. Rank Kirk Cousins by if you were drafting all quarterbacks to win you a game

for week 18 to make the playoffs. Oh, that changes it. Because I think I'm probably higher on Kirk Cousins than most people. I think he's right at the top 10 of quarterbacks in the NFL. I think he's really, really good. Now, when the lights come on and it's primetime sometimes, I mean, you can look at the splits. They exist. And so for that, I'm going to, I'm going to take them down to like 15 or 16, probably. And plus, I mean, you have so many incredible young talents that are coming up as well.

The Justin Herbert's and guys like that, that, you know, you kind of like, well, if it's one game and you're going to try to game plan against somebody, those guys can do more athletically than Kirk cousins can. If he gets into a pinch and has to create out of structure, which is something that Kirk Cousins is not fantastic at. Yeah, I think that top 10 for Kirk in the fringe top 10 is right. it's just that when you're as expensive as he is and when you have the sort of fatal flaws that he has that's where it all kind of comes back to why haven't you gotten over this hump since Kirk Cousins has been here well I was just looking at the team yesterday thinking about how much money they spent on the defense but then I kind of went back and I'm like well you know they really had to

get guys who were not necessarily coming off good seasons, though. And I'm looking at the offensive line where they drafted a third round pick to start and then the guys on the third team. So now they're moving a sixth round guy who is a tackle now to guard. And you're going, oh, this is what it means to have a 30 million dollar quarterback and if you were able to afford Joe Tooney instead because he was making you know four million dollars on a rookie contract this would be a very different conversation about where this team is at but I know of one NFL team that I was told that did not go after Kirk Cousins specifically because of this reason because of the if we need him to win a big game we don't really trust him when he was coming

out as a free agent that their organization scouting department all looked at him and said that's the thing we're worried about paying him is can he can he win that big game which sounds like i'm john madden or something right i mean it does but but that's the thing like us in media we we look at things and analysts we look at things from the vacuum that we can see it. It's is this guy good on the field? Do we like his tape? Yes. But when you're an organization character and leadership and how they appear in those big games, all of those things matter. What the guy eats matters as much as we don't want it to Justin Fields being vegan, probably hurt his draft stock. It just probably did that. It's

the way that we are. And so we have preconceived notions or we have, you know, narratives that are based off of what we've seen in the past. And we've seen guys like Tony Gonzalez not produce as well after going vegan and losing weight. So these are all things that teams take into account that we couldn't care less about, but actually do matter. I want my quarterback eating some meat. Eat a steak on a Sunday afternoon.

Got a football player and consuming a cow. That's what I'm saying. But so this, that's what, why I like to ask about this, like sort of, do you believe in the Kirk isn't clutch thing? And I don't necessarily believe that there are too many players who just collapse and fall apart. And we've seen good clutch Kirk moments from here and there, like against the New Orleans saints in the playoff game. And it's not the only time he's ever done it. But I think what it is, I think what you touched on is the actual explanation for Kirk clutch, which is a lot of those late game situations.

Like think let's think about the guys who are all time great at this. Like Joe Montana was great out of structure. John Elway was great out of structure. Patrick Mahomes, great out of structure. Like a lot of times at the end of games and against great teams, you're getting a lot of defensive lines who are great. They're coming after you. You have to sort of make something happen. The other team has good coverage. More likely than not, you've got to make tight window throws, usually requires guts and arm strength.

And Kirk, when he winds up, can make very accurate throws, I'm and arm strength and Kirk when he winds up can make very accurate throws I'm sure as you've seen but and anything off of that platform it just doesn't have any juice on it and I think that it's more of a physical tools issue than necessarily the guy is is just like not wired correctly in his brain. 100%. And the other thing with, you know, primetime games is primetime games, playoff games, obviously, they're usually against better teams. They're good competition. And so you're going to lose more of those games than you win. Everybody talks about, oh, well, yeah, they can beat the bad teams,

but what's their record, you know, such quarterback against winning teams? Well, most quarterbacks have losing records against winning teams. That's kind of the way that the NFL works. It's really hard to win in the NFL. Tom Brady is about the only person that actually has a winning record against winning teams. It's just the way that it is. So when we look at this, obviously a guy is going to have close to a 500 record or lower against winning teams.

And they're going to win about 60 percent or more of the games against losing teams because that's the way that the NFL works and people just you know they they look at it in the the lens of fandom where they don't go outside of their team bubble and they're like oh my quarterback can't do this well yeah the other 31 quarterbacks in the NFL can't either right that. With Kirk though, three years, physical limitations are, are for sure there. And when you get into pressure, you have to be able to make those throws off your back foot. And because of his physical limitations, he can't do it. He also has three years here as a Viking with good teams around him. Even last year, most of the season, it's a good team. Um. The defense gets hurt. It kind of falls apart at the

end, but you had Justin Jefferson, Adam Thiel and Delvin Cook healthy the whole season. And in three years, he has three regular season wins against winning teams. And two of them were nine and seven. So at that point, it's sort of going like, I totally agree with your point. And yet at the same time, you have to beat more of those teams when you get paid like that in order to justify the contract, which so far he hasn't done. And then starts this camp with, OK, let's not even get into that part. Yeah, let's let's let's do let's do this instead. Let's say you, Dalton Miller, your quarterback, and you've got a final drive and you're the guy out there there let's say at uh cowboy stadium and you can pick any receiver

to lean on in your final drive where's justin jefferson rank who in any final drive see the final drive thing is important here because in a final drive i got to go the entire field i'm probably on a time clock i need guys that can make big plays he's probably close to top five and i say that and people are going to be like well of course he's top five he you know had 1400 yards last year and something that's very important to point out nobody has ever had 1400 plus yards on 125 or less targets. Nobody has ever done that. That's him. And it's because he averaged 15 plus yards per catch. He was unbelievably efficient and feel free to throw it to a more,

by the way. Yeah. Oh no. 100%. He should get thrown to more. And we've seen that in this offense with Kirk cousins, Adam Thielen has been the guy until last year, even though, I mean, looking at it from a 30,000 foot view, I always thought Stefan Diggs was the better player. And the kind of proved that last year when he went over to Buffalo and became the guy. So it was surprising that Justin Jefferson did kind of become the guy, even with Adam Thielen there, but I'm taking him, you know, close to the top five because he can make those big plays in those big plays come because when he is playing against off coverage and he was fantastic against

press too last year which is something that we had questions about coming out of LSU because he just didn't face press often but with him that secondary release that rocker step that he has against soft coverage nobody's staying with him nobody in the NFL can because it's such a smooth move. He's able to keep so much momentum in and out of his transitions. And because of that rocker step, the kind of more mimics a Euro step in basketball, it's a legitimately crazy rocker step, how East and West he gets with it.

And then he's able to break off 360 degrees off of that. So he creates such good separation at that second level that i'm taking him in my top five because i'm gonna need to make big plays going down the field and he can do that i want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original minnesota sports inspired goods if you have not seen it yet you've got to check it out couple of my favorite designs are the duck duck gray duck and the randy moss goat which you've got to check it out couple of my favorite designs are the duck duck gray duck and the randy moss goat which you've got to see all their apparel is screen printed here in minnesota on super soft super comfy shirts and hoodies you will love it we're going to hook you

up with free shipping on your next order by the way use promo code purple insider for free shipping. That's soda stick. S O T a S T I C K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods code purple insider for free shipping. I love that you bring up his release because that certainly matters in any clutch situation. But I also did a story last year. I talked to his high school wide receivers coach because he went to a high school with a wide receivers coach and broke down like his his get-offs and his releases off the line of scrimmage and that was one thing where it's maybe we talked

about this either right before we went on or at the beginning but like you just can't tell with draft picks and when a guy plays in the slot a bunch you don't know how's he gonna get off the line of scrimmage and then he comes out against the titans he does that rocker step blows somebody away down the sideline like okay i guess he can so sometimes you have to prove it but the the for me with jefferson it's where's the weakness that I can't really find one. His also his mentality is that of a superstar, as in I want the football all the time. This is not a guy who wants to disappear. He was as big of a superstar in the state of New Orleans as the state, the state of Louisiana because of what he did at LSU.

And so he comes here with that same mentality from the very start. I'm going to be a superstar. He has a great contested catch rate. He gets open off the line of scrimmage. He has strong hands and doesn't drop football is like, where is the weakness of Justin Jefferson? And he could also break tackles. And that's the other thing too, that you need on a final drive is okay. Well, they're going to drop everybody back.

Can I throw something short and have a guy break a tackle? I mean, aside from him, you're talking digs, Devante Adams, Julio Jones. There aren't that many more guys that you would want to throw the football to in that situation. Yeah. I would say I would have Deandre Hopkins up there as well. And then DK Metcalf and AJ Brown are two other guys, especially, dude, I'll tell you what, I was not a huge fan of AJ Brown coming out. But what he's done at the NFL level has been super impressive.

And his ability after the catch is unbelievable. And if he gets the targets this year, he'll he'll explode as as one of those superstars. And I love where the NFL is at with kind of the older group of receivers going out. And this group of young receivers coming in is is pretty unbelievable. OK, I got two more for you. Do it. Trey Lance, Justin Fields are potentially on the Vikings schedule. Also, Aaron Rodgers came back. So this is our sort of things that changed the schedule for the Vikings. I want you to tell me where Trey Lance,

Justin Fields, and Aaron Rogers end up ranking this year among all quarterbacks. Oh, Aaron Rogers is going to be top two this year. He has a chip on it. He has a chip. And listen, he had a couple of down years and then the, the team made him mad. And when he gets mad, he gets that chip on his shoulder and he goes off and that's what we saw last year.

He's the pettiest person in professional sports. I think I've ever seen in my life and it works out for them. And a lot of people talk about you know the them having distractions but this was all going on last year too and not enough people are talking about him blowing up and this team going 13 and 3 with all of these distractions he's going to be unbelievable where do you um where do you put his man bun as a fellow man bun? Oh, he's got this Adrian Brody look going on right now

because he's not a super... Objectively, as a guy, I have no issue talking about good-looking men or anything. There's two dudes talking about whether Aaron Rodgers is hot. Exactly. He's not the best- looking dude in the world.

And, and with the glad, like, especially when he went to the, not the Preakness, but the, the Kentucky Derby, it looked like he was there to arrest Tom Brady.

It looked like Adrian Brody was playing a detective and was there to arrest Tom Brady. But, you know, for me, the man bun, I kind of just do it because the wife likes it. And it's really hot in Texas in the summer. And it's easier for me to just put it up and put it back

because I golf a lot too. And when I'm golfing in Texas and I have my hair done, you know, all the product gets in your eye and everything. And you just don't want to have to deal with that so i'm glad i asked i'm gonna cut it in the fall okay the other part of this was justin fields and trey lance if you didn't forget i didn't know he was no i did not for man but but you have to do whatever whatever the wife says about your appearance just do it this is free marriage advice just do it 100 don't ask questions she better than you. She's got to look at you.

Trey Lance is in an unbelievable situation. He's coming from an offensive scheme at North Dakota State, and it was two years ago when he actually played. He only played one game last year. But heavy personnel usage, just like, you know, San Francisco likes to use a lot of motion pre-snap, play action heavy bootleg stuff. And he's got the weapons. He's got the offensive line.

He's in a great, great spot to be the potential rookie of the year this year if he plays enough games. I think that he can play close to a top 10 quarterback as a rookie if he himself kind of puts it all together at the NFL level, Justin Fields is in a worse situation. That offensive line in Chicago is not very good. They have Allen Robinson, Darnell Mooney who are good, but I think a rookie really needs a good offensive line. Tevin Jenkins has not been healthy yet as well, which makes him, you know, early in the season, maybe not being healthy. And we don't know how much Justin Fields is going to play either.

Apparently he's wowing in camp right now. But I would take things slower if I were Chicago than San Francisco, even though in San Francisco they have a winning team. And that situation gets cloudy because what do you do with Jimmy G and Trey Lance if they go out and they win six out of the first eight games with Jimmy G it's, it's tough to sit him. Um, so they're in a tough spot in San Francisco with that Chicago, they're, they're not going to be a winning football team. They just, they don't have the fight in them right now. They don't have the roster. Um, so you'll probably see Justin Fields and it's going to be tough to stop him just because you don't normally see six to 230 pounds running a four, four, especially with an arm like he has.

So that'll be fun to contest with for the next 10 years. Are you saying that drafting offensive linemen to start is a bit of a risky move? I'm just throwing that out there. Vikings drafting Tevin Jenkins. Hey, we're going to start you. And I think they're trying to start him in left tackle. And even though he played right tackle, I'm like, yeah, I mean, it's definitely risky. And listen, I love the move to try to address the offensive line. I think that you need to do that.

I felt that the jets doing that and getting AVT was huge, but they already had their tackle. And so like for the Vikingsikings with christian derisaw like i thought being able to move down and get him was the best value in the entire first round i don't know how he's doing in camp right now he's not doing anything in camp right now because he's been hurt that's right he's still hurt yeah that's where the snark comes from is just like drafting offensive lineman i'm not against that it's just when you say oh we'll just draft a guy to plug this hole and that's where you're taking your life in your hands yeah

an offensive line gets hurt a lot yeah yeah exactly okay last question let's do it rank how cursed the vikings are among nfl franchises where do they rank among the all cursed team of nfl i mean the lions got to be at the top the lions are at the top um the jets have had a really tough go of it um again some of their own doing any team that you know hires adam gaze after what happened in miami you're deserving uh the cowboys have a legitimate curse they have the curse of jimmy johnson um so that's a big one i'm trying to think who else has a curse there uh the chargers are fairly cursed oh yes the chargers are fairly cursed i would say the vikings are kind of up there with with the cowboys um yeah i think that's about it but like they won listen they won that playoff game

on the final throw that should have never ever happened so yes they're cursed but i don't think they're cursed like you know what i say that they're below the cowboys the cowboys are more cursed no come on but it's there with all the superbowl. You can't call them more cursed than the Vikings. Matthew, I'm 28 years old. Okay. Okay. And I have not seen the Dallas Cowboys do anything in my lifetime that I actually remember.

So we'd have to categorize that like recent curses last 20 years, historic to make four Superbowls and win none of them for the vikings you did not mention the buffalo bills that's where i grew up in that's another one that's a wide right field goal so you just went from one to another one of the other yeah yeah that's tough i went i went from uh music city miracle to gary anderson in 98 missing wide left to i think the vikings are probably a top three up there with the chargers. And I would agree with the lions. I think that the Vikings are the most cursed team in the NFL.

I think the Vikings fate is much better than the lions because the lions, you can't even make the playoffs, man. No, you can't even have the playoff meltdowns. You can't keep your stars either. They've had two of the greatest of all time retire before right at 30 years old right yep and i mean and the vikings from from cursed perspective you have like teddy bridgewater going down with the most random non-contact injury you miss a 20 you miss a 27 yard field goal you you know just you have adrian peterson have his thing right sort of at the peak of his powers

and have to miss a full season like there's a lot of things a roof collapsed and that's where you know the Vikings belong toward but how magical was that year after he came back off a torn ACL and had 2,000 plus yards it was unbelievable it was it was yeah and right out of out of the curses this is the whole thing right it's like out of out of, out of the darkness comes the sun. And that was, you know, Teddy Bridgewater coming back. I was in the stadium for that when he came back. So that was, that was really, really something Dalton Miller. You could read his work at pro football network.

You've got a lot of great team training camp previews that you, that you posted that are still, I think, relevant and good. You've got power rankings. You've got all the stuff. You do, like, why I like your work is you do just, you do fun stuff. I miss, I miss all 22. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be back. It'll be back.

Everybody's freaking out. It'll be back. I'm freaking out. I think I'm absolutely freaking out. It's really tough because, I mean, first of all, I was in the scouting academy. So that made things difficult. So we actually had to pause the scouting academy for now but oh really wow i didn't

realize that yeah paused it that we're i'm gonna go back in the next spring um and finish up but no i mean it's tough because like we count on coaches film to do our job properly i'm writing about taylor heineke right now and it's like, I can't even go back and watch his coaches tape against the Bucs. And yeah, yeah. Old friend. Taylor Heineke. Yeah. Taylor Heineke almost beat Case Keenum in the 2017 battle for the Vikings backup quarterback.

Maybe it would have been him throwing the Minneapolis miracle. He's kind of fun. He's fun. He'll get hurt. That's 100%. Yeah. fun. He'll get hurt. That's a hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. I'm going to get hurt.

And with the way that he plays, it's even more of a sure thing that he gets hurt. Cause he doesn't care about getting hit. Well, I'm a, no, he doesn't. And that's part of the problem.

And if you haven't run across, if you want to work into your analysis, he also had to miss time from kicking a glass door once. So. If you want to look time from kicking a glass door once. So if you want to look that up, it's a, I will. Yeah, that was good. So Dalton Miller, before I let you go, let me give you our Twitter handle. It is Dalton B Miller on Twitter. So great stuff, man. This was really fun. I hope you get your all 22 back soon. And I, I do as well. I mean, at least by week one,

so we can go back and watch the tape of the game. That would be problematic for me if we can't do that, but stay patient, stay strong and we'll do this again, man. This is really fun. Absolutely. Anytime.