Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Random questions week continues: What does the offensive coordinator do?

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Matthew Coller continues Random Question week by talking about Wes Phillips' job, whether Jaren Hall makes the team and a bizarre Josh Dobbs/JJ McCarthy comparison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Todd asked if they keep four quarterbacks or is Hall out? They will not keep, or I shouldn't say guaranteed. I would be very shocked if they kept four on the active roster. No one is picking up Jaron Hall if you cut him. So he will be, if he's still around, if he shows that he deserves to still be around or could be a future backup for them because Darnold's not going to be the future backup to McCarthy McCarthy's going to be the starter

Nick Mullins could stay as the backup for a long time if he wanted to be like a Doug Peterson in Green Bay for Brett Favre where it's like your favorite backup guy you could do that if you want to but more likely they'd want Jaron Hall because he's going to be very cheap for at least two more years. Put him on the practice squad this year. Hope he can be the backup the following season. If he struggles in training camp, move on. It's no big deal as a fifth round draft pick. Go from there. Is the tight end Re uh a lock for the practice squad if i'm not mistaken i believe that reyes qualifies i could be wrong but there's like an international exception so you can put somebody uh on your roster on the practice squad but they don't count or something like that so

that would make him a lock. This, this is how Moritz Bollringer hung around for several years. But yeah, I think that he can, I think he could be that guy. So if he shows anything, then he can be that guy. I would be able to have to check on that, but I remember that somewhere that rule, because he was a basketball player and he, I haven't looked into his whole story. He is enormous by the way, like stands way out, but he was a basketball player and was new to football. Just try it. Just decided to try it. Made a team. It's crazy, crazy story. Hunter says, what do you think the Vikings record is within the division out of six games? I will give you the hottest take I possibly can blazing hot.

You prepared for it. You got your water three and three. They're probably three and three. I usually pick them to go three and three in the division. This is a hard year in the division, but I also watch the way they compete with, you know, Green Bay last year, the first time when they had their quarterback, and then Detroit both times with Nick Mullins where they were close.

Chicago just screams split. One game, Caleb Williams looks good. Another game he doesn't. But you could take two from Chicago, but they have to go to Soldier Field. I don't trust Soldier Field. Three and three, that's what I would go with. It probably needs to be better than that to make the playoffs though. Maybe by a smidge, uh, Vikings, Jerome, uh, what really is Wes Phillips role? Well, offensive coordinator, uh, when the head coach

is the play caller just stands around and, um, just, uh just practices is chipping like I need to do. No, I'm just kidding. It's a lot. I mean, number one, it's the game planning. So the head coach cannot do all the game planning all the time. So Wes Phillips and his group quarterback coach, other assistants, offensive analysts, whatever they work on the game plan throughout the week. And of course, Kevin O'Connell is involved in this, but a lot of, so say just for example, and I don't know how every job is distributed, but just for example, all right, Wes Phillips this week, you're going to be responsible for all the third downs. Maybe that's what it is. Again, I'm not 100% sure who's picking each and every play,

but that means studying the film of the opposing team, studying the data of the opposing team, talking through with the staff and leading those staff meetings in designing the plays for all the third downs. Just for example, I think it's probably much more extensive than that, but just for example, and then you go into the meetings and Wes Phillips is leading the meetings with the entire offense where he is showing them on the film. Here's what

we did last week. Here's what we're going to do next week. Here's the plays we're going to run. Here's the assignments. Here's the details, all those things. It's a very big job still. I mean, Kevin O'Connell wasn't the play caller with the Rams and still landed a head coaching job. So it's a, still an enormous role for Wes Phillips. It's just that when you're not the guy calling the plays, no one ever really talks about you, but he's important. Uh, Bob says, uh, some of your favorite sports movies one thing i will say about sports movies is that i don't like ones that are fiction and dramatic because i okay the team wins at the end or something tragic happens or it's kind of depressing at some point and then i'm supposed to be uplifted at the end but oftentimes i end up thinking that play wouldn't have worked or, you know, whatever reason I too cynical or, or

here's another thing too, that real life sports offers all the drama that I need. So I don't need it to be fake. I don't need it to be made up. This is probably a terrible opinion because there's so many good fictional sports movies. I just don't care for them all that much. Comedies, I really do enjoy. So something like Major League, love Major League. One of my favorites, the water boy. What's the golf one where he punches Bob Barker? Everything comedic, the replacements is really silly, but has some great references.

Little Giants. I like all the sports comedies. Basketball was particularly absurd, but not really a whole lot of the dramas. Hoosiers, you can have it. Field of Dreams, it's fine. I don't know. It's okay. Whatever. Especially ones that actually happened those are other i'll just watch a documentary about it i'd rather watch the 30 for

30 than watch someone pretend to be someone else i was actually watching today jj reddick before he became the head coach of the lakers was talking with Jamal Crawford, former Wolf, about this new show where they run through the crazy times of Donald Sterling with the Clippers. And they were talking about all the things wrong with it. And I think that's my biggest problem. So Moneyball, for example, there's some stuff in Moneyball that's just blatantly inaccurate. And you go, well, why? How did that even happen?

How did you guys get that wrong in this movie? And I liked Moneyball okay, but it wasn't for me. I would rather read the book or just hear Billy Bean talk about it. We have so much access to that stuff. So it's at the sports comedies though. You cannot recreate the water boy.

For example, you can't recreate that. I haven't watched that in like 20 years. So if it's out of date now, then, you know, it's out of date. Okay, let's keep sliding down. Great questions. I was wondering if there would be any audience for this evening, considering there's a Stanley Cup final going on. But there is, and you guys are great.

So let me carry on here. Matt says, which current Viking is most likely to become a coach someday? Josh Metellus, hands down, easy, not a hard question at all. Josh Metellus is one of the smartest people you're going to come across. And he just has that thing. You know, he's, he's that football IQ, that presence to him. He could lead the meetings in special teams and defense. He's just really, really smart. He understands the whole picture. And that's how he could play all those different positions.

He's a guy that I could see having no other job except for football for his entire life. Garrett Bradbury is someone that might make a really good high school or college coach. I could see that. Brian O'Neill has a real coach's presence to him, or maybe he's just six, seven, but he's just a great talker, real great leadership. You could see him commanding a room of kids looking up to him or something like that. I don't know if it'd be on the NFL side. Metellus strikes me as someone who could be like a D'Amico Ryans or something like an NFL coach. Harrison Smith could, if he wanted to, I don't know if that's a role that he's going to actually want. Um, who else? I might've said Alexander Madison before. Um, but obviously he's

not here anymore. And I don't know about Aaron Jones. If he wants to, he's got that vibe to him. Usually what you can see is the combination between this guy loves the X's and O's of football, and he's also got a presence. He's also this natural personality that people are going to gravitate toward. And that's why it's kind of an easy answer. Jordan Hicks would have been somebody that I would have mentioned last year, but that's why it's an easy answer for Josh Metellus. CJ Hamm, probably. Hamm doesn't like to talk because he's a fullback and fullbacks don't

talk, but he knows everything about football. Special teams coordinator, CJ Hamm. I could see it. Jared says, we need to reject the idea that pro bowl should be used on a player's resume for hall of fame. Not saying you're wrong about Harrison Smith. Just hate the pro bowl thing. Let's use pro bowl teams. If anything, no, look, I am, or, uh, all, all pro teams. You said, uh, sorry.

Um, I'm with you. Of course I'm with you. Uh, personally, I would use the PFF data to decide. If I had to decide between player A and player B, I would just look at their data and not just grades, but everything. If you look at the data of Harrison Smith, it suggests that he should be a hall of famer. Pro Bowls, unfortunately, which are not fair. And I completely agree with you have become along. And this is why pro football reference has this thing called the Hall of Fame monitor. It does a great job of

capturing who's most likely to be in the Hall of Fame, but it does it by all pros, Pro Bowls, championships, and then whatever markers that they've reached statistically in box score stats. Now that's not pro football reference saying this is the best way to do it. It's saying this is how people do it. And my hope is that that is changing and that the next wave of guys who go to the hall of fame will go there because of their analytics, that the numbers are going to say that they belong there. Uh, and, and that will be the reason that they go. And we are going to see that for sure for offensive linemen. PFF has totally changed how we view offensive linemen. It's the first thing

everybody looks at. How many sacks, pressures, what was your grade? Those things will put you in the hall of fame. And it's a great way and nothing's perfect, but it's a great way of actually having numbers to tell us who the real great players were and not just the most popular or not just the best on winning teams. Because sometimes a guy is on a winning team and he's not that great, but he gets a lot of run because he's on a winning team. And he gets talked about a lot. And sometimes guys get buried who are really good players.

I agree with you 100% that Pro Bowls is not the best way to decide that Harrison Smith should go to the Hall of Fame. It's really the rest of his numbers. HeroKiller69, very interesting name that you have there, says, since you said Justin Jefferson would be a safety if he were to play defense, do you think he would play on a prevent defense Hail Mary situation? Personally, I would not do that. That would not be a preference of mine to put him out there. That has been done before by NFL teams where they have put wide receivers out there to try to knock down the Hail Mary.

The last thing I would ever want in the entire world is for Justin Jefferson to jump up, to knock down a hail Mary and come down and turn his ankle. I would feel like a total fool. It was like when a new England put out Rob Gronkowski and they, and they had him play as a deep safety or something. And Miami returned a kick or a Hail Mary or something. I think maybe a Hail Mary for a touchdown. And here's Gronk trying to make a tackle. What are we doing here?

Like Rob Gronkowski, a guy with a long history of injuries who has never played defense before. And you want him to tackle somebody? Huh? Why? I mean, not that in a Hail Mary you want him to tackle somebody? Huh? Why? I mean, not that in a Hail Mary you'd have to have him tackle someone. You're trying to have him catch the ball. You're really looking for someone to knock the ball down. So I would prefer it just be corners and safeties who do this for a living.

They play defense and have them knock it down. If a receiver goes up and tries to catch it, tips off his hands, somebody else catches it. I just don't think it's all that effective. Marlon asks, who are your top five Vikings of all time? Not easy for a franchise that has such a history as the Vikings. But if you're not putting Ellen Page and Carl Eller in your list, then you'd be foolish. So there's a good start. Randy Moss. And then after that, it gets very tricky for me. John Randall would be there. And that next pick is so hard. Chris Carter makes an argument for himself, but there's probably

for that next position, Jim Marshall is certainly deserving, even though he is senselessly not in the Hall of Fame as we talk about that. That's probably a pretty good list for a top five. Just Randall McDaniel could have a case for it. You go back all the way if you want McTinglehoff or something. By the way, Fran Tarkenton has to be on your top five. There's a lot of good players on this team. Fran Tarkenton, when he retired, was considered one of the best quarterbacks of all time.

So he has to be there. Who do you knock off for that? John Randall needs to be there. Chris Carter, though. Chris Carter gets overshadowed by the other guy, Randy Moss. But one of the 10 best receivers of all time. It's a lot of good players have worn the old purple. I would say a lot of good players. Uh, let's see. Malkiel asks, uh, what are the three franchises in the NFL to never reach the Superbowl? Never reached the Superbowl.

Um, I don't know. That's more like a trivia. It's probably has Detroit ever been there? Houston has never been there. Did Jacksonville ever go? I don't think Jacksonville ever went. Is that the right one? You have to tell me if that's the right answer. I don't know. The Texans never went to a Super Bowl.

So let's see. Noren says, have you discussed Connor Williams? I have not very often. I mentioned him when at the beginning of the free agency period, his agent tweeted out something like, hey, he's not going to sign for a while because he's getting healthy. If Connor Williams is healthy and wants to join a football team, come join the football team because Connor Williams is an above average guard. He's not just the guy.

My guess is since they signed Dalton Reisner that Connor Williams isn't in the discussion right now. It also that might be a Hawkinson type of situation where he might not be able to play for quite a while into the season. If he's not even deciding to sign with someone, then they might have to wait for quite a while. So I'm going to say that Connor Williams probably isn't an option right now. Maybe he will be eventually hero killer 69. Does Andrew Booth Jr. Make the roster?

If so, where does he rank in the depth chart? I'm going to go with yes, but if Kyrie Jackson plays well, he may be above Andrew Booth Jr. It just seems that those 2022 draft picks are not Brian Flores types. He didn't pick them. It was a different defense and he wants guys who could be aggressive and make tackles. That's where Andrew Booth Jr. is going to have to show in training camp and preseason that he's willing to be physical and he's willing to make some plays as far as being a tackler. I can't tackle in practice, but you could be aggressive. You could play physically in training camp and they want to see that from him. I think he deserves another year,

but he's at the very back end of that depth chart and may not end up making it. Hey, U S cellular customers. I've got some good news. so do not hit that skip forward button just yet i'm talking about their special customer event us days what's us days it means exclusive offers just for their customers just to say thanks like twelve hundred dollars off any phone plus three hundred dollars off any tablet no i did not misread that. They must really like you all. Us Days at U.S. Cellular. Exclusive offers just for you, just to say thanks. Right now, U.S. Cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. Terms apply. Up North says David Palmer was awesome in video games. We used him as a wildcat quarterback.

Direct snap to Palmer was a cool play. So the game that I used him on was Tecmo Bowl 3, which for my money is the best one. I know that a lot of people played the other ones more, but that one you can create players on and it had that direct snap play. And that might be what you're referring to is shotgun. And the running back is off to the right side of the quarterback. The ball gets snapped directly to the running back. Your defense never sees it coming. You can run all over the place. Great play for David Palmer. Totally agree. Let's see all day. Ed, this preseason, we will see a glimpse of our new rookie quarterback or will we see a glimpse of our new rookie quarterback i feel we will see a lot of

mullins and hall and a little of sam they should there is no reason to not play the heck out of jj mccarthy in the preseason uh historically kevin o'connell has not cared about the preseason very much. It usually means if you're out there that you're not making the team. But in this case with JJ McCarthy, reps is so important for him. And what you can do is you can run a lot of base stuff. So it's not things that other teams don't know that you're running basic concepts, but you're still working on the timing, the accuracy, and getting those basics things down on those types of plays that you're not going to add all the game planning and twists and turns that you do in a weekly basis, but you are going to run a simple, let's just say, you know,

double slants on one side or something. And if that's not there, then you progress to the other side, to the flat and getting that down. You can do against competition in preseason. He should, let's say Sam Darnold starts place two possessions, JJ McCarthy, rest of the first half and then Mullins or whatever, but he's got to get, he's got to get that out there. Uh, I shot you 99. What's up with sports reporters asking the most cliche questions or questions with an obvious answer. Uh, so this is a misunderstanding a little bit about reporters. He's saying sports reporters. Well, there's a lot of different types of sports reporters with a lot of different types of goals that they're looking for. Sometimes if it's a reporter like myself where I'm looking, look, people are asking me about the ninth offensive lineman. So I'm trying to go in depth here. I'm trying to give you guys, and I'm not for everybody because of this. I am talking to you about the UDFA wide receivers on the back end of the roster because it fascinates me. And I like this stuff.

That's why I do it this way. Not everybody does. And so sometimes there are reporters who are looking for more of a soundbite to broadly address something. And this could, you know, sideline reporters, they have a different role. But if we're talking about like press conferences, if you're on television and you're looking for the coach to give you kind of a basic broad answer on something, then you might ask something very simple. The other point is too, that with questions, I don't look at it as an art. I don't look at it as a reflection of art. I don't look at it as a reflection

of the person's intelligence. Who's asking the question. Sometimes you're just looking to get the answer. And however, and sometimes the answer might be what the question might be, what happened on that play? The answer, you know, and the answer sometimes is fascinating. The question might be, how did it feel? Whatever it was, how did it feel? And you might get a great answer. You might get a bad one. There really is not some catch-all. I have heard questions that I thought, oh, this is the worst question. Why is someone asking this? Get the best answer. And I have plenty of times asked questions myself that I thought, great question me, and didn't get

anything out of because maybe it was too convoluted or something a player didn't want to talk about. That's the other thing too, is I've seen this before. Well, why don't reporters ask more about the X's and O's? Well, you, we do, but a lot of, I mean, teams aren't going to give their game plans in the press conference. So you have to do it in certain ways in a specific type of way. So if I'm writing a story, I'll give you an example. I'm writing a story a couple of years ago about punt returning. And so I asked all the punt returners and a punter about why it was so difficult.

And they broke down for me in depth about all the different factors that have to go into that. And the punter showed me with a Gatorade bottle, this was Jordan Berry, the different ways that he could make the ball spin in the air. Those are things, those generalities in a way that they are totally willing to explain. If I asked them to draw up their punt return play, they would say no. So, I mean, a lot of times it's, you know, post game. Also, you're probably watching more press conferences post game,

which are going to be a lot more what happened on that play. Because that's what you're looking for is just, we haven't broken down the film. You know, we're not gonna identify all the bunch of schemes and stuff like that in fast motion all that often, but I'm just watching the game. So you're going to ask, what did you think of that call by the ref?

This player had a big game. What did you see from him? It's going to be a little more simple then, but there's no great art to it. You're looking for answers. You're looking for information. Sometimes the simplest question, even if it's cliche, will get you the best answer. Let's see.

More wide receiver three. Cade wants to know, what would you put the odds at of us bringing in to camp for a wide receiver three spot? Some interesting names out there. I'll go 25% that they bring someone in. I just feels like that they would prefer to have, um, some, somebody just emerge rather than trying to bring in somebody washed. It hasn't been a very successful strategy at wide receiver, by the way, if about this. Wide receiver is such a valuable position that if the whole league has looked over all these names

that you're talking about, which are there really a lot of interesting names? I don't think there are. Hunter Renfro is one, but hasn't been good in a couple of years. The whole league has looked over all these guys and said, no, we're not paying you. As valuable as the position is, I have to believe that a lot of teams would love to

have these guys be great, but more likely than not, they've had them in workouts or they know about injuries or whatever off field potential reasons that aren't out there, something, or they just don't think the guy can play or fit into their system. You also have to have guys that fit into what you want to do. You can't just throw anybody out there like we do on video games. You have to have a reason, like they run these particular types of routes well, or they don't. So you have to know those things and analyze those things for fit. And as of right now, they haven't shown any interest in believing that any of those free agents fit, which is fine

because I think your odds of having somebody emerge are just as good or better than having the next Jordan Taylor or having the next Tajay Sharp just come in and not fit and fail. Selling McCarthyism says, is KOC really the right guy? It feels worse than Zimmer. I'm not sure what feels worse than Zimmer. Now, Mike Zimmer was a good football coach. So let's give him that, that when you say it feels worse than Zimmer, I mean, Zimmer won a lot of games. If you look at his career win percentage, it's very high. Didn't win a Super Bowl, but won a lot of football games over the years. And the wheels came off at the end. So we remember what we saw last and not what we saw first, which was Mike Zimmer overhauling a franchise that had fallen into total disrepair and then turned it into a legitimate championship contender for at least three years

but you could argue for five years uh in 2018 and 19 they should have been there and 19 they win a playoff game 15 they win a playoff game so over a span that they were going into each year with high expectations and sometimes paying off on them with Mike Zimmer. So if you reach that bar where you're winning 60% of your games and getting into the playoffs over a span of five years and winning playoff games and getting to the NFC championship, again, this is not to rewrite it as some sort of incredible performance, but 2014 to 2019 is a good run for Mike Zimmer. After that is when the wheels came off. So if Kevin O'Connell does the same thing, he'll have succeeded pretty well. As far as the right guy for the team, the reason I would say yes is the NFLPA survey matters a lot to me.

That means he has full buy-in from the players who are the most important in terms of trying to win games. He has galvanized the locker room two years in a row in good times and in bad and not losing the team when things went bad last year is a feather in his cap that the players still gave him an A plus as a head coach. He has passing schematics that work. And from the time that he took over to the time where kirk cousins got hurt they scored the seventh most points in the nfl with a quarterback that usually just sort of hung around the top 10 but was not necessarily elite that's pretty impressive to me he made an excellent hire of brian flores is he perfect no i don't think so but when you

have someone who runs your franchise at a certain level and proves that they can do this job, think of all the coaches who just get fired because they can't do this at all. Guys who just immediately like your Matt rules and your Joe judges and Matt Patricia's remember Matt Patricia, they just kept letting him coach and their franchise fell apart entirely. Like if you have someone who reaches a certain level, then you want to give them a lot of room to operate. And I think Kevin O'Connell does that as a front door of a franchise, he's very good. And, uh, as an offensive mind, as in a passing game, I think he's very good, but I would not say that he's the best coach in the league. I wouldn't put him like way up, you know, at the very top with the coaches that have won

Super Bowls. He's going to have to prove that. But, you know, I mean, I do think that he is of the level that you want to let him play this out. And look, you let him draft McCarthy. That's going to be his proving ground. He's going to have to develop McCarthy into a good starting quarterback or it's not going to work out. But I would give him time and space to work because I think he's already established himself

as a good NFL head coach. Doogie, not the Doogie I know, but another person who goes by Doogie uh says uh who is your favorite viking free agent pickup of all time might need some help on this one from the gallery here uh all time let's see well now just from my time covering the Minnesota Vikings, it would be Case Keenum. I think Brett Favre was a free agent, so he's probably the best of all time. Free agency hasn't gone on for that long, so he's probably one of the best. Warren Moon, I think, was traded here.

Was Chris Carter traded here? Anthony Carter was traded here. Free agent. Try and think of some of the other great free agent pickups. You guys are going to have to nominate some for me. Chester Taylor. That's a good one. Ryan Longwell. That's another good one. But Case Keenum is probably by far the best. You know who was really great just for one year was the Darius Smith. That's a good one. Uh, Patrick Peterson worked out really well. They didn't win a ton, but you know that he was really good. But if you've got other nominations off the top, um, then yeah. Uh, do I talk to Judd Zolgad all the time? Almost every day. Judd Zolgad. Oh, Antoine Winfield. Of course. Antoine Winfield, Steve Hutchinson. Great nominations. Yes. Great nominations. Pat Williams. You guys. Yes. You guys are on point.

Very good work. Very good. Yes. A hundred percent. All three of those. It's probably Steve Hutchinson hall of famer. It's probably him. Pat Williams is a good one. And Antoine Winfield was one of my favorite players when I was growing up in Buffalo and it was crushing when he left. So that should have come to mind immediately. For some reason, I went to Chester Taylor, but Chester Taylor was good though. He was very good.

But yes, I'm still very good friends with Judd Zalgad. Yeah. One of my favorite people of all time. One of the best dudes out there. Selling McCarthyism says, considering statistically Dobbs did better in arizona come on no he didn't right what come on we're josh dobbs we are we are not seriously evaluating kevin o'connell on josh dobbs that's no, we're not, we're not doing that. I'm not doing

that. That's absurd. Josh Dobbs is a fourth round pick journeyman who bounced to 11 different football teams, came here and did the same bleep that he did everywhere else, which was, eh, oh, eh. Like he had a couple of good games with Arizona and then a couple of bad games. And he did the same thing here. And he's just not really an NFL starting quarterback in any way, shape or form. And then when Nick Mullins came in, they almost won three games. They were very close to winning three games, but that has nothing to do with developing JJ McCarthy.

Nothing at all. Nothing anywhere close. He didn't adjust the offense enough as if he was supposed to invent an entire new offense in the middle of the season. Just that's just not, it's just not, no, we're not doing that. Uh, Tony Richardson, that's good. Tony Richardson is good. Uh, have we talked about the best trade this team has ever done? Uh, no not yet and i'm thinking jared allen that that one has to be up there best trade anthony carter anthony carter has to be the best trade i think i i say something like that and i know you guys will come through nominations again nominations you guys have a second to think uh but anthony carter miami had him. He'd played in the USFL and then

they traded something for him. And he comes in and has this unbelievable career. One of the best playoff games ever in history in San Francisco. I mean, that's, that's a heck of a trade. Look, look, if you're, we're just not talking about Josh Dobbs. It's just not going to happen. Like we're not doing it. You could try, but we're not. I'm just moving on. There's no connection between anything involving a journeyman backup quarterback who shows up in the middle of the season and the person that they drafted in the first round. It will develop from square one to be their franchise quarterback.

Just can't conflate the two. It does not matter. Whatever. Look, go look at the teams that made the playoffs last year. Go look at the best offenses, the best passing offenses. You're going to notice something. All their quarterbacks were healthy. If you're making a point about how Kevin O'Connell handles a quarterback, why the would you use Josh Dobbs and not Kirk Cousins? Why wouldn't we talk about how he worked with Kirk Cousins? It's really good, right? So I was like five minutes away from wrapping up anyway,

and then I get all worked up. Maybe I pounded the table or something. Sorry about that. But the point just being that Kevin O'Connell over two years worked with Kirk Cousins closely to develop to the point of Cousins being totally secure with the offense and operating it at a super high level in a more confident way than he ever had before. I would just go as far to say that matters a lot more to our evaluation of Kevin O'Connell than what he did with a backup journeyman quarterback who's looked like that everywhere he's ever been. That's the point. Cameron says with kickers potentially being in line to get hit more this year on kickoffs, will we see more kickers getting added to the practice squad?

My plan is that they should use Kamu Grugier Hill as their kicker. He can kick off. He's done it in an NFL game once before, and he's a linebacker. That's who they should use. To your point, teams have been doing this a little more in recent years because the practice squads expanded. So if you weren't confident in your kicker, you could always keep another guy. And that's what teams have done here and there. I think that's a good idea they might actually keep john barker romo as a practice squad kicker not a bad idea um so let's see uh herschel walker yeah yeah herschel

walker yep herschel walker not a good trade that was not a good trade at least you guys could still hear me uh dobbs talk killed the care i know know you guys are right. Yeah, there was, I got so worked up that the camera, I probably just moved the table and it disconnected. Um, so I talked about this a little earlier, but favorite players to deal with media wise, Latavius Murray, Patrick Peterson, Adam Thielen, they won our media good guy awards. I will say this about Kirk cousins about as easy for a quarterback to deal with over the years, was always gracious with his time for one-on-ones, answered questions. Sometimes it was contentious and things like that, but he never ran away from that and worked his way through it with us. And we gave him media good guy award at the end is sort of a appreciate him for everything kind of thing.

But Terrence Newman, Terrence Newman was probably my favorite because when I first started the beat other than Latavius Murray, but in a different way, Latavius was just so smart and so easy to talk with that you wouldn't have thought he was an NFL player because he, you never felt like he was big timing you in any way, or I know everything football, you know, nothing or something. But, uh, Terrence Newman was there for my first year and he really liked to break things down football wise that he eventually coached, you know, a bit, and he was willing to kind of coach me up when I would ask him questions. So I could go over to Terrence Newman's locker on a Friday and be like, Hey, I'm doing the thing about wide receivers. What's your perspective on that? And he would break it

down for me, give me plenty of time and just really, you know, give me a lot of knowledge about, there was an article I did with him about wide receivers and route running and what made Stefan Diggs so good. And he was talking about Diggs' stride length and how he could break down his routes at the top by shortening up his stride and lowering his hips and things like that, that you would just get from nowhere else

outside of a veteran player like that, who is extremely intelligent. Stuff like that is invaluable to be able to learn from players like that. So Terrence Newman in a very specific way, really liked to break it down hardcore if you wanted him to. So he was good. Media good guy ryan leaf seems like it now uh that that's an observation i've had over the years when players are in the locker room and on their teams and competing and sometimes in pain uh playing through things stuff like that they could be totally different years later and so i never hold it against anybody. If a player doesn't like talking to the media, that's okay. I would prefer that they did, but if they're, if it's not something they really are comfortable with, or even if they give us a hard time, sometimes

that's all right. It's not a big deal. Uh, and a lot of times you see them down the road. There was a former player that I ran into who, uh, not too long ago, it's the radio row who was not friendly with the media when he played for the Vikings. And then I bumped into him and we had a great conversation. I was like, Oh, how you been? What you been up to? What are you doing? What are you doing at radio row? We had a good discussion because they're out of that environment. That's super intense environment. So, you know, if there's somebody that's not that good of a media

guy, that's okay. There's lots of players that can speak for the team. What fan base annoys you the most? This might be, I mean, they're all kind of alike in a lot of ways. If I was going to pick one, it's probably the Cowboys because I grew up in an era where, and these jokes still pop up, where there were a lot of kids that I knew who were Cowboys fans. You know where I'm going with this. Yankee fans, Duke fans. Okay, that's great. Good for you. You like all the winning teams. Congratulations. So there was that. Aside from that though, I don't know other fans well enough to tell you. I don't follow a lot of them. I don't know how I would know this. And what I saw in Philadelphia was pretty stunning behavior

when the Vikings played them. I knew that was going to happen being originally from the East myself and seeing how aggressive some of those fans can get. I don't think Vikings fans were ready for that when they traveled to the NFC championship game, but I also have a respect for Philadelphia fans for being totally insane. Just when you go there, you see the, the greatest like deep cut, uh, jerseys that they're wearing you see like jerome brown out there charlie garner i mean you just there's they their passion is respectable even if for a number of eagles fans they go a little bit too far but every every fan base has its own type of thing like you guys have all your jokes about, uh, Hey, you're, you know, remember this play or that play or that player or something from the past, every fan

base kind of has that. And also every fan base defends its quarterback. Every fan base attacks reporters. If they think they're too negative, like, no, that's really original. They have, uh, you know, content creators that tell you the reporters don't know anything. This happens in every fan base. So I don't really get too concerned about fans. The ones that I deal with here, you guys, the Vikings fans, are a particular group that has its own, I think, understanding of what you all have been through. But then also your passion has allowed this thing to exist. So I have a deep appreciation for that.

KFT says impressions of Kyrie Jackson and Dwight McClothern. Kyrie Jackson, very big. Dwight McClothern noticeably working a lot with Byron Murphy Jr. after practice. And that's about as good as I can do because minicamp. They both look like they can move. And that's all I can really do for you. Uh, because they have to get in pads, the corners, the corners, the receivers, they just have to get in pads before we can really figure it out.

But the fact that they were working Dwight McClother and in a little bit more, uh, shows you that there's some interest there, I think. And with Kyrie Jackson, his size, it could be a factor. Definitely could be. Okay. So it's been an hour and a half and you guys have been awesome. And we didn't have many technical difficulties there just a little bit when I got to worked up, but otherwise great stuff. Hey, your random questions. We're definitely going to do this again because your random questions were fantastic so i really appreciate them and we'll do more q and a's throughout the summer this time is always great for me we can kind of kick back a little more casual less intense less super super serious and just have some fun so you guys made this a

great time i really appreciate everybody checking in having some fun. So you guys made this a great time. I really appreciate everybody checking in, having some fun football talk and keep your eye out for more live streams soon in the future. We will definitely do them. Manny is scheduled later in the week, Manny Hill to return to the show. We're going to do a porch podcast again up on the porch.

Hopefully we'll get some good weather for that and have some fun. So lots to keep an eye out going forward here and we'll catch y'all there. Hey, and by the way, go over to purpleinsider.com. Check out my interview with Rich Gannon. He was great. He had great breakdown of what Sam Darnold can do to revitalize or rejuvenate his career. So purpleinsider.com. That's where that interview with Rich Gannon is. Take care, everybody. Football.