Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Random questions week: Is Jared Allen going to make the Hall of Fame?

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

Matthew Coller takes more random fan questions, starting with whether Jared Allen has a good chance to be elected to the Hall of Fame and which teams are known for their amazing position group history Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and we are continuing Random Questions Week. I put it out there, was hoping for maybe one podcast on Twitter and just said, hey, send me some random questions. It's a downtime here in the NFL season or off season, so fire away. And I got so many great questions from you guys

that it's turned out to be a really fun week's worth of discussion. So I'm going to get to a lot more of your questions here. And if you want to send me questions because I'm doing fan question podcasts all off season, go to purpleinsider.com, send me an email there, or shoot me a note on Twitter at Matthew Collar. So let's dive right into more awesome random questions from Minnesota Vikings fans. We start off with K5 Kelly, who asks, is Jared Allen getting into the Hall of Fame this year? And I think the answer is yes, or should be yes, because he was in the 15 finalists. And if you get to the 15 finalists, you have a very good chance of being the next man in line and for whatever reason they only put in a very limited amount of players into the hall of

fame this every year so it's just been backlogged and backlogged for great players and i think that jared allen is one of those that it's going to be his turn very soon. However, I was doing a little bit of research using the Hall of Fame monitor on Pro Football Reference. If you haven't played around with it, it's pretty fun, where it takes a bunch of different factors that have often indicated whether a player gets into the Hall of Fame, and it gives them a score

and then compares them to all the other Hall of Famers ever and what their scores were. So it's statistical numbers like sacks and milestones with sacks and then all pros, Pro Bowls, Super Bowls, things like that, which should not matter. The Pro Bowls and the Super Bowls, but they do matter a lot when it comes to historically which players have gone into the hall of fame and doing a little research on jared allen it does not seem like his hall of fame monitor score is as high as many of the defensive ends who have made it despite his extremely good sack totals but he only has five pro bowlsls, which sounds like a lot. And it definitely is. And there are other players who have only had, and I say only as if that's not amazing, but, but he doesn't have eight or nine or something like that. But five Pro Bowls, no rings has not

always gotten someone into the hall of fame. There are other Hall of Famers that have a lot of sacks and five Pro Bowls that did not make it at this position. It seems like it's a difficult position to get in, although maybe if we did an analysis, all the positions would look like that. I mentioned that about Harrison Smith, that defensive backs have a tough time getting in, and Harrison Smith has more Pro Bowls than Jared Allen. And again, that doesn't mean I think that Pro Bowls is a good way to do this it's just that the committee historically has taken that into account and so they only had him as being a borderline Hall of Fame type of player and that there were other guys who have higher ratings for the Hall of Fame monitor than Jared Allen who have not gotten in. Again, I think that he will. And the fact that he has the 136 and a half career sacks is going to put him up there. But they also could talk about it like he was a

really, really excellent player who had that one amazing season, but not to the level of your Bruce Smith, of your Reggie White, of your Derek Thomas, that maybe some guys that go a little bit higher than him as a all around completely dominant, more memorable player. And the fact that he didn't play in a ton of playoff games, didn't get to a super bowl we talked about this with harrison smith where it does impact the national perception and what you're trying to do as the hall of fame is you're trying to convince a room full of people that maybe didn't watch every single jared allen game to decide to put him in uh so the he would have if he did get in, the lowest Hall of Fame monitor number of any player that played past the year 2000 to get in. So it's very borderline with Jared Allen.

Maybe he will this year, or maybe he'll have to wait a little bit longer. But at least by the standards or the bar that's been set in the past, he's right on the edge of that compared to the other players at his position who have gotten into the Hall of Fame. So we'll see if he ends up getting in or not. ICU2Ugly says, has your take on Stefan Diggs changed after the fallout in Buffalo? No, no, not at all.

Because now, of course, you'd have to have been listening to the show since 2018 to remember what I said about Stefan Diggs. So let me just recap. When the Vikings traded Stefan Diggs, I thought that there were fingers to be pointed on both sides of that issue, that Mike Zimmer should have listened to Stefan Diggs more about the offense running through him. And when he went to Buffalo and they won four straight divisions with Diggs as a centerpiece of that offense, he proved pretty much right away in 2018 after they, or I'm sorry, 2020, after they traded him, he proved that if they had targeted him more, that he was capable of being a guy that gets 150 targets, that gets 100 plus catches, that is a dominant part of an offense that is good

enough to take you deep into the playoffs. When he arrived in Buffalo, Josh Allen's game significantly elevated, which will be very interesting to see now that Stefan Diggs is gone. That doesn't mean that he was without any blame. He was right about the Vikings offense. He was right that they should have leaned into the passing game and Kirk Cousins more often, rather than trying to be run first, run first, run first. And even Kevin O'Connell leaning into Cousins, having success throwing the ball as much as they did targeting their number one receiver Justin Jefferson constantly it proves Stefan Diggs to be right there was also misconceptions when it came to Stefan Diggs the idea that he was a bad

teammate locker room cancer which I absolutely can't stand that term at all because every situation has its own nuances. And circumstances change as well to where in 2016, 2017, 2018, Stefan Diggs is a warrior for that team. He was a driving engine of their offense. He was somebody that provided a ton of energy for them. One of the most competitive people that you're ever going to run into a highly intelligent football player as well. And he's a major part of those lock rooms of those teams. And while he would get overly upset sometimes on the sideline, I mean, this is a guy that played with a hundred percent every single play every single game and he had the production to go along with it but sometimes burned too hot but i don't think his teammates

were bothered by that like i don't think nfl players are too bothered by another nfl player who gets really worked up during a game sometimes i I'm sure they were like, bro, calm down. But other than that, when you come to work and work as hard as Stefan Diggs did to be a fifth round wide receiver who becomes a superstar in the NFL, that comes along with a lot of respect. But the situation in 2019 became toxic with him. That doesn't mean the entire time he was a Viking that it was like that. It was one year, 2019, and there was so much pressure on everybody. So you could just look at him, but this is a leadership group that traded for a kicker slash punter because they were freaking out

about a situation there and had traded a fourth round pick for Chris Herndon later because they freaked out when someone got hurt. They cut Daniel Carlson after one bad game. Like there was evidence everywhere of panicked moves, reworking contracts like crazy to try to win in that window. And I think that also permeated the relationship with Stefan Diggs. So it's complicated, right? That there's a lot of layers to this thing.

And what Diggs realized at the end of the 2019 season, and I remember well watching him be the last guy walking off the field out there in Santa Clara, San Francisco, after they lost in the playoffs and how upset he was in the locker room that they had lost. And he also knew Diggs is smart. He's aware of a lot of things. He knows that contracts are coming up. He knows that that team was not going to get another shot and he had felt like they came up short by not working the ball to him more often, not leaning into the passing game and instead just running against San Francisco for two yards over and over again until San Francisco won the game. So Diggs was right about the offense,

and he was also right about the timeline of the team. And when they re-signed Kirk Cousins and he tweeted out something like time for a change, again, probably understood that that team needed to take a step back because they were not going to be as good as they were from 2016 to 2019 roster wise with a lot of guys leaving. So there's a kind of a thing in marriage. You can be happy or you can be right. And people like Mike Zimmer and Stefan Diggs, they choose to be right. And in Buffalo, it's kind of the same deal where for four years, this guy is the model citizen in a lot of ways.

He is a superstar for them. He elevates his own performance to another level is the centerpiece of their offense going to four divisional championships. They are 13 seconds away from potentially going to the AFC championship, which they could have won. All right. Something like, I forget the exact bracket, how it worked, but they were right, which round it was, but they were 13 seconds away from beating the chiefs. And I think they would have gone to the NFC championship after, or I'm sorry, AFC championship after that, had they beat the chiefs once again, last year, they are a field goal away from maybe having a chance to go win and And Diggs, once again, is a major part of that. So he was hugely successful in turning around that franchise and making them a winner the

same way that he was turning around, helping to turn around a Vikings franchise that had been horrendous in 2013. They draft Diggs in 2015. He's an immediate impact player, helps them get to the playoffs, helps them have Case Keenum become a star quarterback for a year, et cetera, et cetera, right? But look at where Buffalo is right now, revamping their roster, losing a lot of players that got older, that were not on on the same level that they've lost some guys who were stars for them. Right. And he becomes unhappy and works a trade to a team that's on the rise again. So maybe a little bit of a diva, like a Fox, I guess, uh, for stuff, uh, Stefan digs

at times, but you know, I think that there's blame to go around for him as well and the way that he conducted himself in 2019 was unacceptable with the whole truth to all rumors thing and I'm sure in Buffalo I haven't tracked all of it but the social media stuff and and so forth but if you actually look for any quotes anything he actually said that was disparaging the team or anything like that in public you won't find it so a lot of it's, we assume that he acted a certain way to be traded. But another part of it too, is Buffalo seeing that Diggs is on the other side of his prime, did not have as good of a season last year, and they need to create cap space for the future, not just right now, but kind of like the Vikings did.

So it's complicated. There's a lot of layers to this thing. But what I know about Stefan Diggs is that he's one of the best players that I covered, one of the most unstoppable receivers, one of the hardest workers, one of the best competitors, and one of the smartest players football-wise that you're ever going to run across. And he's made his teams a lot better when he's been there. And I think that Vikings fans sort of wanted to see some sort of meltdown there to make themselves feel better. But that trade worked out for both sides.

The Vikings got Jefferson. They got Diggs, won a butt ton of games during his time. And you know what? The Texans probably will too. And if he eventually wears out his welcome, that will probably be the end of his career. But it's been a great career for Stephon Diggs. And I don't like some of the narrative around him that makes him sound like he's the worst guy to be around. Jeremiah Searles, who appears on this show, former teammate of Diggs said he was one of his favorite teammates when he was a Minnesota Vikings. So there you go.

There's the whole Stefan Diggs thing. It's nothing is ever simple. And that's why I don't like labels. I don't like label. Oh, well, he's a diva. He's a cancer. It just eliminates all the circumstance there because there were a lot of unhappy people in the Minnesota Vikings locker room in 2019. He just acted the most egregiously at that time, but then went to Buffalo and was nothing but a star the entire time he was there. I think talent usually wins in the NFL over any of that other nonsense. So anyway, on to the next question from J Van Gelder on Twitter. Which non-quarterback player from a different team in the same year would have most helped the Vikings win Super Bowls in 1998, 2009, and or 2017. Okay. So I did

do a little research on this one. I was trying to think like what players would have fit on those rosters, not just, Hey, well, of course, if they added Reggie white in 98 or something, uh, but, uh, let me see who, who I think would have been the best for the Vikings roster. I went with, in 1998, Ty Law, Hall of Famer Ty Law of the New England Patriots, who had nine interceptions in 1998. Now, the Vikings overall in 98 didn't have many weaknesses. You could almost say they didn't have any weaknesses. Was it Jimmy Hitchcock had a very good year as the corner but if you added to the best offense ever i couldn't find any place to add anyone on offense awesome offensive line great running back room unbelievable wide receivers

so on the defensive side great defensive line i thought about a linebacker here but if you had someone who intercepted the ball nine times in that season and went to the hall of fame to add to a secondary with Robert Griffith, that was pretty good. Uh, yeah, you're probably going to the super bowl. Maybe you cover Terrence Mathis a little better. Maybe you, you stop Chris Chandler a little better in the NFC championship game and you don't have to rely on a field goal to put the game away. I don't know. Uh, anyway, in 2009, I went with Patrick Willis or Antonio Gates. I know they had Chad Greenway. Uh, that was pretty helpful. I mean, I think Ben Lieber probably would have

traded himself for Patrick Willis at that time. I I'll have to ask him if he would have made that trade, but Patrick Willis is a hall of fame caliber player as well. If you took a linebacker of that level, because once again, what am I doing to the offense? I suppose I could have added another wide receiver for Brett Favre, but he had one of the best seasons of his career, if not the best statistical season of his entire career so i don't know if he needed any more help and he definitely didn't need any more help in the backfield with adrian peterson and chester taylor but i did think of one player who might have been useful on the offensive side which was antonio gates if you took all the things that they already had and how good of a season

sydney rice had and you just slid in Antonio Gates. Maybe you're ever so slightly better. Maybe instead of handing the ball off a couple of times to Adrian and having him fumble, you throw to the tight end instead. But Patrick Willis is really the answer there for me. Just such an incredible all-around player to go around with a defense that was already with the Williams wall, already an excellent overall defense.

Give me one more linebacker. And that thing's probably the best defense in the NFL. And as far as 2017, while they didn't need anything on defense, number one defense in passing, rushing and points, I believe in 2017. So you're good there,

but in the backfield, Delvin Cook got hurt in week four. So had the Vikings had, and the receivers, no issues there with the receivers. They helped Case Keenum significantly. I went with Todd Gurley because it's easy to forget how crazy good Todd Gurley was in 2017, that he had a short run, but it was an insane short run, something like 1,300 yards, tons of catches out of the backfield,

five yards a carry. Now, no disrespect to Latavius Murray or Jarek McKinnon, who held it down that year, but if you had Todd Gurley instead, then maybe you control the football a little better in the NFC championship maybe you got more of an answer to go back and forth with Philadelphia in the NFC championship there because I don't I don't know if one defensive player would have helped them not give up 38 but having an actual running game that you could rely on in the through the air as well with Todd Gurley the screen game which Pat Shermer was very

good at with that level of explosiveness maybe takes them over the top so good question that's a fun one 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 1200 off any phone plus 300 off any tablet no i did not misread that they must really like you all us days at us cellular exclusive offers just for you. Just to say, thanks right now, us cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet terms apply.

Uh, Mike Welsh for asks chiefs kingdom is the worst slogan in the NFL, uh, or is it the worst slogan in the NFL? It makes zero sense. Should the LA Kings use Kings chiefdom? Yeah. I don't know where that came from, but I don't know if it's the worst. So I did do some research on this one and I was looking through, there's not official slogans for all teams. Some teams have hashtags that are different from other slogans that they've used in the past

i don't know as far as the vikings go uh the you know the whole skull thing i think works it makes a lot of sense for the region and all that when i moved here i had never heard it before and i was confused that why everyone was going skull i was like what the you know the huh uh but i get it now it was explained to me on my first day. So I get it. And that makes a lot of sense. And it's regional. It has a connection.

That's how you do it. That's how you come up with a slogan. It has to have a point. So the worst ones that I came up with, well, let me give you the best one. The best one is the Carolina Panthers keep pounding. That is my favorite one. I don't know how many Sam Mills references are going to end up on this show by the end of random question week, but that's where it came from is that was Sam Mills is saying

he always said keep pounding. So it's a way to honor one of their greatest players of all time. One of the greatest players in NFL history, Sam Mills. I like the connection there. If you didn't know it you might be confused but that's what it is to honor a great player love that but the worst ones so this was from Reddit and if I'm wrong tell me someone from San Francisco but it says on Reddit that the 49ers slogan is faithful to the bay I mean now technically they are near the water where they play to Santa Clara,

I flew into Sacramento and drove down in a rental car with my friend Sam Ekstrom, but I also could have flown into San Jose. It was just really expensive. You're not even flying into San Francisco if you want to go. And I flew out of San Jose. That was where I watched the Chiefs come back on the Texans in the San Jose airport. was where I watched the chiefs come back on the Texans in the San Jose

airport. But that that's not the bay. So faithful to the faithful to like over there now, man, maybe some of you, uh, geography freaks will tell me, well, they're still near the water. It's the bay where, but no one thinks of that. So faithful to where we don't even play is not a great slogan to me. Uh, another one that I thought was pretty egregious. And again, these are from Reddit. So if it's not right, feel free to let me know. And I deeply apologize, I guess. But tighten up.

Tighten up. Is that really your slogan? As in like tighten up your buttons on your shirt, tighten up your shoelaces, tighten, tighten up that B gap. Yeah. That that's inspiring. Tighten up.

We got nothing tight. What do we need a slogan guys? Uh, be big like a Titan, tighten up. Uh, that works like the meeting had to last four seconds to come up with tighten up.

So, uh, one more that I, two more that I thought were really crazy bad. Uh, the Cardinals on the draft hats a couple of years ago, they had slogans on the draft hats. And I think the Vikings was defend the North.

They should have gone skull, but maybe they thought that the nation wouldn't get it. Uh, so the Cardinals slogan was rise up red sea. Really? Is that what they call their routine average crowd that no one cares about? I mean, in Glendale, rise up people who drove from Phoenix for an hour to Glendale. I don't know. Do they have a famously good crowd? I mean, is it like Philadelphia? Is it like the Buffalo

tailgating? Is it like the Lambeau field? Is it the Brats and so forth? I don't know that maybe it is. I don't think I've ever heard that rise up. Red sea is just corny. And then Houston, when they did the Twitter hashtags, theirs was, we are Texans. A very obvious and clear statement that they are indeed in playing in Houston.

Texans. Are you inspired? We are Texans. Okay. Well, great. We got nothing. We just got no ideas and no history to draw from. So we are us. Great. Good work. Funny question though. I think those are worse than Chiefs Kingdom. I don't really't really with you i don't know what the background or if there's something that they named that for but we are texans or tighten up pretty tough that that afc north is just the or uh south afc south what a

wreck what a wreck they are uh next question at all scott tweets says, I want to know some of your ideas around iconic NFL team position lore combinations like Vikings, wide receivers, bears, linebackers, things of that nature. Name me some more iconic team position groups. So I can only come up with a couple of these because I mean, if you go back to the 1960s or something, you could come up with some of the great ones. And the Vikings fall into this category not just with wide receiver, but also with defensive line. Through the years, they have had many, many great pass rushers and defensive linemen. Recently with Daniil Hunter and Everson Griffin. And then you go back to Chris Dolman, Henry Thomas, John Randall.

There's been the Williams Wall, so many great defensive lines for the Minnesota Vikings that you would think that they would have gotten a little farther in the playoffs sometimes, but that's not the point. When it comes to other teams, you can kind of squint and make it work like the Chargers, for example, always have had really exciting quarterback play. Just exciting and entertaining offenses. That's been their thing. Since going back to the AFL,

when they had great offenses in the AFL, and then they had Don Correale and Dan Fouts, and they were throwing it all over the place to John Jefferson and Wes Chandler, and then you go forward to the Antonio Gates, LaDainian Tomlinson, Phillip Rivers. And then even now, though it hasn't worked out yet, but Justin Herbert, and maybe at some point they will be under Jim Harbaugh, a great offense. Again, that might be one of them. Dallas Cowboys offensive line. How true is it really? I'm not

sure. They had a great one in 2016 and they've had Tyron Smith is an incredible player for a long time and Zach Martin. So they've had some great ones recently, but they kind of earned that staubach great quarterback quarterback play in dallas has always been a thing with troy acheman staubach and you know dak prescott hasn't won a super bowl but he's been a quarterback that leads the number one offense there's that type of position the packers at quarterback or another one i don't need to explain that one that i thought of kind of under the radar that because Tom Brady was there, nothing else ever mattered at all about the Patriots, that it was just everything about Tom Brady, but their cornerbacks have long been awesome. Going all the way back, even to the Drew Bledsoe, where you had the tie law, but then Aqib Tlaib was there later.

You had Stefan Gilmore, one defensive player of the year later on. Over the years, they had all sorts of really excellent cornerbacks. And it seemed like that was a Belichick thing of being able to identify and maybe a Brian Flores thing to identify and develop cornerbacks. But there's no lore around corners. It's not intimidating. It's not the same as having the purple people eaters. It's just, well, Hey, they're really good at covering your receivers solidly. And Belichick got all the credit for that anyway, because it was always scheme or potentially stealing the other team's plays or whatever it took to get there. But they had always that shut down type of corner player every year that they won.

I don't think they ever won without one of those guys that was either an all pro or hall of fame caliber player at that position. This one, I don't know if I have a great answer to. JumpinJay and a bunch of numbers says, what Vikings player had the longest locks of hair during their playing days? Hawkinson, Van Ginkle, Jared Allen. Well, we haven't seen Van Ginkle yet, so I don't know how long the hair is going to be, but at his press conference, it was very long. I mean, it was past shoulder, I think. He looked like it was surfer-level hair, which is a little bit on the longer side.

I don't think Hawkinson's comes down that far. Randy Moss with the fro the one time, and you saw how long his hair really was. Delvin Cook had pretty long hair with, you know, the dreads coming out the back at first. I think was it when he first came into the league or maybe he kept them a little bit longer. I don't know who's had the longest hair.

Didn't Chad Greenway have long hair for a little bit when he was with the Vikings? I feel like when I got here, he didn't, but I thought that he did early in his career. And I'm not sure other than that, who had the longest hair. It's not something that I've ever really taken a note of because maybe because no one's been tackled by their hair since I've been here. I've just never paid a whole lot of attention to it. I'm sorry. I don't have, that is random, but I don't have a great answer. I do think that when Van Ginkle steps on the field, that he will probably have the

longest hair of any player that I've covered. He could play bass for an eighties band and fit right in. And there you go again, that's the best I could do. Here's another one's a little tough for me. As the least artistic person that you've ever met from your friend Jorts on Twitter, if you could redesign the Vikings uniform from the ground up, what would you do?

You could change any and all aspects of the logo and the color scheme. I'm not really sure because they have a very very good thing going on i mean the viking horn on the side is just iconic in the nfl it falls under the same category as the pittsburgh steelers the dolphins like these just legendary won't say it out loud, but the Packers, the, the, you know, the Dallas Cowboys, just whether you like them or not, the Indianapolis Colts, it, they're just classic for the league. And I think the Vikings fall in there. I would not change anything about

the way that the helmet is designed. Maybe I would go back to the darker. Didn't they used to have a darker purple as the Jersey? I feel like I remember it being darker than it is now. Now it's a little more vibrant, but I kind of liked it darker, maybe a little more intimidating. I've mentioned this before. I don't love the purple pants on the road. I would probably go with the all white and the rings around the sleeves and so forth. Anything that's not what Favre was wearing in 2009, not a fan of those. But as far as like a logo redesign, I mean, the Viking, Victor Viking, whatever on the, you know, he's got a pretty good look to him. I mean, I just don't have that skill. If someone has that skill to have a vision, then let me know. I want to be

a Jersey person that cares about this and is good at it, but I'm not. And that's why I don't dive too deeply into the winter warrior or the, the, the whatever color rush or whatever, because if you like it, you like it. I'm not the right person to tell you. So I've been bad on these last two questions. Maybe the next one I'll be better at. I'd love the right person to tell you. So I've been bad on these last two questions. Maybe the next one I'll be better at. I'd love to hear people's ideas for the redesign. I just think that they have one of the best uniforms overall in the NFL. This one comes from Todd H42, what influenced you to work in sports? Well, initially I wanted to be six foot seven and play power forward for the New York Knicks. But then I was only six foot two.

And also I am not fast. Now I could shoot my way onto the Knicks out there. I got the J, but I have nothing else. So I was not a great athlete, played sports growing up like everybody else in high school and everything else, but was not actually a good enough athlete to make it anywhere farther than that. So that ended, that dream ended there. My idea was to instead go into sports management because I thought if I get into sports management, then I can become the general manager.

That was the idea. So then I will evaluate players and I will make all the decisions because I was so interested from a young age in roster construction and everything else. I'm not different now than I was at like 12 years old. I'm the same person. I still, I just have more information and data to work now than I was at like 12 years old. I'm the same person. I still,

I just have more information and data to work with than I did then. Then my data was video games and baseball cards and football digest and sports illustrated. And that's what I had to work with to make my opinion. So now I've got a little more data to tell you about it and I'm better at public speaking. But aside from that same exact person. So that route of sports management though, wasn't really my thing. And I figured that out pretty quickly because a lot of people took internships in ticket sales and went that kind of route or event management and went that kind of route. And I didn't want to be one of those executives. Those people obviously have great careers in sports, but that wasn't really my thing. I wanted to argue with people about sports. I wanted to give opinions. I remember we went on a field trip in sports management when I was a freshman and we spent the whole time arguing about Randy Moss versus

Tara Lowens. It was a big debate through the entire bus trip. And I think I was on Moss's side here, but I can't remember exactly. But I was arguing with people, talking about sports, debating. All those things were more of a passion. And I've always liked to read and write. So when I got to, I went to community college first. When I got to big boy college, then I went for journalism instead and got into the sports side, started writing for the newspaper, got an internship and it's taken off from there. So I'm still hoping the Timberwolves did not draft me that someday that I'll get put in and I could

be a three and D wing player in the NBA. But if that does not happen, then this has worked out really well. But then it went on from there. But what influenced me to work in sports was just my love for it from a very, very young age. I mean, T-ball, on up, just playing sports, watching sports with my dad all the time. Anytime there was sports on, we were watching it. So it's always been the passion of mine. And I was able to be lucky enough to create a career out of it. So it's always been the passion of mine and I was able to be lucky enough to create a career out of it. So that's pretty much it. Uh, this one from, uh, at Brad, Dan Paul on Twitter in a high stakes game of the new Madden, who are you using as your

quarterback of the Vikings? I don't know what all the ratings have been released. So let's assume that the ratings, I assume, reflects their talent, I guess, is what you said. But so does this mean that I have to use McCarthy or Darnold or Nick Mullins or Jaron Hall? Or can I trade for someone? Because if it's me, what I'm doing is I'm going to win now mode. Now the Minnesota Vikings now should not do that. They should take the approach that they've taken. They should draft quarterback. They should live in reality. As I've said, you know, many times throughout the years live in reality. It's, it's, you know, play to chase a championship, draft a quarterback, get the salary cap, whatever. But if I'm playing,

we're going for broke and I am trading for Kyler Murray. That's what I would be doing. Because if you have Kyler Murray on the video game, what's he going to have? He's going to have elite speed. If you have, and this goes all the way back to 2004, if you have Michael Vick and you're running around with them or Dante Culpepper on the video game, it is really hard for anybody to stop. If I took Kyler Murray the way he would play for me, not in real life, but the way he would play for me, arm strength to throw the ball deep. I'm running four verts every time. And I've got, you know, Jefferson, Addison. I'd probably, again, I don't need the Vikings to do this.

I would add a number three wide receiver. My defense is going to be fine with Brian Flores. In fact, on the new Madden where you can only play offense, you can do that mode. I just play offense. I don't care about playing defense. So I'm just taking Kyler Murray, trading for Kyler Murray, and I'm running him around like crazy. We're scrambling.

We're throwing deep. And that's going to be the entire offense. No checkdowns. If I had to play with just the Vikings roster, obviously I'm using JJ McCarthy because it's more fun to use a rookie that you know nothing about. I've always done that through the years on Madden. You get just some fourth round rookie. You just start them and make them great because that's fun to do.

So I'd probably play. Or actually, if I was going to do that, I would start Jared Hall and take Jared Hall to the Super Bowl just as some sort of challenge. But new Maddens are way harder for me. I have not played the recent one, but the last one that I played was quite difficult in comparison to the old Maddens that I grew up with. So I would need a lot of work to take the fourth string quarterback and make him into a Super Bowll champ. But that has been always something I've done through the years.

Take McLeod Bethel Thompson, plug them in, develop him, and then turn them into a Superbowl champ. This from Scott McCullough five, the Chuck it deep and hope for play. Pass interference has to be the worst play in football. How can the NFL correct this by using a little common sense? Probably that, that that's it,

uh, is when a team is just throwing it up, hoping and praying that the cornerback just deserves a little bit more leeway when it comes to this. One thing I really don't like in basketball and in football is when the wide receiver, they're running, they know it's going to be tough. Oh, I bumped into you. Oh, and this happens in basketball. They dribble in with their head down and then they go up for a move and they throw their head back. And the ball goes flying. They throw it out of bounds. And the whistle comes out.

The James Harden. Couldn't stand watching James Harden play because every time he would dribble at the hoop, throw the ball up in the air, get free throws. Just a nightmare to watch. Have some common sense and allow a little bit more leeway for the corners on those plays because nobody wants 50 yard penalties on total nonsense that was not earned at all you got to catch that ball and you got to fight through some contact and also the ufl was reviewing plays like this i believe the cfl has a past interference review system how is it that the biggest and best league in the world

where teams are worth six billion dollars cannot figure out how to review pass interference but the cfl can really uh and the ufl can review these things pretty quickly figure it out they haphazardly tried it in a reactionary way after a big pass or non-pass interference call cost the team a trip to the super bowl and then just took it away so nope we don't want it anymore and then all season long we complain about the refs when we could solve this problem easily that's really the solution if you're not going to put in the replay yeah give a little more leeway to the corner but we have the answer it's right there just do it it can't be that hard uh russo's slacks says does mccarthy have a first name jonathan james first and middle name is uh jj mccarthy's name it's the easiest random question i've gotten so far. Just one Super Bowl before I die

on Twitter says best team nicknames like Purple People Eater, Steel Curtain, and Greatest Show on Earth do a top 10. So I couldn't come up with 10 because you took three of them that I would have used, but I'll give you a few more. How about the electric company, which was the Buffalo Bills offensive line for OJ Simpson back in the day. And I know with a Simpson, not great. When he got over 2000 yards though, he did his interview with the whole offensive line because they, he considered them to be a unit and wanted to highlight them as well. They were known as Reggie McKenzie was the star of that. They were known as a Reggie McKenzie was the star of that. They were known as one of the great offensive lines in history. So the electric,

and it's a cool name, the electric company. That's awesome. A dome patrol is another one that is fantastic. That's a Ricky Jackson, Sam Mills. I mean, just this great group of linebackers in a three, four that all went to the pro bowl in a single year, dome patrol, super dome. It just like with the slogans, if it connects to something, then it's great.

If it connects to something and you can envision it, it's descriptive. If it's just, we are Texans. I don't know what to tell you. That doesn't describe anything. It's just, that's who our team name is.

Whatever. Fearsome foursome, the Rams of the 1960s defensive line. Again, you just can see them in your mind and NFL films, music playing behind slowly walking up, breathing fire as they go to murder some quarterback or whatever fearsome foursome sounds pretty scary and awesome i actually think and i

will give the new england patriots credit for this i think evil empire is pretty good now it was also i believe talked about for the new york yankees where they called the evil empire as well it actually makes more sense though for the patriots doesn'tes where they called the evil empire as well. It actually makes more sense though, for the Patriots, doesn't it to be called the evil empire because Belichick Brady, nobody liked them. They cheated. It was always something going on with them. So I kind of liked the descriptive nature of evil empire and Blitzburg blitzberg is just classic they blitz all the time dick laboe is their defensive coordinator it's really good so those are a few of my favorites of all time feel free to leave some more in the comment section i would love to know any other nominations

for that all right let me get uh let me get one more here uh let's see from a Duke MN who on the Vikings has the best chance to follow the Olivia of Pupa path. She is a player for the Minnesota links, by the way, who came to training camp, made the team. She's a role player off the bench. By the way, Minnesota Lynx best team in the WNBA. Not shocking. Cheryl Reeve is one of the best coaches and executives in the WNBA and is just running circles around a lot of other people in that league. So not surprising that she would put together this roster. And also, once again, a women's team in this state being great. I don't know. Feel free to follow along everybody else but anyway uh so you know uh a duke mn says uh make the team as a fringe

roster player in training camp then become a valuable piece during the season so who could that be for the minnesota vikings that is a good question I was trying to think about this as the best nomination that I could come up with is anybody on the group of wide receivers or pass rushers that has not made it yet. So anyone like Malik Knowles, anybody. Could it be Lucky Jackson? If you are Tristan Jackson, if you're at the back end of the wide receiver group and you make it and you make the team and you actually get in games,

then you're the guy that is most like this player that made the back end of the Lynx roster and then plays a role. And the pass rushers, I mean, you have the undrafted free agents, Gabriel Murphy or Dallas Gant. I mean, you have the undrafted free agents, uh, Gabriel Murphy or Dallas Gant. I don't know if you can have two players named Dallas on a team, but if you can, he's another guy to keep an eye on. Those are the two positions where I think it's the easiest path

for somebody to make it, uh, as a player that is very much fringe on the roster. All right. There was one more I wanted to throw in here. Let's see. Oh, okay. This one, because this is a quick, quick, but a funny answer. So this is from, let's see here. This is from Dan Taylor, 26 weirdest and most unlikely hobby of a player that you've covered. I've got two.

One is that Harrison Smith flies planes. And there was a piece on this, maybe Sports Illustrated or something, but that's one that you wouldn't expect just in general, that anyone you know would fly planes and much less Harrison Smith. And he never really talks about these things and he doesn't have a personality that's out there. He's not a huge social media presence. So I imagine that guy has other hobbies even that we don't know about that are interesting, but flying planes is definitely one of them, but that's not my favorite. My favorite is, I think it was 2020. I was doing a story on Rashad Hill, the former swing tackle for the Vikings and how Rashad Hill had carved out a career when he never thought that he would have one. He was somebody that assumed that he was going to be selling insurance or whatever he wanted to do.

Just a general, regular old person job, working in finance or teaching or coaching or something like that after football. And so he ends up in the NFL with the Vikings and carves out this niche as being their reliable swing tackle. And so I was doing a story on that. And I said, Hey, this was during the pandemic. I said, Hey, Rashad, what, what are you up to? Like, what have you been doing? And he said, well, you know, I've been watching a lot of Kung Fu movies. I was like, doing a lot of what now? And he explained to me that he was a huge fan of Kung Fu movies, that he loved to sit down and watch Kung Fu movies. So all the fighting and everything else, that was his thing. His wife didn't understand it.

Didn't matter he just that something with kung fu maybe the hand fighting i don't know connected with rashad hill that's the weirdest one i don't know too many other people that watch kung fu movies so there you go that's why we do random question week because lots of weird stuff and fun stuff comes up. So, uh, quite a few, actually more episodes to go because I have a lot of more questions. Manny Hill's also going to drop by for an episode as well. So make sure you keep an eye out for that. He's going to, we're going to ask each other some random questions and I have a great one for him to start the episode. So keep watching, ask questions, have fun.

I'm hoping you're having a good summer. I know that I am so far. So thanks everybody. And hey, by the way, I wrote an article that you might like about the online gif slash meme or gif, whatever you say is fine, from how I met your mother, the Viking scene. And I interviewed the writer and got the background story on that. So

go over to purpleinsider.com and make sure you check that out because I had a lot of fun writing that article. So thanks everybody and take care. Football.