Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Random Vikings questions: O'Connell's plug and play offense and an 11 fullback offense

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Matthew Coller answers totally random questions from Vikings fan, from whether the 90s Vikings are reminiscent of the current Vikings offense to an 11 fullback offense to Sam Darnold's work ethic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and what a wonderful time of the year it is, a beautiful day on Sunday, hopefully you got out, mowed the grass, go kayaking, play golf, whatever it is that you do in Minnesota, I hope you had a good time doing it, or wherever you are in the summer, but that also means there's not a lot of NFL headlines for us to break down, not a whole ton of drama. So I asked on Twitter for fans to send their most random Vikings and football questions.

And this is part two of our series, looking at your random Vikings and NFL questions. I got a bunch more to go through and we'll also have some fun stuff mixed in this week as well. And you never do know when NFL news can pop up out of nowhere. So if it does, we'll talk about it more live chats to come. So lots going on in our world here, even though it's a little bit slow. So let's start it right off with actually the question that inspired the series from longtime listener Stephanie who asked, even though you were a football insider, are there any terms or

phrases regularly used that make you laugh and stop and think about if you stop and think about it? Well, the answer is absolutely yes. I feel like I've made it part of the show to stop and laugh at the ridiculousness of a lot of these terms. So I wrote down a few of them that are my all-time favorites to use. Number one, I think my all-time favorite is oily hips. It just sounds so silly.

Like you're having someone come over with an oil can and go, all right, you're good to go, buddy. Like a NASCAR or something. All right, his're good to go, buddy. Like a NASCAR or something. All right. His hips are oily enough. Uh, that's probably my favorite one. It's so descriptive. It's so funny. I also like a quick Twitch is another one, which I think actually is really important in the NFL, but when it's draft time, you just hear this over and over and over. It's got those quick twitch muscles. Okay. I hope so. He plays football. Road grader is a great one. I worked road construction for a summer and the fact that something that we did in road construction describes a left guard has always

been very amusing to me. I like glass eater because I once asked the player if he was a glass eater type. Uh, and, uh, you know, he said, yes, uh, it was a linebacker. Um, but you know, glass eater throws you back to the old school days of the NFL, the Oakland Raiders, and just the crazy guys with missing teeth and throwing, you know, haymakers at each other after plays. Just the crazy NFL. I don't think anybody anymore could really call themselves a glassier, but every once in a while it comes up when somebody plays in a certain kind of dogged way.

And it just, again, seems pretty insane that that's a descriptive term for football, but I enjoy that one. Dancing bear is great. When it's a big fat guy that moves really well. They call him a dancing bear. It's funny. Uh, the other thing is, uh, once I heard a defensive tackle referred to as a trash can full of dirt. And that again, very descriptive, you know, exactly what that means. That means that guy is not rushing the passer. He does not have any quick twitch. He is not fast by any means, but you can't move him. Think about how much a trash can full of

dirt weighs. You just cannot move this man. Whoever came up with that is a genius. And the other thing is just how serious all the football terms are. Gridiron, of attrition like wow uh the the old george carlin bit if you want to look it up on youtube it's tremendous where he talks about the difference between baseball and football and when he's talking about baseball he's like oh you know it's uh if i hit the ball so far i run home and. And if it rains, we all try again tomorrow. And in football, it's a blitz and they throw bombs. It's a great bit. Make sure you go look that up. But that part of it in the super serious nature, uh, of how everybody talks about these football players is great. And my all-time favorite though, I'll tell you my all-time favorite

was when Mike Zimmer referred to Brett Jones, left guard slash center, as a squatty body. Squatty body, I think, was my favorite football term that made me laugh, and I used probably 100 times joking around with fellow reporters or every time Brett Jones' name came up. I guarantee you if I sent a message to some of my fellow Vikings reporters right now and just said squatty body they would type back Brett Jones because it was that funny when that's what he called him uh Brett

Jones a darling at one time of Vikings fans at left guard so yes Stephanie uh we should always take time to appreciate football language and the gift that keeps on giving forever. An actual Vikings question here, if you haven't already logged off. This is from Zuterman on Twitter, at Zuterman. Why no mention of Jihad Ward in your 53-man roster projections while discussing edge depth? Does he have a shot at making the team? So the answer is yes, he does have a shot at making the team so the answer is yes he does have a shot at making the team where jihad ward falls in in at least right now until i

see something different is every year it feels like the vikings sign a guy who kind of played for somebody else and they bring him in and they talk about him as depth, although there hasn't been much discussion this offseason of John Ward. But he's depth and he might play a role and might fit in here or there. And he was with this other team. And then the guy doesn't make the team. Just give you an example. Anthony Zettel at one point is one that just for some reason sticks out in my mind,

but there's been 50 of them. Dayton Jones was another one. When the guy signs, we all write articles analyzing the signing. Well, you know, he could fit in here as depth and he could be a backup here, there. And then, yeah, I don't know. And when you look at Jihad Ward's career before this and his PFF grades, his playing time, his quarterback pressures, all those things. There's a lot to be desired there. So maybe Brian Flores has found a fit. Maybe he makes the team. Their depth is not all that special at that position where you have Andre Carter, I would expect to be on the team. And there's kind of Pat Jones and question marks at that, you know, on the edge. And so maybe Ward does

become a situational pass rusher and does contribute to some extent, but just from trying to make the 53 and looking what players they already have in house and the three guys that are going to be starting, presuming there's only maybe two backups, there could be one more. I was leaning toward he might end up as an odd man out. And that's kind of why, because if somebody that they bring in late in the process doesn't have a big history of success in the NFL, I'm going to lean a little bit more toward the guys that they've drafted or the guys that they've developed will probably be a little more familiar with the system and get those spots. But when you're making a 53-man roster after minicamp,

you just accept the fact that you really don't know and you're trying to take a shot at it based on what we saw as the starting point for everybody during a minicamp and maybe Jahan Ward can make it. It really is going to depend on how he looks and how he fits in to Brian Flores' defense during the training camp period. So there's been 53-man rosters in the past where I've made it right after minicamp,

and it's turned out to be really good. And there are other times where I've been very surprised by some of the moves that ended up being made. And I feel like we're a couple years in now, but only second year with Brian Flores. So trying to figure out exactly what types of players will fit with him and what won't. I don't think we have a great feel for that yet. I mean, versatility always helps, but not everybody is going to play multiple positions. So yeah, that doesn't mean anything. If you're Jihad Ward and you're watching this, you go win the job. I mean, there's an opportunity there. The other thing that did weigh in, I thought they might sign someone else too,

that they might add someone else to that position right before training camp or right at the beginning of training camp. That was a position that if we were writing them down, wide receiver obviously is one at the top of the list. Maybe there's another offensive lineman to bring in, but right there, running back could be another one. Right there is backup edge rusher and situational rusher. Uh, if they're not super happy with how that looks. So we'll see, we'll see how that ends up going. Uh, another random question from fixing Lux, I suppose is how it's pronounced. More of a pondering question. Did barefoot kickers still go barefoot in the snow?

Did they keep the shoe on until it was time to kick? Were both feet naked caveman style? So to answer those in order, yes, they still did kick barefoot in the snow. Rich Carlos kicking the 1986 field goal after John Elway's drive. It was muddy, snowy, and he kicked in the game winner. Although if you watch the replay, you're not entirely sure it actually went in. That's not really the point. But did they keep the shoe on until it was time to kick?

I don't think so. I think they ran out of the tunnel with no shoe on and then just for the whole game had no shoe on the sideline and just went out there because if you have an emergency to kick a field goal, okay, it's third and 10. You complete the past just short. The clock's running.

You don't have time to say, well, hold on guys. Let me untie the shoe and then run out there. It, by the way, if you are younger than the age of like 35, you have no idea what we're talking about here.

Because, yes, there were kickers in the NFL that kicked with no shoe on, including Minnesota Viking Rich Carlos. So I looked into that a little bit. I went back and watched. There's a great NFL films feature. There's also a guy, Tony Franklin, who was the first barefoot kicker. And he kicked a 65-yarder in college. He also kicked later in his career with his chin strap unbuckled.

So he'd just be hanging there as he kicked the field goal. That was pretty wild. And in this NFL Films feature, which you can look up about barefoot kickers, Tony Franklin is a car salesman, the first barefoot kicker, and he has a license plate that says no shoe. So then they were very serious about it. And then those guys just disappeared. I don't really know why it probably hurts like crazy. That's the reason I would guess that no one wants to do that anymore. But some guys felt that they were much more accurate with barefoot than not. And it's one of those NFL oddities that happened and no one can really explain it other

than Tony Franklin. One day tried kicking without a, he kicked with a sock on actually. And when he was in high school, this is so silly, right? This is, this is random questions. You asked for random. This is random kicked with a sock on, took the sock off in college, made a 65 yarder, had a long NFL career. Then other people started doing it, including a Viking. There you go. Crazy stuff. That's the NFL history is so good. So good. All right. Next random question. This from a at skull doc here here if you had to move a defensive player to offense and vice versa which player are you switching and what position would they play so i am going to go with ivan pace jr to be a fullback if somebody had to switch from the defense to the offense ivan pace jr has everything that makes up a fullbacks mentality.

He's kind of a Wolverine. He's short. He's super stocky and very strong, very high IQ, which all fullbacks need to be because they have to play a bunch of different positions and special teams, as you have seen from C.J. Hamm over the years, and violent. He is an extremely violent and clever human being. I think he would make a very good fullback or I mean, honestly, a running back. I don't know if he can catch the ball. Not all fullbacks can actually catch the ball. We did see him catch that interception against the Raiders. So maybe, maybe he could

be a running back. I don't know if he's quite quick enough or shifty enough. He is pretty shifty, actually. That's how he works his way around some of those offensive linemen. So he could probably be a running back, but with a fullbacks mentality. Maybe like when Mike Allstott played running back for a little while there. As far as on the offensive to defensive side, I could see Brandon Powell being a nickel corner. He's the exact right size. He's got that quick twitchiness to him. See, quick twitch. He's got the footwork of a wide receiver.

He's a little bit fearless and crazy to be a punt returner. So I think he's the right size, shape, mentality to be a nickel corner. I could also see Dallas Turner being a tight end and maybe being one of the best tight ends in the NFL if he was because he could run a four, four, and he's also very large and he's got good hands. I wonder if Dallas Turner had been even a little taller because he's only six, three. If he had been six, five, if he would have been a tight end in the NFL with his athleticism, the way he moves. I mean, that's Antonio Gates stuff right there. That's Tony Gonzalez. He really can catch the ball when we watch him in practice. There's a lot of guys. I remember Daniil Hunter trying to throw

and catch. It looked like his hands were just made of cement blocks. And that's not the case with Dallas Turner. And of course, if you're taking one player and moving him to the other side of the ball, how about the best pure football player you have? Justin Jefferson. If you had to play somebody on two sides, he would be a safety. He'd probably be the best safety in the league because of the amount of ground he covers, the IQ, and of course the ability to make contested catches. No one would be better. Even with someone like Trayvon Diggs, you see a natural catching the ball skill that corners don't have. Safety sometimes do, but not always because if they could catch, they'd be wide receivers. So that would be my choice.

Justin Jefferson over to safety. You probably have yourself an all pro. just for their customers, just to say thanks. Like $1,200 off any phone plus $300 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. Cal asked this question. Do you see similarities between Dennis Green's quarterback plug and play

offense and Kevin O'Connell? So, I mean, Dennis Green was the head coach of the Vikings such a long time ago that it's hard to look at an offense from the early 1990s and say, yeah, yeah, I see that. Now, the roots of Dennis Green's offense were in the West Coast system. And in the early 90s, there were a lot of shorter passes. They didn't always launch the ball deep down the field like they did when Randy Moss arrived in town. And that's how you ended up with Jake Reed and Chris Carter with so many catches under Dennis Green, because it wasn't the play action and throw deep all the time. Jerry Burns loved to throw the ball deep with Wade Wilson, go deep to Anthony Carter, but it was a little different when Dennis Green got there because his roots were in San Francisco. So he, he was able to have more quick passing game. I think that's why

it worked for somebody like Jim McMahon, as you mentioned, to step in there and just get rid of the ball, try to get it to a good wide receiver and then go from there. And then Warren Moon through a lot of quick passes for somebody who generally over his career, love launching the ball down the field through the ball, like crazy though. The West coast system is all about, you know, similar to Kevin O'Connell rhythm and timing and footwork is a huge deal in the West coast offense. So I'm sure that there are some similarities, but really if we're talking about what's the biggest similarity between the 90s Vikings and the present Vikings, it's wide receiver. It's

the fact that you have talent around the quarterback because you're right that under Dennis Green, you could go from Rich Gannon to Jim McMahon to Warren Moon to Brad Johnson to Randall Cunningham and mix in Sean Salisbury every once in a while and still win a heck of a lot of football games. But we also have to look at you had Chris Carter, Anthony Carter, Jake Reed, and then on to Randy Moss and the three deep. And it doesn't get much better than that. And then, you know, when you're talking about Dante Culpepper, I think the offense was quite a bit different at that point with Dante Culpepper, but you are talking about some of the best wide receivers to ever play the game. And when we go through historically, if you are even

a competent quarterback and you have great receivers, you're going to have at least some level of success. And there's lots of examples. Even recently, you look at Ryan Tannehill. He has A.J. Brown. Then when he doesn't, he's a different quarterback. But guess who's got A.J. Brown? Jalen Hurts, who went from somebody I think we all thought, you know, maybe he'll be decent to, oh, okay, he's in the MVP running in 2022. And A.J. Brown didn't do all of that, but he is a factor in that when you

can have multiple weapons and that's where it's similar the most. It's not just one receiver. There's a lot of teams historically that have had one receiver, but Dennis Green and Kevin O'Connell's offenses have had multiple wide receivers that you can rely on. And if we assume that Jordan Addison continues to do what he did last year, maybe with a little extra flavor this year, you're talking about an extremely good situation because I think the implication of the question is, can Sam Darnold be a plug and play type of quarterback? He has no real success in his past, but you put him in with all these guys and it's Randall Cunningham.

Well, I wouldn't quite go that far that it's going to be Randall Cunningham because he was a great quarterback with the Philadelphia Eagles before he was a pro bowler and consistently winning quarterback in Philadelphia. So that's not really Sam Darnold. But if you're talking about like a Brad Johnson, who was a ninth round draft pick and then developed and found his way to win quite a few games, maybe there is something like that for Sam Darnold of someone. And then Brad became even better in Washington, even better in Tampa Bay. Somebody that can go from humble beginnings, if you will, for being polite, because it's

summertime to something very good. I think that it is possible because of the offense they run and because mostly of the wide receivers that they have. Next random question comes from S McCullough five on Twitter. Does Aaron Rodgers play the entire year? What's the Jets record? If he does, what's the Jets record? If he doesn't, I have a tough time thinking that Aaron Rodgers with all he's put his body through over the last few years, that's including injuries, Achilles, other stuff that he's done to his body cleanses and ayahuasca teas and all this stuff that just to my eye doesn't really look like the Aaron Rodgers that was an elite quarterback from a body perspective. He's got to be 20 pounds lighter than he was. I, you know, maybe he'll, uh, go on Pat McAfee and correct

my, uh, report there of his. I'm not really reporting. I'm just saying that he doesn't look like he used to look as far as his strength and his body, which makes me wonder if he can hold up for the entire year. He has had a ton of injuries throughout his career. He's missed time in numerous seasons before, sometimes due to Anthony Barr falling on him. That caused him to be out in 2017, but there's been a lot of those times before, and he always acts like he's some sort of medical miracle or something, but do we really believe him?

So I have a tough time thinking that he will play the entire year. My guess would be it's not a massive injury like it was with the Achilles, but maybe just banged up throughout the season and misses a handful of games or whatever it might be. As far as the Jets record, if he plays, I'll go nine and eight. I don't think this version of Aaron Rodgers that we have in our heads for many years of him

destroying the Minnesota Vikings. I don't think that that's who is playing quarterback anymore. Yeah. They're showing minicamp. Oh, wait, he wasn't at minicamp. OTA throws and you go, oh, look, he can still throw a football. Yeah, I understand that. But the last time he played a full season, it wasn't great with the Green Bay Packers. Now it's supposed to be great. Years later, post the Achilles, I have a tough time with that.

We've seen this version of a quarterback a number of times in the nfl that just plays one too many years and he could probably grind out some victories by not turning the ball over throwing the ball away maybe finding it here and there but if we're talking over 17 games and they need him to be really really good plus defense goes up and down. I think that Robert Sala is a good defensive mind and they have a lot of defensive talent, but we know this from year to year, you might be the best defense in the league one year, and then maybe you're eighth the next year. They were really good last year. Defensively, not quite as good as they were two

years ago. Does it continue? I just don't see them as being a great team. If he does not play, I believe, is it Tyrod Taylor as their backup? Seven and 10. They're just another team in the league. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. People get fired. But they push all the chips to the middle of the table, and they got a guy who would prefer to go on a planned trip than actually commit to mini camp. And if you recall with green Bay at the end, it seemed like there was just no synergy between him and his teammates and the coach, and they were not on the same page and they had an opportunity to get in the playoffs. They lost to the Detroit lions. That version of Rogers was a

mediocre average, decent starting quarterback, but not the great that he was before. I have a tough time believing it's just going to pop back up and do a Brett Favre with the Vikings. Maybe it will. My past history is to never declare it over for a legend until it's over because of Tom Brady and the number of times where you thought, well, maybe he can't keep continue doing this. Right. And then he did, but I'm a little more on the confident side of, of Aaron Rogers, not finding the old guy that he used to be. Okay. Love this next question. This is from Paul, uh, Von a sec on Twitter. He says, if you had to, and let's be honest, you got to, field an offense with 11 fullbacks, who are you trotting out? Here's who I'm trotting out. I made an 11 fullback

offense just for you. So at the starting quarterback, Michael Robinson, who actually was a quarterback. That's something that you'll find every once in a while, a fullback who was actually a quarterback at one time. You know who else was? Johnny Stanton as well. He could have been the pick here, I believe. I think that Johnny Stanton was a quarterback in college and then switched to, I think that's right. I think that's right.

If I'm wrong, someone correct me in the comments. But I'll go with Michael Robinson, a good fullback in the NFL for Seattle. Mike Allstott is the running back because he actually played as the main running back at times in that offense, especially after Warwick Dunn went to Atlanta. And then they kind of leaned on Mike Allstott. So he's capable of being a 200 carry back. At the fullback position, the guy I think is maybe the best

lead blocker in the history of those types of lead blockers. Lorenzo Neal, he did it for LaDainian Tomlinson. Some of his teammates, I see Sean Merriman tweet about this sometimes, believe he should be in the hall of fame for his blocking. I'm not going to disagree with that. I made him the actual fullback in our all fullback offense, the wide receivers, naturally Larry centers, obviously one of the best receiving fullbacks ever Kyle use check as well, who can play wide receiver, tight end, anything at tight end. I did cheat a little bit here and went with Jim Klein saucer, but technically on his pro football reference page, Jim Klein saucer is listed as a fullback

and a tight end. So I went with him as the tight end on our all fullback team and the meat up front, the best medias, giantess blockers from the fullback position, Sam Gash, Daryl Johnston, Patrick Ricard, who's like 300 pounds, Jerome Felton, and John Ritchie also probably around 300 pounds and our rotational skill players, Kimball Anders and Tony Richardson. It's a good offense folks. That is a good offense. So there you go. There is 11, 11 fullbacks to make a, and you know what it speaks to is how versatile those players really are. And people ask sometimes, cause they know I love fullbacks and why isn't there many fullbacks left in the league? I just don't think there's a lot of guys who train to do everything like

fullbacks have to do. They specialize in their position. A lot of running backs don't want to put on 25 more pounds and slam into people, but they also maybe can't grasp playing special teams, tight end if you have to, slot receiver if you have to, running back if you have to, pass protector. It's not easy out there. It's not easy out there to be a fullback, but there were some great ones in the past. I'm guessing that those guys would have just had other positions. John Ritchie might've just been a defensive end or something. They were good football players. All right. Next question. I've tried by the way to order these. So it's totally ludicrous. And then somewhat like an interesting regular football question back and forth for our random questions series here.

So this one's more of a real football question jake asks do most quarterbacks in the league have that insane work ethic like mahomes and cousins for example does sam darnold work just as hard as kirk so this is kind of it's kind of hard to know uh in one way because i'm not with them 24 7 i don't know how much they study. We got to see that, uh, and the show quarterback little behind the scenes of how hard Kirk cousins has to work, how hard Patrick Mahomes has to work to be himself and cousins in particular, going from a fourth round draft pick that nobody really thought had the talent to be a starting quarterback in the league to having a long NFL career where he earns

hundreds of millions of dollars. That is a lot tied to his work ethic. Also knowing how to work as well and what works for him, how to learn an offense that that's important too, is just learning how you learn. It's not necessarily just the number of hours you put in. Think about this. Some of you know that I play the guitar. If you were bad at practicing, you would never get good no matter how many hours you put into it. And I think that's a really important distinction that it might not be the number of hours, but how you actually work in order to get some of these things down, how much information you can bring in and then take out to the field.

I would not be surprised at all if Sam Darnold does work every bit as hard as anybody else in the NFL. And I think anybody who sticks with it in the league has to be at that level of work ethic for sure, because otherwise the coaches are not going to be impressed they're not going to give you more opportunities so for example with sam darnold if he had gone from carolina to san francisco and just been like i don't know i'm a top draft pick just give me a job they would not have named him the backup quarterback they would have just said

okay we didn't pay you much. See ya. And we'll stick with Trey Lance, but instead they decided to stick with Sam Darnold. And you can guarantee that if he didn't have the work ethic that it takes to play in the NFL, that Kevin O'Connell would not have been bringing him in at $10 million to potentially be the starting quarterback of this team if they didn't believe in that. So sometimes we kind of just have to use our common sense here to figure that if Sam Darnold's still around, considering how he played early in his career, and he's still getting opportunities,

and there's still a chance here that he could be a starting quarterback, kind of doubt he's just a bozo. He's just super lazy and doesn't care. I don't think that's ever been Sam Darnold's problem. I think Sam Darnold's problem is when it's third and seven, he tries to do something wild that gets picked off. And I was just doing some numbers on that on Sam Darnold, where he has a relatively normal interception percentage

on second and third down and seven or less. But if it's seven or more, it's through the roof, which kind of tells you trying to do too much. And I think you can understand why when you look at Carolina, when you look at the New York Jets, when you look at struggling in games, a team that's having problems trying to win the game by yourself, then that's how you end up throwing a bunch of interceptions. And also he hasn't, I think, mastered offenses yet entirely and been able to process quick enough at times in his career. And what Kevin O'Connell is going to have to do as a play caller is see what Sam Darnold processes well and what he doesn't and what he can see out there as far

as defenses and what he can't and try to mold the offense around him as he learns more about Sam Darnold. But I don't think that's because he's not trying or any of this has been because he's not trying. If that was the case, he just wouldn't be in the league anymore. Even as a top draft pick, no one would be saying, yeah, let's bring him in here and make him our starting quarterback if they didn't believe in his work ethic. So I do think that everyone has to be on that level to make it with the amount of sheer information that you have to take in. And Sam Darnold told us about this, about how at his house, he's got poker chips where he's doing the alignments he's doing the dropbacks in his living room he's recording the plays and reading to himself it's it's so much work to even show up for the test which is training camp much less to take the test at practice uh if they didn't

believe in him then he wouldn't be qb1 so i think the work ethic shows up there or QB one for now. And it shows up there. And if you don't, if you just slack off, then you're not going to get the details of an offense and everything is systems now. So you have to get it. There's no, Hey, I'll just go out there and pretend it's my backyard and run around and make plays. Just doesn't really exist. Next question comes from at Mark Larson, 28 says, how much does the new front office involve coaches in the draft evaluation process as well as free agency? It seemed like Rick Spielman was heading that direction, but the results were not good. Well, sometimes the results were good, like Justin Jefferson or Christian Derrissaw. And sometimes the results were not so good. Like every defensive player that they drafted after 2015. Uh, I think that every team in the league, I, so I don't know this

for sure because I'm not in the draft room or in the draft meetings to know, oh yeah, they asked this guy, this, I can only put together what I've heard in the past, what you see from draft behind the scenes videos and so forth. But I think that across the league, coaches are pretty involved in what they're going to do. The scouts are going out and they're gathering their information

and they're forming their opinions. But also the coaches in a lot of instances are looking at numerous players and having serious input on which players they believe would be better fits for their system. Personally, I've always thought it was unnecessary. Like the scouts should do their job and the coaches should do their job, which is to get the players in and have them play. But if you have three players that you're thinking about and the coach really likes one of them, okay, well, we should probably go with the guy that he's backing as opposed to someone he's not comfortable with. Even if the odds of those players succeeding based on our metrics, based on their performance, based on

their height, weight, speed, all that stuff is the same. If our coach believes in him more, then he'll maybe coach him up a little better or put him in better positions to succeed. I've never really fully bought that, but I see the logic to it. So the answer is, I don't know how much the Vikings are doing it right now. With free agency, I would expect that the coaches would be more involved than even the draft because they know the players and they would have evaluated and played against the players. So if you have a Jonathan Grenard and Andrew Van Ginkle, of course you have to involve Brian Flores in getting Andrew Van Ginkle, right? He played for him before, so you would want to go to him and get his feedback

and where he could fit in. But I do think it's always part of the process that those guys are giving their opinions and evaluating players and telling you, so you're going to have Keenan McArdle, for example, watch all the wide receivers, and you're going to ask him in a meeting. This actually did happen a couple years ago where McArdle told us that he was asked in a meeting about a couple of different wide

receivers. And he said, I don't think those guys are worth certain draft picks. So if you have someone with his experience and he's going to coach them, then yeah, of course I would say you want his input in what you're doing, but I can't tell you an exact percentage of Rick Spielman versus Kweisi Adafl-Mensa unless they let me in to some of the pre-draft meetings. I don't think it's going to happen, but it's always, we heard a lot about it with Andre Patterson and how, you know, Andre Patterson liked this player, that player, and that meant a lot to Rick Spielman because he had nailed the Daniil Hunter pick and so forth. But sometimes that wouldn't always go right where they would end up with a Jalen Holmes

or something, or, you know, a lot of players that maybe he was searching for the next Daniil Hunter and couldn't find him. So it's inexact as always, but I could see why a lot of teams, I think, have their coaches involved evaluating the players as well. All right. Next question comes from, uh, at mana dork. What is the first player you think of from each team from each? Okay. This is how we're going to end the show. Random podcast here. I'm going to call up, give me a second here. I'm going to call up every team in the NFL. Okay. And this is what I'm going to do just for you. This is where we're at this off

season. And I made sure to point out that I didn't want any serious, like super serious. Who's the wide receiver three or whatever questions I wanted only random nonsense like this, because this is great. So I'm going to call up every team here just so I can look at them and I'm going to run through the list division by division. And I am going to just say in two seconds or less, the first player that comes to my mind. Okay. That's what I'm going to do just for you. And if you want more random questions asked, feel free to email purple insider.com. Send me a DM on Twitter at Matthew Collar or a regular tweet, and we'll add it to the list because this is really fun. This is a great challenge.

11 fullbacks and the first player I think of. So it's not the best player, not a Hall of Famer, just whoever comes to my mind. Two seconds or less for every single team. Here we go. All right. Buffalo Bills. Jay Reimersma. Tight end. Miami. Richmond Webb. Tackle. New England. Logan Mankins.

New York Jets. Finney Testaverde. Denver Broncos. Michael Dean Perry. Kansas City. Eddie Kennison. How about Las Vegas Raiders? Also includes Oakland, Charlie Garner.

Los Angeles Chargers also includes San Diego, Tim Dwight, Baltimore Ravens, Peter Boulware, Cincinnati, Tim McGee. Let's go Cleveland, Leroy Horde, Pittsburgh, Greg Lloyd, Houston, Dominic Davis, running back, Indianapolis Colts, Quentin Corriott, linebacker, Jacksonville, Fred Taylor, Tennessee, Kevin Dyson. Okay. Next division, NFC, NFC, Dallas Cowboys, Tony Tolbert, New York Giants, Jason Seahorn, Philadelphia Eagles, Keith Byers, Washington football team, Michael Westbrook. How about Arizona Cardinals, Stoney Case, Rams, St. Louis and Los Angeles, Aeneas Williams, San Francisco 49ers, Ricky Waters, Seattle Seahawks, let's go Walter Jones,

Chicago Bears, Jim McMahon, Detroit Lions, Corey Schlesinger, left out of our fullback conversation, Green Bay, Robert Brooks, Minnesota Vikings, Afadi Adenabo, Atlanta. Let's go. LG Crumpler, Carolina, Timbiaka Batuka, New Orleans, Sam. Yeah. Sam Mills and Tampa Bay. Let's go with Joe Jurevicius. Why? No idea. Just first player that I thought of, of every single team just for you because you're a crazy person. And so am I. Okay. Last, last random question for the show from Skull Doc. I suggest doing that exercise for yourself. It's very fun.

It's very fun. I could do a whole, I should do another, I should do a list every show this summer. Just go through every team and name a random player. Who was the most ridiculous one that I named? Leave that in the comments. I'm thinking Keith Byers. Okay, that's Skull Doc asks, leave that in the comments. I'm thinking Keith Byers. Okay.

That's a skull doc asks, what is the atmosphere like inside the press box at a Vikings game? There isn't one. There is not really an atmosphere inside of the press box. We all just sit there. I mean, because there's no cheering as you know, in the press box and there is talking

to each other. So I have always through my entire time covering the team sat next to Judd Zolgad. So I've got Judd over here and there's a couple other reporters, Alec Lewis from the athletic Dane Mizutani is down in front of me. And there's a few other people after that. John Krasinski comes to game sometimes and Will Raggetts is on my row sometimes. So we'll talk throughout the game. Hey, did you see that? And I've always, you know, I always talk football with Judd through the game like, Hey, you know, what's going on with this? Or why did Kevin O'Connell make that decision? We'll be talking about it. But for the the most part it's mostly just quiet and watching the game and writing and taking notes and eating food that's really all there is i mean there's not

it is not exciting at all uh the most exciting things that have ever happened there uh one time sam ekstrom got physically ill in the press box that was exciting exciting. He was fine, but he didn't feel well and lost his cookies there. That happened once. And the Packers people cheer. They sit fairly close to us. And they're really the only ones who do this, the Packers executives, but they'll be like, yeah, let's go. So it's really quiet, but they're cheering. And we all kind of look at that like, oh, you're not supposed to do that, but who's going to tell you not to. These are the inane things that are happening. If there's good food, there are people talking about the food. What did you have? Did you like the cookie? I mean, it's, there's not much to speak up as far as any press box in sports.

It's usually quiet. And in the Vikings, there's the open air thing. So you can talk kind of loud to somebody and you're not going to be overheard by everyone. But if you're in a closed windows in front of you in the press box, it's just like quiet. People whispering to each other. Every once in a while, it gets a little bit funny where I can't remember who the guy,

it was Tyson Bajent. Tyson Bajent was playing. It was a completely quiet press box. And somebody just spoke up and said, this guy lost to the Colorado school of mines and everybody lost it. But aside from that, I mean, that's, there's really not a whole lot going on up there. Everybody's just doing their work or in some instances, they're just there to eat's just doing their work or in some instances, they're just there to eat the food and watch the game. It seems, but that's,

that's very few people. So that's it. I wish I had something better to tell you. I, we have, we shoot each other with crossbows. Like, I don't know.

That's really, that's really kind of how it goes. But if there's good food that makes it better. Anyway, so there is your random questions for today. We'll have more of them this week, along with a really fun porch podcast. We'll return this week with Manny Hill. That'll be a good time as well.

And we'll stir up some other guests too. So thanks everybody for watching slash listening. I hope you found this to be particularly absurd. And we'll talk again very soon.