Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Brian O'Neill's extension and bold 2021 Vikings predictions

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom break down Brian O'Neill's mega $92.5 million contract and talk about the Vikings paying top dollar for players over the last few years. They also talk about their predictions for the 2021 season, including which cornerback will be the best, when Kirk Cousins will win Player of the Month and breaking down likely sack totals across the board. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here along with Sam Ekstrom and Sam. We have another contract extension to talk about with Brian O'neill the 92 and a half million dollar right tackle give me your instant reaction needed to get done thought it would get done mildly surprised it wasn't done until now um i think the market just changed so much that the vikings uh were going to sit through those negotiations and probably try to save a little money on their end. I don't know if they did. I don't know if they saved any money. I mean, they're giving Brian O'Neill the second most annually of any right tackle in the league just behind Ryan Ramchick. I mean, that is unbelievable company.

And we were crunching the numbers collar. PFF-wise, he was slotting in behind Moten, behind Ramchick, behind Braden Smith for the last three years. And yet he still goes up there number two. He gets five years on the term. That's an incredible contract for Brian O'Neill. And he gets over 50% of it guaranteed, almost $50 million guaranteed. He was all smiles today at the press conference. And I'm not surprised. I mean, he probably made what an extra 15, $20 million because of sort of those late contracts that got signed in, in the last month. That's, that's an amazing contract for O'Neill. And the way the cash breaks down, according to our friend Brad Spielberger at PFF, is he's going to get $55 million in cash in his pocket in the

first three years. I mean, that is amazing. I mean, I'd be smiling too. I mean, he almost was sort of shell-shocked at the podium and didn't know what to say. Like, yeah, I wanted to stay here, but wow. And I think all of us, when we saw the terms went wow as well. I predicted far under this number on a five-year contract because usually they do five-year contracts, but I was thinking more in the $75 million to $80 million range, not up over 90. And from what I'm told, those are not like escalators and things like that, that are getting Adam Schefter to bump up the number. Like that's the contract. That doesn't mean he'll make all that money because of the guarantees and so forth. And who knows down the road, I'm sure there will be restructures and all those types of things,

but this is not a contract that you can just cap circumvent your way around. This is a huge contract for Brian O'Neill that as they go forward, they're going to have to deal with. Now it's really interesting to me. And I don't mean deal with in a bad way because he's a good player in his prime. This is somebody that you sign to a long-term contract. Better than Harrison Smith.

Like the outlook for the deal. Yes Harrison Smith. Yes, for sure. Outlook for the deal. Yes. Yes. Yes. Very durable, very consistent. Like this is a player you sign. So I'm not questioning whether you sign him.

I'm not really questioning anything about it other than I want to make the point that they always give top of the market price to every single player that they sign all the time. I mean, since Daniil Hunter's deal and Eric Hendricks, I would say this for as well, since those deals were signed and digs that same summer where everybody thought they were going to win the Superbowl. But after those, it's been top of the market for Rudolph, top of the market for Harrison Smith. There was a narrative that Anthony Barr took a pay cut to go from New York to here. Not when you look at the deal, though. It was still a top of the market deal to make Anthony

Barr one of the highest paid players. And they do it again here. And so on one side of this, you could say, well, the fact that ownership is willing to put down the cash to make sure they keep their good players is something that fans should appreciate for sure because not every franchise does that including the team that the Vikings are playing in week one the cheapest franchise in the league the Cincinnati Bengals but on the other side if you never get a deal and you're always the team that folds when agents push you to the edge you end up signing contracts that can be difficult to work around at times. And that's what I'm thinking about the Harrison Smith and Brian O'Neill extensions is that when you pay top market dollar, then eventually you're going to have to do other things to work around those contracts. And Mike Zimmer addressed exactly that today. Here's the quote

from Zimmer, asked about the depth. It's concerning. I feel really good about the top guys, and some of these young guys got to come on. But when you're kind of top heavy with finances, that's what you've got to do, right? So Mike Zimmer realizes this. He understands maybe a little begrudgingly because he's made a couple of comments about about the monetary status and the financial status about, you know, he's he's concerned about the depth. He's kind of bringing it to the forefront of the conversation that this team is top heavy. And that's absolutely true uh it's the opposite of the patriots they so so value their own guys um to the point where they can't stomach losing them even if you know losing them might be a more prudent decision again in this case i think keeping o'neill is an absolute slam dunk um if

you were to you know drop o'neill or or Smith after this year, you would choose O'Neal long term. The fact that they give these contracts to older players, to injured players, to middle of the pack players because they are their guys, that's where the mistake lies because it's a pattern. In this case, it's correct. It's the correct move. It just happened to be at an uber expensive and increasingly expensive position where I think they've signed him now through age 30, if I'm not mistaken. So this is going to take him through his prime. A lot of that money is up front. And the only thing I can say sort of in defense of the team is that they do dress these contracts up pretty nicely to look very impressive for the player. And then sometimes there's flexibility

for the team on the back end. In this case, they're still shelling out a lot. So this is pretty player friendly, but for the most part, and I think the Harrison Smith contract would be similar. You can probably get out of it at some point. Yeah. And for an older player, that's how they usually set them up. That's how it was with Kyle Rudolph. And the other part of that is you can get out of them, but like you never get out of them for free. And I saw the other day that the Vikings are in the top five and dead cap money projected for next year. And that's because when you do this over and over and over again, you eventually get those hits. Now with the O'Neill extension, again, it's not the case that we're saying it's risky like it would be with Harrison Smith.

If Harrison Smith has a sudden fall off this year, then what? Then what do you do? That's not something that we would project for Brian O'Neill, who seems to be an ascending player. And we see this from offensive linemen all the time, where they continue to get better as they go into their late 20s. It's maybe the only position in football that works this way because it's so technical and isn't as much based on exactly your quickness or burst or explosiveness.

Quarterback and offensive line, they continue to get better because it's such a mental part of it. So from that perspective, you had to sign O'Neal. You need a pillar to build around as you go forward, whether Cousins is your quarterback or not, you have to have people who are going to protect the quarterback and you can't just let a real solid right tackle walk out the door. It's just when you look at the production and you compare it to the price that some other guys got, I don't think that he's on Ryan Ramchak's level. I don't think he's on Taylor Moten's level. And yet he's getting the same type of money that puts

him on that level. And this is kind of an Anthony Barr thing where Anthony Barr's good. We all agree Anthony Barr's good, but he's not like Bobby Wagner good, but was getting paid like Bobby Wagner good. And the Vikings tend to do that pretty often. So I don't want anyone to misinterpret this and say that this was a bad deal to sign Brian O'Neill. And the other part of it too, I want your comment on this.

I just think character wise, it's really important to have people like Brian O'Neill, a guy who had a lot of questions when he showed up about his physique. Was he going to be tough enough? Was he going to be strong enough, thick enough? And who put a lot of work into his body, showed toughness that Mike Zimmer said he didn't know if it was there or not from the very beginning. And we've even seen him embrace this role as the leader of the offensive line. Like you need Brian O'Neill to be on your football team going forward yeah yeah I think he just needed to get out of college and have his metabolism slow down a little bit right because because he's he's clearly like bulked up he's gotten his body kind of where he wants it now and I think he's just entering his

prime truly like I I think that uh he's all team he's not about him he gets along really well with the quarterback now and I assume that would continue on into the future with whoever is the quarterback uh I think he's a good mentor for the and you asked him about this today the revolving door of guards next to him um he's good buddies with Bradbury he was in Bradbury's wedding like I just think he is a glue guy on that line. And he's got sort of that emotional leadership quality about him too. Whereas a lot of the linemen that have come through here are sort of the quiet types, the Riley Reefs, who just go about their business behind the scenes.

And I think O'Neal kind of is the whole package. So I think the precedent now that the team has set, that they're going to give you this kind of money, think of the line of contracts. And this would be a good problem to have, but what if Bradbury turns into a star? What if Cleveland turns into a star? You could have this decision every year and you just can't pay everybody. So they're going to have a lot of decisions coming down the road. Like Ole Udo, What if he suddenly balls out this season? He'll I think be owed a contract or maybe an RFA tender. I'm not sure, but there's a lot coming in the next couple of years. So this sort of sets the bar pretty high to say, all right, if you perform on this offensive

line, you're going to get paid. Right. And I think that's been the message really for the whole team in general. And that's why I kind of want to dance the line of saying like for your ownership to pay out a ton of cash to these guys is good because you want to keep your key players. And for Brian O'Neill to stick around is good. It's just, did you get a deal? The answer has been unequivocally no across the board for every contract they've signed since that 2018 going into 2018 offseason. And that's interesting to me that it's almost like there's blood in the water now when there's a contract that comes up because everyone knows you could just push the Vikings to the final hour. Even Delvin Cook got a great running back contract. He won that deal and his agent in the team argued through the whole summer. And eventually they just said, pay us. And the Vikings did. So that's, that's just sort of interesting. And you wonder as they go forward and they continue

to do that, like what happens here? Because as you mentioned, sometimes some teams have to let some players go and this team usually chooses not to. So let's get into some of our predictions now. Where would you like to start? Because I feel like you are a little more bold than me. I feel like I took out a four iron and hit it down the fairway with a lot of my predictions, but I think you were a little more aggressive. So where would you like to begin with trying to project the Vikings 2021 season?

You speak about a four iron as if that's an easy club to just strike purely. I don't know what if you've seen my golf game, but I just want to point that out. I think probably the Chris Herndon out gaining Tyler Conklin prediction might have been a little bit on the bold side, especially when I've now seen the Vikings unofficial depth chart and Herndon is behind Brandon Dillon on that. That might not bode well for him right away. I think it makes sense because it's going to take a little bit for him to acclimate, but I just look at the tight end depth tyler conklin has never had a 200 yard season brandon dylan has one catch ben ellison has one catch in his career so chris herndon's the only one who's had like a good starting tight end season in his career i feel like that's fairly

feasible that um if he gets acclimated he could be the number one gaining tight end in this offense we'll see. I'm banking on sort of a change of scenery being rejuvenating for Chris Herndon. That's going to be a big wild card. Like, is he going to be able to even contribute on Sunday? I don't think we know yet. The team hasn't really seen him at all. I guess I'm trying to figure out where you think I was being that bold.

Greg Joseph won't last through the bye week. That's pretty bold. That's a little bold. Yeah, that was a little. But no, that is not where I thought you were going to start. I did not think you were going to start with backup tight ends for your boldest prediction. I would say that of the likelihood is the least likely that it happens, because I think that Tyler Conklin is going to be tight end one for at least the first six weeks of the season or something before Chris Herndon would even have a chance, but it's possible, but that's not the direction I was thinking that you would go.

You predicted that Kirk Cousins would be booed by week five. Now, is it likely? I think maybe, but I think it's bold in that you're trying to project when Kirk Cousins will be booed and even that he'll be booed. Now, let me just break this down a little bit. It was not a great preseason for Kirk Cousins. It was not a great training camp for Kirk Cousins. He missed time. And I think that his likability factor for some people started to fade. And there are a lot of folks, including NFL people, Josh McCown told our friend Chris Thomason about this, that see him not getting vaccinated as a connection with leadership. So I think there's a lot of fans who would believe that.

And if he struggles, are going to express themselves in the preseason game, the first one he played in when he came out, when they said Kirk Cousins, it was like, yeah, I mean, there was not a huge booming eruption in U.S. Bank Stadium for Kirk Cousins. So I think it's very possible that he does get booed, but does it take until week five? They're on the road the first two weeks, but they have important games when they come home. And I guess also I look at their defenses and say that they're playing and say, well, where's the tough defense here? Because you and I made opposite predictions when it came to this. You've got the Bengals. Arizona's defense isn't super scary. You've got Seattle, who hasn't had a good defense in years. You've got Cleveland, who is coming off a very poor defensive season.

Like, why did you pick that particular time to say he gets booed by that? Kirk Cousins, in his six years as a a starter has never begun better than 2-2. Never had a fast start in his career. With the Vikings, he's gone 1-1-2. No, I'm sorry, 1-2-1. He didn't have two ties. 1-2-1, 2-2, 2-2. And there's been drama in all those seasons. i actually i messed it up he was one and three

last year because they started oh and three so it was uh two and two one two and one and one and three and um you know he's got digs faking a cold um they had the buffalo game mixed in there last year what the first two games were a complete disaster he's a slow starter um I think that you're right the likability is down I think that the expectations are up and when that's the combo when that's sort of the cocktail that's been mixed into this season I think I think the emotions get heightened when you go into a season with these expectations. You have tough opponents at home with Seattle and Cleveland to start, which I think could lead to some struggles. It could lead to tense moments where he doesn't come through.

And then that Detroit game, that's a team he usually kills, but it also just screams letdown game, sort of reminiscent of Atlanta last year, which was week six. And I think he got booed in that game. So I don't think it's that ridiculous to think that in a three-game homestretch during a time of year when he typically struggles, that that could happen. So I stand by it. I think I actually had bolder predictions in there than the Cousins booed thing.

What else did I say? That Alexander might be their best corner. I think I thought that was actually a little bolder predictions in there than the Cousins-Boud thing. What else did I say? That Alexander might be their best corner. I think, I thought that was actually a little bolder. Okay, let's talk about that in a second and we'll go over mine in a bit. But since your dog captain barked in the background, let's see. Sometimes the dog days of the season hit Kirk Cousins early. Sometimes he can hit a rough patch, if you will. Things can get a little furry there for him or hairy early on. Okay, I'll stop. Thank you. So I had a different prediction for Kirk Cousins early in the season. My prediction is that he is going to win the player of the month, offensive player of the month in October. And the reason I'm predicting that is because just as he has these rough patches to start

season sometimes, he also ends up getting blazing hot right after. And usually what it depends on is the schedule. And so I'm looking at it right now. He plays at home, the Browns and Lions, the Panthers on the road, and then back home for the Cowboys in the month of October. I mean, to me, that just screams Kirk Cousins gets hot after a slow start. Maybe he gets booed at home and then they, you know, string together some really impressive offensive performances. But, you know, predicting a player of the month is a

little on the bold side, I think. But doesn't it feel like we've gotten to the point where you can almost map out a Kirk Cousins season? We've just seen so much. He's played so much football that it went a certain way in Washington. It went a certain way here. And something that I come back to is as excited as everyone is about the beginning of the season, it also feels like everybody knows. Our friend Sage Rosenfels called it an inevitability last year when he talked about Kirk Cousins and how Viking seasons are going to go as long as he's the quarterback. And I feel like we could both end up being right here. He gets booed in week three or something, and then he wins player of the month in October.

And that just seems to be who Kirk Cousins will forever be. So as we're predicting it, I think we're predicting both sides of it. Yeah, I think if you look at maybe a line graph of, you know, win loss for Kirk Cousins teams, usually, you know, the graph's going to go down to start the year. Then he's going to ascend, plateau, and then dip again toward the end of the season. He's a great middle-of-the-season quarterback for whatever reason.

I mean, I rattled off, you know, the starts of his seasons. Look at the second quarter of his seasons where, you know, he sort of brought that 2018 team back into contention. I think they went either 4-0 or 3-1 in that second quarter. Then the next year, obviously 2019, even though they lost Thielen, they were very hot in October. And then 2020 last year, he got them back in the playoff hunt. So there is always that one stretch where Kirk Cousins is extremely good. You can isolate it on pro football focus and lump him in with like, you know, Drew Brees

and Aaron Rodgers and call him a top five quarterback. And you wouldn't be lying. It happens almost every year. But there's far too many stretches where he drops off, becomes middling, becomes lower tier in the league. And that's what separates him from being in that category, is that there are too many lows and not enough highs, and the highs don't last long enough. I remember looking at this with Patrick Mahomes, and I went through his QBRs and his PFF grades and mapped them out on a chart

because what else am I doing with my life? And I put Kirk Cousins next to him and Mahomes had almost no down games. It was just straight across. And I know we're talking about the best quarterback in the NFL, but he just never has bad games. And with Cousins, it's been when you're flying high, everything is rolling. And then when you're not, it feels like you'll never win a game ever again. And after a hundred and something games to an NFL career, it's very hard to see that changing. So I think that our predictions, well, slightly bold of trying to pinpoint exactly when these things happen. And I also think that we know that these things are on the way and that's what, let me tie

this in and then we'll get to some other ones. Tie this into Cincinnati because in the Kirk Cousins history, this seems like a game where he throws four touchdowns and throws for 320 yards. But you also mentioned that there is a thing with Cousins in the beginning of seasons that sort of shows up here. And last year he ends up with good numbers against Green Bay, but that was entirely from playing behind. He threw a key interception early in that game that ended up getting them behind in week one. And then the previous year, 2018, they won against San Francisco.

But if I recall, Kirk Cousins did not complete a pass in the fourth quarter or something like that, that he really didn't have a great day. And then it was the next week where he put up huge numbers against Green Bay in 2018. So I guess I wonder what this means for this week. And if we're looking at what we just saw in preseason and training camp and comparing that also to the fact that Kirk Cousins usually blasts teams like this. Yeah, I'm a little bit lukewarm on this game, to be honest with you. I see a lot in week one where a team, my dog is the worst. I see a lot of times where, you know, teams that are kind of down on their luck, like Cincinnati, their rosters aren't great, but they come out in week one and they perform.

And, you know, like Cincinnati, I recall in Zach Taylor's first year, they took Seattle to the wire and they lost by a point. And then they lost their next 11 games like they've, you know, sometimes bad teams look good in week one, especially when they're at home. So I'm not convinced that the Bengles are going to roll over at all um i think there's an energy about cincinnati do that on purpose the rollover right the dog pun come on yeah let's say i did let's say i did um they're not going to play dead at all um but you know mike zimmer is uh is going to come into this game i think with probably you know a Mike Zimmer is going to come into this game, I think, with probably, you know, a plan in place to capitalize on a pretty weak defense. I think they're going to run the ball a lot. But I don't see Kirk having a massive game, to be honest with you, on the road after not really having his skill players all preseason.

I am a little more tepid about this offense getting rolling right away. I also, and we've talked about this at length, I also don't know what Clint Kubiak is going to bring to the table, but I don't think he's going to really empty the clip in week one. I think it's safer to give the ball to Dalvin Cook when you're a first-time play caller, sort of like Kevin Stefanski did in his debut when Cook ran for a million yards

and two touchdowns against the Dolphins back in 2018. Yeah, this reminds me of the game against Atlanta, maybe, where they came out and Kirk Cousins barely had to throw because Delvin Cook just ran over the Falcons and the Falcons turned the ball over. And as much as it seems Cincinnati Bengals fans are getting excited, I went back and read some of the reports from their training camp about how their offense just couldn't do anything. And I do think that early in the season, some of these things carry over, not necessarily preseason performance, but sometimes just the performance of a team on a day-to-day basis in training camp and what those

practices look like. And the reporters who were boots on the ground in Cincinnati were talking about how this offense is having a lot of rough days. So it might be a lot of handoff to Delvin Cook, play strong defense against Cincinnati and play the football that Mike Zimmer wants to play and try to make it not matter if Kirk Cousins has a big day or not. I guess I'm just trying to balance a little bit of the history of Cousins struggling early in seasons with the idea that this is not a very good football team. But I think you make a good point too, that you just really don't know in week one. And if there's any time where the results are at their most unpredictable, of course it's week 17 or now 18 when starters don't play,

but it's week one. And I think even the gamblers and Vegas have a really tough time with this because they're trying to weigh, well, they added this, they added that. This is a Cincinnati team that has revamped their defense entirely. We don't know what it's going to be. Their entire secondary is different and their defensive line is different. So one thing we do know, though, is that since the Vikings switched to their outside zone system, they can run the football. And there is nobody on Cincinnati's side that is going to Akeem Hicks them and just shut that down.

And to me, that means usually either a competent or a very good day for Kirk Cousins. And they usually win let me circle back now though to your predictions and you talked about Mackenzie Alexander potentially being their best corner does that mean you are not confident in Patrick Peterson or Bashad Breeland I think a little bit of both I think I look at know, Peterson dropping pretty linearly the last two years with Arizona, where he was, I think in 2019, pretty average. And then last year you could almost say he was bad. He was almost a liability last year, very penalty prone, gave up a lot more yards, a lot more receptions. And I also believe that that could change, but you know, I still need to see it. Like I need to

see that he still got something. And I think he might, but I think the possibility still stands that he is an average corner. I think that Bashad Breland is tough to peg. Like he's been up and down his whole career. But he, like his analytics have been fine. They haven't been incredible. He's another penalty prone guy and they're both new in this defense. Mackenzie Alexander, his last two years in this system, he was above average. He was good. I mean, 2018, outstanding in the nickel. 2019, pretty good as well. I just think if he finds the average between those two seasons, I think he's like a super

effective corner. And granted, he's probably playing 500 to 600 snaps. He's probably not on the field as much as 500 to 600 snaps. He's probably not on the field as much as Peterson or Breland. He's probably not on as many islands and therefore it's not quite as important of a position, but I think he's going to be pretty valuable. And, you know, he's in his physical prime. I think he's obviously a lot more mature from, from what I've experienced with them and what from the coaches have said. So I think that there's a lot actually boding well for him whereas you know Peterson's and Breland for a particular reason are you know signing these one-year deals kind of trying to to revamp their

stock and um you know I think that that the possibility exists that Alexander is the best corner folks football season is finally here, and it is time to stock up on your Minnesota football gear. So go to SodaStick.com, that is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, and check out all of their great Minnesota football designs. There's the amazing John Randall design, the Randy Moss disgusting act, can't stop the feeling hats and

everything with skull on it. So you have to go check it out at SodaStick.com. Also, by the way, on Thursday, we're launching another round of our t-shirt sales here at Purple Insider. And let's just say they're very football. Again, that is SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, printed here in Minnesota. Super soft, comfortable shirts. You will love it. Okay, so I won't use the four iron example because it is a little bit of a tough club to hit. Maybe I should say a seven iron or something. Get a little loft on it to predict that Mackenzie Alexander will be exactly Mackenzie Alexander. Like he has been a solid nickel corner. And even last year when he was with the Cincinnati Bengals, I think that there was some sentiment that he didn't have a very good year, but by the numbers, it was a Mackenzie Alexander year. If you're

saying which one of these guys is the seven iron, which one of them is the most predictable, it's Mackenzie Alexander. Now with Patrick Peterson, there's a chance that he drives it down the middle 300 yards and looks great and is just going to extend his career like Terrence Newman with the Vikings defense and with working with Mike Zimmer. And he's just phenomenal. I think there's a chance of that. There's also a chance that this just doesn't work because Patrick Peterson doesn't have much left. And, you know, when we talk about age and players in the NFL,

it's always hard, no matter how long we've seen this, it's always hard to understand that 30 is on the other side. Like these guys come into the league at 20 or 21 years old oftentimes. And so by the time you've reached 30, the mileage on your body is significant. And if you look into corners, even the great corners that aren't Darryl Green, everybody else, if it's not Darryl Green or Deion Sanders, everybody else is pretty much on the other side or getting to be out of the league when they get into their early thirties. And I remember this with Darrell Revis. How old was Darrell Revis when he was pretty much done? I think it was like 31. So it's, I think a major wild card with Patrick Peterson. And I don't think that either one of us could see by watching practice and training camp, whether that's going to go either way.

I don't know if you feel like you have a sense for it. I don't feel like I have a sense for it. No, I don't either. I mean, if you look at guys that have been considered maybe a top corner in the league at one point, if you look at their drop-offs, they happen so fast. I mean, they'll go from elite one year to trying to get a contract, you know, two years later, Josh Norman. I mean, he's sitting on the market forever. He was

considered best of the best not too long ago. Revis, you mentioned Nnamdi Asamoah was at one point, you know, an elite corner in this league and he just fell off a cliff. So with Peterson, he does sort of have that smaller, a little more, I think, mobile body type that is going to hold up maybe a little longer in this league. But I also haven't gotten the indication that they're going to take it easy on him schematically and give him more zone assignments where he doesn't need to keep up with guys I mean

Adam Zimmer and Mike Zimmer in what we've asked them it sounds like they're really counting on a lot of man-to-man assignments I don't know and maybe they're you know trying to bluff and sort of set you know the Bengals and early opponents up to expect something different but I think they're going to expect Peterson to be that sort of press corner man to man lock them down type which i don't know if he can still do i mean the the analytics suggest he was much better in zone coverages last year and i agree that that's probably the way to go so i will see how they approach it in week one yeah and um excuse me i think it's a really interesting subject of like will they have to adapt as they go along? Like, do they want to start out by saying, hey, be the island corner or lock down this one side of the field? And then if they have to switch to his own type of scheme, which they did in the middle of last year when they had guys like Jeff Gladney struggle, then they decided to change things around to his own. But Mike Zimmer has mostly been like, you're on that guy and that's how it goes. And even

their zone coverages usually have man principles, which I just will not get into any further than that, but it's always requires you guard that guy. And if he's struggling in that area, that's not going to change. But how they, I guess, deploy his help might be an interesting part of this. I think that Mike Zimmer is a better defensive mind than most of the league when it comes to coverages. And so I think there's some confidence there, but I think it's fair to say that Mackenzie Alexander would be the safest pick of a corner to have a very good season. Now I'm going to throw one at you. This one might be my boldest. Garrett Bradbury will have a PFF grade over 70 this year. Now what

that means, if you're not a huge PFF person, most of the league was under 70 last year. I think maybe the top 12 guys were over 70. And of course the best are in the 90s and they're just on a different level than everyone else but this would mean that garrett bradbury is an above average overall center that doesn't mean above average necessarily pass protection uh but it means the whole package bold or not to say that i think that garrett Garrett Bradbury by the end of this year can be at least considered average to above average. That's pretty bold. If you look at his first two years, you know, he was a 58 almost and a 61. His past blocking is obviously what held him back. Like basically, he was a 40 both years. So well below average average worst in the league last year among starting centers

so he's got to bring that up I think you know to a 60 right to have a chance at an overall 70 we're getting in the weeds here with PFF but the pass blocking is so far away right now and maybe Michael Pierce is a little bit bit of an anomaly to have to go up against in practice. But if the way that he's held up against Michael Pierce is any indication, I feel like he's still going to have problems with those big defensive tackles. And Pierce is a mammoth man. I get it. But the guys that are coming at him most of the time are 20 pounds lighter that's that's still pretty heavy like if they're 320 and he's 285 290 i still think that's a pretty sizable difference uh the run blocking is probably going to be very good i'm not concerned about that it's all about the pass blocking um so how do you

mitigate how do you protect him more i don't know if you can I think like you can do your best to double team and try to you know put multiple bodies on the three technique with the nose tackle but in the end you can't do that all the time because you're gonna open up weaknesses on that line blitzing lanes what have you free runners so he's gonna have to hold up one-on-one to to to a certain extent this year and uh and i think a 70 might be a little lofty i would be pleased with uh with a 65 if i'm the vikings just show some progress and don't like hey i don't if the run blocking drops off a little bit but the pass blocking is acceptable like league average i'm thrilled if i'm the vikings you just can't be the worst pass blocker in the league. That is where the Bradbury experience gets pretty harrowing. Yeah. Part of that for me and thinking that he can get

there is it's remotely where he was last year before the final three games. And Mike Zimmer alluded to an injury that he had and was dealing with last year. And I don't know if it was like a hand or something, but if you pull up his grades and yeah, I know that we're using PFF for everything here, but it matches up with what you see on tape for how he performed in those last couple of games. You see that he was like below 30 in pass protection for three straight games the whole rest of the year.

There's a couple of ones that are pretty rough, but a lot of times he is in the middle somewhere. Like he managed himself. Okay. Probably got beat a few times, like a normal center that's undersized would in past protection, but the last three games are just atrocious. And I've got to think that that's what Zimmer was alluding to. Now, also Mike Zimmer did say that Bradbury is unknown and he kind of, you know, slid that into when he was being asked about the offensive line. He said, well, you know, we got this and this their third year. So that's kind of why I'm putting my chips on this one. But would it surprise me if he still continued to struggle, especially since they play the Steelers defensive line at one point, they have the best defensive line in the league.

And, you know, the Packers again, Kenny Clark, Akeem Hicks is still out there. Like, I think that he has to be around this range for them to have a good offensive line. I mean, that's another part of it is it's kind of like, if this guy doesn't ascend to an average guard, I just don't see it. I just don't see how they can possibly be a good offensive line with a guy who's never been a full-time starter at left tackle, guy who's never played guard before. And I think that this is a real sort of it can pivot one way or the other based on Garrett Bradbury

you're still muted probably because your dog was barking uh no that was just laziness on my part um I I uh I couldn't really discern what what Mike Zimmer meant when he mentioned Bradbury yesterday, because as we know, sometimes Zimmer, as he's formulating an answer, he'll just mention guys by name with no real connection. He sort of started listing guys after he mentioned the word unknown. And I don't know what he meant about Bradbury, but whether he meant it or not, it is sort of an unknown. And it is probably like, if you're going into a season where if you struggle, your job might be in jeopardy, that's an unknown to me. And that's sort of the way I feel about Bradbury, right? Because if he has a bad year, they're not picking up that fifth year option.

And then you're looking for the next, the next guy, next guy like i mean that sets up the exit ramp for garrett bradbury so that is an unknown to me and as i've said on previous shows with the other three unknowns you probably need two out of those three to be average right you can't have multiple weak links on the line and you need your quote-unquote veterans o O'Neal and Bradbury to be good. There are so many question marks and Mike Zimmer still, he kind of hems and haws. He's like, yeah, I don't know if it's a work in progress, but it's not confident. Like, I don't think even he is fully bought into this group that was, I think, probably supposed to have at least one promising rookie, maybe two. He's been frustrated with Derrissaw from the beginning. And I don't know if it's because of Derrissaw

specifically that he's frustrated with or that he believes Derrissaw is good and wants Derrissaw to be participating in this offense. I think that's where his real frustration is, is that they drafted this guy to start and he can't and he's not ready and he might not be ready this year because he hasn't really practiced yet. And he's probably a healthy scratch on Sunday. So it's, you know, Wyatt Davis, same boat. They probably wanted him to contribute. And at best, he's a he's a backup right now. So Mike Zimmer has been dealt this hand. They don't have a lot of flexibility there, and they're just going to have to roll with it, right? And just hope that kind of the coin flips their way these first few games. Let me answer a couple of questions.

We got this question from Patrick. Does Cincinnati really want Jake Browning as a depth quarterback, or is it just a weekly brain pick to to be discarded later now this is always a funny thing in football that the team that you're facing releases a guy you pick him up and Mike Vrabel had the funniest line that I've ever heard on this Mike the Vikings picked up some dude and released him the next week who's a linebacker and Mike Vrabel was asked hey do you think they're picking this guy up to uh you know give him the game plan and vrabel said he doesn't know enough to know what we're doing anyway it was like the most just ruthless dunk on this player uh and i

think that uh jake browning does know the vikings offense and their playbook quite well but the thing is that he doesn't know the game plan. Is there anybody in the league who does not know what a Kubiak offense is basically going to do at this point? That a Kubiak offense is going to, I don't know, hand off a lot, play action. Like the whole training camp is putting in the base offense. But if you're the Cincinnati Bengals, you have no idea what parts of that offense are going to be run. So there are millions of combinations of different things that you could do. You don't know the motions. You don't know the play actions and which times you're going to hand off. Like I don't think that it does a thing. And if Cincinnati is doing that, then I think their coach is a cornball would be my opinion.

Like, what do you what are you real? Do you really jake browning is going to help you with this offense this has never actually worked you know nfl teams operate with you know tenths of percentage points thinking that you know these small margins are going to give them a competitive advantage like it's the reason why they're constantly you know butted up against deadlines for the injury report and sort of trying to withhold information and to answer the the question this is absolutely the Bengals attempt to glean information whether it's going to work or not I think there are certain things that can be like very mildly useful if Browning can say for instance yeah garrett

bradbury still you know struggling against against big defensive tackles okay that might be useful you know if we want to deploy some stunts his direction or or you know yada yada yada i think that if you want like sort of like high level personnel overviews. Yeah. That's going to be, be somewhat helpful, but I don't think this is a, you know, a shot in the dark from, from Cincinnati to try to claim like their, their next backup quarterback. They've got Joe Burrell. They don't care. This, this is the Bengals trying to get Intel and also, you know, probably swinging and missing in doing so. That's why I said it's corny. I mean, it seems like something that a team would do in 1972.

And the guy would be like, yeah, I stole my playbook or something. Like I made photocopies on the way out. Here it is. But you got to turn in your iPad if you're Jake Browning. And I don't think there was a game way back where somebody did this and they made a big deal out of it. And I think the other team was Peyton Manning. And then Indy ran the other team out of the building. It was like a Peyton Manning backup player.

And they supposedly gave whoever the whole offense. And then Manning just ran them out of the building. So maybe they'll even change. My guess is that because of this, they'll change, dare I say, tweak some calls at the line of scrimmage. Like we hear them say certain words all the time at the line of scrimmage. My guess is that they just change a couple of them. It's not that hard. It's only Tuesday. They have to do this every week of their entire careers. So yeah, that's my guess. Another question. I'll have new code words. Oh yes. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. That's a deep cut reference. Um,

another question here. Uh, what is the normal man's own combo splits on average for Zimmer? I think that changes every year. So in 2017, they would have been playing man all the time. I mean, it would have been Xavier Rhodes locks down the best receiver. They probably play man on the other side of the field with Trey Wayans, who could run with anyone, even if he wasn't a great corner. And he's out of this game. But in 2019, they went to more zone stuff with Rhodes struggling. And I think the same thing happened last year where they went to more zone.

So I saw some, I don't have access to those statistics like right off hand, but I saw Mike Clay put that out there that, Oh, they played more zone last year. So that's going to help Peterson, but I don't think they played more zone because they wanted to. I think they played more zone because they felt they had to, because they were getting roasted one-on-one with a lot of the rookie corners against NFL wide receivers. Wouldn't you say, I think that Zimmer wants to go back to the way he plays defense.

No, I think you're absolutely right. And I'm in process right now of trying to find the Adam Zimmer quote, where he basically laid out what they're expecting of the cornerbacks. And someone was trying to get him, I think, to say they were going to run more zone. And he more or less said, no, like he said that, no, our corners are, are, you know, in man. And I wish I could find the exact quote,

but I think it's going to be a lot of man at least at first um and they've got the the horses to do it they think like they've got corners that in the past or at some point have had success in man and they're going to get back to what they do you know mike zimmer started sacrificing so many yards even with xavier rhodes in 2019 remember it was weird seeing him play off he didn't seem totally comfortable with it with his his yardage depth he was giving up every slant everything underneath and even that 2019 team was bending so much they were right on the verge of disaster and then they would kind of bow up in the red zone and last year's team

just gave up so many explosive plays. They had so many young players. And that's why none of those corners are around this year. So I think getting back, going back in time a few years and trying to duplicate what they had in 16, 17, 18 is the objective. And if they have to play more off, more zone, it'll be begrudgingly on Zimmer's part.

So staying on the defensive side you and I each made sack predictions I guessed 12 sacks or more for Daniil Hunter and that is based on him looking like an absolute monster in training camp and preseason and Mike Zimmer a lot of the things where we try to prognosticate is often just based on how Zimmer reacts to stuff because he is not a poker player. Like you can read Mike Zimmer most of the time, even if he's trying to give a blow off answer, he seems really excited about the Neil Hunter. We saw him annihilate people out there in practice. So I'm going to go 12 over. You think that Everson Griffin finishes second on the team in sacks. So let's, let us try to predict what they end up with for sack distribution. I'm going to go with 12 for Daniil Hunter. How do you think it works out for the rest of the folks up front?

So I want to stick close to my overall sack prediction from a previous podcast, I put on record 34 as a team. I think you had 38. So if the total pie is 34 and, and that might be even be running a little low, but I'll stick with it. 34. If Hunter gets a dozen that leaves 22. So I'll give Griffin seven. I think Griffin gets seven. I think Wanham gets six. Weatherly gets two. I'm not really keen on Weatherly this year. And then, you know, divvy up like, what, five combined between Tomlinson and Pierce. Do you think that either of them are going to have a spectacular total? I do not. I don't think, I just don't think that's how either of them operate. I don't think that's how the team operates. I think they're,

they're strictly here for run stopping. I might be running out of sacks. I don't know how many I have left, but Sheldon Richardson will get involved probably on third downs. I think that third down unit is going to be great. I've seen what they can produce with, you know, situational pass rushers,

a Fadio Dennebo getting seven. Daniel Hunter thrived in that role when he was young. Brian Robinson was pretty good in that when he was old. So those are always advantageous situations. With whatever I have left, give it to Harrison Smith, give some to Eric Hendricks. And there, you've got your 34. I don't know if that added up. Anthony Barr has always gotten pressures, but not a lot of sacks. I'll give Mackenzie Alexander maybe three. They love to blitz Mackenzie Alexander off the edge.

But if I'm giving out of my 38, Daniil Hunter 12, then I would probably give Everson Griffin maybe six and Sheldon Richardson maybe six to make up another 12. And beyond that, I think it's very hard to say DJ one. I'm trying to figure out how many sacks he's going to get. I'm not sure if he could play in the league or if he's really good. I, I don't really know. I

haven't seen anything in training camp that made me say, Whoa, he is just blowing people away out there. This guy's going to be double digit sacks, But at the same time, there's going to be a lot of attention on Daniel Hunter this year. Everybody knows he's back. Everybody knows probably from reports that he's looked good in training camp. So I would expect that a lot of the, and we saw this for years with Daniel Hunter getting sacks because of Everson Griffin, where they shift protections to try and add more to Daniil Hunter. And that gives one-on-one opportunities or even opportunities with tight ends. I mean, how many times did I tweet, why is a football team trying to block Daniil Hunter with a tight end? Cause it never worked. Well, that's going to be DJ Wanham this year. And I think it's possible

that we could see him get a handful of sacks because of that. But in terms of the things that are hardest to predict that we've kind of been going over here as we're attempting to make our predictions, what DJ Wanham is going to bring to the table is one of the harder ones here. Yeah, no question. And also, is he going to be in sack situations on third down? Because that's where the Vikings have always cleaned up. They have never been a great first down, second down sack team, even at their best. If you look at the splits, they feast on third and long. They didn't have like any of those last year.

And that's why they had, I think, a franchise low with 23 sacks. So when it comes to third down, where they're probably going to get two thirds of their, of their sack total is one, I'm even going to be on the edge because I think that's Everson's spot. I think Richardson will have a spot on third down potentially is want to play on the inside. Maybe is he on the field at all is weatherly on the, like where's weatherly and all this. So the question to me is not, you know, can DJ Wanham do it? That's part of it.

But is he going to be on the field in those situations? I think it's possible, but I don't know. I don't know if he's going to be on the edge on third and 10. Let's, before we wrap up here, talk a little bit more about Vikings Cincinnati. It's a hard matchup to get super jacked for, even though it's football and it's week one. I would love to know the number of times this week, just on the show that I've just said football, because Hey, it's back. It's week one. But as you go through and look at matchups and things that intrigue you, what is at the top of the list probably jamar chase against whatever his

assignment is going to be i'm assuming it's um freeland you know like because we've we've seen these rookie wide receiver classes the last two years come in and dominate and chase might be the guy this year i mean he could be sort of that next big thing and as we've seen it doesn't take long to realize that these guys are going to be really good so how's that going to work out um especially when you you know you don't really know what you're facing when you're the vikings that's the that's the issue with going up against rookies is that it's an unknown so i don't think the think the Vikings know how much attention they're supposed to pay to him. Um, I don't think they know like how good Joe Burrow is going to be at getting the ball to him. Right. Um, T Higgins was also pretty good, you know, in his first year, but, um, will chase

be sort of their number one target i think that's possible too so i i want to see what their receivers are gonna do against these veteran vikings corners they're very young receivers i mean it should be advantage vikings in in that regard but unknowns first round picks you just don't know what's going to come of it and with burrow coming off injury i think his effectiveness and accuracy is also in question so i'm watching and that's an easy one but i'm watching the receivers against the cornerbacks is it weird that my matchup is sort of the vikings offense against itself i mean the vibe feeling, the conduciveness of the Vikings offense in this game is the most interesting thing to me of all storylines. Outside of how does Joe Burrow look?

Because it's a guy who's the number one draft pick in the NFL two years ago. What does this guy look like coming back from his injury after showing signs of being a very good quarterback as a rookie? It showed signs. He didn't annihilate the league. after showing signs of being a very good quarterback as a rookie, right? It showed signs. He didn't, like, annihilate the league. But that's, of course, very interesting just from a broader perspective in the NFL, because if he looks great, then a lot of people are going to jump on the, whoa, Joe Burrow, let's watch out for him in year two here. But in terms of trying to take something from this game outside of a winner loss

that tells us about the rest of the season, week one sometimes does. Last year it did. It showed us that the Vikings can put up some points, but they certainly can't stop anybody who's good on offense. And that was how it played out the whole year. And, you know, I think two years ago, three years ago with 2018, we saw the offense can be good, but also can really hit the skid sometimes against San Francisco, just right off the very bat in week one, 2019 week one, we saw they can run over anybody who doesn't have a good defense. So what's this going to tell us? Is it going to tell us, Hey, all that stuff from preseason and training camp, it's all in the past and they look great. And you just got to throw the ball to Justin Jefferson and off they go. Or is it going to say, you know, on third downs, he was

probably going to look at Irv Smith and Irv Smith isn't there now. And so these teams are, we're going to learn how they cover even how they cover Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. We're going to learn who's out there taking the snaps when they get into three wide receiver situations do we see amir smith-marset do we see kj osborne so um in a lot of ways i think that this team in cincinnati cannot really put up a fight defensively against the vikings offense in terms of talent but if they slow them down and look really good i think we're going to say something's still up here yeah week one is when we learn the truth. They can only conceal so much in training camp and preseason, but you know, cards are on the

table now. So we're going to find out what kind of play caller Clint Kubiak really is over a four quarter stretch. We're going to find out if this offensive line can pass protect. But I mean, I think the worst thing that could happen is if the defense gets carved up, because that's the group that was invested in. That's the group that's supposed to get this team back to the playoffs. They the front office looked at the offense and said, you're good. Excuse me. They didn't invest in the offense. They invested in the defense. So if a Cincinnati team were to carve them up, then there's going to be immediate panic. Now reason that they should outdo all this Vikings defense so I think that would be a huge concern um you know and if the Vikings can't get the ball to their major weapons Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen if the Bengals really put an effort

forward to shut them down and Minnesota has no recourse. It's 2018 all over again. John adds plenty of teams start slow and finish strong. Look at Tampa last year. Tampa had Tom Brady as their quarterback. I think that all rules do not apply when considering somebody like that. You know, I think that really week one doesn't determine your whole season. What I'm saying is that you learn something right away about the team. I'm not saying that you see week one and decide who's winning the Superbowl. It's just that we've gotten a vibe from the first week of the season every year that Kirk Cousins has been here. And even every year, I mean, 2017 is a great example.

We saw them come out and steamroll the New Orleans Saints. We saw the potential of that team offensively and defensively right off the bat against the new Orleans saints. 2016. I think we saw right off the bat that their offensive line was bad and Adrian Peterson couldn't run the ball in that. Blair Walsh was a problem. Blair Walsh was a problem.

Yeah. You can learn a lot. I'm not saying the season's over after week one. So before we wrap up prediction um yeah i i gotta i mean if i'm gonna plant my flag at 11 and 6 we gotta have this win right so i'm gonna go vikings 20 and i only do weird scores for the bring me the news audience. I only do score agamis or obscure numbers. 25, 22,

25, it's a, it's a push against the spread. I think the Vikings are going to blow out the Cincinnati Bengals. I think it will be, I'm going to go 27, 13. I'm going to say it's two score game. I just don't think that Joe Burrow coming back from this injury is going to go 27-13.

I'm going to say it's a two-score game. I just don't think that Joe Burrow coming back from this injury is going to be ready to face Mike Zimmer in his defense. So I appreciate everybody who's jumped on board. If you commented, if you watched on our Bring Me the News stream, or if you're listening on our podcasts, if you're here, check out all of our podcasts, Purple Insider. I just had a good conversation with Scott Studwell, Vikings legend today. That's up on the podcast feed. So lots going on there in our written work from TCO Performance Center at purpleinsider.substack.com.

So we're both out there all the time. So make sure you check that out as well. Purpleinsider.substack.com. Thank you, Sam. And thank you to bring me to the news for hosting us. And we'll catch you next Tuesday. We're going to be doing this every Tuesday from now on.