Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to the Rick Dennison vaccination news

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

Matthew Coller gives a rundown on offensive line coach Rick Dennison's situation regarding his vaccination status and role with the team this year and why it could be problematic for the Vikings (and why it might be OK if he isn't there) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to a semi-emergency episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And the reason that I am solo here for a brief episode is that I didn't expect to be doing a podcast today. I expected the next podcast for you guys to hear to be Monday when I have a conversation with Adam Thielen coming your way. So look forward to that because that's a much more interesting subject than this.

But as the Vikings often do, we had surprising breaking news relating to the team right before the beginning of training camp. So let's get right into it. On Friday morning, about mid-morning early afternoon courtney cronin our friend from espn reported that offensive line coach rick dennison is out as the vikings offensive line coach and that they will be handing the duties over to their assistant offensive line coach phil rousher because rick dennison is not vaccinated and when the story first out, I think we all had the same exact reaction is, wow, they fired their offensive line coach because he has not been vaccinated. So the Vikings come out with a statement a little later and their statement says that they have not made a decision yet there, that they are still working with Rick Denison on whatever is going

to happen here. So there are routes that we can go that we could see Rick Denison get vaccinated and stay on as a coach. We could see him walk away from this, or we could see him work in a different capacity for the Minnesota Vikings. Those seem to be the three options. So let's just go through some of the things here and what it means. I'll start with why Rick Denison might have to walk away for not being vaccinated. It's really because the NFL created a pseudo vaccination mandate for coaches. And the way that they did this was by creating that tier system that you probably heard about tier one, tier two, whatever. Last year, there were certain people who were tier ones that got whatever type of access and so forth. And then tier twos had to stay away from

the players. You kind of get it. So the NFL this summer sent a memo out saying, if you want to remain tier one for coaches, you have to get vaccinated. And if you're not tier one, then you are not allowed near the players, basically, that you can't be coaching them even out on the field face to face. And you cannot be in meetings with players face to face, which essentially removes all the things that coaches can do. Aside from you could do game planning, you could do Zoom meetings, but not being able to coach players up close as an offensive line coach, there's no way to make that work. And it gives the coaches no choice but to either step away from the team, take something in a different capacity or be let go because you just can't do it. So the NFL, in its efforts to get coaches vaccinated, clearly made this extremely strong. And when Mike Zimmer said that it was going to be very difficult for anyone who didn't get vaccinated. He was not joking.

And I think you see it right here, the impact of the restrictions that the NFL is putting on as much as they possibly can. Now, what came up in my mentions on Twitter on multiple occasions was, why aren't they doing this to players then if they can do it to a coach? And the answer to that is the players have a players association and the players and the NFL have to work together on things like this. So the NFL players association does not want a mandate or pseudo mandate to the players that would force them to get vaccinated. Now they are the NFL making things a lot more difficult on players that would force them to get vaccinated. Now they are the NFL making things a lot more difficult on players that are not vaccinated. They have to wear masks. They can't

be in the same meetings. They can't go out on the road. They've got to stay in their rooms. And that's another part of what Mike Zimmer was saying. And I think that was really specifically who he was referring to is the players and just how much more challenging it was going to be because of the NFL rules. But the NFL is trying its best to say, we want you to get vaccinated without saying you have to get vaccinated because the NFL Players Association will push back and you're seeing a lot of players debate this on twitter of not wanting to get vaccinations but also being upset at all the rules that the nfl is putting in which include the fact that if you have an outbreak and they have to cancel a game you forfeit you get an l and that is going to matter for a playoff position, which once again, you could see why Mike Zimmer and a lot of the NFL owners have been pretty open about why they want people in the staff and in the locker room to get vaccinated. Now, let's talk about the impact if Rick Dennison does not get vaccinated and does not stick around as the offensive line coach. Ultimately, I don't know when we're going to have an answer to this question, but if he's not vaccinated right now, that means at least training camp begins with Phil Rauscher as the offensive line coach.

That's what I do know. Impact number one is that Rick Denison is the run game coordinator. That means the Vikings have to scramble to have somebody else operating the run game. I don't know exactly all the duties of a run game coordinator. I do know that Rick Dennison has been a part throughout his career of many a great running game. And over the last two years, since he's been the run game coordinator, the Vikings are one of the best running teams in the league. I also know that Phil Rauscher was an assistant for the last two years. He was also an assistant in Denver in 2015 and 2016, which means he has a pretty good sense for how all of this works for the techniques that they're going to teach or that they're going to continue to teach that

they started in OTAs and in minicamp and the basics of what they're supposed to do on the offensive line. Kennedy Palomalo has been the running backs coach for Delvin Cook's entire career here. He is very familiar with the system. I don't think that it just collapses the Vikings running game. If Rick Dennison isn't there it does make it maybe a little more difficult and they'll have to fill in those gaps on the offensive line I saw a lot of people saying it's not like they've been good anyway and I sort of cracked that to somebody myself of like well look uh you know this has not been a good offensive line these last few years under Rick Dennison. It wasn't under almost anyone except for one year with Tony Sperano in 2017 where they were good.

But Phil Rauscher's got a lot on his hands here. If Rick Dennison cannot come back at any point, namely with Christian Dersaw and with Wyatt Davis. You're talking about two rookies who already were facing an uphill battle. And now they are facing that battle with a guy who has never been an offensive line coach before. And it feels inappropriate to bring up 2018 because the circumstances were so different with Tony Sperano passing away. But there's the similarity is the fact that they're going into training camp with a different person running the offensive line than who they had before. Now, the difference there is that Phil Rauscher has been working with these guys. They know him. He's been working hand in hand with Rick Dennison for the last two years. When it happened in 2018, they switched a tight end

coach over to offensive line and Clancy Barone had to scramble. But I think anybody who has sort of been around will tell you that offensive line coaches are really a big part of what happens here. Not just the run game coordinator, but also a liaison to the offensive coordinator. The fact that Rick Denison was bringing a ton of experience from where he had been before in his career, especially working with the Kubiak system. He had been with this for a very long time and Clint Kubiak is taking over as a first-time offensive coordinator and right away as a first-time offensive coordinator, potentially he's losing his offensive line coach before they even begin the season.

That is a bit of a tectonic shift for an offensive line group, for an offensive coordinator, for a head coach, to be able to deal with something that they were not expecting from the beginning of camp. In that way, it's similar to 2018 2018 that we're already shaken from the start. Now, a couple of things to add on to this, branching off of that. Number one was I saw that Alexander Madison tweeted, I'll read it for you. He said, shaking my head, SMH,

they act as if we didn't successfully play a whole season last year. Don't make no sense. I'm rocking with you a hundred percent coach. That's Alexander Madison and his tweet. It's different than last year though, because last year coaches who wore masks and got tested daily could be close to the players and teach them and be out there on the field and everything else that has changed. And you can debate the validity of it changing. And I was texting with a player today that said, former player, I should say that said, I don't know how the NFL can do this and just mandate this or say, you don't have a job anymore. And I mean, from a legal perspective, they can. And the fact that there is no representation for coaches in terms of a players association

or union kind of thing means they can. But there's going to be division here. There's going to be players and coaches and people in front offices that feel very differently about how this is played out and about the vaccination. And I've already seen in Buffalo, Jerry Hughes, and I think his name is John Feliciano, the offensive lineman have been arguing on Twitter about the validity of pushing players to get vaccinations. And that's been a big thing. Now, where we stand right now is the majority of the entire NFL is vaccinated. And I know I'm sure this is just driving you guys crazy

to hear about, but it's a thing that happened. And so I'm trying to pick it apart as much as possible. So you're having players debate the vaccination, but the majority of the NFL right now is vaccinated. And we may get to a point where there are so many players who are because they're concerned about their status with teams that it just doesn't become a thing this year. And with fans back in the stands and fans at training camp, I mean, nobody hopes more than me that this is not a thing this year, but until that happens, it is going to continue to be a conversation. And these, this head-butting that is going on between players and how they feel about it, certain players,

players who believe, including Patrick Peterson, that everyone should get vaccinated. There are fans who think that everyone should vaccinated. There are fans who think that everyone should be. There are fans who think that everyone should make their own decision. And I'm not here to tell you who's right about that. I'm only here to tell you this is going to continue to be a thing, and you're going to hate it, and I'm going to hate it. But for now, we don't know if Rick Dennison will continue as the offensive line coach. And the fact that the Vikings also brought in another assistant makes a difference here as well.

So that's where we're at with the Rick Dennison situation. And it's just we're going to have to keep an eye on it and figure out where this is going. And I would assume at some point the team makes an announcement or Mike Zimmer will make a statement saying, this is what Rick Denison decided, or this is what we've decided surrounding him. But to start camp, you get immediately kind of hit right off the bat in a season where the Vikings can't really afford to take too many hits. And if you want to blame Rick Dennison, if you want to blame the NFL, I don't know where to stand on all that. I mean, this is much more difficult for me to talk about than who they should get at left guard, right? It's just a very difficult subject to try and pick apart because it's complicated. And there's a lot of very tense feelings about this right now.

And so all I can say to you is Rick Dennison is not the offensive line coach as of right now. Two weeks from now, he might be. If he gets vaccinated, I'm sure we'll get some sort of information on this and we'll see where it goes. But the fact that they brought in another assistant says to me that they are moving forward. That would be my general prediction on this, is that maybe Denison takes another role as an advisor to Clint Kubiak, but it's hard to see if he hasn't done it by now, especially since the NFL sent out that memo in the middle of the summer.

That's another point of it too. And how long have they known about this and how far ahead of this were they? Did they know early in the summer that Denison was not going to get vaccinated or did this just kind of happen? There's still a lot of questions to be answered here. So I wish I could provide you with some very clear opinion and prediction when it comes to this situation. But all I can say is the guy that they're turning things over to is

experience with these players. It's not going to be a rando that they bring in at the last second, still the uphill battle they're facing with their schedule this year on the offensive line. It's not what you wanted is the way that I was. It's not the end of the season. It's not, you know,

our pets or heads are falling off or whatever it is from dumb and dumber, but it's not, not a thing that you wanted early drama in training camp. Before it even started yet real quick, before we wrap up, DD Westbrook is in town. By the time you listen to this, he might've either left or been signed, but all I'll say about that is there will be another podcast. I just want to recognize that that's happening and that if they sign D.D. Westbrook, then we will bring an end to the wide receiver three conversation for now.

It has been a long road of wide receiver three discussions, but I'll just say for now, very much for the signing of D.D.d westbrook there is some concerning things in his past and signing him may come across a little bit tone deaf from the vikings because of the jeff gladney situation and i would totally understand if anyone felt that way like why would you bring in someone with domestic violence in his past at the same time he has not had any issues since being in the n. And that's where they stand right. That's where things stand right now is that that has not been a problem since an incident in college for D.D. Westbrook. But a good wide receiver who in back-to-back years

caught 66 passes and is more effective on deep balls than I think the Jaguars allowed him to be. He's got pretty good grades from PFF on deep passing. And I wonder if he had someone a little more accurate throwing him the football, if he could maximize that more, but that's another emergency podcast that may be coming tomorrow that we'll talk about it more if DD Westbrook indeed signs with the Vikings. So that's it for now. I'm sorry to everyone that this is a storyline. I know nobody likes it. I know nobody wants it. You got to follow it.

It is what it is. Catch you later, folks.