Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to the Vikings signing Dalvin Tomlinson

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

At the final hour of the first day of NFL free agency, the Minnesota Vikings made a signing, picking up New York Giants nose tackle Dalvin Tomlinson. Why did they sign a run stuffer when they already have Michael Pierce? What else should they be thinking about repairing the defense? Where does the offensive line fit into the equation? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. All right, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, recorded on Monday evening. Matthew Collar here with you. This episode is always brought to you by Symbol, your stock market for sports, and our friends at Scout Logistics. And Sam Ekstrom and I recorded a very long podcast answering everyone's questions, which is still relevant and you should still listen to it. But there was a little bit of a rant, and I might even call it a big rant, about how people were not signing with the Vikings.

And of course, the minute I pushed the publish button, the Vikings sign a player. I knew it. I knew it. We tried to wait as long as we could, and yet they still did. They signed Delvin Tomlinson of the New York Giants to a two-year, $22 million deal. And, luckily, another night owl in this world, my friend Dr. Eric Eager from Pro Football Focus, the PFF forecast, is here and awake to help us break that down. So what is up, Eric? Dude, this is probably the second time I invited myself onto your show.

I remember, like, was it when they beat Dallas that Sunday night, one game where that was actually a fun game to watch. It was, like, probably the last time the Vikings were good. So, yeah, I mean, things are great. This has been an interesting day, right? We've seen a lot of things materialize that we didn't think would. The edge market, people were buyers in the edge market, but they weren't paid a lot. Shaq Barrett, no guy made over $20 million APY on any of these deals today,

which was interesting. Despite that, the Vikings were still not really players at all until just about an hour ago. And you could even argue with the deals they made, they're not really players. You know, they went ahead and got the average between Michael Pierce and Shemar Steffen. So good for them. Well, so this was a thing that we just didn't see coming, though. And also, naturally, Trey Hendrickson signs with Cincinnati the minute that I publish the podcast, like to the second. I waited until Carl Lawson signed, and I thought I was good,

free sailing till at least tomorrow. But here we are, and Delvin Tomlinson's name pops up. And I think, is this a mistake? Did someone put the wrong logo next to his? Because his agency tweeted out. I was just like, wait, did you put, what? Because Delvin Tomlinson is a nose tackle who has traditionally, over his four-year career, been an excellent run stuffer. You won't find too many better run stuffers in the NFL than Delvin Tomlinson, but he is not known as a pass rusher.

He doesn't have a whole lot of sacks, and he had 28 pressures in 334 pass rush snaps last year, which is okay, but it's not one of the players that we saw coming because they have Michael Pierce's the nose tackle and Shamar Stefan in a run stuffing early down role. The spot that we had looked at is like a three technique, pure pass rusher. Maybe they draft Christian Barmore, which I guess is still possible,

but seems really unlikely now. Or maybe they pick up somebody who can get after the passer in a more situational role and they do the thing like they did with Shamar Stephan and Tom Johnson so I know that I'm the one that's supposed to make sense of these things but I'm still trying to exactly figure it out so you make sense of it well I think most NFL teams and the Vikings are no different. I think gravitate towards the thing that hurt them the most. And, you know, you and I will say, well, the secondary hurt them the most. And at the same time, they got better as the season progressed. So if you have an honest view, but maybe an optimistically honest view of the future, you could say to yourself,

okay, the Vikings are going to get better at cornerback. They got a bunch of young guys there. They can ascend. What really hurt them, I think, in the last, you know, second to last game of the year was obviously getting railroaded against the run. And the research, like I published an article this year that basically said, look, if you have a run-stuffing defensive tackle, not all is lost. That player allows you to play fewer men in the box.

It allows you to cover the pass better, even if that player is not necessarily a great pass rusher. And Delvin Tomlinson is not a great pass rusher. He's never had a pressure rate above 10%. He had a win rate over 10% last year, which is good, meaning that he's getting pushed more than people, you know, this pressure rate would give rise to.

So that's a good thing. But he's not a plus player as a pass rusher. And the problem is you're allowed, in my opinion, one of those guys. You're allowed to have a player who holds a point of attack, Pat Williams, you know, Jerry Ball, a former Viking, like those kind of guys. You're allowed one. And then your other three guys have to be able to rush the passer. And unfortunately, it looks like the Vikings are going to have at least two

sort of subpar pass rushers on the field at a time next season. And not to mention the fact that their defensive ends, Ifadi Adenabo, Stephen Weatherly for now, we don't know about Danell Hunter. Like those guys are okay NFL pass rushers at their best day. So to me, you're gearing up to stop the run, and you're not going to get enough heat to take some pressure off of that secondary, which is really in a rough situation. Probably losing Anthony Harris, although the safety market got weaker today,

I think, but also seeing Harrison Smith get a little bit older. So when I pull up the pass rushing productivity for Delvin Tomlinson for last year, players who were regulars, he's not too bad. I mean, 25th in the league is solid compared to, and this will be no surprise to anybody who watched last season, 52nd and 53rd, dead last, is Shamar Stephan and Jaleel Johnson. So you are certainly upgrading in that perspective. And I do think from a schematic standpoint that Mike Zimmer is not a crazy person when he says if on first downs I am putting Ted Washington and Pat Williams,

which was the case in the late 90s for the Buffalo Bills, in the middle of a defensive line, and then I am having every team have to rush to the outside, and I have these great linebackers who can chase people down, and they're trying to develop better tackling corners. But the linebackers are a huge part of this. If you filter everybody to the outsides and then they know where they're going, Eric Hendricks is as good as anybody in the NFL, and I think Anthony Barr is good at it too,

at chasing those guys down and making plays. And you're not going to be able to run up the middle because you have 658 pounds, probably more, in the middle. So this has worked before. I think, did Ted Washington play with Keith Traylor at one point? It's not nuts. And I also think that they're going for the two deep safety thing that the league is going to be using two deep safeties way more than ever has in this

upcoming season because how it worked for Brandon Staley and it's worked for Mike Zimmer in the past. However, I don't care if you have seven safeties, if your quarterback sits back there and sits back there and sits back there, even Mike Glennon made some plays against the Vikings when they had no pass rush. Well, we don't even have to look that far back in Vikings history, right? I mean, when you look at, you know, 2006, 2007, 2008,

the Vikings basically set records. I mean, I think in 2006 they barely allowed over 1,000 yards rushing, and 2007 were very similar. And the problem was, so they had both Williams on the inside, both Pro Bowl players, both great football players, bring-of-honor type players for the Vikings. But when your edge guys are Konechi Udeza, Erasmus James, Darian Scott, and guys that can't rush the passer, you know, their secondaries weren't bad.

Antoine Winfield is a great football player, Darren Sharper, Dwight Smith was, you know, two touchdowns in the Super Bowl. They had good football players. But, like, back then, you needed to – players dropped back further, and you needed a pass rush. So what did they do? They sent two first-round picks and a third for Jared Allen, or a first round and two thirds for Jared Allen. They give them that huge deal, and it changes the complexion of their defense.

Right now, the Minnesota Vikings, they're probably making a bet that Hunter's going to stay. But there's a ton of uncertainty there. One, Hunter's health. Like, a neck injury is no joke. You know, whether or not – there's also an issue where we have not seen Danell Hunter have elite production as the team's only defensive end. We haven't seen that very often.

And while I think he's a great football player, that's an unanswered question. And then thirdly, is he going to be happy playing? You're at 17 million APY. That's a really poignant question. If they have to get rid of him, they're going to have to draft an edge. And think about how absurd this was. In 2008, when they signed Jared Allen, their other option, if they didn't get Allen, was to trade that first-rounder and the two-thirds to move up to eight and get Derek Harvey out of Florida instead.

Well, if that's the Vikings, and Derek Harvey was a bust, right? If the Vikings' option now is to go after, like, Gregory Rousseau or somebody else in the draft, Qu now is to go after, like, Gregory Rousseau or, you know, somebody else in the draft, Quiddy Paye, somebody like that to overcome Hunter, a loss of Hunter should they lose him, that's a very speculative move

and that's going to leave the signing that the two signings they just had, Pierce as well as Tomlinson, that's going to leave them less valuable as a result. It would be like signing Kenny Galladay, but having Drew Locke be your quarterback. Like that sign, that other signing is just not going to matter that much because he's supplemented with players who stink.

And that's really where the Vikings run into it here. And they saw all these edge players come off the board today. And it had to be a little bit disheartening. Yeah, there's a lot there that you just said. So let me start with the Tomlinson part of it and just how much value he can bring versus what he's going to get paid. I mean, I think for Delvin Tomlinson, it's a great deal because if they use him as a three technique, then maybe he can sustain okay pass rush numbers like he had last year.

Although he was playing next to Leonard Williams, who is amazing at pass rushing. I think Leonard Williams, let me pull this up. I had this just now. He was one of the top in the entire NFL. Yeah, fifth in the entire NFL in pass rush productivity. He was right behind your Aaron Donald, Chris Jones, and Cameron Hayward. He was right in that same ballpark and DeForest Buckner.

So that's the guy he was playing next to. If you go from that to now playing next to Michael Pierce, who's not a pass rusher, and then I don't know if he's in situational stuff. He's never played 700 snaps before. I like him as a player, and he grades well by the PFF system overall, but having not played 700 snaps before, and now his average annual value is going to be $11 million. When Sam Ekstrom and I were talking on our last podcast, that you can still listen to, and I think is still good and relevant, one of the things we talked about was sort of the worst case scenario was

doing something sort of like this. Now, I don't think that this is flushing all of their cap space into one player. That's what I said was if you give Trey Hendrickson all your money, 17, 18, 19, 20 million, then you're making a big mistake. But if you're giving like half of it to a run stuffer, who I think is quite good I wonder if was this the right guy to give that much money to or were there other more you know value pickups that could do basically the same thing as that Delvin Tomlinson will do for them yeah I mean other than Ronald Darby has there been a corner of starting caliber signed yet like you could I mean you wait that out and get you know corner of starting caliber signed yet? Like you could, I mean, you could wait that out and get, you know,

a player of that caliber. You know, William Jackson we talked about the other day. But there's also, you know, Desmond King. There are players who can play, you know, they still need a second safety. And, you know, getting yourself a veteran player there who can sort of mix and match and maybe play in the slot and play deep like Desmond King could. Like there's a number of things there. The hard part is you have 20 million now APY going to a nose tackle and a nose tackle playing three technique.

That's a big time projection. This is different. Somebody said that, oh, this is another one of Zimmer signing a Giants nose tackle, you know, Linville Joseph, and that really worked. Well, the problem with that one is Linville Joseph was, A, a better pass rusher than Dalvin Tomlinson is, and, B, the only one of these run-first defensive linemen that the Vikings had on the field all the time.

2016, the year where Sheree Floyd got hurt, and they started Shamar Steffen and played him half the time, they weren't as good of a defense. You know, they were a better defense in 2017 when they played Tom Johnson most of the time. And he was the sort of like, you know, the guy who played the three technique and you, Linville would make up for him in the run game. And that was a good defense.

And my issue is, is like, where is that push on the interior coming from? It's going to be more of a traditional, like two fatties on the first two downs of the series, and then bring in like a former edge to play on the interior. And I just, I just don't know if that predictability is worthwhile for an NFL defense. Now on to the point that you were making about Daniil Hunter. This one has been very tricky to figure out where it might go, what direction do they keep him?

Does he try to force his way out? Does it get ugly? Does it go on forever? I think that they need to figure out a solution like today in what they're going to do. Because trading Daniil Hunter does not create a gazillion dollars in cap space, but it does create some dollars in cap space. And there are still edge rushers on the market that can be picked up for a more reasonable price. This, I don't think, is a one-player Delvin Tomlinson solution.

I think it's a multiple-player solution. And Steven Weatherly, we like him. He is a nice little rotational player, but he had zero sacks in nine games last year as a starter. So this is not somebody that you would say is a big signing for them or is a difference maker or should change anything. I think that they need to figure it out. Like you either have to pay them and just say, hey, look, we need you and we love you and you got to stay with us for the rest of time because you're 26 still. I was joking with my friend Chris Trapasso from CBS about how, like,

Daniil Hunter is demanding a new contract on the same day he got his learner's permit, which is nice, you know. Like he can finally vote and he is demanding a new contract on the same day he got his learner's permit which is nice you know like he can finally vote and he's demanding a new contract but he's only run a car yeah right you finally run a car that's the one you can uh he doesn't maybe have a need to buy cigarettes but anyway so um we're talking about someone who can still be a part of the long-term plan and be a ring of honor type of player who's there for a very long time but it takes caving right now if you're the Vikings and I can see why they would not want to do that and why they would want to dry draw a line in the sand but if

you're going to do that then you need to trade him now so you have the cap space to spend and the draft picks for this year's draft as opposed to waiting. I think that they did a great job trading Stefan Diggs at the right time. If you wait until when Khalil Mack gets traded, you've got to wait for those draft picks to be drafted, developed, like two years down the road. So figure it out right now. It seems to me that by throwing a tweet out there, his agent throws a tweet out there today. It's like this thing seems contentious. I think they should start making phone calls to see what people would offer for him.

Yeah, do you think – what's your opinion? Do you think the Diggs trade makes them more or less likely to move on from Hunter? Because I can see it either way. Diggs was tremendous last year, led the league in receiving. So in that way, it blew up in their face. But obviously Jefferson was an amazing player. I see that Jefferson picked more as luck. If the Eagles just pick the right player, they don't get him. But at the same time, like the Vikings might see it as a success, right?

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But also, I mean, the one thing that Delvin Tomlinson signing signals is kind of what we thought all along, which is you guys really want to be good in 2021. And this was the scenario that we laid out on the friday round table and that sam and i talked about a little bit as well is if you take a long approach to this a several year approach and view this as another step in the right direction off season that's what you want to do is make steps in the right direction then you don't put 10 million dollars into a second nose tackle, as good as I think he is. And you also trade Daniil Hunter, and you might even trade Harrison Smith too. You have to revamp this whole thing. And anybody who

either wants too much money or is too old, if you were just doing this with no repercussions whatsoever on your job status, as we talked about on Friday. I think that you're saying to Daniel Hunter, thanks for the memories, but we're going to draft somebody else. And you are absolutely right that drafting that guy is a total uncertainty. Someone like Gregory Rousseau, what, he didn't play last year? He is more of an athletic freak and not somebody who you're really sure is going to translate. So that's always problematic for you. But it's also problematic for you to have somebody who, A, wins this battle. I mean, that's a problem for you too because then these battles will come up again with other contracts.

But also a superstar player who is making so much money, and then when it comes around to pay other people and give other extensions and all these other things you've got to do, it squeezes you again. so much money and then when it comes around to pay other people and give other extensions and all these other things you got to do it squeezes you again and here and then here you are restructuring giving out you know big bonuses that you're changing for base salary is like every single year you're doing the same thing because you keep paying that guy and you keep letting that guy and i i'm using finger quotes here win like the you let Kyle Rudolph win you let Delvin Cook win you let Anthony Barr win and this is how you got in this spot to begin with so at some point you

have to say we're not going to do this anymore because it keeps getting us in trouble yeah and you're seeing that right now with like the Eagles right the Eagles are saying you know they didn't sign anybody today from what I can tell them I think they signed Brandon Graham to a one-year deal, which, again, is sort of kicking the can. And, you know, at some point you do have to pay up. And, you know, a couple of the teams that are noticeably absent today, by the way, you look at the Indianapolis Colts. They're a team that I don't think will ever get into these issues.

You know, Cleveland, the only signing they made, or they made a couple signings, but the one signing they made that was really good was the John Johnson one. You jump on, he only makes $11 million a year. I think he's, you know, a very good safety top, like 12 or so overall in war over the last, you know, few years. But, like, the smart teams, like, aside from whatever the Patriots, whatever they smoked today before free agency, but, like, you know, the smart teams are sort of laying back and saying, look,

we're going to let this thing come to us. And, you know, and I think that that eventually reached benefits, even if the fan base is not quite as happy, you know, the first day of free agency or the first day of tampering. We're not even like these deals. Like remember two years ago, Anthony Barr signed with the Jets. We thought they came back to Minnesota after the tampering period had ended. But the Vikings, I think, did show some restraint today,

but obviously the Dalvin Tomlinson move sort of blew up any notions of that. So now what is my question? I mean, you mentioned the cornerback market, and that's where I would say that the biggest criticism can be had for the Delvin Tomlinson move is Michael Pierce is not making that much money next year so you could justify it by saying hey overall at that position you've got Pierce making like five million Tomlinson however they structure it I'm sure it will be less for the first year it always is less so you can say okay well that's not going to destroy their cap.

Like I said, I mean, this is not the big one. It's not the huge, huge franchise-changing $20 million for an edge rusher type of play. So I think that they can still get into that cornerback market whether they want to. I think that they do. And I think that Mike Zimmer is criticized. One of the wrong criticisms of Mike Zimmer is that the guy loves his corners too much. It's like I'm not sure that that's possible.

That's like, I don't know, I love breathing too much. It seems pretty important. And when you can't, you know, I don't know, like that seems pretty vital to existing in the NFL as a good defense. And so if they are still looking at finding ways to sign someone like Shaquille Griffin or another reasonably priced cornerback, I think that has to be the next move because the wide receiver threes can be addressed in the draft or they can be addressed a little farther down the road there's usually a couple of receivers who are out there later on in free agency but the corners don't mess around there like you did last year and end up

with chris jones playing football in the nfl for you yeah right mean, and there's a lot of value out here. I'll tell you this. There's a former Jets corner by the name of Brian Poole, who has been very up and down in his career. But, you know, our guy Brad Spielberger, we have him at three years, about $18 million, you know, as a projected signing. Like, that guy would make a lot of sense. You know, the Vikings defense took off when they got Captain Mutterland playing in a lot of sense um you know the the vikings defense took off when they got captain mutterlin playing in that spot spot and you know it really fortified in 2017 when after mutterlin left they went they you know got mckenzie alexander playing starter caliber football so that's one where but there's a ton of value here quentin dunbar a guy who

you know was one of the i think he was like second in our quarterback race, was a trade guy to Seattle from Washington football team. He's available. Xavier Rhodes is available. Just to sort of give you the idea here, you know, there's a ton of players who are very, very worthwhile in getting. And I know Vikings fans are looking at Shaquille Griffin as a guy that they should sort of gravitate to. But I'm thinking, you know, get two guys that have experienced before.

And if your young corners all do well, you can cut one of them after training camp. But, like, you know, there's no reason they shouldn't kick the tires on Malcolm Butler. There's no reason they shouldn't kick the tires Brian Poole, Quentin Dunbar. You know, Ronald Darby and Jason Ferret went for relatively meaningless deals today. You know, so the Vikings have it out here, and they should, you know, use it because there's going to be football players that can help their team.

And, you know, they're not going to be, you know, big free agents signing, so probably disappoint the fans, but, you know, they'll be worthwhile. Look, Kansas City won a Super Bowl with the Shod Breeland starting at corner. And this was a point that I have tried to focus on a lot as we've led up to this is, look, day one might not be the exciting day, but a lot of times free agency is won on day 20. It's once that first wave goes and then a bunch of guys are looking around going, uh-oh, I wasn't part of that first wave, so now I'm the one that has to take the one-year $5 million deal to go play nickel corner for the Vikings or however they want to do it.

I mean, I think that Jeff Gladney's more of a nickel, but maybe they don't. And those nickel guys, they cost even less because the NFL has either not noticed or tried to pretend to not notice how important those guys are so they don't have to pay them as much. But they usually go for very reasonable prices with someone like Nickel Robey Coleman, who they sort of had some interest in at some point. And safeties are this way, too, that I've made the joke. But if you wait long enough, Trey Boston will come available at

the end of the free agency period and there's always somebody who's floating around that you can grab and that's the part that if you're not going to have Daniil Hunter because you trade him and you're not going to have someone in the draft who's ready to get 10 sacks like a Nick Bosa not with the 14th overall pick and not in this draft there's not that get 10 sacks like a Nick Bosa, not with the 14th overall pick, and not in this draft. There's not that defensive end who can step right in and be Chase Young. Well, you better cover then. You better stop the run, which they're making a pretty concerted effort to do, and then you're going to have to cover. Now, I wonder what you think about the Anthony Harris thing, because I don't know if he wants to return, but if he does, I would be okay with that. And if

he doesn't, I would be okay with that too, because there's just a lot of those guys who are out there. And once the John Johnson goes and those first couple of guys, then it's like, you're all available and you can all come here for fairly cheap. So Delvin, the way I just overall, like Delvin Tomlinson does not ruin the rest of the things that you do, but don't forget to do those too, would be the way that I look at it. Yeah. I mean, they can go out. I mean, the thing is, is again, this is why you have to make, this is why having a whole, like having a coherent approach to acquiring players matters, right? Because when you tag a player like Anthony Harris with the intention of trading him and then you don't trade him, like that smarts a little bit, right?

Not only for the player who, you know, Harris had a 91.1 grade in 2019. And in 2020, he was a 66. He looked not quite as good. And, you know, now he's nearing 30 years old. His war was cut in half in 2020. So he's not like his stock has fallen, but to you, you're not going to get away with signing him for less. Right. I mean, and Marcus Williams, Marcus may going for the franchise, take Justin Simmons as well. Like, you know, he sees what his peers are making.

You're not getting away with anything less than that. John Johnson went for Like, you know, he sees what his peers are making. You're not getting away with anything less than that. John Johnson went for over, you know, what the franchise take is. So if you want, you know, if you want him back, you're going to have to pay up. And I just don't see that happening given, you know, all the holes they have everywhere else. So you're looking at it like Malik Hooker. You're looking at Keanu Neal.

All these guys that Jaquiski Tard, who's a great name, but like all of those guys sort of have flaws, you know, that you're going to have to deal with at that second safety spot. And, you know, prior to Harris, that had always been a sore spot for the Vikings. What about the offensive line? I am very much pro Rashad Hill because if Rashad Hill doesn't win the job, you have the best swing tackle in the league or whatever. I don't know every single swing tackle, but really good for that position. Usually backup tackles are a horror show.

So the fact that yours can play, and if he has taken the steps that he's tried to take and that impressed the team, he might end up starting and give you a chance at quite a find at tackle for someone who's developed over a long period of time, which is very common with offensive linemen, that five years into their career after never playing, all of a sudden they're playing and they're decent. But what else is my question? Because the guard market now is that one goes fast. Yeah, that one goes fast. Yeah, that one goes fast.

Those guys are gone. So now what? Now what happens at offensive line? Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I actually went into our system and just looked at Rashad Hill's left tackle snaps. And he gives up a pressure on 5.9% of his left tackle snaps, which is very good. Riley Reif, the last two seasons, was about at 5.1. So you're looking at kind of the same ballpark,

but you're paying Rashad Hill a lot less. So there's some value there. Obviously, that would mean Cleveland would have to play one of the interior positions, and there's actually – you've covered the team, and you know, and your intuition on this was excellent. I mean, Rashad Hill's a terrible right tackle. He's a pretty good left tackle, right? Like he can get the job done there.

And there are some players for whom that's true. And that's good for the Vikings. If they know that and no one else does, then they have an edge over the league. That means that they're going to have to go out and get, you know, like, and there are guys available. I mean, you know, Rick Wagner was a guy, I remember years ago, you and I would talk about the Vikings signing him. It doesn't look like he's going to be all that expensive. Bobby Massey is the same thing, a former starter for the Bears. Kelvin Beacham, similarly. Mike

Remmers, who the Chiefs want to bring back, but he'll be cheaper if the Vikings want to bring him back. I don't know if he'll want to, but there's a ton of options there that are cheaper. You know, I hope that they go that direction because they've actually had more success signing these guys than they have drafting them because they've been just awful drafting, you know, especially interior alignment. Pat Elfline, for some reason, got three years, a three-year deal today from the Carolina Panthers. But there's a ton of guys that are available in free and senior interior as

well, like Jermaine Effetti, James Carpenter, guys like that who will, you know, come for relatively cheap that will bring some veteran-ness there. Even Kelechi Osemeli is a guy who looks like he's rebounding from an injury. So there's a ton of value to be had. And that's a place where I wish the Vikings would pay up instead of going into the draft because they just have not been able to evaluate the position very well for young players.

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Well, how many ever you want for free agent guards, take another one. Like, you know, take two. You're going to want to refill, so take two cups or whatever. Like, you know, get Carpenter and somebody else or Austin Blythe and somebody else that can compete with them because this has not been very good when they try to even pick off the bargain barrel. I mean, even Josh Klein, like he was okay, Josh Klein, but he didn't play well. He was just the best worst of the interior for that year.

And the same with Remmers where only if you're playing tackle, but I don't think that he would want to come back. And I'm sure Vikings fans would lose it if Mike Remmers, after getting smoked in another Super Bowl, was starting for them in the offensive line. But overall, he was moved out of position and played okay at right tackle. That's exactly the type of guy that they can still get. And that's why free agency, again, not over after paying Delvin Tomlinson,

but you have to be shrewd the rest of the way and paying tomlinson makes it so you have to be extremely shrewd the rest of the way and so all these options that we're laying out they're all good like here's some corners here's some guards here's maybe some pass rushers that are down the line a little but you can't do all of them and my wide receiver three thing is just never going to happen. It's just like never in the history of life. It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen.

I mean, and that's the thing. And, like, if you're a Vikings fan and you're worried about can they do X, Y, and Z, the answer is probably not because they're not willing to do the things smart folks like you and, you know, other people are sort of like, you know, the Vikings are trying to solve the first problem on the list, right? But the most important problem, like, it's sort of the difference between urgent and important. They're solving the urgent problems,

and they're oftentimes omitting the important ones. And important problems are your third corner, your third wide receiver, your backup quarterback in many ways. Like think about this for a second. The Vikings started a season one and five and really still know nothing about a young quarterback. You know, like those things are not urgent, but they're important. And, you know, and this team, I think, oftentimes struggles to solve a problem that's not right in front of their face.

No, that's been 100 percent them in the last several years has just been what is our one pressing need? And let's put everything we can into that and let's leave these other spots open. And this has just been my feeling is, you know, Adam Thielen goes down two years ago and Stefan Diggs absolutely takes over, but they still lose some games or don't perform as well in some games when he's out, especially, you know, the game against Kansas City where they get beat by Matt Moore. Adam Thielen goes out early and they can't really throw the ball very effectively early in that game after he goes out. And that sort of stuck with me that if you're playing a good team and Adam Thielen or

Justin Jefferson tweaks an ankle and you have to play Chad Beebe as your number three receiver like you said like it's not the number one you still have a good receiver it's not the number one thing on your list but it might be the difference between winning and losing and the same thing goes for not signing those veteran corners last year the difference between winning and losing. And the same thing goes for not signing those veteran corners last year. The difference between winning and losing is does Chris Jones tackle Tony Pollard? And, oh, my gosh, he didn't. He didn't even come close. He made sure that he was not even in the vicinity of tackling Tony Pollard.

So, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and it also shows, like, you know, you look at how Kansas City fell in the Super Bowl and how Green Bay fell to Tampa in the NFC title game. Tampa was a super team. They were first in the NFL in wins generated by the safety position per dollar, first in the NFL in wins generated by the cornerback position per dollar. Kansas City was second, by the way, very efficient there.

And Kansas City had Hill and Kelsey, two elite talents. And Tampa could pressure with four, and they got six in the back end. Six is more than enough to take on those two guys if your secondary targets can't beat man coverage. And Minnesota has a worse problem than Kansas City does because Thielen's nowhere near as good as whoever is second between Kelsey and Hill. And you saw that in the game and Tampa. And Tampa wasn't even at their best form at the time,

but you had those two receivers. Jefferson played a good game. Kirk made some throws. But ultimately when they needed it the most, we saw the pressure. But the pressure is coming from the fact that Tampa can allocate their coverage guys to the two receivers the Vikings have, and none of the secondary guys could step up and unfortunately you know when you look at Tampa's team who caught a touchdown against the Vikings the Scotty Miller right like their fourth and fifth option would be the third guy on the Vikings like and they're stockpiling they

they may have they may have failed a couple things that were important or sorry urgent but they solved all the important questions. Ultimately, that's how you win Super Bowls in the NFL. I think ultimately, that's where the Vikings have to get to. They need to solve everything important with at least a C or a C-plus player, as opposed to solving one urgent problem with a B-plus player, which is what they've done as we're speaking right now. Then we'll see where this goes, because that's the fun of free agency in

the off season as clearly my timing is not good because it's like this podcast I'm sure is recording. They've signed three more people. So anyway, let me ask you this one last question before we wrap up. Day one of free agency, who is, wait for it, the winner of day one of free agency, who is, wait for it, the winner of day one of free agency? Well, before I recorded this video, I was on a TV show in Las Vegas, and they just said, aside from the Patriots, who's the winner today?

I go, wait a sec, the Patriots were a winner today? It's not necessarily how many people you signed because, like, we saw, I don't know if you remember Tampa Bay, that one picture of like they cut Dale Revis because he didn't fit Lovie Smith's defense. And they signed Alteron Berner, Michael Johnson of the Bengals, and then I believe it was like Vincent Jackson and Josh McCown. And they had those guys. And like literally three of those players were gone by like the next year.

Like, you know, this is a banner hanging season, but I don't necessarily think we'd go about it, you know this is a banner hanging season but i i don't necessarily think uh we'd go about it you know evaluating it properly so the the team i think that won free agency today is uh is the cleveland browns of john johnson i thought that deal was amazing i think when you look at them they get grant delpit a second round pick from lsu back from injury they traded for ronnie harrison during the season when they were having trouble at the position. Now what looks like a weakness for them linebacker is now a strength because

Harrison can play that linebacker role in a three-safety defense that we're all looking at. And then Johnson's just a really undervalued player in the NFL. You pair him with Greedy Williams from LSU, Denzel Ward, former top five pick, the defense gets a lot better. And on the offensive side of the ball now, less of an excuse for them because they'll have a better defense backing them up. So I think the Browns won the day today because they made a signing. They held some restraint at the other edge position, right?

They're trying to replace Olivier Vernon there. But they did make one splash, and the splash was reasonable, and it was a very valuable one. The Browns doing the right thing is weird. I mean, it's just we've gone through for so long that they haven't, but even the longer view of how they've built up their roster and even waiting for the quarterback until they had something reasonable to give the quarterback, I think was a good plan as well. And this is where when you apply it to the Vikings, to some extent, you think at some point they may have the quarterback on the rookie contract. And where you want to be is the team that has an ascending roster matching up with here comes the

rookie quarterback and put them together and you can go to a Super Bowl but if you spend too much on trying to keep the stars keeping the band together and overpaying and overpaying and overpaying the older players then we get to the 2019 to 2020 situation where you don't have the cap space or even I mean, where we are today, where even two years removed from 2019 or two off in the second off season since they won a playoff game. And we're still saying cap problems, cap problems, cap problems. That's not where you want to be. If that is your eventual plan to move on from cousins and hand him a really good roster.

Well, and absolutely. And the thing that's cool about Cleveland, you know, great coach, great GM, quarterback who's ascending, but you know what? If he stinks next year, they can move on from him. They're not tied to him all that much. And, you know, what I really like about that team is, again, they're just making true decisions. Who did they sign to be?

So they had one glaring problem in 2019, was offensive line. They go ahead, they get Taylor – they get the guy from Tennessee, I can't remember his name. Then they draft Jedrick Wills. They get Callahan, Bill Callahan, second-best offensive line coach in the PFF area. I started talking about it.

They give themselves a chance all the time. And to your point, you made a very good point. When they were rebuilding, they didn't push the panic button and take a quarterback at any of those times. They kept going. They kept going to the point where, and again, they missed on Mahomes. They missed on Watson, right? But the year they got Baker year they got Baker they they got

Denzel Ward at four as well and the team that picked that right ahead of Denzel Ward was the Jets and they had to trade four players just to get Darnold to put him into a roster that was awful and I fear that that's the case that might be the case for Minnesota where you have a good enough roster where you're picking sixth or seventh, right, like the Jets were that year, and you're like, okay, it's time to get a QB, it's time to get a QB, and you either wait for that last quarterback like they did in 2011 with Ponder or you take a bunch of picks and move up to get the quarterback you really want, in which case he's coming into a roster that's not very good.

And, again, that's why you need a plan. And, unfortunately, I think the long extensions with Cousins leave the Vikings sort of not wanting to address that. You draft the guy this year, and then you sit the guy, and then I don't think they'll do it. Yeah, I mean, look at Green Bay. People are really upset that Jordan Love is on Green Bay's roster. And I can understand it because Rodgers is a lot better than Kirk, but like

people don't have patience. You know, people don't want to do that. And it's unfortunate because I do think that this should be a year for, at pick 14, look, Fitzpatrick signed, Cam Newton signed. One of those quarterbacks is going to drop to the Vikings at 14. I can just see it. And, you know, they'll have a tough decision to make. I think the Delvin Tomlinson move tells us that they're not going to do it. And it's not so big that it guarantees that they wouldn't do something like that. But they seem to be in the mode of, we need this fixed. We're going to take care of this. We're going to pour some assets into it. We need more good defensive linemen. Bring us the defensive linemen. Here's some money. And if they give over the money to Daniil Hunter, it will even further solidify. The 2021 is a year where they feel like we absolutely have to be in the playoffs. We

absolutely have to be competitive, even though we probably aren't strong enough to go any farther than maybe the first round or one win, a wildcard weekend win. And I think that there are some people who don't mind that, who don't mind being competitive, and they don't want any more seven to nine seasons. Last year was not super fun. For Purple Insider business, I would prefer a playoff game and maybe even one to travel to. I had a great time in New Orleans two years ago. It's just that if we're doing this from the GM standpoint, from the bigger perspective, if you fill these spots from free,

you really can play both sides. You fill the spots for free agency with shrewd moves, and I don't mind the Tomlinson one if they're going to stuff the run a bunch and no one's going to run on them and they can play their two deep safeties. That's all right. Just don't mortgage your future for anyone. And a two-year deal for Tomlinson doesn't do that. And think about when you get to the draft, not what do we have to fill that's left over, more of what's the best move for our organization for a long period of time.

Because if you assume that you're on the hot seat as a general manager, I think that's where you do make desperate moves, and then you do hope that quitty pay is going to get you 10 sacks or something, and then, you know, you sort of end up just repeating history over and over again. I'll say this about Tomlinson. He's a good football player, and he raises their floor. The question becomes, if you're a Vikings fan, do you want the floor that high? Let's end on that. That's it.

That's like a – when you write an article, this is for you. You write articles sometimes. The most important lines in the article are the first one and the last one. Podcast, same way. Give a hot take at the beginning, hot take at the end. Eric, thank you so much for doing this because come on. Did you have to announce it right the minute I publish the podcast before that's okay that's free agency time but it's very cool of

you to offer to jump on and this was super fun so we'll do it again soon thanks for having me I wasn't gonna sleep anyway so