Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to the Vikings signing guard Chris Reed and the Vikings Draft questionnaire

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about the Minnesota Vikings signing guard Chris Reed. Is this an upgraded approach over the previous regime? Are we missing something when it comes to analyzing how the Vikings offensive lines have been built? Plus fill out the Vikings draft questionnaire -- five questions that will tell you what type of player the Vikings should pick. And three made up trades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Right Guard Competition podcast here, Purple Insider, where we will now focus for the next several months on the right guard position and the right guard position only matthew collar here along with paul hodowanek and paul um this really should have been an emergency podcast it was a complete whiff on my part and i just wanted to start out with an apology for not having a podcast done 45 minutes after the Vikings signed Chris Reed, a right guard, to battle with Jesse Davis, Wyatt Davis, maybe Ole Udo, possibly Austin Schlottman. We've got right guards everywhere. If they draft another right guard, it's going to be tough to keep uh you know even track of it'll be like uh one of those royal rumbles where everybody has to go into the ring and just fight it out for who is going to play right guard are

you excited i'm jacked up i think the best uh description of it was i think surles tweeted at you like the the joker gif where he like breaks the pool stick and throws it on the ground for all the people that's that's what the vik Vikings are planning to do with the right guard situation. And yes, probably should have been an emergency podcast, but Russell Wilson style, I was able to break down in a day, Chris Reed's tape. I went through it three different times, you know, because I have the full amount of hours to do that.

Just like Russell Wilson had the time to look at every, all 17 of the Broncos games while on vacation. That was me grinding the Chris Reed tape so I'm very informed ready to ready to break this down for however long if it takes hours we'll be here for hours to talk about it and we might be I'm going to the uh women's championship tonight uh in downtown but if I have to miss it to talk about Chris Reed versus Jesse Davis with every detail then I'll miss. I'll disappoint the wife and I'll just say it. She'll understand, though.

She gets me and she'll say, do what you got to do for Purple Insider. And the list Chris Reed calls you answer. And we're answering. OK, so here's the thing. Chris Reed's a pretty good signing he's actually someone that I kind of identified last year as somebody who kind of had low-key decent numbers when he was playing for the Carolina Panthers he is from Mankato so one of us and but but had been a backup and had like not spectacular PFF numbers but there were just some things in there that were indicators that maybe he could be decent. And then he goes to Indianapolis last year and guess what? He's decent as a backup.

Quentin Nelson was hurt quite a bit last year, so he filled in. And I think he's the exact right kind of guy to put in there right now under the present circumstances. So if we were to do this all over again, you wouldn't be looking at Jesse Davis and Chris Reed. And I think Jesse Davis is pretty uninspiring because he was really poor as a tackle when he played guard. It was kind of replacement level play. Chris Reed, I think his numbers are a little better, but Jesse Davis is more athletic. He's probably got a better case for that with his experience where he's been a starter year in and year out and then there's the wyatt davis element of this and i do think that throwing a bunch of bodies at it and trying to get some guys who where chris reed for example

ranked 41st out of 90 tackles uh i'm sorry out at 90 guards for this year. Okay. Like that's a lot better than where it was last year, where only Udo was 70 seconds by pro football focus metrics. And we've been saying for a while that if you just get average, it's a lot better than horrendous, which is what it has been. And so, you know, people say, oh, you know, you criticize this or criticize that. And I understand that this offseason, from the perspective of us breaking down news, has been a lot of what is this and why are they doing this? And I don't really get it, but this I get this. However, I'll let you give your reaction to it, but there is a little bit of

a fundamental thing with this entire approach that is worth looking at as I was doing some investigatory data mining or whatever you want to call it yesterday, but your reaction to signing Chris Reed. Yeah, this is kind of like the approach the Buffalo Bills took in terms of just throwing a bunch of bodies at the offensive line in the interior and just hoping one or two of the, you know, four or five short-term signings that they made worked. And so, I mean, I think that's what we're seeing here. I think the quality of player compared to what the Buffalo Bills did is probably just one notch lower than what they went out and did.

But I mean, you're signing three, four guys who have at least played at one time or another, some competent guard play, um, you know, not stellar guard play, but average guard play. And so you're hoping you can hit on two of those for a year or two. So I think, I mean, I don't, I don't hate it. I, it, what it tells me is we're probably not going to get the Drew Samia Dakota Dozier level of guard play, which is a step up for this Vikings team and something that hasn't really been a guarantee, has been something you've been worried about for three, four years now. And so even if one or two of them plays like that, then you have another one or two to throw at. So if Jesse Davis falls off, you have Chris Reid.

Or if both of them fall off you still have Ole Udo or Wyatt Davis or Austin Schlottman like you just have so many different like bites at the apple per se for the right guard and then they may draft another guard prospect and then you have another guy there so what it tells me is they're gonna have a lot of options they're not gonna be like well like Drew S to me is kind of the only guard on the roster that they can put there like that is no longer the case and that is a good thing for the vikings um i realize the bar is relatively low for the conversation we're having at this point but that's where the bar is and so they have at least cleared that for now and we'll see if it pays off and like the offensive line is a weak link system. We know this. So as long

as they can be average, one of them can be average. That's all you need. And this is kind of the type of move that you're hoping from an analytics type GM. You're just taking a lot of swings at, at the plate and you're hoping one works out. And the more you bring in the better chance you have of just one of them working. And that's really all they need. So I have used the Bills example too, as well. And because I kind of stole that from Jeremiah Searles, who was sort of part of that actually was brought into Buffalo as part of, we're just going to bring in every lineman who's been halfway decent. There is a however to this.

The Jets also tried the same thing last year, like Greg Van Rotten and a bunch of other guys, if it's pronounced that way, I'm not sure. But other teams have tried it and not had it succeed. It's just that the Vikings in the past have often only brought in one guy like Mason Cole or drafting Wyatt Davis and said, okay, that'll be fine. We're all set here. And there's no parachute whatsoever. And then when that, okay, that'll be fine. We're all set here. And there's no parachute whatsoever. And then when that goes sideways, it's just over. So they bring in Tom Compton and he's got to play once Nick Easton goes down, but Nick Easton got hurt in like mini camp. And so they had all summer long to find other potential players there and just said, no,

we're good with Tom Compton. And it fell off the side of a cliff with him playing for a whole year. The other part of this is that Jesse Davis and Chris Reed have played full NFL seasons, and this is how low our bar is, but they've been playing guys who have not played full NFL seasons. And when you look at Dakota Dozier, I was doing this the other day, poking around in some numbers, Dakota Dozier for the first half of the 2020 season was not good by any means, but it was serviceable play. Some games were better than others. And then toward the end of the season, it was every PFF grade was in the red. It was just game after game, after game, just getting abused because what happens in the? Teams realize what your shortcomings are.

That's why Rick Spielman always talked about this. And I thought it was a fair enough way to look at players. It's like, there are guys who are going to play, you know, 17 games for you, you feel great about in their stars or good about in their starters in the league. And then there's this next tier where if you have to play them more than five or six games, you're in deep trouble. And that's who the Vikings have been starting for years of guys who haven't started at all. Compton was never a full season starter. Neither was Dozier. Chris Reed and Jesse Davis have both at least done this. And you can look at the results and have a general idea of

what they are and try to project that forward. Now, here is the issue with comparing it to Buffalo, though. Joshua Allen is the issue. He's bizarrely, for someone who runs around all the time, one of the least sacked quarterbacks in the NFL per dropback. That's nuts. And it's mostly because, like Ben Roethlisberger back in the day, people just fall off him he just cannot tackle josh allen and he can make plays this is not the case for kirk

cousins there could not be two more different quarterbacks in the universe than those two and here's what my little research found is that kirk cousins even going back to Washington, had one of the highest percentages of pressure coming from the guard position of anyone in the NFL year after year. And not just because of the decisions of the players that are made at guard, even when they had decent or good guards in Washington, more of his pressure was coming from the guards than the tackles. And this stands to reason when you watch the game, because when he plants himself in one spot in the pocket, the tackles. And this stands to reason when you watch the game, because when he plants himself in one spot in the pocket, the tackles actually know where they can push people. And I think it's an advantage because you know that Cousins is not going to drop back farther

than he's supposed to and roll out or something. So you can push guys by, and you know that he's not really going to step up in the pocket. So if you get beat inside, you can push the person to the middle. And I think that that's one of the reasons why Brian O'Neill has had such incredible sack numbers, but not always the greatest PFF grades where when he's beat, he, one of the reasons he's able to recover is he knows exactly where the quarterback is. If you are playing tackle for Russell Wilson, it's not that way because he could be anywhere back there. And I think that that sometimes has skewed their numbers, but the opposite effect exists for the guards. They know exactly where he's going to be and they attack him right up the middle and he does not move away. And I think that this has consistently

made these guards lives much harder for having a quarterback like this. And a few years ago, I mean, New Orleans with Drew Brees, just they were drafting guards. They were signing guards. They were throwing all sorts of money at that position. And I think that that was why, because Drew Brees was not going anywhere. He was going to be right there. And, you know, I think that this is just sort of missing something that's really important. The way that this team has approached building around Kirk Cousins is that he's always up at the top of the league in pressure that's coming from pass rush over the guard positions. And yet they've invested in the tackles. And now Rashad Hill was kind of a low key disaster last year, but even look at the passing numbers and stuff from cousins. When Rashad Hill was playing, it didn't even kill them that Rashad Hill wasn't playing. Well,

multiple times that Rashad Hill had to start. It didn't kill Kirk cousins early in 2018 cousins played very, very well to start the season last year. He played very well, very well to start the season with poor tackle play. It's the poor interior play that has always really hurt him. And at this moment, they have a right guard competition, a left guard we're not really sure about in pass pro in Ezra Cleveland, and center they have done nothing with, with Garrett Bradbury, which I think has a lot of people sort of confused

at why you wouldn't have more competition than Austin Schlottman going up against Garrett Bradbury as we eventually get down the road to training camp. In your mind then, how do you go about fixing it? Is it then investing heavily in it? Because I haven't had a chance to read your article, but if he's getting pressured from the guard spots, no matter who his guards are, if they're really good or if they're really bad, then is there an argument to not invest a lot of money in there? Because it's just feels like an inevitability or the schematic thing you feel like or like, do you see if they invested a lot in those guards? That's the best way to approach it from what you looked at. So even going back to Washington, and this is what solidified this for me, even when it was Brandon Scherff, he was in the top 15 in most pressured from the guard position. And in 2016, where they had a terrific offensive line, and Scherff, I think, was more healthy in 2016, it was first in pressure from the left guard and fourth from the right guard. I think that it's just been something

that they've missed that Rick Spielman. And now there's not a whole lot with their cap that they could do. They could have potentially, instead of investing in Jordan Hicks, Harrison Phillips, Zedarius Smith, and Patrick Peterson, they could have said, we're getting some freaking guards. And that is what we're going to do in center. There were good centers on the market, so they could have overpaid and really stacked up that position and solidified the center. But I think what they're just fundamentally missing is the playing style of the quarterback really requires those three gentlemen in the middle to be the best linemen you have. And the tackles are the one who are easier

replaced. And here's how, here's how the playing style, you can really see it, how the playing style impacts what happens with the offensive line of the quarterback, because case Keenum, when Keenum was pressured, what would happen? He would roll out like a maniac. And in those year or in that year where he's playing quarterback, Riley Reif has his worst performance. I think maybe even his career by the numbers. Riley Reif was not different in the Kirk Cousins years. And yet he would allow like zero or one sacks every year. And we would talk about how great Riley Reif had played. And I'm not saying that Riley Reif wasn't good because I think he was a good NFL player. And that deal was one of the few in free agency that actually worked out for

them. But I also think there's just a really big benefit for tackles and a downside for interior offensive lineman. When your quarterback is, you know, really stationary in the pocket and running. And this would be my concern about this move, because I think by the numbers,

it's a good move to bring in Chris Reed or bring in Jesse Davis to fight for the spot. However, I do think we have to project their performances lower because of the way the quarterback plays. And I also think too, that investing in tackles, and this is where positional value is a little wonky. Investing in tackles is a generally really smart idea. And like all time teams have always had great tackles and that's where teams put their money. It's where they put their top draft picks.

But I wonder if spending as much as they did. Now, Brian O'Neill is a long term thing. Derisaw is a long term thing. It will transcend Kirk Cousins more likely than not. But for this moment, their investments have been huge dollars to Riley Reif. First round pick at left tackle. In fact, two first round pick left tackles, but one of them is playing left guard. And huge, huge dollars to Brian O'Neill and a second round pick to Brian O'Neill.

They have just poured assets into the tackle position when that really isn't the issue for Kirk Cousins. And so that's where I wonder as we go into this right guard competition, like will these guys play at the level that we're projecting them at when now their circumstances are just naturally a little bit harder. That's my point. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a valid one. And I mean, I was just looking at Chris Reed's great.

I mean, he obviously played with the Colts last year. Carson Wentz had much more mobility. He had his second best PFF grade of his career, which is a 67. So not great, but still the second best of his career with a little bit more of a mobile quarterback year before he was in Carolina would have been Teddy year. I think Teddy a little less mobile and his grade was worse. So that might even just from the small sample side of Chris Reed's grade might kind of show up. So I guess we'll find out. I guess my only issue with the invest a lot in it is, does it matter how much you invest it? And if you're, if you're going into the season with

Kirk Cousin as your quarterback, if that is a constant, that's just not going to be there. Do you invest a lot in it knowing you're probably going to get worse performance? Like, can you optimize your dollars somewhere else if you can already like kind of assume there's going to be more poor play? Like, I don't know. Part of me feels like that's even a little bit like I'm kind of spinning myself in circles at that point. Part of me thinks just invest there.

And if it's really good guards and they have a little bit below average of what they would normally do, that's still better than what you're getting from these replacement guys. But it is just another one of those conundrums with Kirk as your quarterback in how you have to kind of switch your team building team building strategy from what may be a normal team building strategy would be, which is traditionally to build from the outside of the offensive line in, uh, to maybe the opposite with a Kirk cousins type quarterback.

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But it's not like you have this, oh, someday they'll get way better. Like Jesse Davis and Chris Reed are not getting way better. And I think it's dubious to think that Garrett Bradbury will be schemed so beautifully by Kevin O'Connell that he'll suddenly turn into the next Olin Krutz or something. I think that he probably is what he is at this point as well. So they'll eventually need to replace that. I guess the way I look at it is I always think of things as if there were no circumstances and what you would do. So if you had no salary cap issue at all and no offensive lineman at all, and you were

like, okay, we've got to build an offensive line of five people to protect Kirk cousins this year. How are we going to do it? And there is the strip sack issue that he's always dealt with from the edge rushers. So that is relevant. I'm not saying you can just throw anyone to tackle or that you want Rashad Hill at tackle for 17 games. That's not what I'm saying, but I think because of the way that he plays quarterback, what you would have done is said, we need this human shield right in front of him. And he'll have to deal with some of the pressure that comes off of the edge. But it's really these three fat guys in the middle who are going to be right in front of him. And we know this look too, with cousins of it's not just with him sacks and it's not

just pressures. It's also the impact of interior pressure of how comfortable he is throwing the football because, I mean, this is a major reason why they've struggled so much with Chicago in past years because Akeem Hicks is just always there. He's going to be a good player either way. But if you were able to put much more talented guards or centers in front of him and pass blocking, and that mitigates that a little bit, is it still, is it always going to be a problem with a stationary quarterback? Yes. How much can you mitigate the guy's kryptonite? Because that is the biggest thing that has taken

him down, especially in important games year after year. And it's like, doesn't anybody notice this? And now that's not me saying that Kweisi has done something wrong here because you can only work with what you have in terms of cap space and free agent options. And I think this is trying their best to be able to figure this out. It's just that when we look back at a new regime taking over, you kind of do have that fresh eyes on everything. And you wonder, all right, if you were going to take, you can make this much cap space, where are you going to spend it? Who are you going to give it to? I would lean in the direction of let's try to mitigate the guy's kryptonite as much as we can, instead of hoping that we can scheme different than the other coaches that they've had,

because every coach that they've had has tried to scheme around this issue. They've tried to roll Kirk out. I thought Kevin Stefanski was brilliant with this. They used a lot of screens with Kevin Stefanski. Gary Kubiak was king of the boots and pushing the ball down the field a lot with rolling cousins out. Like there's been a lot of effort to, you know, like reduce the amount of pressure or impact. But what often happens in this game is it's third down and eight and they're rushing their beasts up the middle.

And what are you going to do? Like, you got to find a way. Like, this is why it's Derry Smith destroyed them because the guy would rush up the middle. He would rush over Garrett Bradbury. He would rush over the guard. And it's not like Kirk cousins could run away from Zedaria Smith. So I think that it's been, it's, it's just, it's one of those things that you would have put. If you're going to keep cousins of all the things you need to do get

vastly better interior protection and it's not vastly better it's all right competition time but uh let me change the subject just slightly um so the wyatt davis thing i do not think that this means that wyatt davis's chances of of being an NFL player are completely destroyed. Jesse Davis and Chris Reed are journeyman type players who are okay as fillers. They are not long-term guard options. And they also set a nice bar because here's like your middle to bottom starter in the league, Jesse Davis or Chris Reed, beat them. And that's how you get that job. So I've seen people talking about like, oh, this must mean that Wyatt Davis is a bust. I wouldn't say that, but I would say if you're them, how could you go into this year believing in someone who couldn't get on the field

and couldn't even be active. At that point, Kevin O'Connell can't care about whether a guy is a third round pick. He can only evaluate the practice tape and what the people in the building say about the guy. And then it's on Wyatt Davis to actually come back in shape and compete for this job. Yeah. I mean, this is what they, like if they had gone into training camp with just Wyatt Davis there, like that would have been the mistake. I mean, when is what they, like, if they had gone into training camp with just Wyatt Davis there, like that would have been the mistake. I mean, when you have a new regime, like they're going to bring in new guys and they also didn't draft any of the guys that are currently on the roster. They have no obligation to play Wyatt Davis because a different regime

picked him in the third round. So this is just kind of how it goes. And they're going to give Wyatt Davis as much of a shot as you would give any other player in camp. And I think that's probably the right way to approach it. You have no emotional tie to him. You have no, well, we spent this draft pick on him. We need to have him play because we drafted him in the third round and we need something to happen.

Like this point, he's going to play if he's good and he's not going to play if he's not good. And at this point, he's just another body that you have in there, and if he wins out, then great. And if he doesn't, you have a lot of other options. If they had gone into this year saying, well, they drafted this guy, like we'll give him a shot, like that's when you fall into the Drew Samia Dakota Dozier range

because he could be that. And then you've just put all your eggs in that basket. So I don't think this means he's a bust because he didn't get on the, the field for at all last year and that they're addressing it. I mean, again, they're not addressing it with long-term fixes. They're not addressing it with even guys.

You feel comfortable just penciling in and looking away from that spot. Like we're not just putting Chris Reed and saying, all right, we're done. We don't have to worry about the right guard spot. Like then maybe you could say, okay, do we have some worries about Wyatt Davis? This really just

tells me that they want as much competition as they can possibly get there. And that's good for Wyatt Davis that you're competing against a bunch of other veteran guys who have played, who have started. And if he comes out of that, then, you know, okay, he's probably pretty decent because we actually have some other like guys with some floor that you know exists and so if he's above that then that's a good sign i think that i guess i view everything as almost like an odds meter so what percentage chance is it that wyatt davis becomes a good player after not being able to touch the field in year one as a third round draft pick who was picked to start. It's not great. Like the meter went way down. If we just assume that right from the very beginning, the meter from a third round pick starts at about 25% or 30%, not getting on the

field in the first year takes your meter to about 10% that you're going to turn into a long-term, very good NFL player. And I always think that, look, the coaches into a long-term, very good NFL player. And I always think that, look, the coaches, they make mistakes sometimes, but they get almost everything right in terms of their player evaluation. So it wasn't like they were looking at Wyatt Davis last year and being like, I don't know. They know if someone can get in the game and if someone can play. And I've seen some tweets from people saying, well, he graded well in the game and if someone can play. And I've seen some tweets for people saying, well,

he graded well in the preseason game or something. It's like he was playing with the third string because of how poor he was in practice. And then he's running gassers after practice as they're going into the season, which just says, they think you're nowhere close. They, they think you're not in shape well enough to play and all these things, which is a very bad sign to start your NFL career. So right there, when your competitiveness or how ready you are to be a professional is also being questioned, now our meter's down to like 5%. And that doesn't mean that it can't pop back, but it makes it just unlikely. And so when you go into these things and make moves, if Wyatt Davis totally surprises you, he comes back looking like he man and is throwing people around left and right.

And Harrison Phillips is going, man, I hope I don't have to practice against Wyatt Davis today. Well, then you hit on the 5% and it's great for you. And he's your guard and you can throw a party, but you can't play it that guard and you can throw a party. But you can't play it that way if you're front office. You have to play it in the way that assumes that it's 5% at this point and then go forward from there. Like even think about, I mean, the guys who have normally done something in the league, they almost always flash something in that first year.

So the 2015 draft class where you see Daniil Hunter, I think he gets like six in that first year. So the, the 2015 draft class where you see Daniel Hunter, I think he gets like six sacks that year as a rotational player. Like, Oh, okay. I see something is there or Stefan digs is not available. The first couple of weeks they have them scratched and then he comes in and roasts to keep to leave a few times and everyone goes, Oh, okay. Something is there. I mean someone like KJ Osborne is kind of the outlier on this for having done absolutely nothing and couldn't get on the field in 2020 and then turns into a reasonably decent player in 2021 like already he's a big outlier for having done that and that just tells you kind of how the odds work with the

draft and how funny it is you know on day on day three of the draft, when we're breaking down, does this guy fit this spot? Does he fit that spot? And you don't want to be wet blanket guy. Who's like, probably not though. But that was how it was when they drafted Wyatt Davis. I said, this is a great draft pick because a slipped for whatever reason, maybe it was a knee injury. He had been talked about as a higher pick, and this gives you a chance to get somebody potentially good from a big university,

whatever. But it's still at the end of the day, a third round pick and the odds are what they are. And so if Wyatt Davis blows up, it'll be one of the best stories of training camp. If he doesn't, it won't be a shock and they will have handled it, as you said, the right way. Because last year drafting Wyatt Davis to start. And then at the last minute being like, Oh, uh, only have you done guarding? Uh, that, that was, that's not a strategy. That's just not a strategy. Um, so they didn't do that.

So, so there you go. If you want to know, finally, a difference between some Spielman moves and some Adolfo Mensah moves, I found one. Um, anyway, I, I want to, I want to switch gears with you though, Paul, um, unless you had any final thoughts on the Wyatt Davis issue. No, I was just going to say, like you talked about flashes. Like there are guys on this roster that you saw those in last year. That's your cam binoms.

That's even your Amir Smith, Marset in the final game that's kenny wong lu like those are the guys that you see just flash a little bit where you say okay we like bottle that up let's figure that out let's like iron out the details in the offseason and have him come back and have a bigger part next year you just didn't get those with wyatt davis so it's it's hard to know what you got, even like in previous years, like you had one Armond Watts game at the end of the year where you're like, okay, maybe there's something there and we can kind of work on it. Even as just a rotational guy at some point in the future, we just have none of that with Wyatt Davis. So it's hard to know. Right. And there kind of was like with Armond Watts, it wasn't immediate in 2020, but he's a rotational guy who can get after a quarterback he's he's um

someone you could put on the field and i would even say that for oli udo at tackle where udo i mean it wasn't spectacular but he was on the field for a few past reps and they talked about kind of liking what they saw and he is not turned into a good guard but if he's a rashad hill swing tackle that means someone you picked in the seventh or sixth round can get on the field which is already right i mean they drafted a sixth rounder brian cole i think was maybe two years ago and he was cut in like the first week of camp like that's what your odds are when you were taken in the sixth round um but let me switch gears on you have you ever taken like a relationship quiz

from a magazine or facebook or something like that where one of those like bugs feed quizzes yeah yeah i i have taken one or two of those yes okay so find out if she's the one by doing this one three or whatever if you're compatible um so I have that for what position you think the Vikings will draft. And of course, all of you can play along at home that have done this before. So I've created five questions, one through five, and then where you score will tell me what position you really want the Vikings to draft. Cause you think, you know, is this kind of the head coach one you did too, when they didn't have a head coach and you were defensive guy young guy old guy offensive guy kind of similar vibes i remember that yes and i think actually that most people landed on a kevin o'connell type of coach although i yeah somebody

somebody asked the other day that if they're going all in to win if they should have just hired harbaugh and my snap reaction was like oh man man, no stop. And then I was like, well, yeah, this was the plan. Just, I mean, why not? Yeah. I don't want to, there's, there's that, there's that you say gif, I say jif. I don't know which one is right, but there's that jif with the woman who's trying kombucha tea for the first time. And she's like, no, yeah, no, I don't know.

Or whatever. Like that's, that's me answering that question i don't know yeah probably not no let's not go there yeah i'm still gonna go with no let me see kevin o'connell coach first and then we'll evaluate that again uh okay let's start this off one through five play along at home how concerned are you about daniel hunter and zadarius smith's long-term health one through five uh One is not concerned. Five is very concerned. I'm at a four with them.

Okay. Do you think that pass rush or coverage is more important? If you think coverage is more important, that's a one or closer to one. If you think pass rush is more important, that's closer to five. I'm gonna go straight down the middle. We'll go three on this.

All right. Does defense win championships if the answer is no you go closer to one if the answer is yes you go closer to five does defense win championships these are not loaded questions just get just give your immediate one through five two all right so a little defense will do yeah uh all right how good are nfl teams at picking first round quarterbacks one is they're terrible at it they have no idea what they're doing and uh and uh you know they could have a random animal pick for them or uh five is they know exactly what they're doing they get it right all the We're going to go two on that one as well. Okay. And a draft for immediate need question mark. One is no, do not draft for immediate need ever at all. And yes, uh, is five always draft for immediate need. Uh, we'll go three here. Okay. All right. Let's add these up. Okay. So I'll just give you the

rubric here. If you score between five and 10, you want a quarterback. If you score between 10 and 15, you want a receiver between 15 and 20. You want a corner and between 20 and 25, it's a defensive end. So I'll just say that again, for those playing at home,

the hundreds of people who have their pens out, writing this down five to 10 is quarterback. 10 to 15 is wide receiver. 15 to 20 is corner. 20 to 25 is defensive end. Yes, I know I should have done that five to nine or whatever. Just adjust it how you feel like. You can figure it out. You're smart. All right. Four plus three is seven, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. So you are right on the cusp, Paul, of wide receiver or cornerback. You are just under the bar because it should have been 10 through 14, just under the bar of taking a wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. How do you feel about that? Did this look into your soul? Yeah, no, I, I right

around the corner wide receiver line. I feel great about that. I feel that's kind of where I would want them to go. I'm surprised Ed Rusher is that high because I'm up about that. I feel that's kind of where I would want them to go. I'm surprised Ed Rusher is that high because I'm up there too. But yeah, I've been increasingly considering wide receiver. I did that for a school searching column a couple of weeks ago. I think that would be a good move, especially for their competitive rebuild if they want someone to immediately come in and play, but also give you that long-term viability at a massive positional value that is wide receiver. So I think if they drafted Chris Alave, who I've been just watching a little bit of and

some people's breakdowns, he can ball. And if they went with him, there's also the Jameson Williams conversation. He's hurt, but he's really, really, really good. If they were to trade down, take him. Maybe there's something there. Now, it's hard for me to do this because I wrote it. So it's not like not the most, you know, it's sort of set, but it's set up to land in specific spots.

So I'm going to do it for myself. How concerned am I? And we can let's break these down. Let's break these questions down. How concerned am I about Daniil Hunter and Z'Darrius Smith's long-term health? I'm giving it a one. That's not because I'm not concerned about their health. I am. It's because I don't think it matters long-term. If Daniil Hunter is not healthy this year, then you move on from him after this season. If Zedaria Smith is not healthy,

you're not in a great spot in 2023, but it's only a two-year contract. So for this year purposes, yes. And that's why this is in sort of the eye of the beholder with this question, but for long-term purposes, not that concerned. Do I think that,

oh, sorry. Give your take on that, Paul. Sorry. Yeah. I that, oh, sorry, give your take on that, Paul. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, in the framework that you kind of answered that, I would agree with you. But just in the, am I concerned? I'm very concerned about where they are.

I don't know. What about the last two years of Daniil Hunter makes you feel confident that he's going to be out there on the field? I would love for him to be out there on the field for all 17 games. He's a great player to watch, great player to cover. Like he makes that defense so much better just with his presence out there on the field for all 17 games. He's a great player to watch, great player to cover. He makes that defense so much better just with his presence out there.

But coming off of two injuries and a neck, that's not a great injury that you want to have at this point in your career that's continued to linger. So that's not great. And then the contract with Zedaria Smith, once we learned it was just kind of a two-year deal and not for that much money, the alarm bells went out for me like, okay, it's probably not that healthy. And the Vikings are taking a gamble on this guy. And so we've seen where their pass rush is when

Everson was gone and where Daniel Hunter's gone. There's a very real possibility that they wind up with that group of players again, which would not be good. So I am concerned, but yeah, if we're talking, I get why you would put a one in maybe that they probably don't envision either of these guys here long-term anyways. That is why we love the questionnaire here on the show, because you can read the question in multiple different ways. Okay. Coverage or pass rush more important i went with coverage leaning a little bit toward coverage um because i've seen a team that even when it had daniel hunter and everson griffin creating pressures on the opposing quarterback if bashad breland can't cover anybody they'll just figure it out and the vikings had the

second most sacks in the nfl last year and yet they still were not very good on defense at defending the pass. I mean, I do think pass rush, if you build this monster defensive line, if you have Aaron Donald and Vaughn Miller and Leonard Floyd, or if you have a Bosa and a bunch of guys in San Francisco that in the playoffs, this is going to make a big difference. So if you have monsters, yes, you could get away with it. If not though, and then those front four aren't just destroying everybody, then I'm going to go, you got to have better coverage. I'm just going to lean that way. But this is one where you probably go two, three, you don't go real, you don't go real extreme on that. Yeah. I've been looking into like, just obviously with the draft column, look, trying

to figure out what's going to happen with that edge position and it looks more and more like there's going to be a run before the vikings can pick obviously aiden hutchinson cave on tibideau but even jermaine johnson his like betting market over under now is like in the top 10 so he's probably going to go before they pick trayvon walker is going to go before they pick so if like one of those like tier one guys was there that you think can be that game wrecker that like Von Miller type, then that makes sense. But it seems like especially if we're doing this for the 12th overall pick, they might be picking

in like a tier two spot with an edge. And at that point, that's when it really shifts for me to coverage. If you can get a Derek Stingley, like one of the prime guys, that's where you're going to go. So I think that matches up, that's where you're going to go. So I think that matches up kind of with where they're at at 12. I'm not sure they're going to be in the running for that top, top group of edge rushers. Right. Both of those positions kind of lean that way of, well,

the first few guys who are supposed to be fantastic, they're going to be off the board before the Vikings get there, but it only takes one. It only takes some concern about Stingley's health or people who don't like cave on Thibodeau's personality or whatever it might be for one of those guys to drop. And every year we go into the draft thinking we know exactly how everything's going to fall. And then we are wrong and we are surprised every year. Let's get to the next one here. Does defense win championships? I mean,

I'm going with a one. I don't think that that is really the case. I think that defense can win a championship game, which is where maybe there's a misconception or, you know, if it's the way that the Rams defense played on the final drive against the Cincinnati Bengals, like, yes, their defense won that at the end of that football game, but their offense was not producing for most of that game. And that's what almost lost it for them. And really the way that I would put it is it's just more predictive that offense can win it for you.

It's not that defense can't. It's not that having the number one defense is bad or anything. It's always best to have everything be amazing at once, which is what it was for the Rams or the Eagles a couple of years ago, but you can reach the Superbowl with an okay defense. And sometimes even a really not great defense. If you can get them to play decently for a couple of games and then have a great offense, it's just much more predictive. so i would not go at all with

defense wins championships yeah when i when you told me this question i was kind of thinking okay one would mean my defense is like ranked from like 27th to 32nd or something yeah and there i was a little uncomfortable like believing in that but if it's in the 20 to 26 range and you have really good offense i entirely believe that you could win a championship there. So that's kind of, if you're in that range, that bottom third, but not like the bottom, then I feel like you can, you can win a championship with that, but I'm still skeptical. You have the dead last defense that you're not going to run into some crazy passer that, that just torches you and you can't even keep up. Totally agree. I don't think you could be in the bottom five and actually compete for a championship. But if you're in the middle, I think that you can,

and that's, that's bared out. And if you're going one extreme, if I tell you can only have the best of one or the other, I mean, the offense just gives you a better chance. I think we all would agree with that. So I went with one there. How good are NFL teams at picking first round quarterbacks? I think everybody knows what my answer was going to be. If they're evaluated as a first round prospect, you have no idea who's going to turn out. Even guys who are supposedly the best of the absolute best number one overall picks, there have been plenty of them who have not worked out and there have been others. I mean, if you get the number one overall pick, your odds are much better than any other draft pick by far, of course, but there there's just

no guarantees. And recently they've gotten worse at it. I think of picking out which one of these first round talents are going to work out. So this is, I mean, clearly a very leading question toward pick. There had to be one that would direct you toward picking a quarterback so that's yeah that that's the one I went with one on that I think I was at a two there I think it's it's hard to know I mean we when we were doing the pre or the post game pods two years ago now we were anytime Zach Wilson had a play we had like a segment for it or something to talk about Zach Wilson and uh that ours if we had any Zach Wilson stock, it might be time to sell it. I'm not sure. Maybe you just hold on because it can't get worse, but yeah, it's, it's,

it's hard to figure out what's going to happen. Well, but you know, Jared Goff was horrific in his first year, just absolutely horrendous. And then all of a sudden, good. So we just, we still don't know. And that's part of the issue is that it takes years to be sure. And I, and that is the most understandable concern people have about drafting a quarterback is that it does take years to be sure that it's going to, or not going to work out. You have to kind of decide on that quickly. I also would say that like,

look, I mean, the NFL can identify the difference between Kyler Murray and Dwayne Haskins in the, they're both first rounders. One is a vastly better prospect than the others. But if Justin Fields and Mac Jones are similar prospects, I don't think there's any way for any of us to decide who's going to be better than the other one. So I went with one and draft for

immediate need. I also went one because I have watched this team draft for immediate need over and over. and how often the guy changes your fate in the first year. Uh, it's very, very rare. I mean, it does happen. Justin Jefferson comes in and sets records and is absolutely incredible. That wasn't just drafting for need though. That was also drafting the best player. Those two things came together there because Jefferson had been a top 10, top 12 prospect and ended up what 23rd. So I always think though, that you just have to get talented football players and figure it out. If you're drafting for need, that's when you make mistakes. So I went with one on that. Yeah. I mean, I agree with you. I think I was middle of

the road only because I've gotten more and more skeptical as the years go on. Like every GM tells you they're going to draft the best player available. And then magically they show up on the clock and they do not draft the best person available. They draft for need. And so I I've been increasingly, increasingly skeptical when people say, Oh, just draft the best player. Well, yes, that makes the most sense. And under every like logical circumstance that is the right play. It's just, I'm, I'm just really skeptical on how many times that actually ends up happening. Cause it like more and more that's just not what teams do right because when they get to the end of the offseason they go oh no we don't have any corners right okay here's how we're going to finish off and uh again let me just read it if you want where'd you fall where'd you fall in the in this

oh i'm sorry i didn't even tell you a quarterback i fell in the quarterback yeah because i just valued that like you could tell in the answers that i valued the long-term play not super concerned about the uh health of zadarius smith and daniel hunter like i pretty much gave all my answers toward the long term of winning a championship and then i fall under the quarterback um you could end up if i leaned a little bit more fairly on some things like Zedarius and Hunter's health or whatever, it probably would have put me in wide receiver, but I end up drafting a quarterback there. So let me just read the questions real quick again and give you the rubric. So if anybody wants to do this and send me your answers on Twitter,

we got to get Jonathan on a graphic here for Twitter for this. Yes, yes, for sure. So it's one through five. How concerned are you about Hunter and Smith's health? One is less concerned. Five is more. Do you think that coverage or pass rush is more important? Coverage is one pass rush is five. Does defense win championships? One is no five is yes. How good are teams at picking first round quarterbacks. One is terrible. Five is fantastic. And do you draft for immediate need? One is no. Five is yes. And five to nine is a quarterback. 10 to 14 is a receiver. 15 to 19 is a corner. And 20 to 25 is a defensive end. So enjoy that. Now, I have three made up trades based on recent rumors, and I want you to categorize them as realistic, probably not, or quit media.

So, okay. So just three made up Vikings trades to give us one more burst of excitement before the draft. DK Metcalf for the 12th overall pick from the Vikings and a second rounder next year. So you give up a first and a second next year for DK Metcalf, who you immediately have to sign to a gigantic contract. I was going to say, is he, he's, does he have like a year left on his deal or something like that?

I haven't been locked into the Seahawks. Yeah, it's one year left and they haven't signed him to an extension yet. So naturally the trade talk is, is on. And I just was laughing at a ESPN report that the Seahawks would trade him for the right price. And like,

okay, good. Is there any, is there anyone they wouldn't trade for the right price? So like, yeah, you could, you can pretty much tell me that for any player other than Patrick

Mahomes and Josh Allen. And I'd be like, that is, that is a statement that you just made. That is not like a, a breaking news report. That is just like, they will trade him.

If you throw in enough picks, do it totally unrealistic or quit media. Probably. not like a breaking news report that is just like they will trade him if you throw in enough picks. So do it totally unrealistic or quit media? Probably two totally unrealistic. In my heart of hearts, would I like to see that happen? That would be amazing that if that happened and it would completely push them to the competitive side of the competitive rebuild. There is no rebuild. When you trade for DK Metcalf, you give up your first round pick and you give up a high draft pick next

year. Would it be extremely fun? Yes. But I, I see that move as a Rams move, which maybe the Vikings think they can be the Rams, but this iteration that feels totally unrealistic. The hard part about it,

and it's not totally impossible, is that you just signed Adam Thielen to a deal that you can't get out of after this year because you could set it up. So DK Metcalf's cap hit for this year remained extremely, extremely reasonable, but next year cutting Adam Thielen is not really feasible. It still results in a huge amount of dead cap. And that would be when DK Metcalf's contract was going way up. However, if they were doing the thing where they said Rams, this, I don't care about anything long-term we're trying to win with Kirk.

Then yes, do it, make it happen. I mean, if they picked a side between competitive and rebuild and didn't try to go down the middle, that's the exact type of move that you would pick for their going all in. But they've now told us that they are still rebuilding in some aspects. And so signing DK Metcalf to a long-term deal feels like the opposite of that.

James Bradbury, corner from the New York Giants, 28 years old, has has played really well in 2020 decently last year for them. Good player needs a new contract for the second round pick this year. Viking second for corner James Bradbury of the New York giants. I think that would be definitely that. I feel like I could see that one happening like on draft day. If all the corners they like go in the first round and they don't have someone there and then they feel like they need to fill a hole. And so they say, all right, we're going to go. And he fits the competitive rebuild type of player that they want.

He's 28. You can conceivably see him in a Vikings uniform playing well for four, four more years, something like that. So I'm going to say that one is realistic. That could happen. The giants are looking to trade him. So all sides make sense there. Uh, the Vikings just don't have a lot of picks right now. And so it's hard to know what Casey wants, if he's a Rick Spielman guy, or if he's just going to say, I feel really good about these certain players. We're going to go after him. Um, but with just the low amount of picks they have this year, it feels hard for me to give up one of those guys,

unless you're getting back like a really, really good player because what, do they only have like six picks right now? Something like that. Six or seven. I don't know. Yeah. They,

well, they gave away the fourth for Chris Herndon and it's, it's been brought up from time to time. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that it probably falls under the would make sense, but the, it really depends on where you stand at corner in the draft.

Because if you could get Stingley or Gardner, you kind of would rather roll the dice on trying to get a really great prospect on a rookie deal than someone that you immediately have to overpay. This is a big problem. When you trade for a guy, you have to overpay him because you already traded for him. So he has all the leverage in the entire world. But, you know, there is franchise tags and things like that, that gets a little messy, but I don't think that one's completely unrealistic that the Vikings have

something up their sleeve in regards to a trade and Bradbury, Peterson, Dantzler, Sullivan, whoever else it starts to sound less brutal in the secondary. Okay. Now last one, Jimmy Garoppolo traded from San Francisco to Carolina for a second. That second is traded to Minnesota to send Kirk cousins to San Francisco and Baker Mayfield is traded to the Vikings for a fifth round draft pick. So the Vikings come away with Baker Mayfield and a second and

trade away cousins to the 49ers who admit that they made a mistake on Trey Lance. Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you to quit media because this is the fun of the media that we get this random article from Bleacher Report in two weeks, how every team can trade for Jimmy Garoppolo or something. And then this is the way that it gets done. So I can't tell you to quit media just because I enjoy this type of content so much just looking at it, but that is completely unrealistic to me that the 49ers would trade away Garoppolo to get cousins who has a note,

like all that just feels very not going to happen. But I, I like the effort and i it would be i mean for this podcast and for any other content that would be amazing but again i can't have you quit media because i just like it too much so i can't do that i actually worked on this like how could this actually go and I made all the pieces fit from this perspective. Carolina cannot play Sam Darnold. They just absolutely cannot have Sam Darnold as their starting quarterback. Their head coach will get fired. So Jimmy G for a second, once they know that he's healthy or whatever it might be.

Kirk does have a no trade clause. That doesn't mean he would not accept the trade anywhere. I think he'd go to San Francisco with with exactly him he loves him there right i mean that's the place you'd say yes he has said before that his goal for his legacy if you will in the nfl is to win that's the next thing for him he's put up the stats he's got some pro bowls he wants to win san francisco has a better football team than the v. It's Kyle Shanahan. He's not a first-time coach. He's someone who's been to the NFC Championship, to the Super Bowl.

He's now don't salary cap nerds. Don't just don't because I have no idea. I didn't work on that part. I only worked on team needs. And then Baker is a reasonably decent quarterback who not last year, but two years ago played every bit as well as Kirk did, you know, the average Kirk season.

So they need to get rid of him desperately. You don't have to give up anything. You get a quarterback who is at least in the ballpark of Kirk cousins, and you give him Jefferson feeling a running game, an improved offensive line, and you give him a shot and you draft the quarterback whenever and you get draft capital back in the form of a second round pick so even if you wanted to move up and take malik willis or you could even wait and just play it out um i i like it from

that perspective but i mean but i'm sure there's a lot of people saying quit media i mean honestly like that i that that's fair i just we just don't have many opportunities to's a lot of people saying quit media. I mean, honestly, like that, that that's fair. I just, we just don't have many opportunities to create a bunch of fake trades in football. But since this off season has been nuts, I decided to create one. I love the idea of like every Kirk cousins, the quarterback gets traded for the other Kirk cousins, the quarterbacks like we're okay.

We're going to trade Kirk for San Francisco, Kirk and Cleveland, Kirk, and we're just all going to move them around because they're all just iterations of Kirk. It's kind of like the, who's going to start on the offensive line, Davis, Davis, Davis, or Davis. That's been floating around Twitter. This is just like, which Kirk do you have to start your team? I'm not sure how you rank the Kirks, but they're all Kirk's. So that would be funny. I would say that Jimmy G is slightly better than Kirk and Kirk is quite a bit better than Baker,

but Baker is cheaper and Baker is more flexible for his future. So, okay, well, I could make up fake trades all day, but we've got things to do. I guess I'll allow myself to go now to the women's championship because we've talked about the guard position. So I'm,

I'm headed right back to the film room. So thanks for your time as always. And, uh, follow Paul's work on Twitter at Paul Hoda. Now for WCCO radio heard your reports the other day. Uh, it's always good to hear.

And, uh, we will talk to you all later.