Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Roundtable: Irv Smith Jr. will miss camp and preseason, what does that mean for the short and long term?

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Sports Illustrated's Will Ragatz gets together with Matthew Coller and the Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer to talk about Irv Smith Jr.'s injury, who can step up in his absence and what it means for the future. Plus Lewis Cine isn't with the first team yet, when should we care? And what about the center position? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and this is another Raggedt's Roundtable with Will Ragged and our roundtable guest, Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune. So I'm going to pass it over to Will and we can start our roundtable discussion. What is up, Will? Not a whole lot, just getting ready for another day of training camp. But the big news of yesterday, Tuesday, at TCO Performance Center was Irv Smith Jr. The announcement from Kevin O'Connell on a day that he was actually not scheduled to speak

came over and told us, which was appreciated, that Irv Smith Jr., the reason he left practice early on Monday was a thumb injury. He had surgery Tuesday morning and will miss the remainder of training camp and the preseason. They are still hopeful that they will have him week one against the Packers, which is a big deal whether they have him or not. Just because Irv is a player that is a popular breakout candidate. He's a popular breakout candidate last year until he got injured. And the Vikings don't really have any other proven depth at tight end. I think their entire roster had one regular season

catch at tight end last year. Johnny Munt had one reception for the LA Rams. So it's a big blow for Smith. It's hopefully not going to be anything that keeps him out of regular season action. But yeah, they kind of got to regroup now going forward, the rest of training camp and in the preseason. and maybe we'll see what they have in guys like Zach Davidson and Ben Ellison and Johnny Muntz so yeah Andrew what was your kind of initial reaction to the Smith news and how the Vikings might go forward and adjust without him yeah it's just a real bummer for everybody who was looking to see what Irv could finally do he had such a good preseason and camp last year in a different offense. And we heard Kevin O'Connell back to at the combine talking about how I see his skill set as a deep threat.

We're going to be able to get him involved in this passing game. And that's why I don't think if Irv were to miss time in the regular season, I don't think the hand wringing about who they're going to replace him with will matter because they're not going to find somebody with that skill set that Johnny Muntz, not it. Zach Davidson's not it. They're going to replace him with will matter because they're not going to find somebody with that skill set that Johnny Muntz not it Zach Davidson's not it they're going to find ways to get other guys involved particularly KJ Osborne some of these receivers and lean even more on that 11 and 3 wide personnel that they did last year when they lost Irv Smith and so I think this offense becomes a little more Ram centric when you don't have that tight end who's dynamic down the field. And it just sucks. It sucks for Irv. And it's just another step back for him.

But for them to come out and O'Connell to say, hopefully he'll be ready for week one, that doesn't create a lot of confidence that that is the exact expectation. I think they said barring any setbacks. So it's kind of a wait and see approach of this guy can't catch passes until September. When exactly is he going to be ready? So I wouldn't expect them to make any kind of move at tight end because they still expect them to be ready at some point early in the regular season. It's just a matter of how do they adjust this offense?

Oh, sorry, Andrew. point early in the regular season it's just a matter of how do they adjust this offense oh sorry andrew i i think that uh they should trade a fourth round pick for maybe whoever the jets fourth tight end is that's probably the way to solve this problem uh with with irv i mean i think that you know it's another one of those bad luck things for him i mean last year just seemed kind of like a random injury after a really good training camp. And then he was just starting to ramp up and get back into playing shape. And I think that that's where I would have concerns about not only week one, but what he's going to look like the first few weeks of the season, because if he had played all of last year and was a hundred percent healthy, and then it was just a thumb thing, like, okay, okay well that's not that big of a deal he'll just get back when it's week one but now we're talking about a guy who

hasn't played and hasn't had a training camp since 2020 and if you recall he was even banged up in 2020 so this is kind of becoming a bit of a pattern and i'm not saying injury prone because i think that a lot of injuries are random and this might have been getting your thumb stuck in somebody's face mask by accident but it's just a lot of time missed for someone who's supposed to be a really key player and I also think that you know I got some questions from fans over the offseason and this is uh you know I'd like your guys reaction to this because just like, is it questionable that Johnny Munt was the only other guy with any experience? I mean, he's been in the league since 2017. He has 10 receptions and it's,

it sounds like he's a fantastic and wonderful run blocker. That's great. But to have your starting tight end be so valuable and not even look for another guy who has experience catching the ball. It's like last year when they lost Irv, it was not devastating because they had Tyler Conklin. This year they let Tyler Conklin go and don't resign him. Don't add anybody else with previous receiving experience. And already it kind of punches them in the face a little bit here.

Yeah. And I guess the question of how much it matters depends on how important two things, how important you think the tight end possession position will be in this offense. And I don't think you can completely write it off and say like, oh, it doesn't matter. They're going to go with receivers like tight ends do things that receivers can't do that fullbacks can't do that running backs can't do. There's a versatility there. And we saw for a long time with the Rams, Tyler Higbee he was a productive player he was a part of their receiving game he's a big part of their their blocking so yeah it's a good point that Andrew made like they don't have a Tyler Conklin this year they don't have a guy who's going to be able to step up and and be an Irv Smith Jr. so I do think they'll probably just pivot to more wide receivers and go four wide at times and use CJ Hamm probably in different ways. But yeah, it's an unfortunate thing to lose Irv. It's unfortunate for him. It's unfortunate for the Vikings because they were planning on having him and they were incorporating him in different ways, using him out wide, using him in line so um we'll see ultimately like how how quickly he's able to come back how big this loss is um but yeah i i don't think that they're gonna have anybody they're

probably not gonna bring anybody in they're probably not gonna have anybody who can kind of step in and do what irv uh like replicate his skill set at all yeah and what this coaching staff is really good at and at least going back to is, is they're really good at obviously creating those mismatches of we're going to get Justin Jefferson on a linebacker. We're going to find ways to put guys that, you know, put them on defenders that can't cover them. And Irv is such a great piece for that. And so this really removes one of those ways that they could be creative. Irv could get on a safety or get on a corner and out physical him or outrun a linebacker. You could do really creative things with his skill set. And that is what's going to hamper them of like the playbook might become that much thinner

if you don't have him against Green Bay in week one. And to Matt's point, if you don't have him at full strength, this is going to be a guy who can still run around and do all those things. But is he going to be as comfortable in the playbook? The biggest thing we heard from Irv in the spring was they're trying to challenge him from the neck up. They're trying to get him to learn this playbook. Well, the best way of learning is by doing it, is by going out and practicing it, by going through preseason reps, by getting in and out of the huddle, lining up where you're supposed to, doing all those things. As dynamic of an athlete as Irv is, one of the question marks was how comfortable

is he with this new offense? And so if he's not doing those things, are you going to have all of it at your disposal, even if he's ready physically week one? Is he mentally going to be ready week one? Or is there going to be another ramp up period where you're waiting until week three or four to get them going? So that in September is going to hamper maybe what you can do with these matchups. It creates, in my opinion, it makes the wide receivers that much more important because you're not having that extra kind of chess piece, I guess. Yeah.

And I was just pulling this up here about the Rams stats from last year. And the tight end was a big part of what they did. Tyler Higbee was third on their team in receiving yards last year and I think that all of these offenses that are kind of rooted in play actions and things like that it's kind of a big position and adding an extra downfield element to a tight end really messes with defenses so if he's not there right off the bat or not a hundred percent or like you said hasn't mastered the offense yet to the point where he can play the entire game from the beginning, you're kind of behind the eight ball

with somebody that you were flying without a parachute with, with Irv Smith. And the other thing is, too, that, like, what we saw in training camp last year with somebody that looked like he was an emerging star in the league, and now to have that setback, it's like, well, when will that version come? Like, and there's, I mean, with a thumb injury, like who knows, but catching a football is not an easy thing to do with all of your digits

working. So, I mean, are we going to see the full version right off the bat or will it take until mid season? Because, I mean, I'm even thinking of some previous injuries that we've seen where guys came back, like Latavius Murray had an off season surgery came back. And for the first, I think three, four weeks, he was really slowed down. And then he finally kind of kicked into gear and got into full speed. But even when they're talking about, think about this, they're talking about, well, you know, he's still going to be able to run around and stuff, right. But those practices also get guys in game shape play after play after play after play in 90 degree heat to to be able to go

out there and play 65 snaps or something as they're going to ask a tight end like that requires a lot of work to build up to that that irv smith's not going to have so it's it's certainly not the doomsday or the worst case scenario which would have been he's out for a really long time with a broken hand or something like that. But it does make me wonder if early on, they're going to have to lean on some of these other guys. And I guess the one that is the most interesting to people is Zach Davidson because he's raw, but he ran a four, six, four at six foot seven, which is, it's really something to see him out there kind of galloping around, but he's also an extreme noob. Like this guy was playing at central Missouri as a tight end slash punter two years ago. I mean, it, it,

it's just hard to believe that, you know, a year later that he would be ready to take on any sort of big role here. and usually what we've seen in the past is it's kind of like year three almost even year four for developmental tight ends before we kind of see anything out of them if they're late round draft picks so now he's going to be asked especially like in third downs maybe it to step in but it'll also be interesting to watch as we get into these preseason games who kind of shows uh where they stand yeah back to the the earth point for just a second i mean catching a ball with a injured thumb sounds really difficult blocking people with an injured thumb sounds really difficult even if kj osborne said yesterday that blocking isn't that difficult

it's probably more difficult when you have an injured hand uh so the interesting thing to me will be like they need to win week one against the packers they need to prioritize winning these games early so how do you balance bringing irv back and getting him up to speed versus putting the players on the field that are going to give you the best chance to win is that irv for 50 snaps if he's not at full health or is is it a lot more K.J. Osborne, Amir Smith-Marset, people like that? That part's interesting to me. With Zach Davidson, I mean, it's a guy who, like, I don't think – we saw nothing from him last year, and I don't think that that means that he's going to have or even is a candidate to have, like,

a K.J. Osborne type of second season where he comes along and is this big producer. Because K.J. Osborne was playing like he played at Miami and he was productive player there and there were there were signs even in in training camp his rookie year and his second season I don't see that was Zach Davidson West Phillips yesterday said that when he was at Central Missouri it looked like he was playing against a bunch of West Phillips out there which is which is pretty funny like he just didn't have the competition he dominated at that level which you should if you're going to,

and that's how he became an NFL draft pick. But I don't see that really being any sort of, unless he shows us a lot in the remainder of camp and in the preseason, I don't see that being any sort of reliable option early this season at all. Yeah, I don't expect anything from Zach Davidson. And that's just because of where he's coming from. It's because it's the second year. It's because of what you guys are saying that typically that tight end position takes a couple of years for even somebody coming out of the SEC, maybe like it takes a little bit. And Wes Phillips said

yesterday that Zach's still kind of coming along with the whole run blocking part of it. And if you're going to play any role in a three wide set or even two tight end personnels that they might dabble in with this O'Connell offense, you got to be able to push around a linebacker. And I just don't see it. So frankly, I wouldn't be shocked if Ben Ellison's the number two tight end in week one, if Irv Smith is not full go by that point. So I think Zach Davidson's an intriguing guy, an intriguing receiving option. We've seen him catch a lot of passes in camp so far, but I just don't see how he's going to have any kind of role come the regular season when he can't necessarily block the guys he needs to block

right now. Okay. Just to make every single possible point about the Irv Smith situation, he does have a contract that is coming up. Right. And it makes me think about even drafting tight ends high and how you mentioned the development curve where we've seen a lot of teams develop tight ends for other teams. Like you, you get them and they don't succeed right away. And then, you know, three, four years into their career, then it's almost like the Vikings developed Tyler Conklin for the jetsets right they got to use him for one year and then he just goes to another team and with Irv Smith like where we stand right now I mean this draft pick has not even been close to a success I mean this is really the year to prove that it is a success but being a number two tight end for two

years where you get like 30 catches as the one B to Kyle Rudolph and then missing an entire season again not his fault but if we're evaluating the draft pick like we all know from watching this man play football that he's good at football but if you were just to pull up like his career and look at it on wiki or something there was no real evidence of that and so this is the year for him to show the evidence of what we've been seeing in training camp or seeing in flashes in games or when he's had a chance to be tight end number one but there's a reason why there's only like four good tight ends in the entire nfl because injuries and because you know the development curve is so steep and so he has to come back

right away and kind of justify this, or they're going to have a really difficult decision to make on whether you resign him or not, especially if this ends up being something he battles with throughout the season. Yeah, I absolutely agree. It's,

it's putting them in kind of a tough situation, which was already going to be a tough situation. I think we've covered every angle we can on this, on this Irv Smith news. So we didn't talk about his butterfly tat on his neck. Yeah. And the Hulk on his, on his left hand is pretty cool too.

Wait, so wait, wait, wait, wait. Didn't he say he was going to smash people's why he got the Hulk and then he got his thumb smashed. Oh no.

I didn't even think about that. That's that's unfortunate. I don't know if it's the same hand though. Yeah. I don't think we know which hand it is. We do not. But anyways, we're about, I would say, a third of the way into training camp, a quarter of the way. Roughly, we're not halfway yet.

So the disclaimer still applies that we have not seen that much. We've seen one padded practice out of their 11, I believe. We're going to see another one later today. But we've also seen a lot more than we had when when Collar and I recorded a podcast on the literal first day of training camp. So let's talk about a few of the kind of storylines that have emerged early in camp. And should we care about them? Do they do they matter? Or are they kind of early noise that doesn't mean a whole lot? And I want to start with the guy who's been catching my eye almost every day is rookie cornerback Andrew Booth Jr.

And it's as much with his play, which I've been impressed with. He had an interception against Kirk Cousins on day one or day two. He's had some good reps. He had some good reps against Justin Jefferson yesterday, even when Patrick Peterson was taking a bet day. He's mixed in with the twos, the ones. And you can kind of see the fluidity that the Vikings like in him, the athleticism. But it's also been just kind of his attitude. And like he's barking at everybody.

It doesn't matter if it's Amir Smith-Marset or Myron Mitchell or Justin Jefferson. Like after a one-on-one rep, whether it's drills or team period or whatever, like he's talking to people. And to me, there's a, there's a line there. Like that's a, that's a thing you need to have. You need to have some irrational confidence when you're playing the cornerback position, because it's just a difficult position to play. And like, you want to be kind of that alpha. You also don't want to like go too far and be like fighting people every play and drawing penalties and stuff like that. But Booth has just stood out to me a lot, both for his play and then also just we're close enough that we can hear a lot of the things he's saying.

How much like should we buy into like Andrew Booth is this this dog cornerback that the Vikings haven't had since maybe prime Xavier Rhodes? Folks, training camp is here and there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to sodastick.com and checking out all their Minnesota sports-inspired goods. The best football designs, in my opinion, are Randy Moss' disgusting act and the purple people-eaters look. But look, there's lots more for you to check out

at sodastick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. T-shirts, hoodies, hats, whatever you're looking for, use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at checkout for 15% off your purchase. Yeah, I like it. I like seeing that out of him. I think it was that first pad of practice on Monday where he had to be separated from B.C. Johnson. It might have been yesterday, actually.

I don't remember. But he had to be separated from B.C. Johnson after throwing him down and B.C. having some words with him afterward. I mean, you like that. I like to see that because Booth is like one of, if not the youngest player on this roster. And at that position, that mentality, you just need it. You need to have it.

You need to be able to forget when you screw up and just move forward and always have that irrational confidence, as we talked about. We've seen that from some guys. I think Chris Boyd's got that. But Booth is so much more talented. He's just a better prototype player. He's got a lot of the ball skills that you're looking for at that position. But what he is is too physical.

He's too physical. He wasn't college. He's probably going to be too physical in the NFL and you're going to have to rein that back and it's going to be a big learning process for him and corners is really the big question mark one of the big question marks in this defense right now because Cameron Dantzler is still taking those first team reps at what point does Booth start getting some of those and start siphoning them off? Because Cam Dantzler, I don't think, I don't think the Vikings view him as that long-term solution. It's why you spend a second round pick a corner to bring in Booth. You think he's going to be the guy eventually. It's just a matter of when. And right now I think he's showing some good things early on in camp. I think it's clear andrew bias there from andrew uh no no no

that's fair that's fair you know yeah i mean i think that it would it's always telling it's like we need the things that they do to match up with the things that they say to match up the things that we see right and with andrew booth jr it's kind of all those things coming together at this moment which is they're giving him high praise he got first team reps with Patrick Peterson out which is really telling that they think he was ready to do that or wanted to see him even in a non-padded practice to do that and then the things that we see like you're talking about that skill set and you know I like what you're saying Will about the confidence and the irrational confidence of a corner because those guys have to get over it and we've seen corners that don't get over it before and they just kind

of get run out of the league uh but for me it's just the way that the guy moves like even the the feats and the the fluidity like there's just a different smoothness to his game that you know not everybody has and like Xavier Rhodes is a good example he's not as big as Xavier Rhodes that's what made Rhodes such a freak is that he was gigantic and had this fluidity but at least in the way that he moves it's similar it's not quite Patrick Peterson who's one of the all-time great corners where it just seems like everything is super easy for him but when you compare when you watch like an Akaila Bevins or Harrison Hand or somebody else versus the footwork

and how he matches with the receivers, like you said, his college tape and playing the ball as well as he did, like everything is kind of coming together and aligning for him to have a really good camp here and maybe make some noise. I mean, I think what the ideal scenario for them is that is that they feel confident in Dantzler by the end of this camp and preseason. And then Booth is like your first guy off the bench, because I totally agree that that,

that curve from college to the NFL, no matter how much we like what we're seeing on the training camp field, it is just super tough. Go look at the PFF data for how well a rookie corners perform. There might be one guy a year and sometimes there's no guys per year that have a good season right away. So you would much rather have him be mixing in and out with Patrick Peterson, playing a handful of snaps a game, developing, try to give him favorable matchups if you can and not match up against some of the best wide receivers. Although not that the Packers have any good wide receivers, but you know,

just overall throughout the season. But yeah, no, I mean, I think that if we're talking about like the winner of training camp, one padded practice in it's probably Andrew Booth Jr. Yeah. And that's why I wanted to point out kind of the, the talent that we've seen, not just, I mean, it's been getting a lot of attention, his, his attitude and some of the scuffles and things like that. But I've been really impressed as,

as impressed as you can be early on with just his movement and the way he, he plays the position. So I think the key things for him, obviously are going to be staying healthy. That was a big question mark. That's why he wasn't a first round pick. I think, I think he probably would have, if he had put together that whole like the testing and all that in the in the pre draft process and then cutting down, one of my favorite positions to talk about one of everyone's favorite positions, Kellen Mond.

This was a big year for him, a big training camp for him. Really kind of a mess of a rookie year was publicly called out by his former head coach. Barely saw the field. It was running behind Sean Mannion kind of all throughout the year as, as the third quarterback. And this year he has an opportunity to bypass Mannion and to be that second quarterback

and to, for roster building purposes, to make Mannion expendable possibly. And in my eyes, you guys may disagree with me, I just haven't really seen any progress yet. There's been flashes, like the mechanics, I think they look a little bit better. He's added a little bit of weight after he dealt with the whole COVID thing last year, which was kind of a big reason why his rookie season was a mess. But to me, it just still hasn't been there. Accuracy-wise, when you watch him in the 11-on-11s, the 7-on-7s,

it's still like he seems to be thinking a lot and being hesitant. And there's a lot of times where he waits and he waits, and then he tucks the ball down and he runs and, and you're like, just just rip it like, you might not be wide open, but it's training camp, like you gotta, you gotta work on things like that. So I don't know, I mean, Sean Mannion has not been much better, if any better. So that whole position is a question mark. But how much should we read into or care about seven practices in Kellen Mond not seeming to have taken much of a step? And, again, you can disagree with me if I'm wrong. Yeah, I think we and fans should be really patient with this.

And I think the coaching staff should be too because, as you said, we are – I think we're too bad. We keep saying one. I think we're too bad at practices into this, right? Today's Wednesday. Yes. We've had Monday and Tuesday. I think, I don't think they were padded yesterday though. Yeah, they were in shorts, but they were padded or did I, did I miss that? Okay. Nevermind. No, they, they, I don't think they were. I don't think they were. Oh, my bad. Anyway, regardless.

But, but, but, but by the time that this is published and people are listening to it, it will be, too. So maybe that's what you think. But we've seen just these few these few practices in camp. It's a new offense. I think Mond has looked really slow, as you said. I think he there's a lot of times where he's just patting, patting, patting the ball ball would have been sacked would have had a lot of pressure if this were live um and i just i'm not seeing a whole lot of out of him yet but it's also august 3rd and so i think with time with this offense the coaching staff probably is hoping to see incremental steps along with this month these preseason games they'll probably go a long way in deciding if mond is actually ready to be the backup over Sean Manning. Because we've seen Sean Manning come in and look serviceable, at least get the ball in the right place in some of these schemed passes. Can Mond do the exact same thing?

And if he can, he at least adds that mobility, that versatility to his game that Manning has never had. And then that might be enough to vault him up to that spot. And maybe they keep all three of them. Maybe they find a way and don't feel comfortable enough in Mond at this point to decide, hey, we'll just keep all three once again and move forward that way. But, yeah, I think patience is the key at that spot because, you know, Mond was a third round pick for a reason. He fell to that spot for a reason. And it's because he wasn't viewed as this like tailor mademade NFL ready guy and his rookie season was such a wash. And how much can you really take out of it because of such few chances that he got under Mike Zimmer. So earlier this year on the pod in the off season, I said, when people asked Kellen Mond questions and Sean Mannion, backup quarterback, I was like,

let me channel Tom Moore and say if Kirk Cousins gets hurt you're screwed and we don't talk about screwed on this podcast um and but but also feel free to change my mind and so far there has been no mind changing um you know Kirk Cousins has had times where he's clearly adjusting to things with this offense and even he has looked a little bit like am I supposed to throw it there? Is it time to let it rip and so forth? Mond has arm strength and he's got more zip on the ball than he did last year.

I think that's noticeable. He let one loose yesterday, maybe 55 yards down the field where he really kind of showed his arm strength. But there's just, it's just so far behind where it should be as far as the timing of these plays. And there aren't many that are even working at all. So it's not just the accuracy, which it hasn't been very good to begin with. It's like the plays aren't really working at all.

And it sort of reminds me of when we were covering Kyle Slaughter and the practices, and you would just see like no success at all in the 11 on 11s and that was why Mike Zimmer said the practices matter the most because the guy in the games in the preseason game in a fourth quarter or something might be able to run around and do something but if you're playing real starters and real games you have to deliver those passes to the first read and and I love that PFF put out the stat that it's like 67 of nfl passes are first read so that means two out of three times you better be dropping back and hitting it but sean manion is doing absolutely nothing to make it not kellen mond who's the

backup because uh like you think that kirk cousins checks down sometimes like every practice rep is a check down for Sean Mannion he's rarely pushing it at all and so he's I mean kind of like this very low bar that Mond has to get over I also wonder if they sit and wait actually what the Vikings did last year to the end of training camp and then somebody else gets released around the league or there's some journeyman still out there or something and they bring him in because if it continues to look like this I mean there's there's no trust that they could even win one out of two games if Kirk Cousins had to sit out for any reason I agree with you Andrew that we can't like totally call it because there's a long way to go there's preseason

games to go but I think at this point you wanted to see a little bit more as far as just dropping back, setting your feet, getting rid of the football, because we're not really seeing that at all. Yeah, I'm with you. I think both things can be true. Like, there's a month until cut down day. There's a full month for Mon to show us some things. And the preseason games are going to be really important evaluation reps. But also, I agree with Matt. You would have liked to, I think, see a little bit more progress at this point.

Let's talk about the offensive line. And we're not going to talk about, at least right now, the right guard competition, or at least not exactly. Because Jesse Davis has been with the ones at right guard every single rep other than on Tuesday when he had a vet day. The interesting thing to me in the interior offensive line is that on Tuesday when Jesse Davis was out, it was not Chris Reed at right guard. It was Ed Ingram, the rookie second round pick. And we saw Chris Reed working at center with the second team offensive line. So the interesting thing to me is the one padded practice we saw, I was looking over, I was trying to watch both the receiver corner drills and the O-line, D-line, the first one-on-ones of camp.

And I happened to look over at the exact time that Harrison Phillips just put Garrett Bradbury on his back and made it look very easy. And I heard that that happened a second time as well. I did not see that one. So my question is, how much should we read into Chris Reid potentially being groomed as this backup plan at center for Garrett Bradbury if the struggles that we've seen through his first three years, just kind of a complete inability to anchor and pass block against these big defensive tackles if that continues and I don't think the Vikings really thought that that was going to change because you have this three-year sample

size I think the Vikings think and Kevin O'Connell thinks that maybe they can mitigate that somehow with scheme or with responsibilities and there are things that Bradbury does well but how much should we read into again this is very early we've seen one padded practice but Bradbury still looking like Garrett Bradbury in in pass protection and Chris Reed not seeming to be in the mix to start at right guard but seeming to be more of a versatile backup where he could he could play guard but he also has been working on his snaps at center after practice and things like that. Yeah, I do think Wes Phillips basically tipped the hand. I think it was not this past availability, but the time he spoke before that,

when he basically said it's Jesse Davis's job at right guard. I don't think there's really even a competition ongoing. I think they're understanding that we're going to give Jesse Davis time off. We're going to make sure this guy is healthy week one. He's the veteran who's played all these different snaps at guard and tackle. He seems to be the guy. So with that said, you might as well groom at Ingram to be as ready as possible at that spot if you decide to make a change because you take him in the second round, much like Andrew Booth, because you expect him to be a player and a starter at some point. So at center, Chris Reed's never, I believe he's never played a snap at center in a regular season

game in the NFL. All of his snaps have come at guard. So he's played some center in the preseason, but that's a different animal. Yeah. And if they're looking for a contingency plan for Garrett Bradbury, it should be out of this building and on a different roster or a free agent. It should not be what they're looking at right now. And that's if they get to that point where they decide we need to eject on this Garrett Bradbury project right now. I think they need to give him some more time. They need to see him against Harrison Phillips a lot more than a couple reps. Because these are issues that Garrett Bradbury has put on tape over and over and over. They're aware of it.

They know of it. They're scheming around it, certainly. And if it gets to a point where in preseason games, they're like, oh, gosh, this isn't even salvageable. We need to move on. I question whether or not Chris reads that actual answer. I would think it's got to be somebody outside the building. And when it comes to scheming around it, the thing that I don't understand is, I mean,

do you not think the previous coaching staff tried to scheme around it? I mean, they certainly did. But when someone just gets blown up like that by stronger players, which is why those couple of reps against Harrison Phillips were so notable, because, like, that's Harrison Phillips' MO. He's this big, giant, strong dude who plays defensive tackle and can penetrate a little bit.

And he just blasts you in a one-on-one when even Wyatt Davis like was fine in the one-on-ones for the most part. Like usually you don't see linemen getting thrown not at the NFL level. You'll see that in like high school tape where everybody's standing around and somebody gets thrown, but not like this in the nfl and not that we thought that this was going to really change anyway and as far as like first guessing some off-season uh i don't know things they overlooked we'll say like this would be one of them is not

having a legitimate center competition with somebody else in here and if you're scrambling now that you don't like what you've seen and go your offensive line coach is going uh guys can i get a little help here um that's not good like scrambling to hope that chris reed can change positions i mean who does this sound like this sounds like the last regime with like oh no this guy can't play the position let's try only udo there like we we drafted wyatt davis and that was bad process uh and then you end up with bad process moving Udo and now it could be bad process with moving Chris Reed and then you just expect the guy to be better but it's like you guys realize that he this man was benched benched

a first round draft pick straight up put on the bench for mason cole last year and mason cole was traded by his team here like this is just not something that was unforeseeable by any means and if uh bradbury struggles here continues to struggle to the point where they think a change has to be made see i i kind of think and, that they have almost no other choice but to go with Chris Reed, because if you're bringing someone in at the last minute, it's like you're asking that person to now adjust to a whole offense in a position that requires a lot of changing of protections and all these things, right? I mean, you're asking a lot of a center to just come in and play. You kind of have to go chris reed at least to start yeah and maybe you end up signing somebody in free agency in a week or two it doesn't necessarily need to be right

before the regular season but the bradbury struggles are also notable because this guy spent the offseason talking about how i'm getting above 300 pounds again i'm trying to add weight trying to add strength and then here we are yeah it i feel like that's kind of maybe been a storyline in previous off seasons as well. Like Garrett Bradbury's adding mass and he's bulking up and the results just haven't changed. And again, we'll give him a lot more time than this. I was literally going off of like two one-on-one reps. It's hard to evaluate really the team stuff, even in padded practices as far as offensive linemen unless they get completely like blown up

on a play but yeah and you mentioned Collier you mentioned Wyatt Davis and he's kind of been relegated to the third team offensive line Chaz Surratt another third round pick last year who's been running with the threes we'll see a long way to go for some second year players on this roster before I had a couple of position battles that I wanted to hit on quickly but are there any other like early training camp storylines or standouts that either of you wanted to to touch on yeah two guys that have stood out to me I think KJ Osborne's look phenomenal and and I think when we talk about who's wide receiver three and all this stuff I think he answered it last year and I think he's answering it again this year and then also we talk about the first defensive back off the bench

if they're going to have any dreams of doing a lot of dime packages or having you know even if it's not Chandon Sullivan as the nickel somebody else in there can buy them as I thought looked pretty good as well and those two guys have stood out to me quite a bit and guys who seem to be carving some roles out yeah I was just going to bring up a bit and guys who seem to be carving some roles out. Yeah. I was just going to bring up Lewis scene and we haven't talked about the first round pick hardly at all, because I think that the very reason to take is let's wait and seen. Am I right on him?

But he isn't, but he isn't getting first team reps at all, except for when Harrison Smith sat out practice, but not any otherwise it's been entirely Harrison Smith and combine him. And I remember even asking Harrison Smith about, Hey, like what's it going to be like to play with someone who's more athletic. And he was like, well, I'm sure they got a plan for how this is going to play out.

He was like non-committal on Louis seen playing next to him. And I guess I wonder, I want you guys to give me a date. Like what date should we start saying what's going on with Louis seen? Because that date is not today. And it's probably not even by the end of this week, but there is definitely a date. So what do you guys think it is? Maybe, I don't know August 23rd two preseason

games in that I just made that date up but I think that's two preseason games in uh and and one more to go that it's a it's a great segue that both of you brought up because I had this in my notes like Cam Bynum and Louis seen has that have our opinions changed at all on that position battle from what we've seen so far? I don't know that they have. I think to Andrew's point, Cam Bynum has had some impressive moments. He's been in good position. He dropped an interception the other day. He's looked good for the most part. He also got burned deep one time and I think was out of position another time. Every player is going to have good reps and bad reps. I think Cam Byam's been good, but I don't think he's been so lights out that you're like, oh, wait, he's going to for sure like hold on to this job.

And Louis Seen has also had kind of an inconsistent camp with some good moments and some bad moments running with the twos. He's been like just a step a half step behind making a couple plays and and he's you've seen him kind of express some frustration after that and that's gonna come like just just getting more reps getting more comfortable in this defense um and they've also we've seen them both on the field at times and more more so i think in walk through than in than in team periods but there there might be some looks where they're in dime and and they have both of those guys on the field. To me, that battle, my opinion on it, hasn't really changed.

I think Cam Bynum is a good player, and he's a young player too, with maybe more upside than we might think. But I still think eventually this is Louis Scene's job to kind of lose. Yeah, Louis Scene is certainly going to be the starter. If he's not the starter of that San Francisco game, that's kind of what teams treat, Louis Seen is certainly going to be the starter. If he's not the starter of that San Francisco game, that's kind of what teams treat as the dress rehearsal now, that second game where you kind of trot all the starters out. If Louis Seen's not the guy there and it's still Cam Bynum, that's when you can start to be like, okay, maybe he's not the week one starter and

maybe they haven't trusted them at that point. Cam Bynum, I think, is just a sub-package player in this defense and one who's going to get a lot of roles probably with Donatel, but, and earn one maybe, and again, if Channon Sullivan's also a guy nobody talks about, he wasn't that great with Green Bay. He was a budget option to come in here at corner, and if you view that somehow Cam Bynum, a former college corner, can be a better kind of slot DB nickel option, Like maybe he, maybe that's his role or a role if they kind of mix him in with Sullivan instead of relying on Sullivan on every passing down.

But you don't take Louis Seen in the first round, talk him up the way they've talked him up off the record, on the record, and not expect that guy to be your immediate starter next to Harrison Smith and maybe even a successor for Harrison Smith in a year or two. So I think, I don't think it's time to freak out,

but I think that September or August, excuse me, 20th date against the Niners is the time you want to see seen in that starting lineup. Yeah, no, I agree. I think that's probably a very reasonable way to look at it is a couple of weeks from now, if it's any different, or if he's not even getting any first team reps through the next few weeks especially even when they practice against uh san francisco here when they have those joint

practices those are like semi-dress rehearsal ish things too for teams now with one fewer preseason game don't you like that nfl teams found like a different way to get the same work in for these players like the players are probably like, yay, no fourth preseason game. They're like, oh yeah, well, trust me, we'll figure out a way.

But I remember last year feeling like the practices with Denver were really important to the coaching staff and that they use those as big evaluation pieces. So how he looks will matter a lot. And what it's going to come down to that's I think hard for everyone. That's a rookie is just if Cam Bynum has this thing mastered, we could even see like a B.C. Johnson beats out Justin Jefferson situation where the first couple of games it's that way. And then eventually scene comes in. But for the safety position, it feels like you really should be taking those first team reps just a couple of weeks like before the season.

You really need to be in that position. Yeah, just a couple of weeks from right now, those joint practices against the 49ers are going to be really big, I think, for for the coaching staff and just for us to see how different guys look, not just the safeties, but all these different position battles. And we've touched on like Cam Dantzler, Andrew Booth. We've touched on Jesse Davis probably having the right guard position locked up i don't know that there are any other position battles of huge note i would say maybe the fourth receiver spot is still a little bit intriguing to me i think amir smith-marset with what he did at the end of the season with his skill set where he was drafted last year um to me he entered the camp as the favorite for that

and hasn't done anything to convince me otherwise. I know they've got some guys, Albert Wilson, B.C. Johnson, that have played more football than Amir Smith-Marset, but just with the Vikings talking about having that speed and just wanting different people to bring different things to the table at the receiver position, I think Smith-Marset brings that speed, brings that ability to stretch the field that other guys don't have. And they may rotate in a couple of guys at that fourth receiver spot,

especially if one of the top three has to miss time at all. But, yeah, to me, I mean, I don't think anything has changed in that regard. I think Amir Smith-Marset is still definitely the favorite there. And I would actually disagree i turned to matt at one point yesterday's practice and said bc johnson is going to be the reason or excuse me amir smith-marset's going to be the reason they can't cut bc johnson because bc johnson is there's a reason why he started over justin jefferson not because he's more talented but because he knows where to line up he's one of the more reliable guys that coaches that coaches just put a lot into that, knowing like, hey, if I call a play, you're going to do the right thing. You're not going to get flagged because you're too far off

the line before the snap, or you're running the wrong route, or not running at the right depth, all those things. And Amir Smith-Marset had a lot of times yesterday where coaches were pulling him off to the side and correcting him on things. There was one play on a screen where he just didn't block. KJ Osborne gets blown up and Kirk Cousins of all people stepped in and said, we don't block this. It's not going to be run right. Amir's got to show that he can be reliable. And you're right. He's more, I think he's more talented than BC and his upside is greater and he'll be on the roster. But right now BC looks like the number four to me just because coaches can trust him. And I think it's that simple.

Yeah, I think that coaches are always going to be coaches when it comes to this, whether it's the Zimmer regime or the O'Connell regime. And so Smith-Marset has a couple of weeks here to prove that he can master all the details because I think you and I must have been standing next to each other, Andrew, when that happened, because it was just like, OK, he did something very wrong on that play but we see maybe too much of that with Smith-Marset but clearly the skill is higher and is it a development thing that takes even another year for him is it never there you know somebody like Stacy Coley for example had great physical skill but it was just never there and there's been players way better way more physically skilled Cordero Patterson, where it was not there and coaches couldn't trust them to run routes and things like that.

So you, if you're not mastering it, then somebody like BC is going to get that job or Albert Wilson, who I do hear coaches saying, Oh, great job, Albert, or good route or whatever out there. Like the veteran, this guy has stayed in the league at 5'9 and 170 pounds. So I kind of am interested in Elber Wilson and where he fits in in all this. I think that it's possible all of them make it, or it's possible that maybe one of those guys ends up getting cut. It doesn't look like right now that's going to be B.C. Johnson. So that battle is worth watching closely, especially in the preseason games, which I think will matter a lot.

Can I ask a wrap-up question for the show? Well, it's the Raggetts Roundtable, but I want to ask one question. No, please do. All right. What has been the biggest challenge reporting-wise for you guys so far? Go ahead. Biggest challenge reporting-wise. Wow.

Covering the NFL, all of Wow. That's covering the NFL. I also and it's like the Matrix. I just saw like nine thousand letters and like reasons kind of fly across my face. Like, which one do I pick? Biggest challenge reporting wise. Boy, I do enjoy the don't shoot video at certain portions of practices. I like that, how they're requesting of fans not to do that. But that's not the biggest challenge. I think the biggest challenge is right now not having an open locker room yet. They typically don't do that in training camp. So our access to players has not been the exact same.

We're not getting as many at the podium. You're having to hunt them down. And it's not being, I don't know, it's not being set up in the same way that maybe it used to be. So we're getting access rolled back in the NFL continually. It's like every year we have to fight off these waves of restrictions, whether it's what to shoot for photos or videos or who to talk to or when you can talk to them. I don't know how much fans care about all that, but they should care about it because that's how we become more informed and how we can kind of help you guys understand what exactly is going on so to me

it's just that continual wave of restricting access i yeah i don't know that i have anything to add to it i think those two are the kind of big things i think the i think the video thing is just really like asinine. Like if you're, if you don't want people taking videos and showing what you're doing, then like a, like either don't have fans at these practices, if you're going to ask them not to shoot video or like, don't show things in these open practices that like the Packers could possibly gain some sort of advantage from.

So to me that that's a little weird, just the kind of concern that some of the new regime has shown over things like that. But hey, we're working with what we got, and it's been a good, solid camp so far, I would say. I would think for you and me, Will, it's us versus the sun. The sun is real. Yeah, I wasn't thinking about the question in that way

but you are absolutely right it's it's reapplying multiple times a day i mean yesterday was 90 plus and my entire body was just like a sheer layer of sweat and sunscreen mixed together and it's not particularly enjoyable but see that's see i i was not going for super serious and both of you guys were like, well, you know, the access and turning in the future and the fan. And I'm just like, I meant the sun, like with the, where we do the press conferences, their shade when they start. But then as the press conference goes on, the shade disappears. And then we're all like huddling to the side of Kevin O'Connell or

something like, like a bunch of like a pack of animals. It's just like, we just don't want to get toasted over here. Well, for me, then it's actually been the wind because it's been like 20 mile an hour winds every single time. And every recording that I try to go back and listen to, it's just this constant, like it sounds like we're in a wind tunnel every single time.

So the sun, the wind, just the elements, you know, the elements. Yeah. It's tough out there. It's tough out there. Well, Will, another beautifully orchestrated Ragged's Roundtable. Andrew, thank you so much for your time. And I saw an article today that people are paying podcast hosts up to $50,000 to appear.

Not the host paying the guests, but the guests paying the hosts. So I will await my payment from you guys i'll look forward to that there will be a diet dr pepper on your desk that's all i got thanks so much for your time andrew thanks guys