Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy are looking very different at Vikings mincamp

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press to breakdown Vikings minicamp practice No. 2 and how QBs Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy are looking so far through offseason workouts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press inside TCO Performance Center. As we have just come off the field here from another practice, a very windy practice out there. I mean, they built it near the airport, but this is the windiest place on earth, I think, at the moment. Over the last couple of couple days it's been pretty wild out there but we're here we survived it we made it and uh just got done talking with jonathan grunard so we'll give you an update on the way that he's adjusting to brian floris's defense but i know what you guys want to hear you want to hear how does jj mccarthy and sam darnold look after another practice today, which was not the most intense

practice. It was a lot of seven on seven. There was not a ton of 11 on 11 reps. I can only remember a handful throughout the entire day, but nonetheless, we will find ways to talk about this. And what I was thinking about Dane is how can we describe to people who are not here at practice, how each of these quarterbacks look because we're not able to film the entire practice and tweet it out or whatever as people do in the stands during a training camp so we have to kind of explain to you what these guys look like so i'm going to give you one sam darnold play that i think is emblematic and I'll walk you through it of how Sam Darnold has looked and I want you to start off by doing the same thing with J.J. McCarthy I want you to give me a J.J. McCarthy play and explain exactly what it looked like to you and what it says about where

J.J. McCarthy is right now as the Vikings quarterback go J McCarthy all right imagine this seven on seven drill and I'm gonna cheat I'm gonna do two plays because they were basically in rep in in succession of each other a good way to figure out right now how JJ McCarthy is feeling about playing the position in my opinion by watching this practice is there was a little flood route maybe five six yards to the sideline today. It didn't come together the way it was supposed to, I don't think. The timing seemed to be off. But the receiver who was running the little out route to the boundary stops.

J.J. McCarthy throws him the ball, and it lands about two yards in front of him, right at his feet. He puts his hand on his hips. He goes and takes another rep. The next play, he tries to throw it 100 miles per hour into a small tight window, and Theo Jackson almost intercepts the ball. So why I picked two plays, and I cheated. You said one play, but in succession, I think the short arm throw shows if the timing's not there, it's just not quite clicking for him yet and I think the second play after that is almost a compounding of a mistake of well I missed this throw so I gotta

get the next one and I gotta throw it as hard as I can it's a thing I think we've saw at least in the times we've got to watch J.J. McCarthy right now and which I think we both would agree not the most outstanding practices over the last two days don't want to read too much into these but there have been things that kind of meet left on the bone I think he's just trying to almost overthink the position at this point and then I think those two plays kind of describe that so that's a great way to describe it because I was thinking about myself shooting a basketball and how I have taken 10 gazillion shots in my life. And if you toss me a basketball right now without any thinking at all, I will just look at the rim and fire it up and so forth.

But if I had only taken 100 shots in my life and you were still trying to teach me the proper technique of what the way to do this All right, get your feet here get your elbow here And this is how you want to do it. My first try is going over the backboard or it's going to be very stiff It's going to be like, uh, all right. I'm trying to feel this. How do I get this exactly right? Oh animus But if I were to do those techniques 10 000 times they would come second nature to me. It doesn't look second nature to him, which it isn't because he just got here. And when the throw went short, I remember exactly what play you're talking about.

My thought was, did he think the receiver was running a different route or on a different yardage? Or did he just try to do a certain footwork and didn't put his foot in the right spot and threw it short or what could it be because when we watch him out here the accuracy has not been pristine especially over the last couple of days and again for the millionth time the learning period is the learning period for a reason because they are doing this in almost a high speed walkthrough when JJ McCarthy is out there and doing exactly what they told us they were going to do, which is take it very slow. So I think those two plays are perfectly emblematic that if you hear or read, well, McCarthy almost threw this really bad interception. Well, that is

true. And he had a couple yesterday that were tipped in the air and one was picked off that doesn't mean he's out here just throwing picks to people all the time it means that it's not at a place right now where they could run it 11 on 11 and have him get everything down which is what i would expect and it's what they plan for yeah and you mentioned the basketball reference you've taken a million shots it comes second nature I think of golf too like a lot of times the first shot you take of the season the first time you tee off it feels pretty good because you're not thinking about it you're not trying to correct things on the fly you're not overthinking things and then as the season goes on like you get worse and then every so often you

get better and then you think you felt it and then you think it's clicking and and I why I bring up golf is because sometimes you'll hit a drive and you'll be like there it is why can't I do that every time it's like that with JJ McCarthy right now too there was a in bending route near the end zone they were doing a red zone period and he just puts it on on the guy on a button and when when it looks good right now it looks really good um it's just that consistency is not there and it's because like to your point this is the learning period um i'm i'm not gonna press the button sound the alarm about jg mcc McCarthy right now because he's had a couple practices where he looks inaccurate. If this persists through the summer, and let's hope it doesn't persist all the way through when fans are here, they're taking the videos because, oh boy, if the fans

start circulating the videos, then we're going to have to, I don't even know what we're going to have to do. But it's there. You can see it. Sometimes you, you said basketball, I say golf, but I think it all kind of connects. Okay. Here's what I want to do. I want to react to what you just told me irrationally now. All right. But with some truth mixed in. Okay. So what we just told everybody was, yeah, you know, it looks pretty like he's feeling it out and the golf

thing is me to a tee i mean you know you've seen it off yep off the tee when i hit it really well it's a bomb and then i go i must i must have turned my hips that way i must have dropped my and then the next time you hit in the woods that's just all amateur golfers because there's not enough hours even if i had the natural talent to be a good golfer, I wouldn't put in enough work. So he's doing that, but he's going to need more and more and more reps. That's the rational way to view this. However, let me just throw this out there though. Are you a believer that accuracy is something that can be improved? Because in college, there were times where he did some of the same stuff kind of sprayed the ball on certain types of routes the deep ball was not the best looking when he was

in college and so far we've seen the same player he didn't show up and become completely different the bet that they're making is that what he's going to be able to do in the coming months in the coming two years is to be able to smooth out all of that so and as you mentioned when it looks good it looks extremely good making it more toward that and less toward the balls that are either coming short or flying over people's heads are you a fundamental believer that you can change that about a quarterback no um no I don't know if you can just fundamentally change like the touch someone has for throwing a football I do think you can get more accurate with just like I'm gonna sound like Kevin O'Connell time on task I do think that

the more you work with the people around you, the more accurate you can get because that play I mentioned earlier, I think you're right. It might have been the receiver not running the depth that he thought the receiver was going to run, or maybe the timing just felt off. I think accuracy can kind of be built into timing and just how everything kind of fluidly functions throughout the offense. I think Justin Jefferson can make you look more accurate because if you throw it anywhere within a 10 mile radius of him, he's going to catch the ball. But as far as like developing like accuracy with like the way you can feather a football into to, you know, the layered throws that Kevin O'Connell talks about I'm not sure how much

you can actually like I think part of that is innate I think you can get better at some of it but I do think part of that is innate so for reacting a little irrationally the thought would be well what is the ceiling then if we're not going to ever get to that level of being able to feather throws across the field and how good can he get? I don't know. I don't know. I do think that there is a little bit, as far as just playing the quarterback position, you either have it or you don't. And I think Kevin O'Connell's talked a lot about this. He talked about how he couldn't see things develop. He couldn't, when he did see him, he was sailing throws over, over people's head.

Kevin O'Connell likes to talk about the way he played quarterback. Like he was the worst quarterback ever. And he wasn't, he made it to the NFL. But I think there are levels to it. And I think that probably does speak to the fact that like, yeah, I think accuracy is also as much as arm talent and being able to wing it in

there is a God given ability. I think accuracy can be too. So how much can he improve is actually a pretty rational question i think if we were irrationally reacting we'd say he'll never get accurate more than this and it's going to be a huge problem uh there's a bunch of different layers to this in in terms of my thinking i look at certain quarterbacks stafford early in his career, even Jared Goff at times, who throw the ball really hard that when it's in the ballpark, if they have good receivers, they're going to make the catch.

But it's not necessarily Drew Brees. Drew Brees is the gold standard for accuracy. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone else more accurate other than Steve Young, and then you'd have to go back before my time a little bit with joe montana or somebody like that but as far as a lot of quarterbacks go the velocity is really important in terms of getting it into windows and hitting the right places before the defenders can get there josh allen is not a flawlessly accurate quarterback and you can make this case for a lot of different quarterbacks in the league

that the most important thing is throwing it to the right person on the right play and making the right read. Of course you can't throw it into the hot dog stand, but if it's not right there and the guy has to go up to get it, well, that's all right. You're going to be able to work around that. You and I both covered hockey in our past.

You're a big hockey guy actually and uh when i remember this from covering hockey prospects that some of them dangled the puck in ways that just made no sense and then other ones the puck would bounce off their stick more and you could improve it but what usually made the difference was what was around them and was it playmakers around them who could get them the puck in scoring positions and so forth? And so I think that with something like this, what's going on around you, the context of what's happening, how open are the wide receivers? Are the wide receivers guys who can make contested catches? Can they go up and get the ball? And there may be some times where there's just going to be throws where you go i

don't know that one just flew on him and there's nothing you could do there baker mayfield's kind of like that where he's got a great arm and amazing talent but sometimes you just go whoa it just went i don't know why uh and you could still win a lot of games with a quarterback like that i don't think jalen hurts is the most flawlessly accurate, but he's a really good athlete. And I think McCarthy's playmaking and decision-making are what will drive him more than being someone like Drew Brees. But I don't know that it's going to completely go away, this issue of having some touch. If it is though, the age is going to be a big factor here. Because I think that if he was 24 years old and we were talking about this well he only throws fastballs and whatever that might be really

difficult at 24 he can i think improve this over the years because he is 21 years old yeah and i i do think that is an important part of the development process is just we have gotten away from older players being undraftable like they were 10, 15 years ago. I think if you're 24 and you're ready, you can play the position. It takes a little longer as long as there is a rampway for success. It doesn't really matter how old you are. But the fact that he is 21, that's important in this entire equation. And that's something the Vikings have

kind of cooked into this equation now I don't know if they knew they were going to get JJ McCarthy out of this draft but it worked out well where they weren't expecting him to have to start right away I don't think anyone that they drafted they were going to necessarily say you're starting right away why Why? Because they have Sam Darnold. And they went out and they made, you know, a very substantial, at least given, you know, the market around this type of player, a substantial offer for Sam Darnold with the idea that the other guy, whoever the rookie ends up being, now we know it's JJ McCarthy, can be brought along in a way that doesn't rush him.

So, yeah, I think the fact that he's 21 matters because will he ever figure out, I don't want to call it an accuracy issue because that's going to get him. Right. That sounds like it's a real thing. We don't actually know if it's a thing yet. Right. But these anecdotal things that we see where he's sailing the ball occasionally, is he going to be able to develop the touch over time? Possibly, but he's going to have more of an opportunity to do it if he's not rushed in

and thrown into the fire when he's not ready. If he's actually given a rampway to be successful in that rampway, obviously it's just a little bit more palatable when you're 21 and maybe you're sitting out and you're starting when you're 22, 23, even 24. I think that's okay because that's part of the push-pull of this entire equation that the Vikings kind of put together this offseason. It was a guy for the future, but also a guy for the present right now. And the guy for the present right now, his name is Sam Sam Darnold it's not J.J. McCarthy the gains also may just come down to him and how much he is able to put into it and make adjustments the one thing I think about with him though is it doesn't look to me like it's a technique issue it looks like he knows how to throw the football it looks like feeling your way through

the right way to do it and then also natural touch that is the same as we're talking about a dribbler where some thing inside of Kyrie Irving's brain makes that ball look like a yo-yo on his hands and we all know this when we see it but we have also seen guys who don't have the perfect natural touch become great basketball players if they work on it the technique with shooting and the right decisions and things like that so i think that it's something he's going to have to work through but it won't be kind of the main reason he's successful like oh he just was so unbelievably accurate it will be the other stuff and when we see him out here moving around as an athlete is very very impressive that's going to play into it as well now with sam darnold the one throw but i'll go i'll go two just uh just because you went to yeah the first throw there was a play where

tristan jackson is who's had a very good minicamp by the way if you want uh you want a little nugget there tristan jackson's look great out there he always kind of does in the practice setting no jalen naylor today we don't know why if jalen naylor has more injury issues than this conversation about maybe something interesting with him is sort of over but this was tristan jackson's best play of minicamp so far so he's i believe he was lined up on the left side of the field and he's coming over across the field into the back of the end zone and so he's behind the defenders he's got somebody trailing him they were probably in man coverage so he's behind the the first level of defenders playing in some sort of zone and sam darnold when he releases the ball i couldn't tell who the heck he was throwing it to he throws the the ball and I'm like, where is it going?

And then Tristan Jackson comes flying in and makes the catch, meaning that Sam Darnold threw it with great anticipation, flawless timing at the back of the end zone. And we all went, whoa, okay, that was some kind of throw. And of course, everybody was like, all right, let's go kind of thing. There was another one where he tried something similar with Justin Jefferson and it went way over Justin Jefferson's head. And then he kind of went, okay. He didn't look as frustrated as McCarthy looks with bad throws,

which I have noticed about Sam Darnold. His demeanor is so much more confident, so much more mature of like, all right, next throw kind of thing but it was the one over jefferson's head was thrown so hard and so fast and in the right ballpark but just didn't get there and that's probably sam darnold and who he is with this arm talent but when he does something good it is really wow worthy out here and i think that the demeanor of even both throws where you didn't see a lot different like it wasn't like he was you know jumping through the roof when he made the great play it wasn't like he was you know throwing you know a fit when he

made the bad play it was like well another rep kind of thing for him just it's been very much on display the difference in experience with both of these players, I think. Yeah, one guy has started many games in the NFL. I don't know the exact number. I think it's over 50 between time with the Jets, Panthers. I don't think he started a game last year unless maybe one at the end of the year. Yeah, he started one of the 49ers, yeah. But yeah, one guy has played a lot of football in the NFL,

and one guy is still learning the footwork that Kevin O'Connell wants him to throw with in this system. So I think it's easier for Sam Darnold to move on from maybe a bad throw here or there, and you're seeing that. And it's also, I think, probably a little easier for him to move on from a good throw. I think everything Sam Darnold has done throughout OTAs, now mandatory minicamp, in the portions we haven't been able to see, in the portions we have been able to see, is all he's done is carry himself like he's the starting quarterback of the team.

Everything he's done, the media access he gave last week, it wasn't the most rah-rah exciting press conference we've ever done but said yeah it sounds like a starting quarterback he just seems like a guy who's been around the block done this which he has and I don't think it's that too all that surprising when we really break it down to the fundamental sense that like one guy looks much better than the other I think there was a world in which J.J. McCarthy was always going to be sort of a project for whoever took him. And I think what Sam Darnold can do is he's not necessarily a project anymore. He is what he is.

He was probably a project earlier in his career, but now he's seven, eight years into his career and he has this wealth of knowledge that he didn't have when he was coming out that J.J. McCarthy doesn't have right now but when you see a throw like the one you talked about in practice today where he throws with so much anticipation to Tristan Jackson that's just a guy in my opinion who has seen that play before seen something like that in the NFL and understands when that ball needs to get released, where that guy is going to be, and is able to throw what the anticipation needed

so no one else can get it but the receiver that the ball is intended to. So, yeah, it's night and day right now as far as Darnold and McCarthy. And I think that's kind of, if you've been paying attention kind of throughout this whole offseason it was always going to be that it was always going to be Sam Darnold as the starter unless JJ McCarthy vastly outperformed him deep into the summer this was always Sam Darnold's job this was always Sam Darnold's team to start for this year in this vacuum of the 2024 season. And I think we're just seeing it now time and time again throughout practice.

One guy looks really, really good, and it's Sam Darnold. Okay, don't you want to overreact, though? Like isn't it in our nature fundamentally as football watchers and enjoyers, it's sort of like some animal instinct that you're trying to quell. You're like, I really want to eat the ice cream, but I said I was going to not have any sugar. There's a part of you that wants to go like, Darnold looks awesome.

What are we doing here? Why even draft anybody? I'm cool overreacting with Darnold. Where I don't want to overreact is with mccarthy okay because because i think that in this day and age we've seen a couple people clip that they they clip our overreaction about mccarthy and it's jj mccarthy's a bust that might get clipped jj mccarthy's not a bust but i'm cool overreacting with Darnold. Maybe he's Baker Mayfield. Maybe he is.

Maybe he's the next guy where there's a reason J.J. McCarthy's not starting, and it's because the Vikings are a 10-win football team. I don't know. Are we using the wrong guy, by the way? I was thinking about this the other day, that we have gone to the Baker Mayfield example because it was the most recent. Most recent. But it's more like Geno Smith, isn't it it that they bailed on him pretty quickly in New York and he I think that the arm talent

of Geno Smith is really spectacular and it was always kind of the dumb and bad decisions the circumstances the pressure of New York and all that sort of stuff and I guess with Mayfield he had already been pretty good in Cleveland at times, if not very good. Geno Smith was never good. There was never a moment where you went, oh, well, you know, he's got it, but he just needs the right circumstance. Where Mayfield was a Chad Henney play away from going to the AFC Championship game. And with Geno Smith, there was never anything there. So I think if there was like an overreaction or if there was a, Hey, this has actually happened before recently, it's probably Gino Smith.

And then look at his receivers, Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf. It's a well-coached organization and so forth. I think there, there might be something there. I agree with you with McCarthy though. And it's not out of, I make fun of the internet, but I don't fear those people. They just need to get a life or whatever. It's more of I don't think it's fair to him. And the same way I view Justin Jefferson and bogus rumors and whatever else, which was this is not fair to the people involved to be spreading this nonsense or talking about trading this person when, A, it's not true, they're never going to do it, and, B, he doesn't deserve that.

He doesn't deserve to be talked about as if somebody would, that you just trade away for draft picks or whatever. He's one of the greatest players of the generation here. What are we doing? And also, the people involved, if you're spreading rumors and nonsense about that, that can have implications. People see everything that gets written. So I think there was a responsibility there and there is with jj mccarthy to say like this is the fact of the matter right now in minicamp they are working along pretty slowly

with him and there have been some tough practices but that's exactly what i expected i also remember when they had pat elfline play uh with the backups and he had been drafted to be the starting center in minicamp and people being like Zimmer hates rookies or whatever. Like this is the slowest portion. It's just that you want it really bad to have these answers. So I think that's that's where we can maybe overreact a little more with Darnold because it's on the side of, well, it could happen. And it looks like something's happening out here and maybe it will. And maybe it won't speaking. And if you want to go along and overreaction, the Vikings have found the next great tight end in national football league history.

And that is Nikhil Harry. I never would have guessed. So our friend Craig Peters, who works for Vikings Entertainment, great guy. He noticed that Nikhil Harry was working with the tight ends yesterday. Now, none of us, we were all looking at J.J. McCarthy and Sam Darnold, and we didn't notice, so credit to Craig for that. He asked Kevin O'Connell, hey, what are you doing there? And so he talked about wanting to develop him as a tight end, which makes so much sense because he's massive.

And I saw it everywhere. I saw it all over the place, like NFL Network and all these other places, former first rounder becoming a tight end. I was like, is this a story? Did I miss something here? I thought Justin Jefferson signed his contract today. But let's talk about it. Do you like it?

Do you like Nikhil Harry playing tight end now? I like it in theory. I think it sounds cool because he's, what, 6'4", 225. 225? I think he listed. He might 240. 240, yeah. He looks like a tight end.

He looks like a defensive end. He looks like an edge rusher. We joke about that. He's legitimately bigger than Jonathan Grudak. Yes. Actually bigger. We joke about that here. An insight into practice.

We're watching from the pavement, and we've joked in the past, like, oh, the edge rusher just caught the ball. It was Nikhil Harry. It's because he looks unnatural at receiver. So do I like Nikhil Harry switching positions to tight end? Yeah, in theory, it sounds good. He was a first round pick of the Patriots not too long ago as a receiver because of his ability to catch the ball, to be a mismatch in space. And I think those things could be translatable to the tight end position in theory.

I'm not going to get excited about it in practice until we see it really happen. Because right now it's just an idea. I think it's an idea the coaching staff kicked around. This guy has a lot of talent. He's a former first round pick. Can we figure out a way to maximize that? It's not happening at receiver. Maybe there's a way we can

unlock something in him with his skill set, his size, his strength at tight end. But why I don't want to overreact in that direction is because tight end is really freaking hard to play. You have to learn the position of a receiver and an offensive lineman, basically. That's why it's so hard to play. But given kind of the theme of the show, yeah, basically. That's why it's so hard to play. But given kind of the theme of the show, yeah, let's overreact and say Nikhil Harry is going to be an important part of this progression of the offseason because TJ Hawkinson's not going to be ready right when the season starts. So they are going to need some tight end reps.

Josh Oliver is a monster blocker, but he leaves something to be desired sometime in the past catching game. And sometimes the run after catch game. Yeah, and sometimes he gets so excited that he fumbles. So I think there is like a need for at least an option, another pass catcher. Johnny Munt, greatest third tight end ever, according to Kevin O'Connell. He'll probably be in line for a lion's share of the reps with T.J. Hawkinson out. But they signed Robert Tunyon. They obviously are switching the Keeley-Harey positions to tight end. And I think they're doing it for a reason because they understand that this offense,

the way that T.J. Hawkinson commanded so many targets and and it was such an important part you're going to need that part of the offense so maybe it can be Nikhil Harry I think it would be really fun if it was Nikhil Harry I just don't know if we can necessarily say right now and we can treat it in the way it has kind of taken on a life of its own i i don't know i i put it as a note at the bottom of my story yesterday because it just didn't feel like that big of a deal but it is it's a big deal yeah one of their top headlines yeah uh all right let me try let me try i'm gonna give this a shot because what's the date uh is it uh june what are you doing june 5th 5th okay so i got plenty of time before if this goes wrong and he's cut tomorrow or whatever uh you'll all forget about it by the time training camp

comes around so let me let me give this a shot uh nikhil harry is one of the best blocking wide receivers i feel like i've ever seen there are almost no wide receivers who can go to battle with linebackers but they put him on the field a few times last year to block specifically. So there's one place to start. He can actually handle one of the toughest parts. He can catch the football. When you throw him the ball, we've seen him actually make several spectacular catches out here.

And it's not one of those things where it kind of hits and bounces around in some way. It's like, it goes in there like nice and small. His hands are huge. Is it enormous? It's's a big man if that hasn't been mentioned already and what tight ends do when they catch the ball is they mostly are schemed open in space there are very few tight ends this is why you pay tj hockinson but there are very few tight ends who are lining up one-on-one with someone and they're putting on a

juke move and then they're getting you know breaking open on man coverage or whatever most of the time it's all right find your space inside of a zone so if the keel harry who has experience with the offense can understand that part of it he can make catches that come his way and he can block well enough to make a case for himself as a tight end. That was my best try. Normally these things don't work out. When I did minor league baseball, if a, if a batter couldn't hit in the minors, so they play in college and then they come to the minors, but they had a strong arm. They would almost always try them at pitcher just to find out. i saw a guy balk like three times

because he had no idea how to even just hold the ball in a game that's what the minors were for that's what minicamp is for it's like the minors where you're just you know going through and seeing if there's something there but one time we had a second baseman who they turned into a pitcher and he just started striking people out and And I think he got to AAA. Yeah. So every once in a while, these things come through. So the best of luck to Nikhil Harry. I think the real story here for minicamp is Robert Tunyon.

Robert Tunyon looks like a dude. He's been making plays almost every single day out here for the Vikings, and I think if they started week one, if we just went off the lineup we've seen right now, I think Robert Tunyon's my tight end one. Yeah, he might be. And this is not some random guy. He got 17 touchdowns from Aaron Rodgers with the Green Bay Packers one season.

Robert Tunyon's been around the block. He's done this. And frankly, I think he offers a little bit more. At the peak of his powers, what we've seen Robert Punyan do is be better than Johnny Mudd so yeah that that based on what we've seen so far the way he's kind of just slowly but steadily progressed through you know where he's been lining up he started with the third string and he was with the second string. And now he's getting some reps with Sam Darnold and the other starters. Yeah, that's a sneaky signing that I think could actually end up paying dividends for the Vikings.

It's a little surprising he was even available because good tight ends are kind of hard to find. And at one point, he has proven that he can be a good tight end. But yeah, the real story is probably Robert Tunyon is ahead of everyone else, or is ahead of Nikhil Harry, even though everyone else is probably talking about Nikhil Harry more than Robert Tunyon. Right. I was thinking about something and why a Nikhil Harry story catches a little fire. I mean, one of them was a Patriots guy's first-round draft pick. For some reason, the intrigue of of first round draft picks just never dies laquan treadwell will sign

somewhere and they'll say like oh laquan treadwell signs whatever like laquan treadwell i mean what difference does that make uh but it's the fact that he was a notable first round draft pick and when they don't work out there's always this this, well, maybe he finds it. Maybe he finds it. Maybe he finds it a tight end. I guess we'll see. I did want to talk about how funny it is that the good players in circumstances like this get completely ignored. So I want to, here's what I want to do. I want to go through good players on the Vikings and just like talk about them for a second. Just a second.

Because we talked to Jonathan Grenard today. Jonathan Grenard had maybe three or four of us around him asking him questions and a really bright guy, real sharp dude. And I think that had he been the big offseason signing, you would have had everybody running over to Jonathan Grenard. He's going to make like 20 million dollars a year. We're like, you know, hey, man, what's up? Like, just whatever. Not a big crowd or anything i think jonathan grenard what fascinates me about him is the different shape of the edge rushers than what we had before where you were very physically intimidated by daniel hunter and everson griffin and marcus davenport oh my gosh this guy's enormous

and now you're like oh you're not bigger than Nikhil Harry like you're uh but I just get the sense from Jonathan Grenard that he's going to fit extremely well with Brian Flores they seem to attract players or target players who really understand the game very well and he was teaching us football during this little you know scrum out there in the wind i i just get a really good vibe from the way he and brian floris are going to gel together yeah and i think they're going to gel so well together because of how versatile jonathan garnard's proven to be you can put him on the outside you can put him on the inside you can use him kind of as that chess piece wherever you want to generate pressure I think Jonathan Grenard's going to be able to do that and he's already kind of developed this like leadership

role within the defense which is really cool to see kind of organically happen he was talking today about how Dallas Turner is a freak like Dallas Turner looks the part of a superstar edge rusher in the league when you just watch him move out there. Runs a 4-4. But Jonathan Grenard said, you know, I'm taking him under my wing. Like, I'm taking a lot of pride in his development. So you're seeing that leadership. But then you're also seeing it was a cool little nugget.

They all, like the defenders, the edge rushers all do like an ab circuit after practice now. They don't need to. They're all ripped they all have six packs but they're doing this core work because Jonathan Grenard he brought that along with him from Houston and he said like I just do ab work every day after practice and it started with two guys and then it was three guys and now it was like 10 edge rushers and then after the the DBs got off the field they were ready to do it and everyone's doing like ab work because jonathan grenard just did it um so yeah i think it's cool to see you know that leadership role kind of show up um i'll be more interested when when the thing's

actually going when when when we actually get to see him rush and it's not this mandate of keep everyone off the ground like i'm excited to see jonathan grannard like go at it against christian derusaw and then we'll see what we really got one more nugget i promise we'll stop talking about nikhil harry but you mentioned like good players don't get any shine right now because everyone likes a redemptive arc narrative we're talking to jonathan grannard three or four of us there's 15 people talking to Nikhil Harry over by the entrance to the locker room so that speaks to what

mandatory minicamp is everyone wants kind of what could happen or who could kind of rise up this rank and we almost tend to overlook the good players but I think it's an important part like the team's going to win games because of the good players no disrespect to it's an important part like the team's gonna win games because of the good players um no disrespect to nikhil harry but the team's gonna win more games

because of jonathan garnard than it will because of nikhil harry i i like that you had the note there and uh he talked to us about that with the ab thing whatever but that like that's where we're at with good players at this time of year it's like they do crunches working on his abs and uh i said that we would not be doing that maybe you will i that's not me it's not my thing i jog and play basketball yeah but i'm not a like a lifting i lift weights but we don't do like we skip core like who needs it other than pro football players uh i last thing i do want to talk about because we spent so much time on nikhil harry uh is the wide receiver depth spot so i mentioned tristan jackson made a nice play there and brandon powell is notably more of a slot wide receiver as you watch the group and i know that

you're a lucky jackson believer as you watch the group do you feel that they need to go to free agency and ask if there's a dalton reisner type of free agent who's still hanging around out there that maybe if you're hunter renfro you thought you were going to get more money and you weren't and or or have we gone past go like are we done is this roster done because if there's going to be one more person added i think it's got to be at that wide receiver position because even if i don't know maybe jaylen naylor has a some absence or whatever we didn't we were caught up with jefferson we didn't ask about naylor yesterday and they don't have to tell us at this time of the year if it's an injury but that made me think all right that's

the guy we're supposed to be intrigued by powell is a proven player but a ceiling on that is there something else they need to do or do you think that they might run to uh tight end stuff or supposed to be intrigued by Powell is a proven player but a ceiling on that is there something else they need to do or do you think that they might run to uh tight end stuff or something like that like is there another answer here yeah I we always talk about the the wide who's wide receiver three because it's obviously Jefferson Addison and then KJ Osborne's gone so that that spot seems to be up for grabs. Right now, as we kind of watch through day two of mandatory minicamp, and Jalen Naylor's not there, and I think he could be a good player based on what we hear and the way they talk about him,

but he's just never available, it seems. He really struggled through injuries last year when it seemed like it could be a jumping-off point for him. We don't know if it's an injury right now, but he's not here for a mandatory minicamp. So like when you start to kind of go down that line of who's on the team and who plays receiver and who could be fitting into that number three receiver role, like, yeah, I tend to be more inclined to think that he might not be on the team right now. That at least it has to be at the forefront of Kwasi's mind and the front office's mind that

maybe we do have to canvas this receiver market. Maybe we're not done. Maybe the team is not completely set in stone. But where I would kind of pull back and hesitate about that is, I think we were talking about this today on the field is like, you said they've done this before. They've brought in a Tajay Sharp. They've brought in a Kendall Wright. They've brought in a Jordan Taylor. Like those free agents that aren't on the team always sound sexier than the people that are just out there in front of you. But there's a reason they're not on the team because they're not on any team always sounds sexier than the people that are just out there in front of you but there's a reason they're not on the team because they're not on any team right now so it could be a money thing and I think with Hunter Renfro it probably is he probably thought he was going to get more

than he is and maybe he's willing to settle at a lesser number to be a part of an offense like this but I don't know how you could be super confident with with the wide receiver three position i think brandon powell is a really good player um but i think there are just kind of limitations with what he you can do with him on the field i think he plays really well out of the slot but if you want versatility in your receiver room like if you want to be able to put justin jeff Jefferson in the slot and him use him as a cheat code because nobody can defend him in close quarters like that you can't really bump Brandon Powell out to to x or to z um there are just limitations there so I think yeah I I think

there has to be something if Jalen Naylor is maybe not ready or maybe maybe this is the year that Tristan Jackson proves he's ready to take the next step maybe Thayer Thomas like in year two takes off in a way we haven't seen um and I'm willing to give those guys like training camp to prove that I'm not saying go out and sign Hunter Renfro right now um but if we get through training camp and and we're not like intrigued by a wide receiver three then yeah i think you have to go sign one i would much rather see it play out myself than going out and signing a veteran that might not have much of an impact the list goes even longer i mean the michael floyd signing we thought that was going to be a thing and that was

absolutely nothing tavaris king was a guy who had a big game I think for the Giants once and they signed him off of that one big game they've been doing this for a while and normally you find these quality players in the same way with KJ Osborne you draft one you develop them and Thayer Thomas does intrigue me I mean where this is where we're at right now but he moves well and he catches the football. And to the point about Brandon Powell playing just the slot, that might be a little bit of an antiquated idea from us, though, because I thought the same thing.

It's going to be hard to get him open. They have splits that they condense sometimes that basically everyone's in the slot in a way. And the other thing is, too, that if your plays are designed for three guys and you line up on the outside well someone's going to cover him because he can catch the ball so if you're aware that all right he's lining up outside he's going to run you know whatever a nine route or something you know someone's going with him he's not going to draw extra attention no matter where he is on the field so you could still do your entire concept that's designed one, two, three for Jefferson, Hawkinson and Addison.

It's just not necessarily going to target him unless it's an emergency or in case nobody does cover him. He is competitive. He's very smart. He catches the football when it comes his way. He was really good in training camp last year and then stepped in at times. Maybe we're underappreciating him as a player who's developed over the years into this role they seem to think so by the fact that he's here and that will be something that we watch come along uh but the fact that Naylor wasn't out there is one of those like oh man I don't know what it is but what it's always something it seems uh when it comes to

him so anyway uh how many games you think this team? Wow, that's a way to end the podcast, isn't it? Like, what do you think? Did you do the – we didn't talk about this, right, the W's and L's? I asked Alec the other day if he had picked the schedule, and he said no. I haven't picked the schedule yet. What? What do you guys do on schedule release night? Talk about your travel plans?

Yeah, I book hotels. That's smart. That's smart. I haven't done that. Golf trip at Jacksonville. Yeah, let's do that. How many games do That's smart. I haven't done that. Golf trip at Jacksonville. Yeah, let's do that. How many games do we think they're going to win?

Yeah, like if you were picking the schedule, both of you are going to get your own podcast where you pick the schedule. We will, yeah. Just off of like you've watched them in minicamp and OTAs. How many wins is this team? Eight? Eight. Okay. I think eight.

I don't think they're making the playoffs. I don't think they're going to just be deep into the bottom of the basement of the NFC North. I think they're going to struggle with – the division is really, really good this year. But they get to play, I believe, a third-place schedule. Yes. So that's going to help them. They're going to secure some wins here and there. I think they're an underdog against the Giants in the opening game,

but I think they can beat the Giants. There's going to be games, and when I do my W's and L's on my scheduled show, we can kind of go deep into that. But, yeah, I think eight wins. I think below 500, probably flirting with 500, but they're not winning the north this year um yeah i'm ready when you're ready to pick the schedule like i'll be that this is an open invite when you decide if you're on a beach vacationing or whatever you're going to do

over the next six weeks and you think you know i'm a little bored let me pull out that schedule like no no stop we're doing that on the show i would love that all right sounds good uh well there you go there's your mini camp day two report there's a mini camp three uh there is another otas next week which is weird i don't understand the scheduling why it was different this week uh i'm actually going to be away from that i might need you to dial in from here or something so we could do a podcast for next week breaking that down but only a few more practices for us to get a look at here before we really do a podcast for next week, breaking that down, but only a few more practices for us to get a look at here before we really have a good sense for what things look like going into training camp, uh, in late July. So thanks everybody for watching

slash listening. And, uh, we'll catch y'all later football.