Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings have swung for the fences in the draft? That and many more Vikings draft questions (a Fans Only pod)

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fan questions about whether the Vikings should have picked a potential higher ceiling player at No. 12 overall or if landing several possibly good players was the better decision. Also where do the Vikings' draft picks fit in on the depth chart? Should they have drafted a wide receiver? Did this draft make them better in 2022? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider as we continue to react to the NFL draft and the players the Vikings drafted, their strategy, what it means for their future, immediate and long term. We have a lot more questions to answer. So this is once again a fans only podcast. First, let's do what we always do. Let's open up a Diet Dr. Pepper. And then we will dive right in. And by the way, if you want to send an email because you don't have Twitter maybe, but you listen to the show, if you go to purpleinsider.com, there a contact us just go there send your email i'll get it and i'm always happy to respond to those if you have other questions that aren't for the podcast feel free to ask them there as well uh and otherwise you could tweet it at matthew collar just let me know that it is for a fans only podcast or you can find where I had the call for questions, which the other day was at 56. Now it's at a lot more. And so I have a stack of questions to get to here. And, um, you know, I, this is, it's become one of my favorite things. I wish I thought of it a lot earlier is to take you guys questions and answer them because there's a lot of really good stuff here. A lot of good

ideas, a lot of good discussions, and it helps for article ideas and discussions with other analysts that we bring on so super helpful for you guys to send in all of your questions let's get started this from at head coach 21 longtime supporter of the newsletter and the show it seems like quacey is opting to get many players who could be good instead of getting one player who could be great is that the right way to build a roster well you know I guess if they think that the ceiling on Louis Scene or Andrew Booth Jr. is great then it doesn't directly correlate but I mean history would tell us that the top 15 is where the Pro Bowlers come from. The 12th overall pick has produced a lot of great players in the past,

including Micah Parsons last year, Odell Beckham, Deshaun Watson. There have been some really impressive 12th overall picks. It's a lot harder to find 32nd overall picks who are wearing gold jackets and making pro bowls and changing franchises for me make the pick at 12 and try to get a great player because great players are the ones that drive championships you do need a lot of good yes yes absolutely need a lot of good you can't just run three or four great players and then a bunch of usfl guys and you'll have a chance that's kind of what the vikings have done the last few years and as you've seen it hasn't worked so you have to hit

on development guys you have to sign good free agents if we look at the vikings last run to the nfc championship they hit on somebody like stefan Diggs as a superstar in the fifth round, which you never would have seen coming. So a lot of times you need luck. You need luck if you're the Los Angeles Rams to take Cooper Cup in the third round, and then he becomes one of the best wide receivers in the league. That needs to happen to you along the way. So the discussion isn't entirely, do you draft this guy because he could be a star or these two guys because they can fill out positions like you have to have good players at lots of spots in order to win you can't just run andrew whitworth at left tackle and no

one else on the rest of the offensive line like that's how the vikings have been with brian o'neill so this applies to a lot of different things you can't have a really good team and a mediocre quarterback that really doesn't work that often. It almost did with Case Keenum, but it doesn't really work that often to have that. So there's a little positional value type of conversation here to be had. Like, which spots can you have average players? Which spots can you have average players which spots can you have great players because with the salary cap you're never going to look like the 1994 san francisco 49ers where you have a star at every single position um but i would say this that you know go through

teams that win the super bowl teams that reach the super bowl they usually have hall of famers or all pros or pro bowlers all over the roster i mean it's not usually 10 of them but it's five six guys who are really the drivers of success the unstoppable forces of aaron donald who makes the big sack at the end of the game on joe burrow the jamar chase that you draft that immediately changes your franchise. And there's a lot of good to be had in free agency. And there's a lot of good to be had in the middle to late rounds if you can spot them and if you can develop them. And then you have to get lucky. That's the reality.

The first time through, the Vikings had a fourth-round pick elite player in Everson Griffin on one side and a third-round pick elite player on the other side in Daniil Hunter. How often do we see thirds and fourths turning out to be elite pass rushers that are demolishing tackles and leading a number one defense? That doesn't happen that often. But can you find in free agency Terrence newman linval joseph guys who are good to fill spots i think you can and and to use the rams example they called eric weddle out of retirement he hadn't played all year and said or two years i

think and said hey buddy you want to come play and he gave them decent play in the playoffs and helped them win a super bowl just by being still good enough to fill in that spot i mean i think that tells you that you know good players are necessary all over a roster top to bottom you can't be running out guys who belong in the usfl but it's hall of famers who drive Super Bowls. And through that lens, if it's me calling the shots, which it most certainly is not, I probably just pick Jamison Williams or maybe Kyle Hamilton and say, let's hope this is one of those Hall of Famers. Then let's hope we get one of the pro bowlers later at some point and find the good players and develop the good players around those superstars you know if things work out okay for the vikings this year on the field kevin o'connell's a little

better than zimmer they make the playoffs their first round out whatever let's say well then you're picking like 20th right and 12th is maybe the highest you're going to pick for a while unless you tear the roster entirely down at some point to try and get that star player in the first round so you know i'm not i don't think that it was a bad strategy to trade back to fill out the secondary you have to have a great secondary to win or at least really good and so they got two very very good prospects but go through the teams that have won the super bowl ever and find me the team that just had a bunch of good players i mean usually it's going to be four or five hall of famers even like the patriots were sort of talked about this way but then richard seymour and ty law like those guys are going into the hall of fame when tom br Brady has Randy Moss, he goes undefeated.

Like that's, you know, even the greatest quarterback of all time is going to perform better when he's got Hall of Fame talent around him. And that's what you should be shooting for, I think, at the top of the draft. They decided to take a little more dart-throwing approach, which is backed by a lot of the numbers. But I think the reason why the Jimmy Johnson chart values the top picks so much is that those guys are the ones who end up usually wearing gold jackets in comparison to players who end up being undrafted or fifth round picks.

It's just way more likely that a first top 10, top 12, top 15 pick is going to be that guy than, say, 32 and 42 and so forth. So I'm not I'm always kind of like, don't get me wrong. The approach was not a disaster in my mind. It's just an odds play. And what is really meaningful toward winning a super bowl uh all right this is um next question comes from at uh two uh seven six four six six underscore g this is a thomas who is apparently a real person and not a question asking bot all right so uh who says that numbers and letters on twitter can't result in good things

he says i've been on record for months bashing the kirk mini extension but after the way the draft unfolded with quarterbacks i'm a lot more comfortable with the way that quacey approached it draft the qb next year correct question mark well so this is complicated because you do have to look at it differently there's no question and this is where my you do have to look at it differently. There's no question. And this is where my frustration comes from with the information that all of us were provided with that if you told me that it's not a great quarterback draft, but there's going to be three to four first round picks, then I am all about take one of those guys and see if it works out. Andgas i think had it at three or two and a half so the expectation even from vegas was that there would be multiple

first round picks i think they probably expected malik willis and kenny pickett and then maybe there would be more but instead it ends up being just kenny pickett and i guess you have to be comfortable with the vikings not picking kenny pickett which kind of goes back to a bit of a Mac Jones discussion of you know can Kenny Pickett become a super superstar with his talent maybe not but could he have been that guy so let's not leave him entirely out of the discussion that they could have selected Pickett and done this whole thing if they had traded Kirk and signed Marcus Mariota, who was not hard to get for the Atlanta Falcons, a team that's rebuilding. So you can still stay with that because it's not like there was zero

first round projected or quarterbacks that ended up getting picked. It still was one who had a really great year in college and so forth. But let's just say you feel like you don't like the odds of Kenny Pickett. All right. The extension is to make sure that they're competitive. It would not have been a terrible direction at all based on their recent performances in the past years with this type of offseason to just move on from Cousins, bring in a filler quarterback, reset the roster, draft a lot of players, didn't even have to be a quarterback. Like if they had not drafted a quarterback and they had moved on from Cousins and moved on from

Thielen, Harrison Smith, and they had gotten draft capital and taken, let's say, six players in the first three rounds to rebuild the roster, I mean, are you not interested in how that potential approach would have worked out versus sticking with the let's try to stay competitive right now? Like, I have, and not only that, but you probably win, what, five games that way? Six games that way? Which would be painful, but then you're at the top for the next draft which on the last fans only we talked about how we would project right now 10 to 12 to 14 teams that are looking for quarterbacks in that supposedly great quarterback

draft you'd be in a much better spot in the driver's seat to take that player. So I don't think that you have to completely alter your view. You can look at the recent history, the price of Kirk Cousins. By the way, Vikings are spending, I think, the fifth most on the quarterback position by the salary cap this year. So you can look at that. And you can also wonder, and look, I don't think Mariota is going to be good for Atlanta. That's a bad team but you can wonder mariotta with a good supporting cast a good coach and what did he go for like 10 million

dollars let me find this out let me find out what he ended up costing mariotta has won nine games in the nfl before uh unless you think that this is going to result in way more than that, I mean, you can really make this case still pretty strongly that you don't have to entirely back off. But you are, I think, in much more solid ground saying, well, I guess they should just do this. Oh, my gosh. Mariota, this year, his cap number is 4.2 million. And Kirk Cousins is 31. Could the Vikings have stayed competitive even if they wanted to with a decent quarterback making 4 million versus a good quarterback making 30

if they had gone out to the free agent market like all these things are still worth asking and then there's the the no trade because i was just looking the other day let me pull this up joe flacco when he reached age 34 he was playing for the denver broncos like joe flacco would be in the same like was never an elite elite elite quarterback but was always good right maybe not a similar playing style to kirk cousins but not mobile at all good deep ball so i guess there's a lot of similarities there maybe uh flacco had the stronger overall arm and the you know good team good coaching a little more gutsy but like uh you know i mean the similar pocket quarterback if kirk cousins slips this year and and just doesn't perform as well because he's

in his mid-30s now he has a no trade and you can draft that quarterback but that quarterback can't really play right away unless you cut cousins which completely demolishes your cap and but trading him away might not be all that easy so you know i think that it still remains that doing the mini extension puts a target on their back that they have to be a really good team this year. They have to go deep in the playoffs to justify the way they went because going the rebuild route still made a lot of sense. And we know that there were teams attempting to trade for Kirk Cousins. So it's not like, oh, well, they couldn't have traded him.

So hopefully that answers the question, number and letter guy. All right. We go to at heavy dirty skull on Twitter. If scouting staff changes happen, how soon would it happen after the draft? I mean, I would guess that it's probably within the coming weeks. I think, wait a minute. I think that everybody's contract, maybe does it go through June? I think that that's what it is. Uh, somebody told me this once, like how the contracts work. And I think that the contracts go through June and that's when we might find out about changes. look like for for all intents and purposes it doesn't really matter to us right like if they change out scouts i mean what what difference does i don't think that that completely alters how we will look at the last draft and i i don't think it i don't

think it gives any free passes if the draft doesn't work out with oh it was rick scouts or anything like that i mean we don't really know the difference between one scout or another and what they're advising Kweisi Adafo Mensah or how they're looking at things. And the reality is scouts are looking for all of the same things at the end of the day. They're looking for background information on players. They're looking for skill sets for traits, and then they're looking for skill sets for traits and then they're writing reports in a similar way like there isn't some scout hack that quasey adafo mensa has that his scouts are going to be so much different than the ones who are here those guys provided information they made decisions in part based on that information if they change players the information will not be massively different

sorry change scouts it will not be massively different uh sorry change scouts it will not be massively different next year so i don't i mean this is kind of one of those things that may be slightly notable from a reporting perspective but not something that we're really going to uh recognize okay this from uh at holland john d was Ingram selected to play center? He took some reps there at the Senior Bowl practice sessions. If he was drafted to play center, it's going to be a position move. And I mean, I guess he's not going to make a difference one way or the other, more likely than not, aside from depth until at least 2023. So second round, they take a guy that unless he comes in and is fantastic you're not

really talking about making an impact until next year and even if he does move to center then he has to go you know and do a whole position change like i mean maybe i i you know i think that they're going to try stuff with garrett bradbury in the last year of his contract that they're going to try stuff with Garrett Bradbury in the last year of his contract that they're going to try Chris Reed maybe for some reps at center um you know and and they're they might try Ingram I guess but you know they do a lot of those things at at the senior bowl where I think it was Josh Metellus because I've been fooled on this before Josh Metellus took cornerback reps and did well at the senior bowl and I remember saying like oh this is interesting he might be a really versatile player like no he's not you know he's he's a special teamer which is good and a fill-in safety and

that's that's what he is so i i don't know i mean i yeah i i put it under the you know category of i guess it's possible but you know i will find out mini camp training camp if that's what they see and if they did then that's a good call by you john and that's a good eye uh all right this comes from pepper at pepper lapoodle also dogs are submitting questions now my dog has not but she just looked at me when i said the word dog uh with the scheme change what is edge versus de versus olb outside linebacker uh what's the projected starting front center yeah so the whole edge rusher outside linebacker defensive end thing i mean it's really like outside pass rushers and interior defensive linemen is kind of how

everybody is breaking up their their defensive lines regardless like mike zimmer had kind of an old school way of doing it that was very very effective when the defensive ends were great when everson griffin wasn't in there or daniel Hunter it was a lot different because the responsibilities are a lot for a three down four three defensive end but I mean Daniil Hunter's not dropping back in coverage a whole heck of a lot okay so he's going to be an edge rusher uh I think that defensive end and edge rusher and outside linebacker have pretty much all become a little bit synonymous with each other, or maybe that's the wrong word. They all kind of mean the same thing. If you say they drafted a defensive end, you're rarely referring to a five tech, which is somebody that plays over the tackle

in a three, four. I don't think you're necessarily going to see three fours and Jeremiah Searles explained this on the show a while back about how it just kind of changes the strength of the defense where you're having the three technique but it's still going to be more likely than not four guys on the defensive line and maybe someone is a stand-up on the outside that could be Zedaria Smith who does stand up a lot when he rushes but i think what you're going to get is daniel hunter and then harrison phillips and delvin tomlinson and zedarius smith on the other edge and then they'll move guys around when they want other situational rushers to come in or if they want zedarius smith to be somewhere else or if it's a run stopping situation they'll just mix and match but

i mean for when you're watching the game you're not going to say oh wow daniel hunter is all the sudden an outside linebacker like lamar lathan back in the day like no it's not really like that especially because they're playing so much nickel it ends up not really being a form of 3-4 or having that OLB as it used to be. I do enjoy those days, you know, the Lamar Lathans, the Kevin Greens, the Greg Lloyds, Derek Thomases, the outside, true outside linebacker. Now pretty much everybody's just an edge rusher unless you're considered a five technique defensive tackle, which is basically like, or I'm sorry, a defensive end, which is basically like being a defensive tackle. And that's a lot of football.

So let me just take a quick, uh, quick diet. Dr. Pepper sip here. Folks. Well, there is plenty of classic football gear to check out. It's soda stick. The hockey playoffs are beginning and you can jump on board with SodaStick's amazing hockey designs. Dollar Bill, Krill, Moose, Madonna, the old North Stars logo, they've got everything for you for a deep playoff run.

Hats, shirts, hoodies, and prints for your fan cave. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Use the code PurpleInsider for 15% off. All right, this comes from at SwervinMervin on Twitter. The quarterback free fall has me thinking right now. It's so easy to criticize draft analysts for missing but they usually aren't that far off in terms of top 30 top 100 i don't recall ever seeing

them miss by that much on an entire class what happened well you're right uh swerve and mervin that i looked this up how the draft boards had fallen, the real boards, compared to the mock drafters in previous years. And it was usually pretty close. Like Jalen Hurts was thought to go somewhere in the 50s, and that's basically where he went. You had three quarterbacks in the top 10 the year that Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow and Tua came out. One of the reasons is because none of them were really good prospects. And I think what the draft analysts believed was despite the fact that they weren't good prospects, each of them had some reason to believe there was upside and that the positional value would weigh the heaviest and they would say all

right malik willis has a lot of risks and he was not very good in college but look at his arm let's take him anyway but the problem with that is though that they have done that on guys before christian hackenberg is a great example here where they went yeah this guy had guy had a horrible year at Penn State, but he's got this monster arm. Let's just draft him and see if there's anything there. Like they usually, even if they believe that there is a higher end, they take them higher than this year's draft class. So what happened is a great question. And, you know, I tweeted it out the other night.

Like, can I get a press conference with draft analysts to explain this? And we'll certainly ask draft analysts as they come on and there will be different answers to that. But, you know, I still feel like what happened was some of the top analysts who everybody listens to, who are the most dialed in people on most prospects. They just believe that teams were going to buy into these quarterbacks and then everybody followed suit and nobody was really willing to go outside of the box and say, no, these are just not good prospects and no one should draft them. And that kind of tells you a lot about draft analysis anyway, where it's listen to a handful of guys who are really dialed in and then shuffle around the names based on maybe you see this or maybe you see that. But it's rare, even when you look at mocks, that you see nobody had other players like N'Kobe Dean because it was a health issue.

But it's rare that you see anybody who's mocked in the top say 15 by the top guys who put out their big boards and everything else early in the process it's pretty rare that you end up seeing like oh well i've got that guy on my mock is a third rounder but the nfl loves him but my evaluation i believe in it you don't see that a lot from draft analysts it's kind of like same names in different places and i think that that's what really happened here but it is extremely unique and i think that's just because they weren't good and it was harder to pin down it's not hard to pin down joe burrow like going number one it's not hard to pin down justin herbert because justin herbert was considered the top prospect the year before and still by many a top draft pick and the same thing goes for most years where when there was you know five potential first round picks it wasn't that hard

to mock them because those were all good prospects like go through like Trey Lance having absolutely freakish physical ability was maybe the hardest to peg but the rest of them I mean Trevor Lawrence who's going to miss on that Mac Jones was a little difficult to figure out but one of the most accomplished college quarterbacks in a single season ever for Alabama that wasn't super hard to figure out where he would be. It was, uh, I think they missed on how much the NFL would look at their flaws. That's what I think. Um, there'll be plenty of other opinions on the show as well, but your, to your point, it is rare that with quarterbacks, they are that far off. That is absolutely true. And that's, that's why i want to know and that's why i'm so interested in this um all right this one from at warly owl uh who heads up the depth chart as it stands and what positions could you see veterans being added who might come into this list well i don't uh if

i go through the whole depth chart it's going to take a while, but, um, maybe I could just talk about where some of these guys who were drafted fit in the depth chart and then what they might still need. So Lewis scene is obviously going to start if he's ready. Uh, Andrew Booth jr. To me is behind the three starters that includes for now, Shandon Sullivan. I don't based on his history in college, think that they'll move Booth inside. That would be quite a challenge. They tried that with Mike Hughes. It wasn't really a great idea right away.

So he's going to be depth and I think compete with Cam Dantzler. And if Cam Dantzler has the same training camp that he had last year in preseason, Andrew Booth's got a chance to beat him out. So he should be right there. And then, you know, when you get to the other guys, Ingram is a backup more likely than not, who's going to be competing for the depth spots. Maybe he's battling a little bit right guard. If he has an unbelievable camp, he could win the the job seems like that's a stretch um brian asamoah depth he's probably i mean it's it's just a race between him and blake lynch and um you know the other guys there troy die chas surratt it's blake lynch though by quite a bit as the number three linebacker so asamoah ends up being more of a special teamer. And then the rest, I mean, all just depth, all just you sort of hope that they even make the roster at that point after you get to the fourth, fifth, et cetera, rounds. So that's kind of where they fit and where are they left looking for veterans? Well, first they don't have almost

any money. They are very low on cash to be able to spend on anybody left. So you look at J.C. Tretter is still out there. You really wonder if he was cut because of injuries and how much he has left. But even if he was brought here to play 12 games, that's a lot of value over the next best guy in terms of pass protection um if no one will offer treader a decent contract then maybe you're just standing there with you know a couple hundred thou more for him and and a potential to compete for a starting job so there's that i've liked the jerry hughes idea or the justin houston idea i think pass rusher is another thing that they could add and i don't think that there's any shame in adding another defensive back and um they're

pretty much we're pretty much out of wide receivers unless odell beckham wants to come hang out with justin jefferson on free agency but you know maybe there's another receiver that's brought in since they didn't get anybody who's going to compete for that number three spot with kj osborne but there's not a lot left to do with this roster it kind of is what it is unless they make some bigger change with the salary cap all right this one comes from at Rob Q T-Bolt uh Thor forbid if there's a prolonged injury during the season in the wide receiver core who is the number four will Naylor sneak into the top five? Well, Rob, you know, we're in the same spot as we've been for a long time,

which is absolutely right. Thor forbid. If Adam Thielen or Justin Jefferson gets hurt, it's the same conversation we've had many times. I really was impressed by what K.J. Osborne did, but that's a load to carry that is not the same as being the No. 3. I think K.J. Osborne is a really great No. 3 or No. 4 who can play in the league for a long time, but is not someone who's going to drive an offense, and it still leaves him in that same spot. The No. 4 is Amir Smith-Marset, who showed a little flash at the end of last year. And this is where we talked about getting lucky. And if one of those guys that they drafted within the last

two years, this year or last year, ends up blowing up and becoming a great player, you have to get those. There's just not enough draft capital or cash in the world to just draft at the top and sign all your great players. Usually you need guys to emerge. And I mean, Amir Smith Marseille goes under that category as someone who flashed. And then you want to see, does he take another step? Does he become that number four or number three even, know rotating in and making a big impact and then being able to step in if and when there's an injury um jalen uh nyler i don't know i mean hard to say like anybody who's drafted that late uh in the what was it sixth round i mean you're not counting on that guy for anything i mean they've done this many times, Dylan Mitchell, Stacy Coley,

they've hit on some, uh, BC Johnson was able to contribute a bit and, you know, clearly KJ Osborne, Stefan digs. So, you know, I mean, I asked one of the Viking scouts about this on the conference call and, you know, he talked about like traits. They have kind of their list of things that they look for to find those hits late in the draft for wide receivers but i mean nailer is very unlikely to step on the field as a sixth round pick wide receiver in his first year more likely practice squad or somebody that's you know on the back end of the roster and playing special teams that's more what you're looking for. And that's why we circle back to this, like, hey, you got to learn from your predecessor.

And I'm not sure that they've completely done that. Learned that that number three, number four wide receiver, even having good players there is really helpful, not having a big drop off. And you should really be looking for someone who is great to be that number three. In an offense where you're going to run a lot of 11 personnel you're going to throw a lot and you have a quarterback who relies on his receivers getting open to be able to deliver the ball because he's not doing the uh you know the contest contested catch thing where he's just throwing it up so

yeah i mean i i really think they should have addressed it higher than the sixth round or in free agency, but you can't fill every spot in one draft or one free agency when they had a lot of holes. And I guess that's the one that got left behind. But, you know, I think wide receiver is something you want to take high we saw two receivers who are now expensive getting traded because they're they're always kind of you know asking for a lot of money they get hurt a lot like there's a reason why i think good teams try to load up on those but um you know if nobody gets hurt and theelin jefferson and osborne are really good then it'll all be fine if someone gets hurt we'll be going back to your tweet rob and saying well Rob knew and it could have been foreseen. All right. This from a twins fan, Wyoming, Roger, who tweets me from time to time. Appreciate you, Roger fans still upset about the divisional trades. And I agree with them, uh, Chad, and this is hilarious that your phone

or computer auto-corrected to chad graffiti as opposed to chad graph so i will now be calling him on the show chad graffiti chad graffiti uh writes how the vikings don't appear to have significantly improved their roster wtf are the vikings doing is there no plan um well let's start with the first part the divisional trades yeah i mean you could just it's more about like the the i think quesia da fomenta made a good point that christian watson was the guy that the packers were trying to trade up with no matter what. So it was either the Vikings get that trade or someone else does that trade and they get Christian Watson regardless. Because it was you, then it's going to have a target on your back.

It's going to be something that's talked about. Revenge game for Christian Watson every time he catches a pass, if he catches catches passes that one is a little more about kind of the narrative trading with the Packers and you know is you know he's going to make the Vikings pay or whatever that one I don't take too seriously because that's who they were drafting regardless the Williams one Jamison Williams now that's different you move back 20 spots to not take that guy and that's who they desperately wanted to move up all that way to number 12 to be able to take this guy so that means they believe that he could be a superstar to pair with Amin Ra St. Brown and and load up around Jared Goff and give him weapons and then eventually turn it on to the next quarterback.

I mean, that one is really risky because you're handing Jamison Williams to the Detroit Lions. If you don't make that trade and you either take him yourself or Kyle Hamilton, it's likely that the Lions can't get back up there because the Vikings took just okay trade value but it wasn't like they threw in a first for next year and they had to just you know throw the kitchen sink to move up and get Jamison Williams he might have been the next pick or he could have been your pick that's the one that I think is questionable and you wonder should you have done that for someone whose high end is a star wide receiver in the league that's one where trading within the division is pretty dangerous because if he goes to one of the

teams after that i mean let's say he goes to the ravens then like who cares you might play him two times in the guy's career something if he goes to an afc team if he goes to an nfc team out of division you see him every once in a while you're not going to think about it that much when he goes to the Lions and you're the one that presented him there on a silver platter yeah that's pretty risky now to the other part what Chad wrote that they didn't significantly improve their roster for the short term, if that's what Chad was referring to, I think that Chad is correct. Largely that drafting because the top draft picks are the ones who are going to actually play and make a big difference. And if the only two guys who are really going to play, if Ingram doesn't win a job and Asamoah doesn't get on the field and the other guys are just

fighting for roster spots, then it's two players that they added. And one of those two players could be really good right away, Louis Seen, coming from Georgia. Now, the Vikings had two good safeties in Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris and struggled at corner in 2020, and it didn't make that big of a difference. But the way that they want to use their safeties hybrid players you know moving guys around lewis scene could help them right away significantly is the word here that's a little vague like did they does it really really really help to get lewis scene i think it does help but also x Xavier Woods last year was a good player. So it's not wildly better than Xavier Woods from the very start, unless Louis seen as an absolute superstar.

But the average outcome is he plays pretty well, has his good moments and bad moments, which is kind of what they got from Xavier Woods last year. So yeah, you could say that. Also with Andrew Booth, I mean, rookie corners do not have a good record of playing well in their first year. So right away, no. In the long term, if it's 2023 and these guys have developed for a year and Booth is playing and let's say Dantzler is there or you go to free agency,

you improve at maybe another cornerback spot as opposed to Shandon Sullivan, that's now got the bones of a good secondary, which they really need. And having a good secondary on the whole would be a significant improvement from a team that has been just passed on like crazy from their opponents over the past few years. So significantly right away? No, not really. Significantly long term, we'll see, but there's the potential for that. Okay, from Amir, longtime follower, what on earth is this team doing?

How many Diet Dr. Peppers did this draft induce into your body? Yeah, the second question, I mean, that's one I get all the time. It's a lot like so i brought a 12 pack to the vikings facility on the first night and i left with one in my bag so there you go so 11 just out there but i also have done a lot of work you know back at home writing finish putting finishing touches um doing a you know, back at home writing, finish putting, finishing touches, um, doing, uh, you know, day three was a whole day of diet, Dr. Peppers too. So I guess the, maybe the over under guess would be something like 14 and a half over the three days. Delicious. Uh, what on earth is this team doing? Well, we haven't really figured that out entirely um as if it's it's not the most direct

question amir but i think this team is doing what they can to try to restock the defense because that's been the main area of weakness and they're trying to do it sort of short and long term by getting players who might be able to help them right away like lewis seen and andrew booth and then the long term is trying to draft development players in the later rounds like everybody does and they're trying to be super competitive i mean that's what their owner said and that's what everything has followed. If they had done a bunch of like really, really rebuild the things in the draft, then I would have said, well, they're doing the competitive rebuild, but they're not really doing

that so much as not using the draft to try to like fill a bunch of immediate needs. But I guess one of them in safety, if they didn't really believe in combine them and to try to like fill a bunch of immediate needs but i guess one of them in safety if they didn't really believe in cambynum and to try to strengthen their secondary right away so i guess it was more of an immediate need than maybe we even expected if they had picked a wide receiver it wouldn't have been so much immediate need so they're trying to win they're trying to win this year and and if you pull back to that you could kind of figure out all the moves except the second round guard. But everything else kind of fits with trying to get better in the secondary, keeping all of the players in free agency, going out to free agency and getting veterans like Zedarius Smith and Jordan Hicks. They're trying to compete for the NFC.

And so that's how we're going to judge them. I think that's what on earth they're trying to do and we can say that that's because of the owners or that that was maybe the plan all the time for quesadilla fomenta i don't know i lean toward the owners wanting that to be their overall direction but that's what they're trying to do and so when you show up at the games this year you turn on your tv it can't be moral victories this year. It can't be so-and-so played pretty well who might be decent for the future. So that's our banner for this week.

It's no, you have to win 11, 12 games, go deep in the playoffs for this to be a success. And otherwise we'll have to say that it didn't work and it was the wrong direction. So that's kind of how I look at the, what on earth they doing all right let me get in one more still many many questions and many fans only pods still to come uh do you think someone like quacey who values analytics so much puts human values behind numbers in regards to the ingram pick not taking any sides just wondering your view on that topic i don't know i mean it's pretty hard for them to come out and talk about culture and then take somebody with such a serious concern from their past and then to use the explanation of, well, we looked into it. That's just not good enough. And if they had given the ways in which they became confident that Ed Ingram was not going

to be problematic, because this isn't just about bringing someone into your community that has a very serious concern from their past but it's also about like if we're just going pure football like we had to do last year with all the vaccination status stuff because i don't want to get into that but this we have to get into it's part of the job unfortunately but when it comes to the pure football you're taking someone in the second round that if they have another issue could end up out of the league or could end up suspended and and that's a risk you take that i don't know how you put numbers on that um does he value numbers well no because over people

because when you listen to the conversations about all the other guys they drafted it was this guy's overcoming that you know vidarian low was the offensive lineman who already has two kids and raises his younger brother and has been through some stuff his mother passed away um brian asamoah was like the leader of the team and they loved his character and all these other things so you know if they're going to talk up the character of these other guys and their backgrounds and what they've been through, then they can't say, oh, we were just going pure numbers. Also pure numbers would not have put this guy in the second round. I mean, pure numbers would be the consensus draft board, which put Ed Ingram nowhere close to the second round. So, yeah, I don't know.

Here's what this sounds like to me, and this is just a guess as people are trying to figure out what this pick is. Ryan Grigson is a guy who loves offensive line, scouting, building the offensive line, all that stuff. If he plays a major role in this draft, it's very possible that that was the guy he picked out that he wanted to be his guy. And that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa in his attempt to collaborate with everybody, wanting to make everybody happy, goes with the pick that someone

who influences him a lot wants to pick. That is a theory that is not a report. It's a theory that Grigson being a real offensive line guru would want and spot Ed Ingram, and so they decided to do it, and they made some phone calls, presumably not to the victims, because teams always miss that part, usually to their friends, to their coaches, people around them who are going to say good things so they could justify doing it and that's why they and that's why they went with it because with this collaborative idea it means trying to make a lot of people happy but that's

not to let quesadilla fomenta off the hook because he's the guy who made the pick and so i don't think it's human values behind numbers or numbers ahead of this or that when it comes to this thing. It's possible that that's just who they wanted as a group and they decided they were going to do it hell or high water. And let's just all hope that it's not hell. Right. So one more to fit in. This comes from ALRMPLS, Andrew. Rather than be excited by offseason moves, I'm finding that my interest in the Vikings is at an all-time low. This is funny. This is not on purpose.

I'm just going one by one on my list here of questions. But this is the same way we ended the last one. I'm sorry for that. I'll get, um, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll get a funny question after this to make sure I fit in. Okay. So he says, rather than being excited by off season moves, I'm finding that my interest in the Vikings is at an all time low. Will the Vikings actually give us something to be excited about this season or will it just wind up being friendlier more collaborative eight and nine so the reason that

i was behind the idea of tearing it all apart and rebuilding it in quesiaafo-Mentz's analytic vision was because of what you're saying. Because a rebuild is exciting. Think of the 2014 season where you have a new quarterback and you have Anthony Barr playing really well and a new coach who is completely different than the old coach. And you're spending every game looking for what's going to work what from the future it is going to work so is this player who you drafted who's getting more opportunity than maybe he should be getting this early in his career is he going to be something is this experience going to turn him into something. And that's every week where we follow the ups and

downs of young players in a youthful roster. And if they overachieve, think of what, think of the wolves. Here's a great example. So the wolves are still a rebuilding type of team because they're waiting for Anthony Edwards to get to his, his peak. And that's when they only have a chance to win a championship. And then McDaniels is good good and they've got other young players they were a seven seed play-in game team and they take Memphis to six but there's a lot of reasons to look at this season with the Wolves and go wow what a ride I mean what a ride we really saw maybe maybe the start of something where every year they're going to be playing in one of these tense playoff series because of the talent that they have, because Anthony Edwards emerged as a great player this year. Now, at the end of the day, they lost the first round

playoff series, but that is so different than when it happened when Jimmy Butler was here. So different. When Jimmy Butler was here and half the bulls roster, when you lose in the first round, it feels like it wasn't worth it. You're not going anywhere. So if they lose and the first round or go eight, nine with the direction that they took, it'll feel like, like Thibodeau's bulls came to Minnesota and lost in the first round to Houston. It won't feel like there's even that possibility of, hey, these guys are plucky, that was pretty good, and then in the future, this could be great.

And I think that's what would have been more fun about the rebuild. So, you know, will it just wind up like a friendlier, more collaborative 8-9? Like, unfortunately, the odds would say yes, and this is why I always defer to vegas because that's not just me guessing like that's the people who are actually spending money on this thing that's what they think and their answer is friendly or more collaborative eight nine or nine and eight and i think there were opportunities to change that or change the expectations of the feeling and that is a frustration that I'm feeling from a lot of

fans, a lot of emails that I get, a lot of DMS, a lot of tweets there. There is that feeling, I think shared Andrew from a lot of people, but I will always say this for why, uh, you know, the interest is going to go back up eventually because one, we're going to get to the first preseason game and you are going to be ready for football and be like okay all right i'm back that that happens every time right and the other part of it is too that there is the what they call in math tail outcomes which means it's not the big chunk that's most likely of the pie but it is the the the outlier that this team often ends up somehow being with their trips to the nfc championship or they surprise you in seasons that are supposed to be good like 2010 and are really bad so it has happened many times that

it's different and it's also just football like football is weird and things happen. And, you know, this is a new offense for the first time in a long time to have an actual new offensive system that, you know, may use players in a more modern and different way and get more out of them. Or we could see this thing being, you know, a bus fire if it doesn't go well. And because they're the vikings and you never know what's going to happen and the unexpected often does happen yeah i mean there's always a reason to be focused on what this team is doing because you never know when it's going to get crazy but to your point like, what is the most likely outcome? Yeah. And you're, you're on it.

And I think that that's why there have been a lot of people looking at what they did in the draft. And there was like the last hope for like, bring me in, talk me into a lot of fans were saying to the Vikings, talk me into, and while I think Louis scene and andrew booth jr are good decisions overall they didn't do a talk me into uh okay last one here this from uh terry horstman on twitter considering all the high motor twitched up students of the game with great upside prospects coming to the vikings what was your favorite piece of draft speak terminology during the draft cycle. That's a good one. Well, let's see here. I think it was when Kweisi Adafo Mensah explained how he watched tape in the dark, that they took a Caleb Evans because he watched tape in the dark.

It's like, okay. I mean, this is only fans podcast. That sounds like fans only for football, but I think that was it for me. That was like, all right, football guy, trying to be the football guy, watching film in the dark, grinding it, looking for the size and oily hips and so forth. So that was probably the top one. Talking about how offensive linemen have Fred Astaire feet,

it's a little weird too. Like how many people get the Fred Astaire feet. It's a little weird too. Like how many people get the Fred Astaire? Like, like what's the crossover and event diagram for podcast listeners and people who know who Fred Astaire is. That's probably, uh, probably one that was heard from previous generations, I'm guessing. So anyway, well, another great fans only podcast here. Thank you all so much for all of your questions. I'm looking at a lot of other ones that I still have to go. So if you sent me one, know that I got it, know that I'm working toward it and I'm going to do one of these. week and into next week we'll have the schedule releases coming up we'll have a big thing for that we'll pick every game um and we'll have our usual analysts on everything else and guests and we'll try to hunt down some fun guests always worth taking suggestions on guests too if you guys want to send them to me so um i'm grinding i'm working my way through these questions you

guys are the best thanks so much for sending them and we'll talk again soon