Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer breaks down Vikings draft, GM future

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Matthew Coller is joined by the Minnesota Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer to break down the Vikings' draft. Plus, a discussion on who the next GM will be, with that decision now looming with the draft wrapped up. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune. Let's just start out with this, Andrew. Where'd you stand on Caleb Banks? Why don't we just begin there? And then we'll just dive into everything else of the Vikings draft. But the most interesting thing they did was on day one, the thing that the draft analysts are discussing and the consensus board, people are fighting on the internet over.

He was one of those reaches, if you will. So what was your sense of the decision to go with, I think one of the more risky picks in the 2026 amateur NFL draft. Yeah, this pick obviously was a surprise to me, much like it was everybody else. You know, it's a guy that's ranked like 50 first on Daniel Jeremiah's final 150. And yeah, even he was saying that there might not be any first round defensive tackles taken. And so if you take the Vikings at their word that they were taking their best player available, which is always a murky thing because they're going to have them all, you know, horizontally stacked.

But if you take them at their word, then they really must have viewed this draft as not having much top power, you know, much of a hierarchy at the top, much like the discussion was for months leading up to this. If this was a bad draft, there might not even be 32 first round grades for many of these teams on these guys. And if that's the case, if the Vikings viewed it that way and he truly was the best player, then boy, there weren't many sure things that they viewed in this draft. If, again, you're taking them at their word and not that they reached for a need, which is kind of the person. exception coming out of this. But you saw teams do that kind of all weekend. It obviously went more in the later rounds, but in terms of picking guys where the consensus was like, no, that's a day three guy or that's an undrafted guy. But with banks, you see what they're doing. You see the upside. You see the swing. You also see the fact that Brian Flores' defense commands a lot of rookies at specific positions,

but not so much at defensive tackle. So I think the strategy is such that these guys should be able to, including Dominique Orange, come in and contribute fairly soon. And I don't know how ready they're going to be to be super impactful, but at least get on the field, get the reps. That's something that like Jay Golda might have a harder time doing because of all the communication hub stuff that goes on at Stack linebacker in this defense. So yeah, it's a risk. I was shocked by it.

But they're clearly, they clearly viewed the upside. And also I think this is a fit with Flores where we're going to see this guy on the field, if healthy, sooner than later. Yeah, that's an interesting subject because I, asked Brian Flores about that, about the development path. And he talked about keeping in mind the specific situations that he wanted to keep him out of. Right. And if you think about, well, six foot six, three hundred thirty pound guy who's got pretty lightning quicks for that size,

well, where would he fit in nicely? Oh, on third and 12th. Like that seems like a good place to have Caleb Banks, but maybe not every single first down in 10 or second down in short or wherever where he can develop. some of that ability to take on double teams at the NFL level because it was one of his issues in college was getting moved by those double teams, kind of allowing offensive linemen to get into his chest a little bit and get leverage on him. It is hard for a guy who's six foot six to be the lowest man winning, right? So he's got a lot to learn though, Andrew. And I think a little

bit about, it's probably wrong to make this connection. But we spent so much time talking about J.J. McCarthy in his lack of passes in college and his lack of experience playing in college. And when you look at Caleb Banks, that's the case with him too. He has not yet cleared 1,000 snaps since high school. So I think that there are probably spots that are obvious for any giant quick man. But I also think that there's going to be an expectation when you take a risky pick. Like, let's find out. Let's get our answer week two on Caleb Banks. And if he doesn't have eight pressures and two sacks or something and he doesn't show this monstrous ability, then whoops, the, you know, the Vikings made a huge mistake.

I think it could take years for Caleb Banks to reach the peak that we're all talking about if he actually can ever get there, which will require staying healthy. So that's going to, I think, need some patience from all of us and Vikings fans with Caleb Banks because of the fact that he hasn't played a lot of football. Yeah, I would agree with you there in terms of the potential. when he talks about, or Flores talks about the visions they've got, and he didn't want to go so far as to name guys, right? He didn't want to name other six-foot-six defensive tackles,

but there are a number of game records that we can talk about that they probably see this guy developing into. So, yeah, I agree with you. Like, I'm not expecting him to be a difference maker on all three downs, week one. But what I'm saying is that the positions that historically have struggled to make an impact of the youth, of the younger players, are those interior kind of secondary positions, middle linebacker, slot corner, safety.

Those are tough positions. They require a lot of checks with a player-led kind of defense that can motion, or excuse me, that can get in and out of blitzes and pressures the way we can or set up stunts, all those things. You know, defensive tackles need to know a little bit, but I'm just saying in terms of like, if they would have reached if the human would have gone there at that spot, I'm not saying he wouldn't have been capable, but the load and the expectations would have been so much greater on him coming in than they are on this guy.

I think because of his position, he's going to have more of that runway to succeed in this defense, whereas if they needed an immediate, not a nickel corner, but I'm thinking more of that starting Harrison Smith safety, that guy doesn't come easy or quickly. And yeah, it's going to be a while until, you know, we can know whether this was a good pick or not. But at least I think Vikings fans should expect to see him on the field pretty quickly. Well, I think what's very helpful about this position is the fact that you can rotate. It's kind of like wide receiver where if you like how a wide receiver handles certain situations, but not others, if they're better underneath and go routes, then you just have them in spots

where they're running underneath and not go routes. And I feel the same way about someone like Caleb Banks. But the thing about it is when you talk about someone with a ceiling, it's the expectation that they get there right away. And I'm kind of reminded a little bit with this discussion of Dallas Turner. When they drafted Dallas Turner, they spent a lot. They took a big risk to trade up. and it was someone who's one of the youngest players in that draft,

but yet by the middle of week eight, it was like they had the worst draft pick and why did they do this and everything else. And it wasn't until the second half of year two that we started to see it come alive. So in the best case scenario, I think banks can contribute right away, maybe in the way that Dallas Turner rotated in and maybe even a little bit more than that in an ideal world, but also the fact that he's not going to get rookie camp, he's not going to get OTAs, he's not going to get META's, He's not going to get minicamp, which is not just him not, you know, mentally getting those reps,

but also it's from a physical perspective. Like he has to recover, which means he can't really work out the same, which means he's got to catch up once he gets there. And all these things are adding up to me just sort of tempering expectations, not to mention that he didn't produce really in college when he did play. Didn't have big sack numbers, didn't have big TFL numbers. And that brings me to another part of this, though. which is, what did you think of the fact that, like, a draft that was being run by someone who is the acting general manager and not yet the full-time general manager of Rob Brissonski becomes that, doing something that felt like it was unexpected, like it was risky, not kind of the safe pick, if you remember Quasi last year describing or trying to describe Donovan Jackson is just keeping the ball on the fairway. this was pulling out the driver and trying to drive to the green, which I think is part of the reason that none of us had them doing it.

Yeah, yeah, that is a good point because you're right. When Donovan Jackson was picked, it was more about filling a need. And that is the one thing that you've heard Rob Bersinski and I think Kevin O'Connell, to some extent, talk about throughout these couple months is they don't feel the need to be desperate. They don't feel the need to reach. And this was more about talking about free agency, too, in terms of overspending. we're not going to try and I wonder how much of that was about Will Fries,

the guy that they spent the most money on last off season, it didn't quite work out, or Jonathan Allen or J. Von Hargrave. So they've tried to be patient with this. And I think, again, I wonder how much they would view this as some drastic swing or boom or bust. I wonder, I just imagine, we did talk with Flores for a little bit, but we're limited in the time we have. you know, we didn't really get into, like, there's a middle ground for these guys.

It doesn't need to be DeForest Buckner or bust with him. And they might have visions for different roles. And with Dallas Turner, they brought him in here thinking he would do Andrew Van Ginkle's stuff. And the first year didn't really go that well with that. And then a year later, they're trading Grenard and saying, you know, Dallas is actually better in the Grenard role. So they need to figure these things out as they get these guys in the building as they practice with them, as they learn them, you know, as we learn them, as we get to see them more too.

So I just don't think that it needs to be such a, you know, binary to use Quasi's term zero or a hundred kind of thing with this guy. Caleb Banks could turn out being a 10-year career and maybe it's only one or two Pro Bowls. It wasn't worth the 18th overall pick. But in this draft class, we might look back and go, you know what? It was putting the ball in the fairway. You know what I mean? Like we just have no idea. But I do agree with the approach of what you're saying is they did not feel the need to let's take the safest pick at the position we need.

the most, which might have been a Dylan Theanman. It might have been, yeah, like, let's just get a guy that we think can just get in there and be sturdy and be a guy, whereas Rob Brzezinski told us a week or two before the draft or days before, he told us, we're not going to miss on a guy that might be a cornerstone for us in 2027 and beyond. Yeah. And when he said that they also weren't going to look at prospects and positions of need with the glass half full, that also kind of does seem like what they did here with Caleb Banks because the glass half empty is a whole bunch of red flags, whether it's the consensus board thing

that's kind of lighting up the internet debate or if it's the production element which defensive tackles who haven't produced do not have a good track record of then getting to the NFL and producing. So it seems like they did talk themselves into it with Caleb Banks, not to mention the injury issue, even if it's been passed by every doctor in the world, as being fine now.

I think there's common sense of multiple injuries for a foot for a guy who's six foot six and 330 pounds sort of screams that this could be an issue into the future. So now you've got three different check marks against a move like that, but you talk yourself into the upside, the physical traits. But I think that you make a really good point about this was always my anti-Dill and Thieneman argument was if he becomes 80% of what people think he can be, that is a bad draft pick because you could get. that for $6 million in free agency.

If Caleb Banks becomes 80% of what we think it can become, that is a quality starting player that's probably worth $18 million in free agency and is really hard to get. You probably give them a contract extension and everything else. Like, you could make an argument here that don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And if Caleb Banks is just a good player, then it's still a successful draft pick and you've got a foundational piece at a position that I think has grown to be one of the premium positions in the NFL. Yeah, and this is just a little thing with me, but like the boom or bust discussion with prospects, it gets labeled on correctly, I think, on guys like Anthony Richardson, where

it was only going to work one way. He was either going to be the next Cam Newton or he's going to be what he ended up being currently. But yeah, these other positions, it's just not that way. You're right. Other positions, you can kind of cycle in. You can be a bit player. You can be a good starter, and especially if it's a position like this, where we see it go for 20, 25, 30 million a year on the open market. The offensive and defensive lines, and we saw it around the division, we see it around the NFL. They're getting drafted earlier and earlier every year. Teams are stocking up on these rookie contracts in the trenches, in part because these free agent contracts are getting just driven out of the roof right now. I don't ever like to be a person that

loves or hates a draft pick just because we've seen these things go in. So, many different directions. I did a little bit before the draft of some of my best and worst takes throughout the draft. And one of my absolute worst was Brian O'Neill, where it was like, so they took a tight end in the second round and now they're going to play him at tackle. And then we met him and he weighed like 275. And I was like, what have they done? This guy will never make it. And of course, he is a multi-time pro bowler, you know, excellent phenomenal player and everything else because he, I don't know, ate peanut butter or something that offseason, right? But that's how hard it can be to tell what's going to happen right now.

To me, it's, I view it as like a plot of like, here's the different outcomes and here's the different percentage chances. And your percentages of a success move down when the guy does not produce, when you reach versus the consensus, all that thing is a fact. But once he gets in the building, he's a Minnesota Viking and I guess we'll see. So I saw a lot of, like, this is the worst pick. What is Rob Brzynski doing? They're insane.

It's like, well, like, let's pull the reins back here because there is a scenario where he becomes good to great. That's not that hard to see when you stand next to the guy. You're like, okay, I get it. There are very few human beings in the world that move this way. Folks, if you find yourself hunting search engines for different hairstyles that might cover up your receding hairline, or if you're studying every actor and athlete you see of a certain age to see how they're handling their hair loss, well, maybe it's time to get yourself a solution instead of obsessing over what's happening on your dome. I present you with that solution.

It's called Hymns. Hymns brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatment plans that put your goals first. Hymns offers convenient access to a range of prescription hair loss treatments, with ingredients that work, including choose oral medication, serums, and sprays. No hidden fees, just personalized care on your schedule. For simple online access to personalize and affordable care for hair loss, ED, weight loss, and more visit Hems.com slash Purple Insider. That is, hymns.com slash Purple Insider for your free online visit today.

Hems.com slash Purple Insider. Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monoxidil and finesteroid. Featured products include compound drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety effectiveness or quality. Prescription required, see website for full details, restrictions,

and important safety information. Yeah, and I want to go back to the Brian O'Neill point because you're so right. And it dragged on even into camp. I remember we went in, he was the fourth tackle, his first training camp, second round pick.

And was it Daniel Hunter, Everson Griffin? Like the ends they had were just, just demolishing him. It was a horrific training camp at the time that I'm recalling. And he got thrown into the fire because of injuries by week two against Clay Matthews in Green Bay, I believe that year. And, yeah, like from then on, he just kind of slowly ascended and showed it.

No, this guy could actually handle it. So we have no idea. The Vikings, coaches don't know sometimes because they get these guys in camp, go, oh, this isn't looking well. And then you just don't know until an injury forces a guy out there. So, yeah, we have no idea. Daniel Hunter's another great example of that. an incredible reach in the third round.

The guy had, what, two and a half sacks in college? How could you do that? And he's still signing 40 million a year contracts here. Yeah, I mean, that is, it is a little bit like that in terms of they just took the swing for physical traits. I think that if you are doing this from a pull yourself completely out and look at it as a mathematical type of formula and just pull in data points and everything else, that's where it's much easier to get around to Caleb Banks as a second round draft pick.

than it is as a first or as a trade down and then take Caleb Banks. The whole, there's, there's three or four different dynamics in every draft, which I think is what makes it so interesting, right? You have like this specific team and their thought process and why they decided to do it. You have the metrics from the guy from the physical traits where there are only so many people who you could see being like a 10 sack guy at the defensive tackle position and he's one of them. But then there's also the board management. And was anybody else taking Caleb Banks right behind you?

Could you have moved down? And would it have been a better draft pick if you took them at 24 or something by sliding back? There's all those things that are at work. And my one issue that I kind of come back to with the Vikings, and this goes way back to Rick, is it never feels like they rob something blind when it comes to this. Maybe Jefferson is probably the one that you would say this worked. But it often feels like the Vikings have paid full price for everything, pay full price for the veterans.

They didn't get a price when they traded down in 2022. They didn't get a first in the future and things like that. It just seems like the economics game that they were supposed to dominate under Quasi, which they didn't, that the economics of the draft were not won here by the Vikings this year. Yeah, I go back to acquiring T.J. Hawkinson for a second rounder was a phenomenal trade. until Kirby Joseph did, did what he did to him. And we just haven't seen it quite yet since. So you're right, though.

I think the draft day trades, the first one it comes to my mind where I remember thinking like, oh, the Vikings got one over on him, might have been back with Anthony Barr in 2014 with Justin Gilbert. And they traded with the Browns in one spot and kind of hoodwinked him and a guy they thought the Vikings might take and Justin Gilbert, who was a bad pro. It just, yeah, it doesn't happen too often. And maybe that's just front offices across the league,

getting a little more wise to all this. the kind of shared knowledge and the shared trade value charts and all that stuff. The lack of David Gettleman's in the front office nowadays, maybe that's all played a part in it. I don't know. But, yeah, it does seem like the Vikings have had to do that at times. And I think that was probably one of the biggest pot marks on Quasi's kind of tenure was that this was supposed to be the kind of galaxy-brained resource management that got them, you know, to maximize every single thing.

and we just saw them lose Sam Darnold. And now this wasn't Quasi's fault, but Jonathan Grenard, and they have three third, three third round picks to show for those two assets. I guess the other one that comes to mind too is like the Adam Thielen trade, where it was fine to acquire Adam Thielen. I would have thought he would have brought more to the table. We also probably would have expected quarterbacks to be able to find him and so forth, but they paid the equivalent of a fourth round pick for a guy that nobody else was doing that for.

and that has sort of defined them during Rick's time where it's fine to get Chris Herndon right before the season when your tight end got hurt. It's not fine to pay a fourth round draft pick for him. It's fine to take a swing at a kicker slash punter because that's hilarious, but it's not fine to give up a fifth round draft pick for him. And it feels...

Exactly. I mean, second round pick for a guy that was such a one-dimensional player and you weren't sure was going to be here for the long term. This goes back a long-term. way of who was and we know how everyone feels about Aaron Jones and you should who was paying Aaron Jones 10 million dollars a year last year. I mean someone signed Najee Harris for like three million bucks in free agency. The running backs are not getting paid insane money in free agency despite some successes and yet they gave him the big contract before even him testing

free agency last year. So I don't mean to run through every example, but it has been when they reach from, as you said, Daniel Jeremiah, it's like, well, you never worked for an NFL team. He's like, he did. So, uh, you know, when you see the, the bruglers who put in this much work have him as DT4, it's like, well, once again, you kind of paid the maximum price for the player. And we cannot separate the price from the player, even if I do think that he seems like a character fit right away. And he is certainly very, very skilled.

That is, if they're hiring a new general man. manager, you would like to see a shift there where suddenly we're looking at things and going, okay, I feel like you won the economics game of the NFL. Yeah, and this is just my own contrarian kind of brain. But I do think it's worth mentioning that because of how flat this draft seems to be, again, the lack of a hierarchy of talent, first round talent. Rob Rizinski was at asked that night, like, you know, what did you guys think about where Caleb Banks would go?

And he just said, I don't know. Like, I don't know. You know, he could have gone, but, you know, if we would have traded back, he could have gone before we were up again. I don't know. I genuinely believe that because this seemed to be where the least information existed of where teams valued guys. And I think it was day three started off with Houston taking an offensive lineman that somebody on the broadcast pointed out, that's our 250th ranked player. It's like that that happened all weekend where teams were just viewing guys much differently than the quote unquote consensus. And I think this specific class was unique.

if Caleb Banks were coming out in 2027 or 2025. Yeah, that guy was probably waiting a little bit. And I do think it's also worth mentioning that there was a mini, a little short run on defensive tackles there. Peter Woods went in the back of the first and then two defensive tackles went quickly at the top of the second round before the Vikings were up again. So they would have been gambling it. They decided not to.

And I think coming off the Quasi regime where trading back didn't always work out for them, I guess I'm not too shocked at that. So I did see a reef say that the, you know, because he does his consensus board, that the first round played out no differently than the past versus the consensus board. Like in terms of how far off the average pick was that it performed similarly. And I would say that the first round picks were pretty well defined. And there were early second guys that maybe some people had a first round grade on. But probably the first 50 to 70 picks were the expected players.

and then when we got into the third round, all hell broke loose and teams were drafting guys that were 230. I really think that the NIL thing just coming in has had this immediate impact. Long term, it'll smooth itself out with guys staying for longer and they'll show up to the NFL more prepared and everything else. But we're still within the range of it just dropped on everybody. So I think that that's created a shortage of day three talent, which means, let's take a full. fullback because we like him the most here or let's just take a swing at whatever guy that we loved his interview and we think he might fit our environment or our scheme or whatever.

And it's worth noting whenever we talk about the consensus, it's, its power kind of runs out after the second round. Like, its predictive nature is really at the top. And then when you get to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh versus consensus is so much harder to pin down. It's like the early reaches, if you're reaching for Cole Strange in the first, round if you're the New England Patriots and the guy was ranked like 70th by most people, that's unlikely to hit.

But if you're drafting 118th and you take the 200th ranked player, who knows? Like no one has any idea. We'll talk about that with some of the later draft picks. But I just wanted to clarify that discussion where it's like, oh, did they reach on, you know, Charles Demings or something? It's like, it doesn't matter if they reached on Charles Demings. The odds are the same whether they reached or not. Yeah, and that was interesting.

I didn't know about the consensus, kind of big board not being too different from how it fell, but we just so many about heard so many evaluators talk about how this draft was hard to pin down what other people thought. And that did seemingly affect their decision to not trade out of that spot and just take Caleb right there. Yeah, I think that's fair. So the rest of the drafts,

I mean, let's get to day two here. Actually, you know what? Before we get to day two and day three, let me just stop and ask you about the upcoming GM search. What we've seen from Rob Brzezinski is such a small sample. How are you supposed to know how any of this stuff's going to turn out? The way that it looks from here,

and he could be named the GM tomorrow. I don't know. But the way it looks from here, Andrew, is like Rob Brzezinski set up the next general manager to be in a good spot. They didn't sell off draft capital. They drafted a lot of players. They drafted them at positions that in some cases are premium. and could be very good if they work out for them.

And by trading Jonathan Grenard, they have set up the salary cap to be vastly more manageable for the next general manager down the road. So how do you think that they will view the ownership, the GM search that's upcoming, and the job that Rob Brzezinski did here? Yeah, it's a good question because, like you said, you don't know for some time on so many of these things,

but he has cleared the decks and reset the book. in a way that a salary guru should. So it was interesting to see in multiple times Rob was asked about that. And he kept reiterating that ownership has not told us, you know, in so many words, they have not turned the spigot off. They're not saying no more cash spending. It was just more about the bills coming due. Rob talked about them spending $100 million cash over cap the last two years.

I don't, I didn't rank all 32 teams. I imagine that's pretty high up there for the 32. And so because of that, salary cap is real. All this stuff gets mortgaged under future caps where you don't actually know what that cap is going to be. You can just project it. They decided to stop doing that. They decided to start paying some of their bills as opposed to just creating them for the future. So I think ownership is probably going to be appreciative of that. The coaching staff should be appreciative of that because it's going to allow them to spend in the future on pieces that they want

and need. But the biggest thing to me with Rob and the search is it actually came back from the director of college scouting. like Shollett. He talked after the draft about this being kind of the most fun he's had in some time. And he's been around for a while, I think 20 years with the organization. And he worked his way up to this post. And he talked about it being the most fun he's had. He talked about just kind of everybody having, feeling their voice was heard in the room.

That's coming, I'm projecting here, but to me that's coming directly from the scouting department. Obviously it's coming from a top scout. the scouts i don't think felt quite as heard um that's just you know the sense that i got uh from quacy and he wasn't a scout quacy talked about going on his first pro day trip i believe it would have been a second off season in minnesota and so the scouts did not seem to to feel kind of part of the process and this is their super bowl the draft is it like this is what they live for this is everything so for them to finally kind of feel or not finally but for them to feel more a part of it. I think that's a huge, huge call out to Rob and a huge bouquet thrown to Rob for this job,

should he want to be considered for it, because Rob still has not come out and said, I want it. And that could be a tactic as much as anything. I'm of two minds when it comes to Rob. I know what people think of Rob Brasinski. I know how highly people think of Rob Brasinski. The other teams, people who work for other teams that I've talked to over the years, they respect how he does business. People in the scouting department. Kevin O'Connell, Brian Flores. There is a clear feeling for him that this man knows what he's doing.

And he's proven that with the salary cap and his job over many years. He has the trust of ownership, which is very important for that position. And so I believe in all that. There's also a part of me that feels like history keeps repeating itself. and you would kind of like to wipe the slate clean and try again. Because we go back to 2019 to 2020. They sort of convinced themselves that they could rebuild on the fly. They could not.

2022 to 2023, they did a great job of clearing out a lot of talent, but they still left Kirk in place and enough talent to be just too good to get Drake May or Jaden Daniels. And if JJ had worked out, we'd sing a different tune. But QB5 does not have as high of odds as QB2, for example. And it feels like we're kind of in a spot to do that again where this is a 2019. It's a really good roster with the 14th best quarterback of the league. And your upside is probably to get into the playoffs and then pray to the football gods that things go your way. And then what with the roster?

Yes, the salary cap is nice now and you actual draft picks to work with. But are you going to do it again where you just have to spend free agency, you have to extend every play, beyond their peak performance, and then you slide down the slippery mountain because you extend Kyle or Mer, right? Like, you just see it happening again of the same history repeating itself. And there's a part of me that says, you know, you've gone with this front office and this direction, this way of thinking, and it didn't really change with Quasi. If you had told me that Rick did all the moves Quasi did, I would have said, okay, sure,

except for not having seventh round picks, but like, it all looked kind of the same. and this offseason kind of look the same. And that's where it feels like maybe this needs something different. And that's interesting. I would argue the one something different they need is just a franchise top 10 altering quarterback. That's it. That's all it takes.

That's all it takes. That's it. Can Kyler Murray be that guy? You pretty quickly called him the 14th rated quarterback before seeing what he can look like in this offense with Kevin. I have no idea. I don't know what they're going to do. I mean, I imagine they're going to lean into Kyler's strengths,

do a lot of pistol shotgun, do a lot of wide zone pitching and running. But I don't know how Kyler's going to thrive with Jefferson. This might be DeAndre Hopkins, what was it, 22? What was the year that he just went off with Kyler? Like, if he does that for him, yeah, they'll pay him. They'll chase the playoffs. And who's to say that that's not going to work?

I don't know. He could develop into that guy, into that Sam Darnold, like late career resurgence, you know, good fit with a smart coach kind of pairing. So I'm looking at the upside of their current situation. Yeah, the downside is that they're going to be turning the wheels again, eight and nine ownership that does not, as you've talked about, ownership that does not want to tank, does not want to be the joke of the league just to kind of bounce up like the Patriots did so quickly. And I don't know if that's the right way to go about it because the Steelers have been trying to do that for years ever since their last Super Bowl win.

20 whatever years ago and here they are. So yeah, but I don't know if that should be used as an indictment on Rob. And I should also add that his relationship with Kevin O'Connell, who is arguably the main, if not one of the, obviously one of the main power brokers in that situation here, if it's like a new triangle of authority or whatever you want to call it, that needs to work. And you really open it up to whatever. if you're bringing in another outside piece with outside ideas to make all that collaboration work. I'm not saying Kevin O'Connell can't do it.

I'm not saying he hasn't proven. He can work with other people who come in. But this seemed to have worked pretty well with Rob, with Kevin, and with Brian Flores, another incredibly major piece in all of this. And if the ownership felt like, hey, this is the collaboration we could not have with Quasi, I don't think it's more of the same. I think it's trying to amplify and compound and grow, multiply, to use another word, Kevin O'Connell, Brian Flores and this coaching staff. And maybe who knows what shape that takes if Rob were to get hired.

But I see your point because, you know, the mystery box, it could be anything, right? Well, it's not so much about Rob or how he's, that's why I wanted to make clear or like how I think he would run a front office. It's really about, and I tried to use like a very businessy word about like shifting a paradigm a little bit from this team, but I think that that's the right word. Also, I just pulled up PFF grades and the 14th best quarterback in the league last year was Kirk Cousins, of course. But, you know, to my to what I'm saying there is like the 12th best was Jared Gough, the 11th best was Jalen Hertz and like 17th was Boe Nix. Like right in that range, you'd be hard selling me on Kyler Murray, being better than like Jalen Hertz or Jared Gough or one of it. I mean, I think it's going to work.

The point about this year, I think it's going to work. And I think they've built overall under Quasi, despite the draft failures. I think they built a good team that had a chance to legitimately win if J.J. McCarthy worked out. It's really about is there going to be a paradigm shift into the future of how you look at this, not just the quarterback position, but team building in general, that seems a little bit more competitive with the absolute best of the best. And I went through this on the show, but like, do you really compare in your team building to Seattle, to the Rams, to the Eagles? And if the answer is no, then that's what you need to chase. Because just being a B roster or a B plus roster is great, but it doesn't really help your

odds that much to win a Super Bowl. And I also feel like the Packers have settled into this as well. Like, here's the Packers who have settled into like, we're BB plus across the board in our roster, and we're going to be a 10-win team and then pray. Well, if you're shooting for more than that, which they were supposed to be doing during Quasi, and they kind of did with the, you know, big spending in free agency, that was a bigger shot at doing that.

Well, how are you going to do it the next time that sort of keeps up with the best of the best in the NFL? And I'm not sure that you're doing that with this current front office. But more than anything, it's just, I think it's a question that has to be asked. Like, do you want to keep doing the same with kind of the same approach from the same? same people in the scouting department, the front office, everything else,

and we're going to find this out or do the Wilf say, actually we want to make a pretty significant move here. Well, this question here, let me ask you, is this roster that far away? And I'll say this because the Vikings don't feel like it is. They keep saying we know how good we are with a specific level of quarterback play. And they've got their own priorities that they use to judge that. And they're like, we're not going to tell you what they are.

but they view like when they reach a certain level of quarterback play, they play consistently winning football with the group that they have right now. So is this roster that far away from being with top 10 quarterback play an Eagles or a lion's-ish team, you know, on that kind of periphery? Because if they can get some steps, obviously these are the gifts, but I do think if they can get the youthful kind of influx that they got last year and they get another one of them this year, start answering some questions they have in the trenches.

specifically the defensive line to be, you know, not too far away because they still have a number of veterans, Van Ginkle, Cashman. I know I'm forgetting guys, guys all across the offense especially, that they could kind of catch lightning in a bottle a little bit if Kyler Murray lives up to kind of what the expectations are. But this discussion to me is very much 2021-ish, 2019-ish, where if you go through the roster, absolutely, of course, of course, like, I think this team will be good. I think they can win the division.

I think that they can be there in the NFC with a lot of teams and be very solid in 2006. It's a little bit more in my mind about 2027. But also, if we're using an objective expectation measure, like our friends over at Fandul, I'm going to read you the teams that are ranked higher in terms of their chances to win the NFC championship. And I know that this last year didn't love Seattle and they won the Super Bowl. historically the preseason odds for the best of the best have been pretty good predictors

at who ends up there at the end. But just as a like what is the world think of your football team, not two reporters who cover it and have seen Kevin O'Connell do his thing with Sam Darl and everything else. Here's the teams that have higher odds to win the NFC than the Vikings. The Rams, Seahawks, 49ers, lions, Eagles, Packers, Cowboys, Bears, commanders, bucks. It's a lot of teams. Cowboys. You know, they always get more credit in the markets.

But you understand, like the Packers always get a little more credits in the markets. And so do the, you know, Kansas City Chiefs. But, you know, I mean, part of that, though, is Dak Prescott is a proven quarterback and has, you know, put up 13 win, 14 win seasons. Does he get 14, but he's definitely won 13 games before. The point just being that at the moment, your front office and everything else, you think that you're in a pretty good position to compete and everything else. and this was a whole roster build that you went through for multiple years. And this is the product you've created. And I just named like eight or nine teams that have higher higher odds to win your conference than you, much less the NFC.

That's a tough sell for me to say it's worked. Yeah, no, I would agree with you there. And again, I'm not stumping for this being, you know, a team that is ready to make it star turn this upcoming season. I just think a long term view of it, this roster is not, it's not decrepit. I don't think it's one of the worst in the NFC. I don't even think right now it's, I don't know, it's, yeah, it's probably just outside that top five in the conference. And if you get that quarterback answer that gets the most out of Justin Jefferson,

Aaron Jones stays healthy, everybody has all these big ifs. If the Vikings align with theirs and they get those right answers on the coins that flip, yeah, they can absolutely be in there. That's why I don't think, and we're talking about this in the context of the GM, I don't think hiring Rob Brzezinski full time would be like, oh, here's the Minnesota twins promoting from within. This has never worked. Like the Vikings won 13 regular season games.

And yes, they fell apart because of, you know, architectural flaws in their roster once they got to the postseason. And they tried to address those. They just let the quarterback go. It was really critical to that last one. So they got to get the quarterback right. And I think if they do, we're all going to be talking about this differently and being like, whoa, this roster suddenly looks better because the quarterback just.

multiplied everybody. Yeah. I mean, I'm on the side with you that if I'm projecting right now, I probably have them at 10 or 11 wins because I think the Kyler thing is totally going to work. And I think that he has played much more traditional quarterback that can fit in this system than people realize because no one watched Arizona. I think Arizona is one of the laughing stocks of the league that they actually have, Arizona actually has the worst level of the NFL where you are not only a laughing stock, but people don't even talk about you. It's like, you're not like the Jets or the Browns that people actually even discuss. But the point, the point just being that do you want to try to take a swing at removing

yourself from the perpetual middle to bring in a general manager with a different vision? Or do you think that this is working and want to continue down this path? That is what we're going to find out from the Wilf's. Let's just get to the rest of the draft here. Day two with Jake Golda, I thought was, I mean, I don't want to say anything. anything's going to be a great draft pick, but the fit was just so clear and so right for Brian Flores. I think that we both can envision what that's going to look like with Jake Golda.

You just stand next to Andrew Van Ginkle and watch everything he does and do that. But the more interesting picks on day two, I think were Dominique Orange and Caleb Tiernan. Dominique Orange could mean a different philosophy for Brian Flores that's much more reflective of a Pittsburgh old school three. or a Patriots old school three, four. We haven't seen them have a player like this. What did you think of the fact that they,

they went for that big guy who is super thick and wide and strong and is just going to eat up blocks? Yeah, because since Flores has been here, you're right. It's been Harrison Phillips. It's been Jalen, I don't know, Hargrave, who played the nose primarily at the start of last year. And then they transitioned more to Levi, Drake, Rodriguez, and Redmond's obviously done it too. But they haven't had that guy.

Yeah, they pieced together guys. and brought in more traditional three, four ends to kind of mix into the middle. And Harrison had to do all the dirty work for those years. And so now you finally got a guy who can be the true block eater that Brian Flores's blitz-happy defense needs. And J. Von Hargrave didn't like it. He tweeted, retweeted somebody saying Flores' defense is not for you if you want to get after the quarterback.

And yeah, because Brian was asked about that. I think Kevin Seaford asked him about it. And Brian said, it's important to me that everybody makes plays. You look up in a bunch of different guys who are making plays on this defense. That is important to me. That's not just about Brian being altruistic. That's about Brian understanding how the schematics work. And the quarterback has to know all 11 guys might be coming here.

You know, I actually might send all 11. This isn't just, oh, we're simming some pressures. And this guy who's never blitzed all year might come. And now he's not going to come. No, they send everybody. And I think that's why you see them draft Jacoby Thomas out of, was it Miami and then they draft obviously gold day another kind of hard charging you read a scouting report heavy-handed all those things that brian flores loves um i think that was a huge component of it

and that's why orange fits perfectly in there and maybe it is more of that pivot to let's truly get a guy in there was just going to on you know early downs when we run blitz he's just going to take up that center and guard and allow you know ivan pace and all these other guys to get in through and then yeah when they get in the pass rushing packages obviously he's probably not going to be out there. But that's why you got the, you hope you've got Caleb Banks to also plug in there as well. I really like the way Jacoby Thomas fits. That's, that's a great example right there of how like, okay, they over drafted, but they also didn't have a pick until the fifth. So you had to take him in the back end of the third. And then when you actually look at his performance,

he's not a combine warrior, but man, was he good at football? And Flores has just made hay with guys like that. That's the Mattelis. That's even Ivan Pace coming into the league who was very, very good in college. He's, he's been very effective that way. But I am a little bit interested with Dominique Orange because last year, Flores was able to make some adjustments that totally shut down teams run games at the end of the season. So there was so much that we put into the first part of the year where they were getting run over. But then at the end of the day, they still finish as one of the better run defenses in the league. So is it an overreact? to what happened or just more of we want this type of player and maybe they wanted that type of

player all along but they didn't have that player available I guess or maybe they should have just kept Harris and Phillips last year which was one of the odder trades that they've ever made but um asking yeah asking jvonne hardgrave to be a pure nose was uh maybe not the best fit in the world but I feel like when you have a guy, and if he lives up to expectations, who can take up blockers like that, push the pocket, it's just really hard to play against for the other team.

I think that's part of it. I can't remember if this was O'Connell or Flores who said it. Someone over the weekend had mentioned that, you know, when other teams see the Vikings adding these two dudes, I think they look at it and, what was the phrasing, like, get a little worried or at least their eyebrows raised of like they know we can do things with these guys or are going to do things with these guys that other teams,

it's not just going to be a four-man rush like so many other teams might do. So I think that's part of it. But also, I don't know about overcorrection as much as maybe trying to just get right what they didn't last year with Allen and Hargrave. That to me seemed like almost the overcorrection of like, oh, we did it with Tilleri, we did it with Bullard. You know, we did it with these no-name guys. What if we brought in Pro Bowl pass rushers to also do it with?

And then you find out, no, those guys don't want to eat blocks on first and second down or even third down obviously those guys want to go make their money and no but no you got to set a pick for van ginkal who's coming around like it just works differently here and i think this is a better fit with younger guys who are not going to come in and demand theirs they talk about calab banks as a guy who doesn't know how good he can be it's the kind of humble guy who's going to come in and do whatever you want and that seems like a perfect fit for brian flores right now so and if he can develop into that guy that other teams have to account for in their past protection sets that's what they've been missing. This whole time, they've just been, let's get a hat on a hat. We don't have to double

anybody. Even Grenard. I like Grenard, but he talked about getting disrespected by other teams pretty frequently here, where they would put tight ends on them or they double them with a back and a tight end. And they just didn't really, other teams didn't seem to feel like we need to totally prioritize Grenard. So they need somebody that commands that attention from an offense up front. And I'm not saying it's not going to be Dominique Orange necessarily, but obviously Caleb Banks is the vision for that guy. Well, and Dominique Orange and Caleb Banks together is 660 pounds of man in the middle, which I tend to think is a good idea. And we have seen the NFL. And this is where there is a vision of what it's looked like with some of the winning teams where they have these kind of combinations.

And you could see like, and I don't want to say poor man's as in like in an offensive way. I just mean it's unlikely to turn out quite this good. But like the Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis, the way that those two guys work off of each other of they're both enormous. One guy is the penetrating big dude. The other guy is the gap stuffer. And it makes life really darn difficult on offenses to deal with those two guys. When Orange is built more like a Linvall, right? Because Linvole was stock here, six three, maybe three 30.

Orange is six to three 30 or three 25 or something like that. Like he's just, you know, whereas bank's six six and the similar weight, it just is out on longer limbs. because, yeah, you're right. I think Orange is going to be, you know, can be that guy. I don't think he's certainly not going to move like a, you see, you were probably comp in Banks to Carter and then. Yeah, thanks, Jordan Davis.

Yeah, in terms of like what you're asking them to do. Yeah. Like Carter is, I don't know what his size. It's just ginormous. And but he gets into the backfield. Like, that's his thing. He's not as much of the block eater as Jordan Davis is. And if you can, the thing about taking one in the third is, I think it's the

exact right spot to take that guy. When they were talking about taking Caden McDonald in the first, I was like, I don't like that. That's not my thing. You know, that's a run stuffer in the first is too much of a reach for me. But I think they took them in the exact right spot. Just, just day three for you. Did you have one that was the most intriguing to you for the day three picks?

Because they only had four. And none of them are like, could you believe they got that? guy who dropped or it wasn't jemad mccoy for example which would have made a lot of storylines uh it was more of yep these are clearly guys that their scouts just liked yeah max bretison the fullback was was interesting it was interesting hearing part of his story too we didn't get a chance to talk to him too much about it but um mike shaliton the director of college scouting had just shared that he was the kind of guy that when he went on the campus um in 2021 at michigan as parents kind of gave him an ultimatum of like well you better earn a scholarship in

football or figure out something else to do, like join the Marine Corps. And he earned a scholarship in a semester and ended up, or in a year, the first year, ended up sticking with the team. And that's how his football journey started. But, yeah, Bredison was interesting. I think Chuck Demings is the most intriguing of them. A guy who's 6-2 runs a 4-4 has incredible athleticism. He mentioned, I think it was on Bruce Feldman's freak list before the season.

And then by the time he got to the combine, he mentioned Kiante Scott, the might Miami corner walking up to him and just being like, hey, I hear you're going to break the vertical record here. And he's like, I've never talked to you before. What? Like, hello, nice to meet you. His athleticism just kind of had a reputation. And he didn't. He said he had a little injury at the combine. Only jumped a 42 vertical. So we talk about upside. We talk about developmental guys. Like, you could see what they see in him. What was it, fifth rounder, one of the fifth rounders, I think. So you can see that the kind of upside with him that they need. And, and, and, frankly corner's so bare I was expecting maybe a day two pick at that position or something you know

a hybrid you know they I know they went with Jacoby thomas but I was expecting more of a versatile kind of cover guy in this whole draft has once again been about Brian Flores doubling down on pressure over coverage like I so Chuck Demings might pan out he might not they don't seem to care about investing a ton at that position which is interesting and then obviously Demand Claiborne and the running back is fascinating. With Frank Smith kind of fit, you read Claiborne's scouting report. They talk about his one-cut running ability,

how he can accelerate and reach that top speed so quickly. When they pitch it out on these wide outside zones with Frank Smith, they need a guy to just see it and go. And he might be kind of a unique fit that people go, whoa, he was a sixth rounder? How did that happen? So I'm pulling up this stat because I want to make sure I have it correct, that, yeah, 42 and a half percent of his rushes went for 15 or more yards,

DeMond Claiborne. And so you could see where probably playing at Wake Forest, you get blown up in the backfield more than you would like, but the explosiveness is clearly there. And then when you see the words Devon A-chan on scouting reports, you're like, okay, this makes a lot of sense for me. This was one where the draft giveth and taketh away, right? like Dane Brugler had him as his eighth best running back in the entire draft and he ends up being taken in the sixth round.

This is one where normally I'd be like, okay, yeah, another sixth round running back. But I'm legitimately intrigued by Demand Claybourne, probably more than I have been with past running backs that they've taken in part because of what you said, like the scheme fit sort of screams. This is what they did in Miami. Yeah, when they took Dwayne McBride and they're saying like, oh, he can catch. We've been told he can catch. Like, now this guy actually caught Fifthamond, caught 51 passes over the last two years.

He returned 20 kickoffs, including two for touchdowns. It's the guy who actually did it in college. And so, yeah, I'm excited to see, you're right, much more intrigued than even Ty Chandler,

who was just like, oh, he's fast. We'll see what can happen. Now, this guy did quite a bit, and I think he was, he talked about it too

on his conference call with us. He said, being a smaller back with a smaller frame, a lot of teams had a lot of questions. But, you know, he said, excited the Vikings believe in me.

So I think that's why he fell. I think a lot of teams just looked at them and thought, maybe you're not as twitched up as Devon A-chan, so we're not going to take a chance on you. Yep. And we know that they did a ton of research on this running back class, which was touted as being horrendous and then was drafted as if it was horrendous, but it will be very interesting to see if maybe the most explosive player other than Mike Washington ends up turning out.

Andrew Kramer, Star Tribune, Access Vikings podcast. you guys did your recap. So folks should go over and take a look for that on YouTube and wherever you get your broadcast. So thank you very much, Mr. Kramer. Good to be back together podcasting. It's been a little while. So thanks for doing this, man.

It's a good conversation. Yeah, always a pleasure, man. Anytime. Oh, what, sorry? Oh, football. Oh, football. Oh, there you go. Thank you.

My gracious. Football. Football.