Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer talks about Everson Griffen

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

Matthew Coller and Andrew Krammer of the Star Tribune talk about the Vikings bringing in Everson Griffen and what it says about their feelings on Kirk Cousins's future and what he could potentially bring to the Vikings' defense. Plus a game of "is this guy good?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune and we're going to try to figure out exactly how much we should be talking about Everson Griffin working out with the Vikings because they'll probably officially sign him right after we get done talking. How are you Andrew? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Everson's probably putting ink to paper right now as we speak. Well, Adam Zimmer said, as we were just upstairs, he said, they're upstairs talking right now, which made me think talking about a contract to sign. So if it doesn't happen, then disregard this conversation that we're about to have.

But being the way this recording has to go, we have to discuss it as if it's going to happen because everson griffin indeed in the building working out and let's just get right into the main subject which is that everson griffin tweeted that kurt cousins is ass earlier this offseason like that is the reality i know that there will be a lot of people who say, oh, well, Everson was this or that, and it's not fair to talk about it. But the guy they're bringing in, potentially, possibly, probably by the time you listen to this or maybe, at least for a workout, tweeted some really aggressive things about the quarterback, and the Vikings are saying, meh, we really need a defensive end. Too bad.

Yeah, this kind of reeks of desperation, in my opinion, a little bit of their defensive end situation. The fact that even if it was just a workout and they don't end up signing him, or let's say they do, it's a situation where clearly they're unhappy with the current depth at defensive end. Why else would you be trying out a 34-year-old who last time you had heard from him

was calling your franchise quarterback ass and then tweeting thank you after it and doing it to the at Vikings account? Now, there's a lot of mental health stuff there that goes on with Everson. Everybody who follows the Vikings is well aware of all of that. And so maybe half of bringing him in here was just getting a sense of where he's at mentally because this was eight, nine months ago when he did this. He last played for the Detroit Lions, and maybe he could be serviceable for you in a rotational kind of role where he comes off the bench and can provide you some pass rush. But if you were happy with Steven Weatherly, if you were happy with even DJ Wanham and some of these young guys,

you wouldn't necessarily be feeling like you have to do this. And so if you're the Vikings, this to me says a lot about where those young guys are currently at. Cause we're coming off a preseason game in which we heard the defensive coordinators say our top defensive end we drafted forgot the play call three times. Steven Weatherly, who was one of those guys that maybe shouldn't have even had to have played in that game. The defensive coordinator said he was playing cause he's vying for that starting job. And then we didn't see really him do anything of note in that game for himself.

So I don't know what you thought, Matthew, but when I saw the Griffin thing pop up, I thought, boy, they are really, really desperate at defensive end. Well, I had a bunch of thoughts. The first thought was, would a team with Peyton Manning at quarterback bring in a guy who said something like that about Peyton Manning, even if it was something that you could walk back or apologize for, I'm going to guess no. How about like Aaron Rodgers? Like I'm going to just go ahead and say that if someone said something about Aaron Rodgers publicly like that, that that person would not be brought back into the organization. So I think that it does say something just about how they feel about Kirk Cousins and what he means right now to this organization. Like if you called him a mercenary quarterback who is here to play this year, and then who knows after that, when and we'll talk kind of thing. This sort of confirms it

because if someone is your franchise quarterback, if it's Patrick Patrick Mahomes if it's Ben Roethlisberger Russell Wilson you're just not doing this to that person because it really undermines them and there's no way around what was sent out like there's no well Everson was having a tough day or what he apologized which he did but there's no like taking that toothpaste and putting it back in the tube once someone said that about your franchise quarterback and to bring him in says ah well get over it Kirk which is very interesting I think it just sort of goes along with the general vibe that we've gotten for how they've felt about Kirk really throughout this entire camp and to do with the COVID thing as far as on the field uh this was foreseeable. I mean, DJ Wanham is a

fourth round draft pick. How often do fourth round draft picks become Everson Griffin? Almost never. Steven Weatherly was not good in Carolina last year as a starter and you brought him back and said, yeah, but he'll be good with us. Like that process isn't really all that good. Throughout the off season on the show, we talked about what about melvin ingram what about uh i don't know vinnie curry like these veteran guys who have been around who are rotational players that can hold down that role what about in the draft what about trey hendrickson what about carl lawson we kept going through the list and you never got there and now this feels like in gawkway ish of oh no it is bad and uhoh, who's out there who might come here at the last minute?

Well, Justin Houston signed elsewhere. Everson Griffin is the best player to bring in. And the last thing I would say is I think he could still play, like from what I saw last year. Like, is it going to be 2017 Everson Griffin? No. Is it going to be better than these other guys? I think the answer is yes.

I think you bring up a really good point about the Kirk Cousins stuff, because I think we've seen this summer a little bit of a transformation in how, certainly publicly, they're talking about him, how the whole COVID thing has thrown a wrench into the relationship between Zimmer and Kirk. I know Kirk had come out and he wanted to say, oh, we had a positive conversation and all that. But that conversation and behind the scenes, there's been a lot of strain on trying to get your franchise quarterback, excuse me, vaccinated and getting him out there and making sure that he's available and then leading and setting an example for the rest of your team. Now, the Atlanta Falcons just came out and said, we're 100% vaccinated and really put Matt Ryan up on this pedestal of saying he's a big reason why.

And so when you've got a quarterback room that, for instance, is three quarters unvaccinated when you're counting Kellen Mond, Nate Stanley, and Kirk Cousins, that worries the head coach quite a bit. A head coach who needs to win and a head coach that at this point probably has good reason not to care about Kirk's feelings when it comes to needing to win. Because Kirk also has that kind of need because he's guaranteed nothing beyond the two years left of his contract and the Vikings have made every move it would seem around Kirk to indicate that they're probably not going to extend him beyond that and so certainly if Kellen Maughan proves to be anything so the fact that you bring him in you're right that doesn't happen to another franchise quarterback that doesn't happen to a guy who's established it doesn't happen to a guy who has really any say in his building. And Kirk Cousins would seem to have very little say and just be a cog in this offense the way that he had said he wanted to be

when he signed here. But there is no more of this illusion of, yeah, Kirk's our guy, Kirk's our guy. We've seen a big, a stark pivot that really began with the scouting and drafting of Kellen Mond, the interest in Justin Fields, all the way down to even considering bringing in Everson Griffin, who had just last publicly trashed your quarterback up and down. And I think part of it too, is that the reason why those comments by Everson aren't just this kind of, well, we can ignore that. It's really not that big of a deal. He kind of said the quiet part out loud. He kind of said the part that you hear from defenders behind the scenes of like, is this the guy? Like, what did we just, are we, are we sure about this? And you hear that from established veterans in this defense. And then Everson put out there and said, ask Mike Zimmer

if he wanted him. That was one of the tweets he had mentioned. And so now you're putting out there that the head coach probably didn't even want him and we did hear the head coach a month before they signed cousins in 2018 saying let's not try to rob from the defense that just got us to an nfc championship game to overpay for a quarterback and that's kind of exactly what they did right and i thought that even if everson was having a tough time when he tweeted that out, I never felt like he was lying about his feelings on Cousins and about what he said with Mike Zimmer and not wanting Cousins. And I think we've seen that even play out with the relationship between Zimmer and Cousins being very icy,

even to the point of Cousins goes into his explanation about the room size, then Zimmer comes out and says, we followed the protocols or the NFL approved the protocols, like just to get one last, I'm going to get the last word in. And so we saw a lot of that battling that was going on in press conferences between those two. And we've never felt like there was any real connection between them at any point during Kirk Cousins time here here. But let me make this point, though. If there's any player who you would think could totally ignore this and live in his own plexiglass and just play the way he's going to play,

even if the team just brought in someone that criticized him very publicly on Twitter, it's Kirk Cousins, is it not? The guy kind of has a remarkable ability to just have everyone sort of dunking on him or criticizing him, like when he apologized to Adam Thielen, and the whole world was going off on it. Now, I think that was ridiculous. There was no reason to be that upset about it if you're ESPN or whatever in those talk shows, but they were all over him for that stuff.

And Twitter's going crazy and everything else. And Kirk came out the next week, he played great, won the game, won player of the month in October. He's gone through these things. The Washington football team tweeted out a contract offer that he turned down. They tweeted it. I've never seen anything like that before. Kirk's out there saying we didn't offer him enough money.

Here's our contract offer to him. I mean, just the president of Washington football team was calling him Kurt publicly, and he just played the same way he always plays. It's really a remarkable talent that he has to never seem to maybe even fully grasp some of these things and what they mean and just play Kirk Cousins football. There is an element of how he, some would say he lacks the situational awareness on the field. It does seem to carry over a little bit off the field where, yeah, whether it's talking about covering yourself in plexiglass, the quote he used all the time about the vaccination and saying, or about just COVID and saying, I'll do any, everything it takes, everything it takes. He kept repeating that and the subtext of it and the obviousness of it is that, well, no, you won't.

And so I think that all plays into it. And you're right. Maybe Kirk is the guy who can ignore that, who can compartmentalize it, just whatever, just forget about it. But they're going to share a locker room. If Everson signs here, if Everson's in that locker room again, Everson's the one who's been here longer ever since the one who's certainly probably got more friends in the building at this point um it'll just be interesting because there's already kind of this divide you see between the head coach and the quarterback how much of that divide is going to branch between the defense and the quarterback defense and the offense that's you know that's not how they're going to become a winning franchise or a winning team and again they're stuck with Kirk for two more years or one and find someone to take him depending oh so you so you don't think that that will happen

this is a really interesting question to ask people because I think that there's always someone who will do it and give him the contract extension because there's always a team that's going to be quarterback list who believes they're a quarterback away so like if indianapolis and this carson wentz thing blows up for them like they've still got a good roster or just use that as an example of a team that looked at the worst quarterback in the league last year carson wentz and said well he was once good let's try it like the quarterback desperation is so high but i the people that i've asked are very 50 50 on whether there would be another team that would actually do this yeah the the moving kirk at this point of view the vikings you really need to hope this guy plays like he did last year and that the team is relevant and then maybe he even wins or

steals a playoff game like he did in 2019 and then you can flip that for something right but the concern is that this is going to devolve into a jared goff situation where you were stuck with this guy in this contract and the only way to ship him out is by pairing the actual items of value like a first round pick or whatever to him and this is not a team that can afford to start shipping out first round picks when they're when they're cutting them right like they did with jeff gladney they they this is not a team that or front office that i would think is in that situation that it could an ownership group and saying, hey, the Wilfs, we need to get rid of this guy. We need to move on. We need that mistake. Oh, by the way, we need to now attach even more to him

just to get him out the door. I just don't know if that team's going to be there to do that. Maybe it is a team like Indy, but if Kirk goes out there and plays like he did last year, and even though they were the fourth-ranked offense, very explosive at times, you still saw it in critical games. You saw it whether it was in games in December or it was that Atlanta game. There are so many times that pop up where he is not playing up to the level that his stats, his salary, all of it should suggest he should. And so with that, you need him to, for the first time in his career, string together a full season of consistency, of actually being good throughout the entire thing and winning meaningful games. You and I have talked about this before, but that 2019 playoff win against New Orleans, that changed everything in terms of them thinking, yes, let's extend him. Yes, we can do this. Yes,

it can happen. And then quickly last year, they found out, oh, no, oh, no, we can't. So I don't know if you're gonna find a GM and maybe you are that looks at this and goes you know what I can get that 2019 season out of him again we can do this I just I'm skeptical of it and I thought the one guy that would Kyle Shanahan just signed off on no I'm not the Trey Lance is our guy right I think that if Cousins doesn't play well this year you're talking about a lot of ramifications for everybody. And this is why it's so interesting. Mike Zimmer taking the route that he's taking with how he sort of approached Cousins and the vaccination thing in general, which is that he's basically saying like one of us is going to be here maybe. And, uh, you know, we'll see who it is. I guess I just don't see how this relationship could carry on past this year, which is what makes it so interesting how this plays out. And even this, even bringing in Everson, even if it's for a workout may again, may have signed by the time I'm posting this. Uh, but, um, even just bringing

him in for a workout sort of says again, like, Hey, could be here uh maybe it's you maybe it's me i guess we'll find out my defense your offense here we go kind of thing because it just feels like this relationship cannot carry on past this year and you have to make some sort of change unless they somehow get it together which really is funny because they both need each other to keep their jobs it's like you guys have to realize that you need each other. You need an offense that doesn't go three and out at such a high rate. You need a defense that doesn't rank 29th if you guys want to get anywhere. And it seems like there's been a lot of one person saying, hey, this is not my fault.

Another person saying, you know, this is your fault kind of thing. And nothing's even happened yet. And so, like, how is this going to play out when they do ultimately hit bumps in the road? Because no 17 game season is just going to go smoothly start to finish. So that's where I will find it very interesting is when you lose back to back games. Well, how do both of those guys handle it? And do we get sniping or, or do they figure out a way to move past this? Because, you know, so far I feel like they've just sort of, you know, you live in that world on offense on that field. I live in this world and that's how it's going to be.

Excuse me. Excuse you. Can you imagine what would happen if Kirk had to miss a game because of COVID protocols? I mean, could you imagine like that? That is the landmine that is hiding under every week of this season. And it has nothing to do with whether or not Kirk gets it himself. It has everything to do with the NFL saying you're not going to play. If you're near somebody who does, if, if a family member, whatever, like there's so many different routes that this could blow up because Kirk has opted not to get vaccinated.

And the internal push that has come very strongly from Mike Zimmer and everybody in that, that TCO performance center, they have all tried to avoid that. And by getting Kirk vaccinated, that just eliminates the close contact. Forget, forget the science, the politics, whatever you want to attach to the vaccinations. They just care about making him available. Right. And the fact that if he's not could you imagine how mike zimmer would react

if he gets if he comes in on a monday morning and says oh by the way coach um got green bay this weekend um kirk's out i can't imagine that and i imagine that uh everything in mike zimmer's office would be broken well but you know when we talk about foreseeable things, um, was it foreseeable that he might not be a vaccination guy? Like maybe, um, but was it foreseeable that you needed something better than Jake Browning? Like, yes, I think absolutely. Like Jacoby Brissett, what was he doing? I don't know, but he went like what? Seven to nine with a team. He's a very case Keenum ish type of quarterback. What you have right now is, and they talked about on draft night. Oh, we drafted Kellen Mond to be Kirk's backup for this year. Well, that's great, but he doesn't know how to play football yet. And like, that's fine. That happens, but they did the same thing at left tackle where it's like, we're just going to draft a guy to play left tackle. We're just going to draft a guy to play right guard. And then you scramble and then you say well see jake browning is fine right but he throws the ball about 18 miles an hour so like that's you know not getting another backup quarterback as soon as this even as soon

as the covet thing with kirk happened is kind of surprising and i even on i remember talking with judd right here in this building talking about on that night that he had to miss the Saturday night practice, they should be on the phone with somebody. Is a McCown available? And yet they still haven't taken that route, which is very interesting. Let me circle back though to the Everson point. And this is the reason they need him though, because if Kirk has Kirk games where he just doesn't play well, or where he has to miss a game because of close contact or something. The defense is not allowed to be fallible this year. I just think that in general with the offensive line that they have with even Jefferson starting the year a little banged up with the workload that Delvin Cook had last year, like there's enough questions

here about the offense and a new offensive coordinator who's just learning to call plays like the defense is not allowed to struggle if you're going to be good and signing Everson Griffin put all that other stuff aside is I think a pretty big improvement from what we've seen from DJ Wanham and Steven Weatherly especially if you can talk Everson into a third down role right if you can make him comfortable with the fact that, hey, we're bringing you back, but it's just going to be on pass rushing situations, maybe even an interior pass rush guy, kind of how maybe you'd think they'd use Weatherly if he were playing up to that level.

And to me, I keep going back to that. Everson, if they do bring him in, it's an indictment on Stephen Weatherly. It's an indictment on the depth they have at the end. And the front office moves kind of similar to the quarterback thing where you're saying familiarity. We'll just, we're fine with Browning. We'll just bring in a rookie, bring him back Weatherly. Like that's, that's a question of move in and of itself to say, all right, we're just going to, we'll lose a Foddy, you know, we'll bring back to Neil and you know, we'll be fine with Weatherly and the rest

of the guys we got. And clearly this, this move with Everson would indicate they are not fine with that. They do need to improve on that, that pass rush and how critical it is. Like that is the main reason they won that playoff game. I know Kirk went out there in new Orleans, won an overtime, made two big passes to win that game. But at the same time, if Drew Brees had a half a second to throw the ball, when it wasn't Daniil and Everson in his face, like the last time this defense played up to par of what Mike Zimmer wants it to be, Everson was a huge part of it. And so I think you're right. If he's got any pass rush left in him, you need to try and squeeze that out of him.

And this is a team that desperately needs it because, oh, by the way, their top blitzing linebacker is now out with some kind of mysterious ailment that we have no idea. And that's the new, you know, possibly Daniil Hunterment that we have no idea. And that's the new possibly Daniil Hunter situation. We have no idea. There's been zero clarity or word coming from the team about Anthony Barr, why he hasn't been practicing. Let me ask you a question that sort of pops up all the time. And I just want your perspective on it

because I think you know how I feel about this. I always get like on YouTube comments and stuff, which yes, sometimes I read them and the show and everything else. Why are you guys saying the sky is falling all the time? Which I mean, let's talk about it though for a second though. Like if we try to pull back because we're here every single day and we're going, I don't know, man, like Warren Jackson doesn't look so good. Like what's the deal with that. Like, Warren Jackson doesn't look so good. Like, what's the deal with that? Sorry, Warren Jackson.

You've been fine. But give me, like, a sky is falling rating or something. Because I don't know with this team. I could still see, despite all the stuff we talked about, which I think is correct in what Everson Griffin coming in here means. But I also come to like, do they just have too much talent to be a team that's not good and to cause those long-term changes that we were alluding to in the first part of the conversation? I just wonder how,

like how you think of that? Cause I think of it as like, yeah, the football team has, um, some, some foundational cracks here that could get them. And then I try to circle back and say, but they also have a lot of talent. So like, how do we balance that? I guess. Well, I think it has to start with expectations, right? And I think the people who come at me or you or anybody in the media for being too negative, their expectations are not high enough. They're clearly thinking, well, if we just go 10 and 7 11 and 6 make the playoffs you know maybe we're out in the divisional round whatever that's good enough and i i think the first people who disagree with you are the people who are running this team and certainly be the wilfs to use the

the wilfs mark wilfs own words he had said i believe before last season was we want to be consistently knocking on the door of that championship. We want to consistently be good enough because one time we think we're going to break through and we'll be that team, whether it's like Tampa Bay, Baltimore. I don't know the examples of the one-off teams that just kind of made a run and won a Super Bowl. The problem is with how they want to structure this team from Spielman on down to Zimmer, it is like walking a high wire act. It is like walking a high wire act. It is like walking

a tightrope. If you want to sit there and say, you know what? We don't need the godsend quarterback. We can just win with great defense, great complimentary football, special teams, all that. Well, okay. But that means all of that has to be good. All that has to be great. They all have to work together. One of them can't fall off. Your kicker can't lose you a playoff game against Seattle because Teddy Bridgewater can't single-handedly win you that game or get you a touchdown in that game or Adrian Peterson can't or whatever it was. They don't have that trump card and they haven't taken the swing. As soon as they extended Kirk after that 2019 playoff win, they basically said, this is our model. This is what we're going to do. And so when we sit there and we sit here all day and watch practice and we start picking

apart these things, oh, by the way, the left tackle is not practicing. The stop top linebacker is not practicing. Oh, by the way, the quarterback who's already kind of a mediocre piece could just drop out at any moment of a game. Cause even though when they signed him, durability was supposed to be the big thing he was there for. Well, nobody foresaw a pandemic and nobody foresaw that his inability or unwillingness to just do something that would help you be available. All those things get put into one pot and then you start to look around and go, doesn't it just feel like the building's going to collapse at any moment?

Doesn't it feel like one straw, one little Jenga piece gets taken out and the whole thing can come crashing down? It doesn't happen that way when you've got one of the top five or maybe even 10 quarterbacks in the league. If you can develop a Josh Allen, if you've got a Russell Wilson, if you somehow land them a Holmes or Rogers, that makes that tower that you've got a lot sturdier and you don't need to worry about maybe the kicker misses one or maybe we lose a star defender or two. This team does not have the margin for error to sit there and say, everything's going to be okay. And I think that has to be reflected in our coverage

because we fully understand that Kirk Cousins is not going to be the quarterback that individually wins you a game. As George Payton said when he was here for the Denver joint practices, their GM, when asking how do you define a franchise quarterback? He said, it has to be a guy that can single-handedly win you the game. And I think we all understood the subtext of that. Hey, everybody. The season is on the way.

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Check it all out at SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Everything is screen printed here in Minnesota. And I can tell you that the shirts are comfortable and they last because half of my closet is now SodaStick at this point. Again, that's SodaStick.com, Minnesota sports inspired goods, and keep your eye out for our soda stick giveaways. Right. And that has not been what we've seen from Kirk Cousins and especially not

just win a game, but when games that matter. And I can't count the number of times that we've hyped up a game and said, this is a huge one. This is a defining one. And then you end up coming out disappointed. And even last year, they win a bunch of games in a row and okay, all you have to do is beat Dallas. All you have to do is beat Chicago and you're not able to do it. And then you sort of point the finger at different directions, but ultimately it rests on the shoulder of that guy to get you that final drive that you need at some point. And that rarely happens. I mean, even just since he's been here. Um, and that's why the final drive thing becomes such a focus because it's like, you really have to put it on your back to go do something like

that. And you know, if you're Mike Zimmer, there's only so much you can control. I remember a hockey coach told me this once. He was like, you know, we can scheme and we can analytics and we can figure out all their weaknesses and our strengths. But usually the way that you win a hockey game is a goalie makes a great save that he's not supposed to make. And a center makes a play that is otherworldly and you win. Like, that's it. That's how you win the Stanley Cup.

It's like, I have to do my job, but ultimately it's the quarterback makes a play he's not supposed to be able to make. And so when we're talking about, you know, Kirk Cousins off schedule and how he's working on it and that kind of thing, you just sort of go, okay, I mean, we're going to have to really see some of these things at some point,

or we're just going to have to kind of have an inevitability feeling about this team, which I think is very frustrating for, for people to have that feeling. And it's almost like saying, you know, I don't know for people who love school, like schools out schools out in June, it's inevitable. That's when it ends. And like, you, you don't want it to end or something. I'm not coming up with a good comparison, but it's like nobody wanted it to turn out this way when he was signed. And yet it feels like it's still going to continue to turn out that way unless blank, out, we're like, well, you know, that could be a little bit of an issue for them. But it's like the panic meter turns up to nine when a key player is out on defense because you know that's what you need. And the one time this team was competitive in 2019, they had a great defense.

They had an all-world performance from Stefan Diggs that year and from Delvin Cook that year. And you need all those things to happen again. So I think it's, it's more of just living in reality, which I totally understand why that's difficult though. Right? Like if you just, if you really want something and yet it's hard to sort of see it happening,

but you're trying to like love it into existence or something or, or, or, or yell it you on Twitter into existence of this being different than you think it's going to be. Um, I get it. I get where that cognitive dissonance can happen, but I also think what's so crazy about this team is that just a few years ago when they were two and two going to play the Chicago bears, I would have told you, here we go again, inevitable eight and eight type of season. Here comes case Keenum. And they just have a way of bringing you back. Like right when you think it's about to go over the side of the edge after a couple of years where it hasn't gone well, they always have that way. And I think

Chad told me the other day, Graff that the Vikings coverage on the athletic has been one of the most read all year and I think that's one of the reasons why is this team just has this ability like a show where a character you think is about to get killed and then they find their way to slither out of it somehow like that's this team and that's Zimmer where there's been so many times where we've gone, man, if they lose this one, it might be over for him. And then it isn't. And I think that's what makes it really compelling for this year in particular. Yeah.

And two, when you look at, you look at just the oscillation of this team, right? It's, it's, we always joke. It's the odd numbered years that are good to them. Even number of years that aren't. This certainly seems like it's an even numbered year in terms of the off season, how it's happened. Even though it's 2021, it seems like this is a year where not everything's going right for them. But we thought that, like you said, in 2017. So there's no reason why all these things can't go right. We're not sitting here saying X, Y, and Z are going to go wrong and they're going to lose. We're just pointing out that there are a lot of things here that have

to go right. And if you're starting at the top of the list of things that probably will go right, it's that they've got a defensive front now that is such far and away better than where they're at. Even though we're nitpicking that other defensive end spot with Everson Griffin, we're talking about Dalvin Tomlinson, Sheldon Richardson, Michael Pierce, Daniil Hunter. Those are four players that Mike Zimmer would have probably literally killed somebody to have on the field last year. And it probably would have been his kicker, but I sacrificed a kicker for two DTs. He would have killed just to have those guys in front of him and the fact that eric kendricks is is um ascending the way he's ascending and did so last year even with pretty bad players in front

of him at defensive tackle there are a lot of reasons why you should think this defense is going to be top 10 again mike zimmer's probably gunning for it to be top five or the you know number one again, but that optimism can keep circulating. But every time we have to talk about the other side of the coin, you have to talk about the health. You have to talk about the Kirk cousins, all those question marks that just constantly come with this team. And there's just no way around it. You want to play a little game? Oh, always. Now this is not the, uh, your brilliant game of Stefan Diggs tweet or Confucius. Uh, how about this though?

Is this guy any good is the game. Okay. So I've just been thinking about this for a lot of these players who might matter. Like after Zimmer said, these guys might play. I started thinking like, is this guy good? Is this guy good? Uh, so there are lots of guys on this team that I think we just don't know if they're good yet. So you're going to have to tell me. Okay. Uh, is a mere Smith Mars set any good?

Ooh. Uh, yes, I think he is. I think so. Okay. Yes. I think he is. I think he's going to be somebody who can develop into a very good wide receiver. The question is with him.

And I think Clint Kubiak made some, maybe it was Kirk. Somebody today had made some reference to like he's just a very playful, head-in-the-clouds kind of guy. And if you can just bring him back down to earth and, you know, do the Adam Thielen thing or do the Stefan Diggs thing where you just put your nose to the grindstone and just shut up and work, he'll be very good if he does that. And that's the question with 22-year-old kids, right?

Are you going to be able to be that professional? But from what I've seen, I mean, even the 30 yard return against Denver, um, I thought some of the stuff with, um, the, the misconnections going two for six on his targets against the Broncos. So much of that was on Jake Browning. And I just don't think we've seen a chance for him to really stand out with these backup quarterbacks. And that goes to the fact that you just don't have a backup quarterback. That's going to allow them to stand out. So if Jefferson sits on Saturday against the Colts and we see the same maybe with Thielen sitting, I'm very curious to see Smith-Marset get some run with Kirk and get to see a little bit more out of him because I do think he's good.

I'm not sold yet. I think that so much of the wide receiver position is the mental part that I got to see that. And we haven't really seen that. We've seen him run fast and we've seen him track the ball, which is a big part of it. But I feel like there have been other athletes that they've had out here that can't really be trusted. Stacey Coley was one of them, right? They just, he just like couldn't master what he was supposed to do. And I thought it put a cap on his potential you could go as far as to say cordero yeah oh yeah yeah sure super talented but just did not have the head or the

work ethic to really kind of make him that refined receiver and cordero is twice as physically gifted as amir smith-marcet true so that's so that's where i look at and go the guys we've seen succeed stefan diggs uh what was his uh what you, how they do the relative athletic scores was like, I don't know, 50% or something. And he's one of the best receivers in the league. Adam Thielen, sorry, but it's true. Not the greatest athlete. It's true. It's true.

I'm not saying that because he's white. But those guys really master what they're supposed to do. And so I'm going to have to see that. I don't think he's going to be good right away. And it's kind of going to be up to him whether he wants to be good in the future. Is Ezra Cleveland good? Yes. I think last year showed him not only switching positions, but switching sides, going from the left to the right guard spot, learning a whole new position. His issue last year from just people I talked to about him was confidence. He had lost so much confidence in the ramp up to the season that

they weren't considering him for a starting job. And it took five games of Drew Samia being horrendous for them to finally make that switch after offline went down. I do think Cleveland's going to be good because I think he's got, I think he's wired the right way for that job. Just being an O-lineman, I mean, and I think he's shown enough and was certainly talented enough at Boise State at left tackle and then showed enough last year that that job um being just being an o-lineman i mean and i think he's shown enough and was certainly talented enough at boise state at left tackle and then showed enough last year that he's going to be a guy they can count on moving forward and i think him being back on the left side is going to help him do that i think so too but there were a few reps against denver that made me go oh i

don't know because i mean shelby harris a couple other defensive linemen for Denver, they really got under his pads and pushed him back. And when you're a tackle getting under the pads, it's just not a thing really. Like, I mean, sometimes you get bull rushed, but most of the time it's like the hand fighting and it's quickness and can the guy bend around you or can he spin on you? So it's sort of like this more finesse type of position and guard is real grindy. It's real. This guy's up in your grill and he's going to get underneath you and push you back. And I just don't know if he has that build. Like he has such a tackle build that I don't know if he can get low. I mean, six, six, three 10 is just not really what you see from a guard very often. So I think he's talented and i think their run game

with him can be even better than it was last year with who they were running out of guard but i'm a little skeptical in the past pro still which you know i mean is kind of where we're at yeah don't you think that's why you've seen this maybe over correction on the vikings part to be like oh now we need bigger guys let's get wyatt davis in here and then criticize him for being overweight and then let's bring in olili Udo in here as well. A guy who's a bigger, you know, more solidly built than Ezra.

And I think that as much of a misfit as it might be moving him inside, they're doing it seemingly because they just know they need size up front. And especially on the interior. Okay. I got one more. Greg Joseph. Oh, any other place, but working for Mike Zimmer he might be great he might be great

um I thought it was good that Greg came out the other day and said I don't do social media that was good yep that's good that should be like that should be Mike Zimmer's first question for kickers is do you pay attention to anything I say or do you pay attention to anything anybody else says and if the answer is no and no sign him up you're going to be fine. Zimmer and being a kicker for him must be such a head case and just an insane psychological test because you've got this guy who treats it like a military job and everybody's got to just be tougher, work harder. And with kickers, that's not it. It's a hundred percent golf, mental yips. Like it's all about your state of mind, feeling comfortable, being through your routine. Anybody you talk to will tell you that sports psychology in terms of football matters the most when it comes to like quarterbacks and kickers.

Because the mental side of it, those are the two positions where it really does matter the most in having that kind of calm approach. Greg seems to have that, but we haven't truly seen him in the fire, as it were, with Mike Zimmer. I need to see him miss a meaningful kick and see how he reacts to the blistering he's going to get. Yes, I totally agree. Like he hasn't missed one yet. Let's see how that happens in the preseason. But if he doesn't miss one, he'll go into the regular season

as this team's kicker, I yeah um he's kicked really well in camp he just doesn't know what's coming for him if he has a key miss i think um let's do just a rapid fire though uh real quick kj osborne is he good no i think he's just a specialist okay um chris boyd is he good no i think he's also just a specialist i'm not even 100 certain he's really that um based on last year committing a bunch of penalties uh dd westbrook is he gonna be good yes i do think he's gonna i think he'll be their wide receiver three i think all this talk about who is it gonna be it's it's the guy they already got they just need him to get healthy. Okay. Let me see if there's anyone else I want.

Um, oh, Armand Watts. No, no. I don't think so. What I saw against Denver wolf, like I, they made him play and it wasn't good.

And he started a nose tackle. And I thought, cause you'd seen flashes in the past from him. And we just did not see that and really haven't seen it in camp. Dude, dude, dude, dude,

dude. Is this guy good? There's there's the camp. Do, do, do, do, do. Is this guy good? There's the game. So, Andrew, excellent stuff. And I'm going to publish this and then Everson will sign right after that. Absolutely. That's pretty much a guarantee. But I think we covered our basis that even if he doesn't sign, what it means.

So, that's what we've done here. Well, I appreciate your time. You do excellent work at the Star Tribune. And I look forward to when I have time to put together Stefan Diggs quotes. He was questioning whether we've been to the moon the other day I saw on Twitter. And he mentioned that there was an issue with the flag and whether it's windy on the moon. So that's kind of what he's up to. I can't wait to play another round of Stefan Diggs tweet or Confucius proverb.

Someday soon. All right. Thanks, Andrew. We'll catch you next time on Purple Insider.