Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Steven Ruiz talks defensive innovation and the most interesting NFC teams

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hi, Blue Wire listeners. I'm Greg Olson. I'm excited to partner with Blue Wire to bring you TE1, a podcast where I interview the tight ends who have revolutionized the position. Listen in as I have raw, in-depth conversations with the all-time greats like Shannon Sharp, Tony Gonzalez, Travis Kelsey, and George Kittle.

We'll explore how the tight end position has changed over the last 60 years and what it takes to be the very best. Subscribe to TE1 from Blue Wire Studios today so you're ready for the August premiere. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and joining me, he writes for the For the Win website on USA Today. One of my favorite NFL writers, Stephen Ruiz. What is up, Stephen? Nothing much.

I just moved into a new place, and I'm trying to track all these opt-outs, and that's like, you think you did all the work during the offseason to track where everyone's going, and now you've got to relearn everything, so it's been kind of track all these opt-outs and that's like, like you think you did all the work during the off season to track where everyone's going. And now you've got to relearn everything. So it's been kind of tough. Well, and we're going to have a game at the end of the show here where you have to guess where players who signed in free agency are playing now. So we'll see how sharp you actually are. The opt-outs are interesting.

Of course you see with every one of them, fans getting really mad at players who could put their long-term health at risk by playing in the NFL this year. But we're starting to get to the point where there's enough guys opting out. The Patriots are a good example, and the Vikings with Michael Pierce, where it could have a legitimate impact. And the next couple of days, we're going to find out all the players who officially opt out and this could have a serious effect on the season assuming that the season goes off steve yeah especially with the patriots losing like 15 of their projected starters and it seems like the last decade the

league has just gone where the patriots have gone there's such a central figure in the story of the league every season so the fact that they've lost a lot of, not only big names, but some key players like Dante Hightower is one of the key players on their defense. I think it's going to have a profound effect on the AFC at least. One of my favorite things is when people say, like, this must be Belichick. Like, Belichick must have a plan. I think you're giving him a little too much credit at that point. I don't think he went behind the scenes and said, how about you opt out so I can tank for Trevor? I don't think that really matches up with getting Cam Newton. So, but you're

right that that will be one to watch. I still think that they win the AFC East anyway. But the reason I am having you on is two reasons. One is to talk about a big series that you're doing on NFL defenses now. And the other part is to find out your perspective on where the Vikings land for most interesting NFL teams. So let's start with the first part. I asked Mike Zimmer earlier this year on a Zoom call about how defenses are going to manage some of the new things that we saw last year from offenses like the San Francisco 49ers. And his answer was that defenses he expects are going to have to make a lot of changes that offense has gotten a little bit ahead.

And now here comes defense. And one area that's really interesting to me, Stephen, with the Vikings that they will have to be great this year in order to succeed is with pressures. I get this question a lot from people. How will they mix, you know, three, four concepts with Dom Capers now in the building? But I think that Mike Zimmer is one of the best when it comes to creating new types of pressures that he hasn't used before and implementing them, especially when it comes to big situations. But why don't you start with the big picture and where the NFL has advanced from your research when it comes to pressuring the quarterback? I think one of the big things, and I actually talked to former Vikings coach Mike Tice for the piece. One of the things he mentioned is the walk-around fronts, the amoeba fronts that he can't really define.

And the reason why those have become so popular is because they allow the defense to dictate the protection they're going to get from the offense because the offense doesn't know where everyone's going to be. So they really have only so many options. And if you know how they're going to protect, you attack the protection, and you know how to get a matchup, like you can get a big, strong linebacker on a running back, and that's a matchup. You're going to win most of the time. Another coach on the Blitzology blog, he's a big guy, a big name on football Twitter.

And he brought up an interesting point that I had never really considered, and that was that the fact that they play with two running backs on the field, they play with Juszczyk, who's a fullback, that kind of forces teams out of those dime looks, those hybrid looks where you have all these players that could either rush or drop. The success of those offenses, and the Vikings obviously had some success with that type of offense last year, I'm interested to see where it goes because I'm kind of hesitant to say, like, yeah, that's definitely going to happen because there's only so many Kyle Juszczyk. He's such, like, a unique fullback that I don't know if every team can replicate that.

And not every team has Kyle Shanahan, obviously, who's just the master of doing that. With the Vikings, they use C.J. Hamm in some of the same ways but then kind of use Irv Smith in the others. The things that Kyle Juszczyk can do all by himself, they need two people to replicate for the Vikings, but it's the same concept as can you get three linebackers on the field for opponents? And I wonder what you think the solution for that is, because I asked Zimmer last year, when we were allowed to be near coaches, that was a time. So I asked Zimmer last year when we were allowed to be near coaches that

was a time um so I asked him last year I said would you ever consider because play action is so successful that's what I want to ask you about is pressuring play action uh play action is so successful would you ever consider just having your linebackers drop back and not even worry about plugging those gaps right away um because a lot of teams are using play action 35 40 percent of the time now and his answer was no no I would not like they have to get in their gaps because otherwise you're going to get shredded like the Packers did by the run game but something has to break here Steven every team can't just be running around doing play action all the time

and hitting these big plays where the linebackers shoot up, right? Right. I think you almost have to look at how college defenses are defending RPO, where they have those players where they're like, you're 66% pass and 33% run. Like, you're telling them you're a pass-first player. I mean, you have to defend the run, but make sure it's not a pass-first. I think that's where the NFL has to go and I think it eventually will just because

younger coaches came up defending the RPO so they're going to have that on like on the forefront of their minds obviously Mike Zimmer when he was cutting his teeth as a coach he didn't have to deal with those type of things so he still had that old school mentality where you got to stop the run first which I mean it's work for him you can say, like, oh, he's not doing it the right way. Like, he's done it the right way for decades now. And there's a domino effect to being able to stop the run, and this is why losing Michael Pierce is pretty important for them because if teams still run 45% of the time on first down,

if you can stop them, you're putting them in second and long. That allows you to dial up more pressures, and it seems like Zimmer's whole thing is how can we get opposing teams to third down and long. Even if they do complete some passes on the way, if we get them in the third down and long, we're probably going to stop them at that point. And if you think about it, even if a team completes a couple of passes in a row, a run is coming. It's almost like just human nature that eventually, even if they get a couple of passes in a row a run is coming it's almost like just human nature that eventually even if they get a couple of first downs they will run on first down and you will

be able to stop them and i thought the vikings did a good job of that last year of that bending and not breaking because they were doing that a lot uh i'm curious about your opinion you mentioned um guys standing up and walking around and the vikings saw this against the Patriots a couple years ago where they lined up basically no one was was down and in passing situations and it really flustered Kirk Cousins the 3-4 element of bringing in Dom Capers now I know that no one really runs 3-4 anymore exactly with four linebackers they don't have four linebackers who can play anymore. But having three-man fronts, like if we see that more from the Vikings this year, what can they do with that to add to the repertoire of Mike Zimmer and what he already has been able to do over the last few years? I think you just have to look at the Ravens. And this is a team that I wrote about in the series

where they used a lot of three-man fronts they were using bare fronts where you had you cover the guards and the tackle and like I said earlier what that does is it gives the offense limited options for protections like you're only going to get and and some uh if you read the articles you'll know what these terms mean but like you're only going to get full slide where you have the whole line sliding to one direction then you have a running back or tight end protecting the edge and that's what the Ravens did that's how they got Matthew Judon these great matchups where he had this breakout season where he wasn't really like no one looks at Judon and is like he's a dominant edge rusher he's just

who can beat anyone at home no the Ravens and Don Martindale the defensive coordinator he got in these fronts so he could dictate the protections. The best way to do that is actually playing the three-man line because you put a guy on the nose, you put a defensive end in that B gap, and that really gives the offense trouble because the most common protection in the NFL is a half slide, but you can't really do that when you have a guy in the B gap because it just messes up the blocking angles.

Like you're putting your guard or your tackle in a bad spot. And I think it's going to make Mike Zimmer's pressure packages even more effective. He's going to know what he's getting from the offense in terms of protection, and he's going to know how to attack that. He's seen every type of protection there is. So this is interesting to me is just how they're going to manufacture players who can't do it on their own success. So with Everson Griffin, line him up against a tackle.

He will beat that tackle seven to ten times a game. He'll get pressures. He'll be disruptive. He'll force, like you said, slide protections, which allowed Daniil Hunter to have favorable matchups. There are so many times, so many tweets I have probably somewhere that say, why is a tight end blocking Daniil Hunter? Well, that's probably part of the reason is because everyone's terrified of Everson Griffin. Now this year, they have to manufacture some success with these younger players they're going

to bring in. Fadi Adenabo is not going to beat tackles in the same way that Everson Griffin was able to, where you just line them up and you're all set for the day. I guess how, this kind of ties into like who you pay also and how much money you give to guys who get sacks. Because even with the Patriots, they've let pass rushers go in the past. Someone else gives them a buttload of money and then ends up disappointed with what they got. So I guess I wonder, like, is that a thing that should now be really considered is that

pressures might not mean your guy, if he gets 10 sacks, that he is a dominant superstar. It might be more product of the system. Yeah, and that's one of the major thesis of the series I wrote. It's that, like, if you don't have one of those guys, you don't have a Von Miller, a Nick Bosa, then you need to be getting creative. You can't just be sending four-man rushes, or even, like, traditional fire zone blitzes, where

you're just sending five and playing three deep, three under. Like, you have to get more creative than that. And the numbers actually show the more aggressive you get, the more number of pass rushes you send, the better you play, like, by EPA. It's linear, too. Like, if you add a six rusher, you send, the better you play, like by EPA. It's linear, too. Like if you add a sixth rusher, you can do better.

If you add a seventh rusher, you can do better. It doesn't really matter how many blockers the offense keeps in. But I – you know, I've kind of gone back and forth about this, about paying elite edge rushers. In one way, I see why you would pay them because like i mentioned earlier you have to have these hybrid guys on the field that in order to get into this more exotic and creative pressure packages but if you have a guy on the edge like nick bosa you could just play base defense you're not you're not making your coverage unsound in the back end a big thing with

the packers and they actually had two elite edge rushers in that NFC Championship game, they played a lot of dime. And that's how the 49ers took advantage of that. Because Mike Petten is one of these guys that does a lot of these amoeba fronts and walk-around stuff and creative pressures. He does creeper pressures and simulated pressures. So I think that's the main thing. You can't live in that type of defense and go against a team like the 49ers who can make you pay for it.

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is to have nickel all the time and then occasionally base when the other team brings in their Kyle Juszczyk or a couple of tight ends and the third linebacker at least last year was Eric Wilson who can also cover which not many teams have a third linebacker who can cover but I find it to be really effective if you have the right personnel to stay in nickel all the time because it's best of both worlds but you can only do that if you have Eric Hendricks and Anthony Barr I think is better in coverage than some people think he is because of that wingspan and we like to look at target numbers you know he was targeted x number of times but those don't always tell the whole story of how good you were in coverage for a linebacker because those guys are always playing in zones. So it isn't just like you're

guarding a tight end one-on-one. It's oftentimes this is your area. And if they get a completion into your area, it's going to be blamed on you, but it might not be your fault. Anyhow, the Kendricks element of it, I think allows them to do so many things out of the nickel because he can cover almost anybody on the field outside of you know Julio Jones or something and then being able to move your safeties in any way you want to I think it allows for Zimmer to be extremely creative or not at all and just like you said play play his base defense and have players that are flexible enough to make life difficult on any team that

they play. Yeah, I think any discussion of scheme and like what teams should be doing starts with personnel. Like a team like the Seahawks got a lot of criticism last year because they played so much base, but at the end of the year, you looked at their numbers and they were so much better in base than they were in nickel, and that's because they got their best players on the field. Their best players were their three linebackers, and they had no talent at the nickel spot another conclusion i drew in the in the series at the end it was just you know all this creative stuff is great if you have the dudes you don't need to do it and it's foolish to do it uh when derrick thomas was being inducted into the hall of fame carl pet, Chiefs GM, was doing his speech.

And he brought up a story about how Bill Coward, he was the defensive coordinator for Marty Schottenheimer at the time. He came to Schottenheimer after Derek Thomas' rookie year and was like, I got this great new scheme. We're going to line Derek Thomas up in his traditional spot as a right outside linebacker. But we're going to drop him and then bring some other guys on the other side. He's going to be a decoy. They're going to slide. The line's going to slide one way. We're going to bring guys from the other way.

And then Marty Schottenheimer just basically looked at him and was like, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard. You have your best pass rusher, one of the best pass rushers in the league, running away from the quarterback? No. If you have those dudes, just send them. And that allows you to do so much more on the back end. Something very similar in Kevin Green's A Football Life documentary, where at the end of his time

with the Los Angeles Rams, that they had asked him to play more of a traditional linebacker role, as opposed to just running after the quarterback. And as you know, Kevin Green is one of the great sack artists in the history of the game. What were you thinking, Los Angeles Rams, when you decided to do that? And that's another area where when people ask, well, why is Zimmer's defense so good? I think maximizing the personnel and using Anthony Barr the way that they use him is right, even though maybe he could blitz him a little bit more or maybe you could do this or that with him. But I think having him in this role where he could do just about anything on any play is probably the right way to do it.

And you also looked, Stephen, at the Seeing Ghosts game with Sam Darnold, which I want to hear you explain what was going on there, because it just became sort of a famous moment of the 2019 NFL season of this young quarterback playing against the Patriots looking completely lost and ESPN catching a little too much or a little more than the Jets would have preferred of the quarterback talking. So what happened there? How do you get Sam Darnold to see ghosts?

It was actually his office of linemen. They were trying to block ghosts. What the Patriots would do is they would put six men on the line of scrimmage, and they would, they usually did this when the Jets, they only had five blockers. They put six guys in each of those gaps, and then the two guys lined up over the guard. They would read which way the guard turned in protection. If you turned to the left, the guy lined up to the opposite side would come, and then the guy he turned to would drop into a little like hot area like where where the quarterback would throw if he was throwing hot against blitz and then so it didn't matter how the jets were protecting no matter what they did that

the patients were getting a free rusher every time i break it down more elaborately in the in the in the post but it's basically like there's nothing they could do. It was like the equivalent of playing Madden, and you know those like, what are they called, micro blitzes? Like you would go up on YouTube and people that cheese in Madden online, that's what they do. Like it was a cheat code. Like no matter what the Jets did, they were giving up a free rusher.

Like the obvious solution, though, was to come out of empty, but Adam Gase is Adam Gase, and he never came to that conclusion until it was too late and Sam Darnold had already been embarrassed on national TV. I do not appreciate the suggestion that Adam Gase could not be a good coach. That has never been made on this show ever. Actually, I said, I think, the first day of his press conference, like, why don't you just fire him now and just move on to somebody else because this is not going to go very well. I can already tell. So that's fascinating. And isn't it funny, Steven, that some of the guys who are old in the NFL, Zimmer, Belichick, Andy Reid,

they just stay a step ahead. Like everybody wants the young guy who looks like McVay. And I get that McVay is very, very good. But let's get the young, innovative guy or whatever. And yet here's Belichick always finding something new. Here's Zimmer adapting over his time. And I just think that if you are going to have longevity in the NFL, that's what gets rewarded. And I'll also tie it into Zimmer's contract extension is if you hire someone else and

you move on from Mike Zimmer you don't know if the next person is going to sustain that innovation or be like a Chip Kelly that lasts one year and that's it and I think that that ultimately as long as this game exists and I love it about football will be what wins is who can stay ahead of the game yeah and my theory on that is that the bar is so high for defensive guys to become head coaches. Like Zimmer had to wait so long that they really have to like earn their stripes and they have to go through these different eras of football and prove that they can adapt. Otherwise, they wouldn't be getting these opportunities like Belichick has

obviously proven he can adapt to any era of football. I think you have to say the same thing about Zimmer. He's been so successful for so long. And, I mean, the offensive guys, you have one or two good years and you're just thrust into the head coaching position. I think that's why. You see defensive coaches, like the best ones, you a little older just because they've had to earn their stripes and they've seen everything you can throw at them.

This is probably a reason Zimmer is always salty about young offensive coaches who get bad coaching jobs. I think he was very upset to lose to Matt LaFleur twice last year based on his handshake at the end of the game. Before I ask you about the most interesting teams in the NFL from your national perspective, where can people read this series? Because I am very excited about it. You can find it at ftw.usatoday.com.

And I'll also be tweeting it out. I'm at the Steven Ruiz. Not as in Steven Ridley, which is spelled with an A. Steve, he, he, he, he. No, it's all E's. As a side note, the Vikings signed Steven Ridley for three days after Adrian Peterson got hurt in 2016.

And so everyone was like, oh, Steven Ridley, man, he's going to replace Peterson, and he's just going to come in here, and he's a veteran guy. He'll know what to do. And they cut him three days later before he even played a game. So all of us had to get our fingers right to put in S-T-E-V-A-N, and then it didn't matter at all. We all wrote, how's Steven Ridley going to fit in the Vikings offense? Like a bunch of lemmings, and then just, you know, he's just cut.

Those are my favorite signings when a team signs a player and everyone gets all hyped and they get cut. Demarius Thomas, I think that happened with him in the Patriots a couple maybe it was last year but everyone was so hyped about that receiving core and then he wasn't even on the team this could be PJ Hall for us by the way you know just writing where does PJ Hall fit in is he taking the nose tackle position uh and you know he might just get cut I don't know uh so when you look at just the NFL at large and let's just pretend because it's more fun that way that we're playing football and there's going to be 16 games no one's getting sick and it will be wonderful as it always is do you have if I

were to ask you to rank the five most interesting teams let's just say in the NFC that's what we focus on. Are the Vikings in there for you? And my feelings won't be hurt if you say no. But I think that they should be because they can potentially win the NFC North, but also potentially have a very tough season with all the changes that they underwent after this year. Yeah, I'm looking at the list of teams right now. I think for me personally, and this is just my own interest,

is I think the Cardinals are the most interesting team, just to see what Cliff Kingsbury and Tyler Murray do in year two. I forgot about the Bucs. The Bucs are obviously up there with Tom Brady. Vikings are definitely in the top, especially with what's going on now that they moved on from Stephon Diggs. I wouldn't say your offense is more on kirk cousins but that's where the attention is going to go after he lost his star receiver and like there's kind of been this national storyline where he's he's he's had these

two great receivers maybe that's kind of inflated his numbers i mean i think there's going to be a lot of attention on cousins and then you just find this extension so i think it's going to be a lot of attention on Cousins. And then you just find this extension. So I think it's always, it's always interesting when Kirk Cousins is involved. It's been that way for what, like six years now, whenever he started playing the franchise tag game with the Redskins. And then you just, I think Mike Zimmer's defense is always interesting from a schematic

perspective. And that's how I usually look at the game, like just from X's and O's, how he's going to adjust his defense this year. And I feel like the rest of the NFC is kind of boring. I don't know if you share the same sentiment. Like the NFC East, I'm just like over it. Yes, I do with the NFC East.

Aside from, I'll admit, of being very interested with the Cowboys to see how Dak plays with the pressure of the franchise tag and just with all the weapons. My gosh, I am fascinated to see what Washington names their football team. see how Dak plays with the pressure of the franchise tag, and just with all the weapons, my gosh. I am fascinated to see what Washington names their football team. Does that make you interested? But on the Kirk Cousins point, it's – you say that – it's funny you say that because I started another podcast the other day saying that I'm not sure Kirk Cousins is interesting anymore.

Like I think that last year kind of fizzled out all the, well, can he actually win a playoff game? Can he actually, you know, I don't know, take a snap correctly on Monday Night Football or whatever. You know, I mean, just it was last year was so over the top. Every bad game that he had was just this explosion of national media rage against Kirk Cousins and then when he was good it went the other way with oh he's you know one of the best quarterbacks in the league and he'll be an MVP this year and I think that we have a big enough sample now that we just we know the parameters of Kirk Cousins we know what he's capable of and we know what you need as a team for him to succeed and where it's

interesting to me for this year is just do you have the team to make it happen because a lot of the commodities on the offense are now unproven unlike if you had digs and feeling coming in again right that's why i think the conversation is going to be re-sparked no matter what happens i think you're going to get just one of the extremes you're going to get you're going to hear those people if he struggles you're going to hear people say oh the extremes. You're going to hear those people. If he struggles, you're going to hear people say, oh, look, see, he's just a product of what's around him. And if he plays well, people are going to go the other way and say, see, he's been this franchise quarterback this whole time.

Kind of like in the same boat as Dak is just a different part of his career where, like, no matter what numbers he puts on, there's always going to be people that question him. Yeah. Dak, I mean, it makes more sense with Cousins just because he wasn't so good in Washington like at the beginning and you know he's had these failures on big stages where Dak doesn't really have any of those and he's like he's had like stretches of bad play but being a good quarterback and so I don't really get it at all with Dak because we're usually so quick to

annoy the next young quarterback but we have been hesitant to do it with Dak. I don't think, the point I'm making is I don't think Cousins is ever going to get out of that cycle. One bad stretch and we're right back to, is Cousins really worth his money? Is he really a franchise quarterback? Okay, I can see. That's a compelling case. I think from someone like myself, or if you're a Vikings fan and you've sort of ridden the roller coaster of these first two years in Minnesota and then based on what he did in Washington you've sort of just um it would be like it would be like let's use a literal roller coaster if the first time you go on an insane roller coaster you have no idea what's coming and that first drop is like your you know

whatever your stomach is in your throat but then the second or third time you've ridden the roller coaster you're like whoop here we go we all right i'm doing it again like i think that that's what we're in for with cousins where you're like oh he uh threw 40 passes for 130 yards against the packers and was sacked six times like that was bound to happen or he threw for 380 yards and completed 90% of his passes against a really bad team. That was bound to happen. Like I, it might be a different perspective, but what is a good point I think that you make is that on the national level, it always is a good debate topic. And maybe it is because these guys are just flawed

enough for anybody who doesn't want to like them to say see look at all those flaws and they're just good enough for anybody you know it's like the perfect skip Bayless topic is is Kirk Cousins good at football yeah it's one of those things you can just go to every week no matter how he performs like the only way you can is if he has an average game against like the lions and you're just like yeah we can't talk about this but it's like that jordan lebron debate like first take put that on any day of the week and they're gonna you know have some discussion that people are gonna yell at each other about online yep yep exactly all right so one more question here about just interesting nfc

teams i'm just gonna throw a few names out there and you tell me like if, if you think any of these are interesting. I mean, Seattle, I think is because of what they just did with Jamal Adams, 49ers probably bound for some regression. The lions we can't figure out on this podcast, if they're actually a threat or not. And the Eagles, I am in a very bleh spot with the Eagles. Any of those jump out to you? Oh yeah. The Seahawks, The Jamal Adams thing definitely makes them interesting. I just want to see what Pete Carroll does with them. He's kind of been known for having

this one defensive philosophy since he's taken over that team and built them into the Legion of Boom. And I don't know if you're going to get the most out of Adams just playing that way again. So we're going to have to see some type of schematic evolution to get the most out of him just playing that way again so we're going to have to see some type of schematic evolution to get the most out of them and I want to see if Carroll is able to do that I'm kind of skeptical just because we have seen that how stubborn they are on the other side of the ball where they're not letting Russell Wilson throw the ball more and that's always like Seahawks Twitter is always an interesting thing to dive into so I like Seattle just doesn't play any normal football game so I think they're always going to

be a team that's worth watching. And then the 49ers, I'd say the same thing. I want to see what Jimmy Garoppolo, I think he might become Kirk Cousins. Yeah, I think that that's very possible. If they sort of regress, as most teams that go to the Super Bowl do, even the Patriots usually regress after going to the Super Bowl. It wouldn't be surprising if we look at him that way. I still have him a tick better than Kirk Cousins because of the quickness of his release.

But he also throws really random and weird interceptions sometimes in the Super Bowl. All right, before we wrap up, I'm going to give you five players who were free agents that signed in different places and i want to see if you know where they play and if you go five for five i will send you ten dollars on venmo if you go five i'm i'm going to be exposed as a fraud all right let's do this no i think like this is this is where i didn't go too deep in the rabbit hole like you've heard of these players but like this happens to me every year and now we don't have preseason games. So week one, I'm going to be like, huh, that guy is where? Okay.

So I want to start off with Case Keenum. Do you know what team Case Keenum plays for? I have no idea. Well, I'm glad I won't have to send you $10. So I'll give you one hint, and then we can move on, or I'll give you the answer. There's a pretty obvious connection with the team that he signed with. I'm still not getting it. I don't know.

I have no idea. I should know this. His quarterback's coach from Minnesota was Kevin Stefanski, and now he is with kevin stefanski and the cleveland browns oh okay i feel like i i threw in an easy one on purpose melvin gordon okay the broncos okay i just give you one that was notable brashad perriman he was somebody that we talked about for the vikings for some kind of like deep threat. He ended up with whom? He ended up with our friend, Adam Gates.

Yes, that's right. The New York Jets. This guy on certain websites, anytime you look him up, he's, instead of being called Rick, he's called Ricky. Ricky Wagner. Where does Ricky Wagner, the tackle, former Lions tackle, where does he play? Oof.

And former Baltimore tackle. Had one good year, and then the Lions paid him a lot of money. Daniil Hunter got $11 billion sacks against him, and they decided to move on. But he still is going to have to play. For some reason, Daniil Hunter. Oh, okay. Did he end up in? No, not them.

The Bears? The Green Bay Packers is where Rick Wagner ended up. And a celebration was held by the Hunter family. They had a Zoom party to celebrate Rick Wagner still playing in the division. Last one, another guy that we talked about for potentially joining the Vikings because of a Zimmer connection, Jonathan Joseph, which is spelled – if you could spell Jonathan Joseph, you'd get extra points on this. It's funny for the Texas – why do I want to say the Chiefs? Even though I don't think that's right

it's not I'm just going to go with that he now plays for the Titans and if you try to spell Jonathan Joseph H-N-A-T-H-A-N which in several times writing it I have botched horribly so

oh he's one of those guys there's a baseball player he's one of those guys yeah one of those guys there's a baseball player and who was one of those guys i don't remember who it was but yeah those those guys needed they just changed their names like when you're eight years old just be like what am i doing here i'm gonna spell my name right i think there was a baseball player who it was j-o-n-h and you're like i don't think that's your name I don't want to be like that person, but just guessing somebody made a mistake there. So anyway, all right, well you did terribly, but this was fun.

We'll have to do it again. Sometimes even your X's and O's analysis is much better than random free agents. So I think that that's okay. I appreciate that. I implore people to follow you on Twitter, to follow your work because you do awesome stuff. And I think I said, I don't know if I said this on or off the air, but you do the type of work that I want to read. And that is a big compliment to you. So great to connect with you, man. And we'll do it again.

Yep. Thank you. Anytime. We'll get back to the conversation in just a second but have you ever heard of deal dash.com it's the best most honest bidding site where you can win things you'd never expect at a price that you'd never believe they have over 1 000 auctions every day on electronics appliances beauty products home decor even cars Here's how it works. It's like an auction, but every item starts at $0 and then goes up one cent every time you bid. The kicker is that the auction clock restarts every 10 seconds.

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With our spin on football headlines, with a mix of frozen tundras. Let's be a cold-weather team. Net rolls. How about a hot new ball, man? rolls. And grass game jerseys. The good old-fashioned gut was probably the biggest difference in the game. All right, it is time for some more Hot Routes. Intern Paul is here to participate in the Hot Rouse. How are you, Intern Paul? Doing great. Just, you know, like everyone else, we started with everything, but we're just hoping.

Just hoping and keeping our fingers crossed that we can get training camp going and we can see a season. So that's where I'm at. Mike Zimmer said that he is cautiously optimistic. And when you go through all the things the NFL is trying to do just in its facilities it's like if anybody can make this work I think it's them and I also think that football players are more apt to stay in line with the guidelines laid out by their coaches than baseball players might be because of money because if you are the idiot who goes to a casino, then you might just get cut and lose all of your money for being an idiot. And we have seen in the past that stupid things done off the field, Jaron Curse, can impact how Mike Zimmer and the Vikings feel about you on the field. So something to keep in mind for all of the Minnesota Vikings players this year.

I also think, can you travel eight times? Can you just do it eight times without everyone getting COVID? And I'm getting more hopeful as we get there, Paul. But you have put together five hot route questions to ask. So begin. All right, well, we'll stick with the head coaches in the NFL because another thing I heard Zimmer say was if someone wants to opt out he's he completely understands that so another coach and another team that has had a lot of guys opt out is the Patriots at this point this one's kind of a joke

but at the same time if eight of them have dropped out that's most in the league Belichick's obviously voiced his support for it and whenever the Patriots do anything you're always wondering is there a plan in the background that we don't know about is he five steps ahead of us so is he tanking for Trevor is my question if he had not signed Cam Newton then I would have said yes he is tanking for Trevor and that he has encouraged players why don't you just take this year off come back when we're competitive again it'll be wonderful in 2021. But I also think that when we have something like this, it's great to talk about how is it going to impact the linebacker situation without Dante Hightower

or what's going to happen if Patrick Chung isn't there. And the reality is that Bill Belichick probably knows most players are replaceable. We look at by the end of a season, the Vikings were the rare exception last year to not have injuries. But by the end of the season, you're usually playing with four, five, six backups anyway. And what ultimately determines whether you can go deep in the playoffs or have a good season or win your division is not often one safety or one linebacker. Now, if you lose a whole defense, maybe, but I think Belichick understands that he could probably replace these guys, especially older players. Hightower was amazing in the Super Bowl two years ago. Is he still that effective?

Probably not. Patrick Chung, the same thing. He's been around for a long time. How effective is he really as compared to the next man up that Belichick wants to be in that spot? So that would be my guess is that they still look at the AFC East and say, is Josh Allen good? They have Stephon Diggs, but not so sold on that.

Is Miami going to take a huge step forward this year to be a legit contender? Probably not. And the Jets, they remain the Jets, still coached by Adam Gay. So I look at it as they have had a lot of players opt out, but at the end of the day, it probably won't make that much of a difference. And Belichick might be playing a little 3-D chess if he's looked at the free agent market too, because there are a lot still of very good and proven NFL players on the free agent market that you could easily replace some of

these positions with. And to that point, I think even if a bunch of their guys opted out, it's still Bill Belichick. It's still that team. And I don't think they'd be able, kind of like the Dolphins seemed like they were trying to tank, but they almost won too many games to get to his hip injury was the only reason he fell that far. So a Bill Belichick coached team, I just don't think would ever get to that point. And I think he probably, the cliche, wants to prove something now that Brady's gone and he wants to show he can do something. And this just fits that narrative even more if they have more guys that are gone and he continues to do well.

Now the question for me is, should they have decided to tank for Trevor? I mean, considering the circumstances, how weird it is, you had the perfect quarterback in place, Jared Stidham. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't going to raise your level that much of how many wins your team is worth. Maybe that should have been something that they considered was tanking for Trevor, trying to get that top pick, and then going forward with your next franchise quarterback.

But considering Belichick's age, you've got to respect getting Cam and just taking another shot at it. Like maybe you don't look at it if you're Belichick as, well, I've got the next 10 years, so we could just tank and go forward like that. But maybe it wouldn't have been the worst idea. I think that probably now we're looking at the Jaguars as the favorites for Trevor. Sure. So in

a normal offseason, the NFL's first preseason game would have been Thursday. So kind of in lieu of that, at this point, we would have had some training camp under our belt, and we definitely would have already had an irrational obsession with some player at this point, whether it's a Kyle Sloater, a Jordan Taylor of last year. So at this point, if you were going to predict who we already would have been penciling in as the number three wide receiver or starting defensive end, even though we haven't seen anything, who would it have been? I think that the answer for me is Cam Dantzler, based on just how many questions I get about Cam Dantzler,

that there already is an irrational obsession with Cam Dantzler. And I think that he was a great draft pick, and he has a chance to become an NFL starter out of the third round that you don't usually see, but he drops because of a bad combine. At the same time, the breaks, I already want to pump them, even though we do not have the irrational preseason performances, because you are talking about a guy that is a 30th percentile athlete. And if you compare that to the other corners that the Vikings have had in the past, Jeff Gladney is about a 50th percentile, which means he's an average NFL athlete for the position.

But if you were talking about guys like Trey Wayans, Xavier Rhodes, they're more in the 80th to 90th percentile type of athletes and when you look at the stars at corner throughout the league aside from someone like Richard Sherman who is an extreme example usually they're in that range of 70th to 100th or 99th percent athlete and I mean by their size their speed their quickness their length their jumping ability there's a website called relative athletic scores that puts all those things into a formula to figure out your total athleticism. And Dantzler is along with a lot of guys that usually don't succeed. So I would have probably been saying, look, I like a lot of things about how he was on tape and he played extremely

well in the SEC, but this is going to need some development time before we name him the next Richard Sherman. Yeah, my thoughts immediately went to the D-line, especially with Michael Pierce gone, no Everson Griffin. If we get one video of DJ Wanham swooping around the outside with all of his athleticism, maybe there's that. Or James Lynch with as much production as he had in his college career. We see some snaps where he's doing some really good things. I could see that. And then also, I think we just all love any sort of chance to talk about quarterbacks, even if it's a backup quarterback.

And the Vikings fandom community doesn't really seem to like Sean Mannion that much. I think they don't always get how much he might do behind the scenes. So Jake Browning versus Nate Stanley, I think everyone likes to see any sort of quarterback reps. So that was my only other option. Yeah, I totally agree that preseason just always opens the door for that number three and number four quarterback. The McLeod Bethel Thompson is another one that is in the lore of Vikings land. Taylor Heineke was somebody that some Vikings fans really loved.

And then you mentioned Kyle Slaughter, which was completely out of control last preseason for the number of people obsessed with his late fourth quarter performances. But this year we won't have any of that. And I would just say in defense of Sean Mannion, it's not just that he is helpful to preparing the defense on a weekly basis and helping Kirk Cousins,. So yeah, you'd probably prefer that you had a backup quarterback that was more along the lines of what Case Keenum was, somebody that you knew could step in on a very good team and succeed. We don't know that about Sean Manning because that opportunity has never come, but at very least Gary Kubiak can trust that the guy is going to execute

the play that's called and line up everybody the right way that he's supposed to and be able to read the defense and so forth. Give you a chance to win two out of four games. If you're starting quarterback is out. That's all you're really looking for. Definitely. And one other, one other name came to mind that I would be remiss if I didn't say it was

John David booty. I remember when I was a kid. Yep. That was a big one. Maybe, maybe he'll make, make his way. He was drafted in the fifth round.

So always, always looking at those backup quarterbacks to maybe do something. Yep, that was a big one. Maybe he'll make his way. He was drafted in the fifth round. So always looking at those backup quarterbacks to maybe do something. What is John David Booty doing today? I don't know. I don't know. I just pulled up his Wikipedia after the Vikings. He went to the Titans and the Texans, but has not been seen since 2010. Just disappear. We'll put up that John David Booty bat signal to try to figure out where he

is someone's got to know where he is find jdb shirt yep all right moving soda sticks next shirt um moving on to the next question um so as of on monday that we're taping this on monday uh duane the rock johnson has gone full ballers, his own character in ballers now in real life, has bought half the XFL. So that made me think, well, that one's pretty cool. So if there was going to be a dream situation, well, not because we like the Wolves, but if there was a dream situation, who could be the Vikings owner? Who would you pick if they were going to sell? Yeah, you can't do a whole lot better than the Wilfs in terms of an NFL ownership that is going to get a huge stadium built, a gigantic practice facility built that is going to lay down the amount of dollars they had.

One thing you could never say for them is that they've been cheap. If the Vikings want to bring in a new coach, sure, you can have your new coach. If they want to sign Anthony Barr to a contract that's worth more than a linebacker should get these days, then go ahead. Here's the cash for it. And that's one of the reasons why Rob Brzezinski is able to do what he's able to do with the salary cap is because the cash is always coming from the Wilfs. But were they to sell? Now, what we see in sports these days is lots of mega ownerships where you have a bunch of different people involved in owning a team. So take like the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Magic Johnson doesn't own the Dodgers. He doesn't have enough money to buy the Dodgers. So he's like 100 mil in or whatever it is, 50 mil in, and he's an owner of the Dodgers. Well, I would say Randy Moss owning the Minnesota Vikings would be perfect. If he was the face of the entire organization, as he has been essentially since the Purple People Eaters defensive line, if you were going to say one player was the face of the entire Minnesota Vikings franchise, it is absolutely Randy Moss. The press conferences would be incredible. Randy Moss talking to the media about owning the team would be amazing.

And you know that he would want to do everything he possibly could to win because he's a great competitor. So I think Randy Moss would be the most fun scenario of any possible owner of the Minnesota Vikings. I definitely like yours and the connection it has to the Vikings is not something I had with mine. Mine was more for the laughter and more for the potential just fun of it. I would like Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless up once more. Everyone's been hoping for a reunion. They can reunite and form their perfect NFL team. Again, they'd be that Magic Johnson situation. But same reason as you, the press

conferences would be unbelievable. The internal drama within the team would be unbelievable. As a reporter, that would be great. So yeah, that was my pick. I love it. I think that's a great pick. And there are a lot of people who come on this podcast, if we were talking about media people, who would run the Minnesota Vikings really well just from a perspective of winning. But that's not really what you and I were going for. Like Moss would probably be good at it. Maybe he would want too many tall wide receivers or something.

I don't know. But if you're talking about the media people you would pick that would be the funniest, those two are definitely at the top of the list. All right, moving on to question four. Spielman just got his contract extension. You were just on the press call before we were on this, and I wanted to get your thoughts about where he ranks in your eyes among GMs in the league, because I feel like nationally he's got a pretty good reputation for his drafts for putting together teams but I think in any scenario the local fans they just they're looking at every single move he's had some questionable draft picks even in those great classes some interesting free agent moves so I want to know is he a top 10 GM is he higher than

that is he lower than that where do you have him We'll get back to football in just a second, but first, sports are coming back. So are your chances to bet on your favorite teams and events. Major League Baseball finally kicking off and there's no better place to start wagering than our exclusive partners BetOnline. Check out all the odds, features, and props to bet

on, all available 24-7. So with the return of sports, BetOnline sat down with former players Eddie George, Harold Reynolds, and seven-time champion Robert Ory, see what they had to say and what it's like playing without fans in a series they're calling Fandemic.

Visit BetOnline.ag for all of your odds and up-to-date sports news. And remember to use the promo code BLUEWIRE to receive your new welcome bonus. That's promo code BLUEWIRE. receive your new welcome bonus. That's promo code BLUEWIRE. Bet online, you're an online wagering expert. Well, I think one thing is every team's fans believes that their general manager is not good enough, except for Kansas City today.

I mean, that's just always how it goes. Because when you focus on every single draft pick, every single move, you can go back and be like, Ben Gideon in the fourth. What were you thinking? Like, which true. Yeah. I'm not sure why you pick a run stuffing linebacker in the fourth, but is it, you know, is that really what we should be judging an entire front office on? That's how I look at it is not just Rick Spielman,

but it's the entire Vikings front office is one of the best of the best in the NFL. And you think about what they've gone through at the quarterback position to be as competitive as they have been under Mike Zimmer. It speaks to all the talent that they've built. And, yes, we always look at the first-round picks and go, Laquan Treadwell buzzed. But think about all of the other players that they have discovered

or that they have developed through, you know, scouting this guy or that guy, bringing in an Anthony Harris, and then he develops into a starting Pro Bowl caliber player. Or, you know, Adam Thielen kind of falls in their lap. But there are numerous guys like that. Even Stephon Diggs, a fifth round draft pick. So these late round picks who have developed into really significant players on this team, there are a lot of those. And I think that that's one way we can look at,

they seem to know how to spot them and how to keep them. But another part of it, too, is just the salary cap and the way that they've managed it during Kirk Cousins being here. I mean, it's very, very difficult to keep a lot of your talent, if not all of your talent, when your quarterback is making huge dollars, and yet they've found a way to work it out. They've found a way to keep their talented people. That speaks to Rob Brzezinski, their cap guy, but the entire front office from the scouting to the cap guy to the general manager, I think the general manager kind of, he's gathering all the information

and then they do something. So he's getting it from the analytics department. He's getting it from the scouting department. He's getting it from his cap guy, and then they do something. So he's getting it from the analytics department. He's getting it from the scouting department. He's getting it from his cap guy. And then they make a move. So we pin it all on one person, but it's really a huge process that's going on behind the scenes. And the other part of it too, the Vikings front office, very analytical.

Among the top analytical teams, that's where you wanna be if you're a fan. I don't know if I would say that they are number one in the NFL, but front offices that consistently give you a chance to put very, very good teams on the field, they go in that mix. So, yeah, I'd say top 10 is where you would put the Vikings front office. Yeah, and I think in most cases, fair or not, GMs and coaches are defined by what quarterbacks they have.

And if you just looked at the track record of quarterbacks they've had and what they've done, you wouldn't think they would have lasted as long as they have. And so you can either say that's an indictment on the front office that they haven't gotten the quarterback, or you can look at all the other pieces that they've elevated to kind of better themselves despite average quarterback play. And I think you can't deny the guys that they've found, even with high draft picks like Harrison Smith or Adam Thielen and lower draft picks. Stephon Diggs was a later round pick.

So I think you can either look at a glass half full or empty with the quarterback scenario. And I think I'd look at it as even though they haven't found that guy, they've been consistently in the playoffs where other teams who have had, who are that consistent in the playoffs usually have someone at quarterback that's been there for a really long time. in the playoffs where other teams who have had, who are that consistent in the playoffs, usually have someone at quarterback that's been there for a really long time. And the fact that the Vikings haven't had that have shown that the front office, the coaching staff can get a lot out of the players. Yeah. The quarterback situation is interesting because if you look at all the quarterbacks who play for all, like take, take all the team quarterback ratings, I mean, over the last five or six years,

and the Vikings are up there in the top 10, despite the fact that they had Teddy as a rookie, and then Teddy gets hurt, and then they have Sam Bradford, then Case Keenum, then Kirk Cousins, they've had a merry-go-round, but they've continually found quarterbacks who have given them good performances. Teddy Bridgewater in 2015 gets them to 11 wins, wins some big games for them. And Sam Bradford put together a very good season. That was somebody that they just had to trade for. And then Case Keenum is a great add, of course, gets them to the NFC Championship. And then even with Kirk Cousins, the move that will be debated for the rest of time

of whether they should have signed him. But if you look at what they did last year and how Cousins performed last year, it's really hard to say. Now, you can still go back to that moment. And I was not on board with the signing at the moment. And you can still say, well, what if you did X, Y, and Z? You know, Teddy Bridgewater's knee did turn out to be okay. Lamar Jackson was on the board.

Maybe you could have drafted him. Maybe Alex Smith is here and wins a lot of games if you traded for him. There were other options. But if you look at the performance from Cousins last year, I think he was PFF's sixth best quarterback. It's really hard to say, no man, you botched that one. What were you thinking based on the performances Cousins has given them? So the fact that they have not had a Patrick Mahomes they just drafted and the guy was perfect right away and still found a way to get overall good performances speaks to the strength of the roster. Yeah, I definitely agree. And moving on to our fifth and final hot route.

As of this taping, Dalvin Cook still doesn't have a contract. Zimmer's contract is rolled in. Spielman's contract is now official. We're still waiting on Cook. I think we expect that to happen. But I feel like at this point every year there's guys throughout the league, and we've had Vikings throughout the league that are just not happy with their contract situation. So I want to know at this point next year, who are we going to be looking at as who could be in a contract dispute, who throughout the season we're going to start writing about, you know, they might be in line for a new contract through all offseason. We're looking at maybe a new deal for them. Who are those people? Yeah, it's a great question because there are a few that could be possibilities. I mean, one is Brian O'Neill is

going to be going into the last year of his contract. He was drafted in 2018, so that would make 2022 the last year, which means he would want to get an extension in 2021, if I'm doing the math right here. But I don't know. I almost feel like with Brian O'Neill, after this year, if he plays how I think he's going to play, it won't be much of a debate. If you have a tackle who is that good, you sign that tackle and you keep him for as long as

you can. The guy that is interesting here is someone who makes zero noise ever, and it's Harrison Smith. Next year, the Vikings could cut Harrison Smith with zero cap penalty, which gives them all of the leverage to rework a deal. You've got his age kind of mixed into this, wondering how is he going to play overall this year how is he going to play overall this year is he going to start showing the signs of aging will he still be an elite player like he was last year a top three or four safety in the NFL last season or if there's any drop-off then does it get ugly because you know would they consider letting him go would he want a long-term contract extension so he has guarantees and he has some certainty

for where he's going to be for the next few years? I think that's a possibility. Also, Daniil Hunter, at some point, Daniil Hunter's agent is going to say, my contract is terrible and I am not going to play unless you rework this contract. Now, we've gone through it with Delvin Cook about the holdout and how Delvin Cook can't really hold out but if you're in a position like Daniil Hunter and you've made that much money and you have that much leverage you could you could hold out and be like yeah okay fine me that's no problem I want a new contract because this one is nowhere close to market level and if he gets 15 sacks again this

year they're going to have to rework that deal. So those are guys that have worked out contracts pretty easily in the past, but there is that possibility that it could get a little dicey, especially with the salary cap set to go down. Yeah, Daniil was my number one, even though he's still got, I think, three more years after this one, right around 12 mil per year, I believe. That's a lot of money, but you can tear that thing up. You can tear it up. The top guys are making 20, and you're making 12?

Tear it up. And I think the Vikings would be pretty receptive to that. They did that with Adam Thielen after he shot up, even after his deal. So I don't see a scenario where they let Daniil Hunter walk anywhere sooner than when this contract would be up. And I would assume farther along than that. I think they'll just kind of do what he wants to do. And so I would say after this year, you can expect that. And then obviously, we'll see how the Anthony Harris situation works out. He's going to play on the franchise tag. He's obviously going to be in line for another one. And then if they release Harrison Smith, that probably ups Harris's

leverage because going into next season with two new safeties is after a whole cornerback reshuffle just doesn't seem like what they want to spend two years doing. So I would say that's another name that we've obviously spent a lot of time on this offseason, and I would presume we will do that again next offseason. Yeah, if Harrison plays the same as he played last year, you're probably looking at Anthony Harris hitting the free agent market and saying goodbye to him, but if Harrison Smith has injuries or he falls off in his play, shows the signs of aging, maybe you do look at Anthony Harris and say it might be better to spend that money there. I doubt that in 2021 with a lowered salary cap, they're spending over $20 million at the safety position again. Very, very good questions, Paul. You're really getting the hand of hot routes.

Those were toasty. They weren't blazing yet. They were toasty. That's why you're an intern. You're still getting there. So Paul, great stuff. Very good hot routes. And we will catch you next time here on Purple Insider. All right. Thanks, man.