Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Alec Lewis wonders how Danielle Hunter's contract impacts the Vikings' QB future

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Alec Lewis of The Athletic about Danielle Hunter's contract and what it means for him and the Vikings, including if it will play a role in the Vikings' future QB situation. Plus why Alec is intrigued by 3 players in particular at camp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and I am joined inside TCO Performance Center by Alec Lewis of The Athletic. What is going on, man? First time getting together here in camp. You doing all right? Your first camp. How exciting is this? I know.

This has been awesome. The fans are out there. Justin Jefferson is doing his thing his thing first we are in like a little cubby here like does anybody know that you just record these things and like i mean we are in like a back office but you've got your oakley sunglasses on the top of your head you look you look camp ready um and you've looked you came into camp very comfortable, very excited. You looked like you were prepared, and I think you've attacked it well. So it's been fun being here and watching you perform the way you have thus far. Well, you know, it's just about repetitions and technique. Time on task.

Personally, time on task. But I will say, I bought some new clothes for training camp. I did. You know, just like first day of school. I have always viewed this as the first day of school first week of school buy some new clothes the the new hat i got this summer that it's kind of the golf hat and then of course our oakley sponsorship uh they are done with their sponsorship it was like for six weeks as everybody on the show heard but i don't have to give these back and they get noticed man because usually brian o'neill and justin

jefferson are the only guys with Oakley's. And they're like, wait, and you? Like, well, look, hey, not everybody can be a high-profile podcaster. They may not be wearing them after they see you wearing them, though. Come on. Yeah, I'm not. No, but it is good to hear that you've elevated your wardrobe for this season. I mean, I know it should be a fun one.

I'm excited. But, no, on a serious note, it has been really fun being out here. I enjoy being back with the camaraderie of the group. We miss our friend, Chris Thomason, but, um, it has been a blast and, uh, looking forward to see where this thing goes. It's its own beast is what training camp is like the season is totally different different training camp is much longer days i mean because we show up for the press conference and not complaining just describing show up for the press conference it's not a hard thing to do uh and you know go through that and then we kind of come back here and podcast and write and wait and then we go out there

and and watch the entire practice and then go home and podcast and write you know it's kind of like one day after the next uh but this is a really exciting week for this team because the pads are coming on today they will be popping and you know we've been a little short on those cliches like we haven't heard players say oh can't wait to get those pads pop in when they when they have the joint practice be good to hit somebody else out there like that's always it but just here's my advice though for you is just just soak this one in because the first training camp that you cover you always remember the random dudes who didn't make it but like had one good practice moment or

something and then the night practice is coming up later this week and that is a whole thing in itself it's a really cool moment just for the whole team uh to have so yeah it's it's really it's really fun so i'm kind of like jealous mine was a long time ago 2017 was my first camp but i did the same thing as you where i moved here and then went through a whole season and then got camp on the on the back end it sort of feels weird but you will find that your understanding of this team and this team's narrative it began here and I think you'll understand it much better as you see it develop than if you're just sort of tossed into the fire no that's exactly what happened like I got here last year really the week of the first game and so I had been knowing I was going to move here and that I had this job I was

like reading your stuff listening Ben and Andrew Kramer like I was doing everything I could to study up but you're not immersed in it you didn't know that Amir Smith-Marset had been where he'd been you didn't know like I didn't know so much of the history and so the fact is like yeah I saw the draft play out I saw the undrafted signings one after another. And now I'm at a point where, yeah, I know the 90 guys that are here. I understand the backstory of Jaron Hall. I know the situation of Kirk Cousins' contract. I watched the Daniil Hunter thing play out and obviously come to a resolution this weekend uh before i woke up so it has been yeah

i um i do feel very i've enjoyed like the fact that it is building and then obviously we'll get to see things play out um so i'm i i am i am really excited i try to like hold myself back because i'm sunburned already and uh and and tweeting too much but um trying to just balance it all well i i texted you after jordan addison's arrest and i said like now it's official now you are a vikings beat reporter when the day before training camp they ruin your final day that you thought you were relaxing and hanging out just uh not doing anything and then some player has something happened and then another sort of rite of passage is waking up and being like what and for me the it just i felt so dumb the because i had written just the night before i had finished up the article at like 11 o'clock at night and i'm

poking away it's a oh denier dylan hunter is a situation is lingering over an exciting start to camp haha here what a great article. And then I wake up like, oh, I guess not. And then my articles go out at around eight o'clock in the morning through the email. Sign up for the newsletter if you haven't. But it's the news broke it like 805 and I was asleep. So then it just sends out this article talking about like this could go on for a long time. But let's transition right into that because I thought it was going to go on for a long time.

I said the night before, it just feels like it's trending toward this not coming to a resolution. Jeremy Fowler's out there saying there's trade things going on and discussions. And like, oh, man, it just seems a little ugly. Kevin O'Connell seemed like he was pleading with everybody to get something done with Hunter and then the next day one year deal that's what he held out for four days for really yeah I mean I was similarly surprised you mentioned the Jeremy Fowler report and and after Jeremy Fowler reported that I believe the Vikings were in trade talk other teams were interested I texted I've got a connection with an executive another team

through kind of some of my baseball background I've got pretty fortunate with that and I texted he's like yeah I've heard similar that they they have I mean the trade conversations have been a thing been a talking point but then I we were talking back and forth the executive and I was like what do you think from a draft pick perspective is is possible and he would not go any higher than than a third maybe and in that capacity i think and even it to get a third the vikings were having to send something back that was pretty later so the more i heard that the more it's like you know what like i don't know how that would pan out um and and how it would make sense I think holistically especially when you consider that if they kept the Neal

Hunter the comp pick would exist and and that would probably be a third which which maybe they could get so I heard that and I was like you know what that's interesting but I still was very unsure is the Neal in his camp in his camp to be willing to move off of wanting a long-term deal and secure money for a guy who has had the injury pass that he's had I wasn't sure and then to your point I woke up and you're like wow one year deal okay it is a salary that could push him towards the top of the edge rusher market but I did think it was interesting. Kevin O'Connell and his pressba and not TJ Watt and so let's talk about that why do we think that that is that the league would not view this as somebody you want to send a first round pick for signed to the huge multi-year contract because we have watched

Daniil Hunter you got your first taste last year I've seen years of Daniil Hunter. You got your first taste last year. I've seen years of Daniil Hunter. You know, my assessment is he's very good at football. He is good at it. I mean, he gets tons of sacks. He gets tons of pressures. PFF loves him and grades him high. Now, I know that there are some underlying statistics that would show you that teams don't double team him as much. OK, that's fine.

But he still creates tons of pressure tons of production a plus teammate everyone has always loved him in this building and yet the vikings have never gone all in on him and other teams didn't want to go all in on him like what are we missing with daniel hunter here it has to be two things the injury pass has to be one of them yeah but I think the other maybe and you could correct me if you think I'm wrong but like he's just so unorthodox like he's so big and he moves so funky and that I think like maybe at age 28 it's like I don't can is this sustained like but I mean he's done it for five years when he's been healthy so I think there's a pretty clear argument but other than that I, I don't know.

The other situation, maybe it's just his camp is difficult to deal with in some capacity. That could play a role. But I think, I don't know. It is a very valid question. It's part of the reason why this offseason I reached out to Brandon Thorne, who I'm sure you've had on this show before. And I was like, can you just walk me through some film

and show me what you see with Daniil that I wouldn't see with the naked eye? And he's talking about Daniil's use of the ice pick and certain moves. I'm just like, I mean, yeah, he's unorthodox. He does it differently. But it is hard to understand because Brandon Thorne's like, look, this guy's a top-ten edge rusher in the NFL when he's healthy. And so either teams are valuing these age curves more than maybe

I'm even giving it credit for an injury and valuing that. Otherwise it is hard to understand to your, to your question. Right. I think that if you're another team, the reason you're not offering a lot is because you have to give him so much money when he arrives that, although I guess it turned out that you didn't but I mean they or at least that's what you would have thought like if I'm the Jaguars and I'm calling the Vikings I'm saying look if I'm giving you a second round pick I'm also going to sacrifice 25 million of my cap so I can't give you all of my draft capital and then give him all of my cap so I need to get him for a very reasonable price.

And I also think there's something around the league still with Kweisi Adafomensa because these guys have known each other for a long time. These general managers, some of them have been with teams for 10 years. It gets not some other sports. They fired GMs every other season, but in the NFL, some of these guys have been in position for a long time there is an old boys club they know each other and I think that in with some other instances with more experienced GMs you'll see them sort of step up to the plate like think about the Zedarius Smith trade who is it done with Andrew Berry the guy that he knows and the guy that he worked with and that's how a lot of these things work brad homes he seems to have some sort of relationship with brad homes in detroit but there's probably not a lot of those

situations for quacey and i wonder if everybody looks at it like i'll trade with you but not in a friendly way not in a okay i'll give you that second but kind of like a fantasy football if you're friends with somebody you might say all right i'll help you out you help me out but if it's somebody you don't know, if it's just a random account, you're not giving them anything unless you win the trade. I have wondered about that as well. And certainly the long-term sustainability of his success, he has played a lot of football. This isn't someone who came into the league at 23 and is 29. It's 20 and he's 29 injuries along the way. But you would think that some team would be desperate. The Jaguars just make so much sense. We need to win this year, get one more pass rusher and for them not to do it. And this is where we look at now the Vikings perspective to not trade him away for nothing because it would look terrible if they did that.

Third round pick would look horrendous for Casey. So we couldn couldn't do that i think this is the next best option i think this is better than signing a four-year 90 million dollar contract but do you agree with that to me this was just the classic koise adofa minsa competitive rebuild move like it's it is a short-term deal for a guy who's older and has an injury risk and you're keep maintaining the long term flexibility on the cap, especially when you're going to have a pretty tough dead cap hit next year, obviously holistically. I mean, I thought about it in a lot of different ways. Like for Brian Flores' defense, I think it really helps. And it solidifies what Brian Flores is trying to do. It keeps another key leader, proven guy on that defense. But then I also think like from a macro perspective, and I don't even know if I should weigh it into this or if it makes sense, and I'm curious what you think,

but if you're trying to go up and draft another quarterback and yet your defense is now better, so you win more games, so you have a worse pick, like, yes, you're probably going to be more competitive and it helps the defense this upcoming year, but does that make it harder in the end to go get the quarterback that you might want to go get? And I don't know if it's fair to even link those two things together, but I just can't, I guess with all conversations,

I come back to that quarterback one and that includes even this one it's a it's definitely a factor because when you try to do a competitive rebuild and this is what quacey was talking about knowing that the odds are worse if you try to stay in the middle and then get to the top then they are if you go to the bottom well part of that is if they had traded away Kirk and even let's say trade away Hawkinson because his contract is up trade away Daniil Hunter and you win three games and you play Tim Boyle and Nathan Peterman at the end and you get Caleb Williams and you pair him with Justin Jefferson oh my gosh like you are going you are cooking with gas I mean

it's kind of like Indianapolis like they won the suck for luck competition the vikings lost it by one game and think about that like he came into the league he had him in the playoffs he had him in the afc championship just that's what the superstar quarterback can do for you so everything has to be tied into that so i i guess there's two minds that i have which is in one way, I think, yeah, he should have tanked. I mean, just logically that that's probably the way he should have gone. And sometimes it's, you get stuck tanking forever and you're the lions or the jets and that's not good, but sometimes you're the Bengals and it just changes your life to get

that guy. So that's going back though, to the beginning of Casey. Correct. He's doing what he said he was going to do yeah with this type of move i also think that the relationship between o'connell and quacey is very important and if you just trade away daniel hunter for nothing and say like hey buddy but i'll get you drake may with the tank i don't know if kevin o'connell's on board with that after winning 13 games right so they have to be and with ownership they all

have to be on the same page on this so even though they're sacrificing some potential odds at getting that super high pick quarterback they are all on the same page at what the plan was and they're executing the plan i agree with you and i'm glad you mentioned ownership because that was the thing too like you from the beginning when you mentioned taking them, I just think the expectation here is we want to be competitive every year. And so to do that, but also put yourself in a position to win the whole thing, you got to thread the needle. I think the other thing is this division still remains up for grabs. And so when you maintain a guy like Daniil Hunter,

it gives you a better chance to win the division, obviously. And so, I mean, there are so many variables in terms of external and also what they're trying to do that it is fascinating. And I agree with you that Kweisi, in the end, has kind of kept to his approach from the beginning, which is better, I think, in my opinion, than having an approach, then shifting around, moving around. I mean, it at least remains consistent. And I also think, I mean, it is a nod to Brian Flores. Like, look, I mean, if we're going to really make a transformation here,

especially with the youth at secondary that they have, I mean, I think you need a guy like this. And so ultimately, as I look at the whole thing, I think it's a pretty sensible decision in terms of their structure of the strategy that they've deployed on this team holistically. I think that it makes sense from the way teams usually do stuff. If you wanted to break the game, which not really what you know we haven't seen them really do uh and we don't really see football teams do very often we don't see them do kind of things that appear crazy but are sort of next level galaxy brain thinking but there's an argument

to say that a few of the things that we just talked about just like aren't true it's probably not true that daniel hunter swings this defense very much i think it's more about what it says about where they are but i mean the pff wins above replacement it says that him alone is probably worth a half a win uh you know and there's a trickle down to the secondary and everything else but they were 27th last year and he was great and we've seen him play before i mean the first half of 2021 their defense was no good he was great one guy can only impact the defense so much and so what is going to determine this defense good or not is really the guys on the back end who are unproven because if daniel hunter gets five pressures in a game we're like what a great game they threw 40 passes, and, and I can promise that there's not going to be a

lot of other pressure coming. So is it overrated to do that and not trade them away? And then the other thing is it comes up all the time about the quarterback. How will they get a quarterback if they don't pick at the very top? I mean, go through how often has the top quarterback in the draft been the best quarterback of that draft? I mean, Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen were not the first guy off the board. It was Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. That doesn't mean Caleb Williams won't be good.

I mean, he's probably going to be fantastic. Mahomes is not the first quarterback taken. I mean, this year, would you bet that it could be Richardson or Stroud? It doesn't have to be Bryce Young so I think also to Mahomes the Chiefs were drafting 27th when they picked Mahomes and they traded up so I don't think that winning and keeping Hunter and even winning the NFC North if that's what they can do just means oh well you just can't possibly get a quarterback and you have to keep Kirk or get Andy Dalton or something I think that that option will still be there for them no I agree I definitely think it's it's possible and

not like I'm glad you bring up the Chiefs example but it does make me think of like Koisi talked about the risk involved and at that point if you're if you're trading multiple draft picks to move up to get who you think is the guy. I mean, this is the ultimate thread the needle and it better be the guy, which again, I mean, like props, if that's the way you, and if you have the conviction that it is your guy and you want to go up and get it, I mean, that's that to each their own. And I, and I think that strategy totally makes sense. And I still think the way Kwesi talked about Kirk, I mean,

we'll see what happens with that situation in general but um yeah I think you're you're exactly right to bring it up it for me to act like oh now they're now he's going to change the entire defense and now they're going to be picking so high that there's no way they get back I think that's that's overdoing it I just that's a little bit of like taking into where my mind went obviously initially it helps the defense now does it does it elevate them to be from a whatever they were last year 28th and DVOA to 12th obviously I don't think so but I think it obviously improves the defense I think it allows you to be apply more numbers to your secondary if need be and then i also think um just in terms of the

quarterback it just my mind goes there probably just as a byproduct of the importance of of that position and building your team everything they do connects to what's going to happen at quarterback for sure i guess when it there's there's two things that i think a little differently about one is you you said that well like hopefully there's a guy that they believe in and my thing is it doesn't matter if you do or not like odds wise it doesn't matter right which is again not how any team would do it they're going to do all the research and everything else but there have been all sorts of quarterbacks that should have been great and they weren't and their teams did all the research and it didn't matter and then there's ones that are

great and we can't explain it um so you know it's i i think you have to just draft one no matter what but they have backed themselves into a corner by keeping kirk and not drafting will levis last year where you really have one shot at this uh and it's and it's next year's draft if that's the way you're going to approach it and not go outside the building to another disgruntled quarterback, Kyler Murray. Uh, but you know, like there will be, but there will be, there will be opportunities potentially, um, for other quarterbacks, I think that will hit the market and so forth, but I don't think you're wrong to connect every move. I just think that keeping

Hunter is more about what it looks like than what it is. Meaning it's more about saying to Brian Flores, we're giving you what you need to win to Kevin O'Connell, to the Wilfs, to the fans. You trade away to Neil Hunter and it's like, oh, we're tanking. They go, we're going to be bad, aren't we? And I think there's a lot of people who would be OK with that. But I don't think that they think that there's a lot of people that would be okay with that you know what i mean so and but to everybody to justin jefferson to kirk and hey by the way jefferson doesn't have an extension yet which i wanted to ask your opinion on that do you think

he and hawkinson are not too far behind now that they have resolved Daniel Hunter. Yeah, I think, I think they have to be. I mean, I, I said this, I said this to my dad last night. I was talking to him on the phone and he was asking me questions about the team and he lives in Alabama. It doesn't really care other than the fact his son spends a lot of his hours around this team. And he was asking about Jefferson. I'm like, dad, I mean, with what I've seen out on the practice field like I I it is hard for me to really understand I mean he is going very hard and it is beautiful to watch and I love

it and I'm fortunate and grateful that I get to see it but part of me is like what else does he need I mean what else does he really need to prove I'll say this too um I wrote a story last year about this guy Jerry Sullivan who was one of Justin's wide receivers coaches at LSU and who has worked with him periodically. And I texted Jerry the other day and he said, I was just up in Minnesota with Justin for 10 days. The cheetah has not lost his stripes. This guy's working as hard as he ever has. And I was like, man, I mean, sheesh, for this guy, for what he's done. Right.

And so back to the original question, I think they're right behind. I think TJ Hawkinson, they love what I think the versatility that he can bring. And I think you can see it out there, like how much Kirk trusts them and how much in sync those two guys are. So I would expect those to be behind the Daniel Hunter deal. And, again, I have a hard reason kind of understanding why they don't kind of just push it uh make it happen uh if if I'm being honest but um I think I think it speaks to the the relationship and the communication level between like Kevin

O'Connell and these guys that it's played out as cordially as it has like I've thought about the strategy there um and and the communication I think that matters too as we talked about like why hasn't this happened I think there is a synergy with those two sides that is important and worth mentioning well because you have a lot of players around the league who are unhappy with their contracts one of them is openly fighting with his owner on Twitter, uh, Jonathan Taylor and Zach Martin kind of doing the same thing with the Dallas Cowboys. And yet here's Justin Jefferson just putting on a laser show out there. I mean, it's, it's wild.

It's wild to get, to get, to see it up close. Like you could see it on TV and you're still amazed by it, but to see him Moss, a guy 20 feet away, like I did, I did 30 minutes on the show the other night just on his catch i was like this is just unbelievable to watch but it's worth bringing up for both of those guys they have put a lot of faith and i don't think it's just because of the cba because they could have held in in the organization to get this worked out by showing up and by practicing every day. And I think that there's way less risk for them than there is for Hunter.

Hunter's age, his injury history. They are younger. They have no injury histories. At the same time, they have not made any noise. Justin came out and just said, hey, you know, like we'll see. We'll figure it out. And then has gone out and done everything. I wasn't sure whether he was going to take limited reps or what was going to go on it's been everything i mean it's just every rep so you couldn't ask for anything better from his side

and it feels like now that they've got the hunter thing out of the way which always felt like the black cloud that needed to get taken care of that these two should be done by the end of camp. And if they're not, I'm really going to wonder why. Yeah, and you said Black Cloud. I also think just from a cap perspective as they're lining it up with how much they're going to have to pay these guys in the short term versus how much to defer the cap. Now they have, I think, even a better idea, obviously, knowing Daniil's cap hit.

So, yeah, I'm with you. I'd be pretty surprised if if neither of those got sorted through in some capacity I mean I always think about like if the player waits and other and other guys sign huge deals then maybe you make more on top of those guys contract a la the quarterback situation where you've had Lamar Jalen Herbert and obviously Burrow will probably come so I think about that with Justin in the end. But I just think there's, from the very beginning of the Justin extension conversation, and even you could say TJ really, like this team has been very much on the,

they've been out in front of the cameras, in front of the microphone saying like, we want to make sure this happens. I mean, I've said this before, but at owners meetings when we sat with Mark Wolf we asked him the question about Justin and he looked at his piece of paper he had and he was like we and he there was like a line there obviously that that is like with Justin you say yes we want to make this happen because I think they're that um comfortable with the idea that that they're committed to it so we'll see when it happens but i wouldn't be shocked if this podcast is uh you never know with with the timing of these i wouldn't be surprised if we look at twitter after the podcast and we've got news just uh i hadn't had one blown up in a while but then you know i came in i came in today kevin sefer was like

was anything we said relevant the other day like go back and listen to it. The second half about the quarterback stuff was, but not so much the Daniil Hunter conversation. I wonder who you are most interested in out here, outside of those big stories, because I needed to get your take on the thing that's happening and the thing that is the most relevant to their future. But also, there's just interesting players all over the place there have been years in the past where i stood as the players walk off we kind of stand on the sideline

and then you just talk with whoever you want to talk with and i would look around and go i don't know who have i who is interesting or who have i not written a hundred stories about like oh there's adam thielen again and so forth and now like who's who's this guy? Let's say, Oh, a new player, you know, and getting to new, new people and all that stuff. Um, I wonder like, who's at the top of your list. I think it's my brand to say Jaron Hall at this point. That's kind of, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But, but on a serious day there though. Yeah, I know I was, I was, uh, and I wrote about him twice this summer. Someone tweeted me. They were like, the most annoying thing about you is how much you like this guy.

I was like, I don't know. They drafted a quarterback, I think, for a reason. But I'll give you some names that I've enjoyed watching and I am keeping an eye on. Louis Seen, obviously, given his situation, first-round pick. I sat with him the other day, and he was very much like, I don't want to talk about anything. I just want to prove it on the other day and he was very much like I don't want to talk about anything I just want to prove it on the field then he made that play

Saturday that was pretty uh impressive probably like the I mean I don't know maybe the most impressive I've seen him play I've seen him make so he's one of them Jalen Naylor was really impressive this spring and I know he's had a little leg injury these last few days but um just interested to see his development just in general um and then uh I'll give you like a wild card is is Ivan Pace like you've heard some good stuff about him he's undersized linebacker who who was undrafted and I'm just today's the first day of pads and I just want to see this guy smash somebody um and I so so those are three names that are on the top of my head. But you're exactly right in that I could name a boatload of guys

that are just interesting to me. And I think that's part of what's been fun. Okay, follow-ups on each guy. Louis Seen had a great play the other day. And Brian Flores talked today about how he loved how excited his teammates were for him, which I brought up on the play the other day and brian florist talked today about how he loved how excited his teammates for were for him which i brought up on the show the other night their instant reaction you sort of you could sort of figure out by watching enough body language how everyone else feels about someone yeah and oh that guy yeah good for us uh but they seemed

genuinely excited and florist was calling out people in the media or in the meeting room who were not celebrating enough and all that sort of stuff uh but it is one play without pads he did say that he likes what he's seen from his technique and of course had to throw in there well you guys don't know the play and i do and i was watching others though okay brian we know we know you know more football than us I figured that out but um do you buy that one play could swing the momentum for Lewis scene um I'm not no I don't want to put too much into one play but I do I do genuinely believe I'm glad you mentioned the teammates reactions like I do believe especially after talking to him um like

I guess I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase it but I almost was like as I listen to him like I hope he hasn't forgotten that at Georgia he was a pretty electric player now there are there could be a whole number of reasons for that but it's like I almost felt like this guy has been through a heck of a lot in his first year like to get some positive momentum would be pretty important for him. And I also, you mentioned the teammates reactions. Like I thought it was interesting to see the guys who he would essentially be competing with the cam binums, the Josh Mattel's Harrison Smith.

Like those guys were the first guys to pat him on the helmet. So I thought that showed something to me, but I'm not going to react too much to one play. And I don't think he would either the way I live, the way he talked, it was like, I want to prove it again and again and again. And I think he's going to have to. And so I think that alignment of the expectation, that's where I'm at. It's like, I want to see him prove it again and again, just like he wants to see it for himself. Of course, when pads come on, he's going to have to prove it.

Preseason games, I wouldn't count out him chasing down cam by him i still am having trouble seeing it but i think that if you get to the end of this camp and you feel like he had a good training camp at least we won't declare it over i think that's the important he needs to get to the end of this training camp and we're not saying oh yeah no not gonna happen that happened with laquan treadwell where his second training camp, nothing really happened. Interesting. And we just. All right. Well, I mean, by your third training camp, it's pretty much over. There's not too many guys who have gone two years, shown nothing, and then finally took a big step. It does happen, but not often with Jalen Naylor.

Now, he falls behind, of course, Jordan Addison, just by not practicing the last couple of days. Did you ever think that there was any competition there with Jordan Addison? And the first couple of days, I'm just curious about your impression of Addison from the first couple of days. Yeah, competition. I mean, I don't know if I'd go that far. I just, I mean, I think they're going to use Jordan Addison. They drafted him at that spot for a reason. I think they believe he can really help them, I mean, beyond running the football more efficiently.

I think in terms of finding ways to get coverage off of Justin, I think Addison is a big piece to that. But I just thought, like, K.J. Osborne's in a contract here. In the event that K.J. Osborne leaves to have another guy like Jalen Ayer that you can bank on, I mean, I just think that's pretty important. In terms of Jordan Addison and my impressions, from a football perspective and how he moves around on the field, it's pretty impressive, I think.

I mean, he just looks – and I'm not some crazy wide receiver expert. I can't tell you about his ability to stack the corner back and second move. Like, I can't at this point. I'll watch clinics to get to that level. But just watching him, like, he's smooth. He moves around smoothly, and I feel like he could separate in an NFL game, and I think that's important. Now, again, pads come come on physical at the line of

scrimmage we're gonna see how that pans out um so that's another thing with him that i'm looking forward to seeing don't make it harder than it is to figure out if a receiver is good he should catch the ball and be open all that other stuff that's technical stuff that coaches have to understand but it's about making plays and so far he has yeah yeah i was gonna ask like what have you thought yeah there was a play the other day two of them that stood out to me one he ran a route where he shook a safety into the next world and he was wide open like okay well that was something and then there was another play kind of a subtle thing but a throw was behind him in kind of the situational drill so it's 11 on 11 and he reached out and snatched the ball and i thought that is a very high difficulty catch even though it was not like

mossing someone right but it wasn't a throw that was right on him and he just snatched it out of the air and i think what you see from so many receivers is the ball has to get on them and they have to kind of cradle it or it has to be right up in a position to grab but this was nowhere really close and that's what you saw from him in college where with kenny pickett he could kind of put it anywhere and jordan addison would get it now i think you bring up a great point that it's about understanding the whole offense it's about pads and being able to defeat physical plays and things like that my My early impression, though, is that looks like a first-round receiver where he just does things that your eye stands out. It stands out and catches your eye because the other guys aren't able to do it.

You know what I also think is interesting is if you've read around the league, and I know you have, and listened around the league, it's like people are very high on Zay Flowers. Johnson with Los Angeles, people are very – in this draft class, it felt like, ah, it's not the craziest receiver class. Smith the jigba. I saw that he's been their best player. But people are raving about a lot of these guys individually.

And I'm like – but pre-draft it was like, ah, we're not really so sure. So just to follow that is going to be, I think, fun and insightful probably in my first full year doing this. But, yeah. Look at my predictions for the season and the predictions the bold predictions was that people will regret not drafting those receivers higher because they weren't the right size uh who was the third one then we got to run out to practice oh pace yeah interesting to me because i do think that there is a must be this

tall to get on the ride um i've heard so many times oh hercules mata affa who you've never heard of for a reason but like he's just like john randall or something like okay man i don't know you know it just sometimes there is a cam dantzler it's okay that he weighs 175 pounds not really no it isn't and so i'm always skeptical but also was a huge fan of sam mill growing up, who also you may not be familiar with, but you know who he is. Like, is he in the Hall of Fame? I think he's in the Hall of Fame now.

Undersized linebacker, London Fletcher. Yeah. Like, it's great when they can do it because usually they have to overcome a lot and they're, you know, tough as nails and everything. But I'm skeptical off the bat. So when the pads come on he's gonna have to go a long way to kind of prove it to me that he can be anything more than just a special team type guy but he moves differently like that might be because he's smaller than everyone else

but there's there's some explosion in that guy yeah there is and and he even said to me he's like i i honestly like didn't drop a ton in college. So I think that's been – and zone drop defensively in terms of his impact. I think that's something we'll have to watch. And then I also think around the draft time, I remember – I believe it was Chisimo Parra who was in the front office was asked about what Brian Flores looks for. And he said, big guys who move like small guys and this is

that's not ivan pace i mean he's a smaller guy so it'll be interesting to see like how things shake out but i just i mean he was a guy if you turn on the and i i've talked to jim naggett the senior boys like he was voted ivan pace was as the most impressive defender out of the senior bowl and yet he went on drafted and so um i just i'm just i don't know from like a that story i'm just interested to follow and uh and yeah but i could have given you a billion names because as you can hear i'm acting like i'm seeing i mean this is like a kid in the candy store for some reason that's what i was saying take it all in your first training camp uh well and a kicking competition to boot i haven't had one of those in a couple of years.

So very exciting stuff. Anyway, well, thanks for your time. We've got to run out to practice, but we will definitely do it again soon. And, of course, you can read your work at The Athletic. It must be just Alec Lewis on Twitter. Alec underscore. I don't think I could get – yeah, you don't want – you're shaking your head. At least it's not Alec Lewis NFL because that –

No, no, no, no, no, no no no no but um uh i appreciate that thanks for having me and uh the banter will continue all training camp all right football