Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Arif Hasan on the Julio Jones trade and whether Bashaud Breeland can make an impact

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Sam Ekstrom is joined by Arif Hasan of TheAthletic.com to review the Bashaud Breeland signing and what it means for the Vikings. They get to the Julio Jones trade and how it will impact Tennessee and then revert back to the Purple and name their most interesting players at each position group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it's Sam in for collar on the purple insider podcast welcome to the show again I'm Sam Ekstrom I'm on Twitter at Sam Ekstrom and I'm joined by an old podcasting colleague he's a frequent guest of the show we had a lot of fun in years gone by on the old football machine now defunct his name is Arif Hasan at Arif Hasan NFL and uh he's been studying Viking culture in Iceland for like the past two weeks and uh I know this was this was part of your beat Arif to learn more about part of my job through the origin of their name. So tell us tell us what you learned about the Vikings. I incredibly physically adapt.

I know that I know that that's it seems kind of obvious that this culture known for it, which Viking is more of a job than it is like a group of people like people became Vikings Vikings, like you would be a pirate as a job, right? But yeah, like the stories that they tell about Vikings, man, if they're half true, they're the strongest people who have ever lived on the planet. I was told the story about, what's his name? Gunnar Hemondarsson, one of the key Vikings.

Okay, so the crazy thing about Icelandic history is that all this stuff like these people are real the stories are almost certainly not but the people are and but they just like tell you as if it's true and so like one of the stories is like about this guy and it's this long saga and epic and the guy had only ever had

enough time to tell us like half the saga but in the middle of the story he's like yeah so this is Gunnar you know he's well renowned guy had only ever had enough time to tell us like half the saga um but in in the middle of the story he's like yeah so this is gunnar um you know he's well renowned he's you know incredible athlete he swims like a seal and he's known to have jumped um vertically uh his own height uh in full armor um and so he would be able to clear himself he He'd be able to jump over himself, which means of course that he's got a 72 inch vertical and pads, right? His relative athletic score is through the roof.

Yeah. It's, it's this, the scale goes to 10. He's a 12, just incredible, right? He,

he, when he fights with the sword, it looks like he's fighting with three just so he's got agility. He's got speed. He's got strength. Of course, explosiveness. I mean, his vertical, his broad jump must be incredible. So a bunch of super athletes over there historically.

Now, mind you, Vikings were taller than any other European at the time, which means that they were like 5'10". Yeah, I was going to say like 5'8". Yeah, right. Weren't there a group of Vikings,ings like minnesota vikings who went to a country maybe it was iceland maybe it was norway like a couple years ago and like linval joseph yeah everston griffin yeah did and they went was it iceland it was iceland yeah and everston hung out with uh with at the time the crowned world's strongest man and this is kind of one of the cool things two of the most famous strong men of all time are icelandic uh magnus for magnuson and half thor bjornson so half thor and there's this like a

picture that the vikings posted of everson griffin who's like what like six five right yeah standing next to half thor bjornson who is like legitimately just bigger than phil loatholt right and he's like dwarfing everson griffin it's it's like that picture of yaoming standing next to jj watt and you're like these people are the same species this is nuts let's talk a little football um here's how i want to approach it you've been gone for the better part of the last two weeks you got back on friday and there was big news on friday the vikings signed bashad breeland like welcome back to the states of reef here's breaking news

right um tell me what you think you learned about the vikings from afar i'm sure you were still on twitter occasionally like what do you think you missed fairly you were gone and i'll tell you if you're right or wrong and we'll talk about it. Harrison Hand is the best corner in the league now, I guess. Yeah. Let's talk about Harrison Hand. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I saw a couple of a couple of OTA highlight vids, not even from the Vikings, from people

who are clipping from the highlight vids and then tweeting them out on their own. And I saw at least two separate and distinct Harrison Hand highlights. um so he must be killing it right now from my understanding yeah and now media was present for both of those moments so they might be the only two moments but they were moments like the first one the pass deflection was more impressive than the dot because he didn't actually get the interception yeah i saw that yeah he didn't made it look like he but he he deflected a pass in coverage might have been jefferson um that's i think it was jefferson yeah people were talking about and then the following week again against jefferson he was getting first team reps because uh dan slater was like kind of inactive

he might might have had a little ding um patrick peterson was gone obviously jeff gladney's gone so it was it was hand with the ones on jefferson like holding his own blanketed him stepped in front of the route and uh and picked off kirk it was really that was the best play that i've seen from him yeah so uh that's what i learned is that Harrison Hand is the next Xavier Rhodes, but good. I'm learning that, you know, the offense just hasn't figured it out yet. They'll figure it out, but they haven't figured it out yet. That's okay. We shouldn't panic.

But Harrison Hand is a Pro Bowl corner. Yeah, and he's probably the reason the offense has looked so bad. And yeah, it's probably gathered that from some of my tweets where I was tweeting like the four guys that had interceptions last week. Four, wow. Yeah, two of them on Kirk, one of them on Browning, one of them on Mond, and the Mond one, this was the rep of the day, Arif, of a horrible practice. This was the rep of the day.

Mond throws one of his like three passes a gorgeous fade down the left sideline he can throw left obviously unlike some of your other you know quarterbacks you hate yeah and emir smith marset has it drop in the bucket like right in his hands oh don't does a juggling routine with it oh no pops it up to i believe josh metellus to vulture the interception uh no one looks good though i mean i guess mond does but like no one looks good on a play like that no no i think like like metellus had to have allowed the reception for that to be a possibility right well he was the he was the one like he was on top you're right he wasn't there in time he wasn't like in direct coverage

but yeah he was the the backup that's oh that's rough yeah man there goes my amir smith-marset shares yeah seriously no the cube the or not the qb3 the wide receiver 3 battle has been uninspiring has it been mostly mostly BB in wide receiver three? Yes. Okay. It has been a lot of BB. Not, not even BC Johnson,

huh? As soon as he was out of the starting lineup, he was persona non grata. No, the like second team has been BC Osborne. And Osborne keys. And he's looked, he's looked okay to my eye,

but I, yeah. And, and after that, you know, it's, it's kind of crazy. So the Vikings have used like a lot of their late cap space and like they,

they saved like five or six roster spots after the draft. They've used them all on cornerbacks. Yeah. Including the latest. Ty Smith, Bashad Breeland. And then they officially signed amari anderson and perry nickerson as well oh perry nickerson's back add in oh yeah yeah that's something you

missed while you were gone perry nickerson great yeah runs fast doesn't do much else yep um yeah but but clearly there was an effort here for the vikings to get you know older at cornerback to get more experience to get you know guys that have played in high leverage situations to get some like i guess you can call perry nickerson and ty smith veterans even though they haven't had you know particularly scintillating careers you can still like nickerson can play the slot, and he's started some games. And Ty Smith has started seven games in his career.

And those might be players they can keep around on the practice squad, like using up the veteran spots for insurance. So what do you make? I mean, let's focus on Breland, because that's the big one to discuss here. But let's just focus on what they've done with the cornerback group i think it's pretty clear that like first of all i don't think that they signed breland with a spot in mind i think they were just like we need to get as many talented corners or talented enough corners in the building as possible

because i think the vikings have been traumatized by how deep into their cornerback depth chart they've had to go over the years last year obviously is a really good example they had to go to chris jones and dylan maven like that's not ideal for anybody i guess not ideal for chris jones right like that he's 10 corners last year yeah it was brutal which so like last year it was is maybe the worst year the past three four years but they've gone pretty deep. Like they've gone six, seven corners deep in the past. So I think this is deep. Yeah. They've got Marcus Sherrill's deep. Right. They've Benny Sapp. Remember him?

How could I forget? Yeah. They've gone, they've gone way deep in the cornerback group, you know, to the point where it's people, not even people on their own practice squad, people that they've signed that day. And they just kind of hope you, you know how to play man coverage.'s people, not even people on their own practice squad, people that they've signed that day. And they just kind of hope you, you know, how to play man coverage. So there it is. There you go. You've, you've got Deandre Hopkins or whatever, right?

Good luck. Like, I think that's it. I think they're just like, yeah, I don't know if Bashad Bruin's a starter or if he's competing for a starting job or if he's a backup. I think that was the Vikings attitude when they signed him. They're just like, yeah, we can't guarantee you a starting spot, which is I think what it took them like a week to actually sign him.

But, you know, well, you know, maybe Cameron Dantzler is not the starter. Who knows? Maybe he could win the job. The point is, whatever's going to happen is that our fourth cornerback is going to be one of the better fourth cornerbacks in the NFL, I think was the approach there. Whoever it ends up being, I don't think they had that name in mind. Yeah, I think this the approach there, whoever it ends up being. I don't think they had that name in mind. Yeah. I think this is a big signing and, and I don't think Breland is a perfect player. I mean, that's why he's available. He's signing a relatively small one year deal. Yeah. Um, but you know, he started 26 games in two years for, you know, a two time

Superbowl qualifier. So I'm going to give him some cred just for that. You know, 29 years old, kind of up and down. Like if you, if you look at his pro football focus resume, you know, there's nothing really linear about it. He was really good, like in his second year and then dropped off and then pretty good in his fourth year and then dropped off and had the cup of coffee with green Bay where he tried to play the nickel. Um, and then, you know, improved a lot in Kansas city last year, but he like missed a bunch of tackles.

So he's flawed. Um, but he commits a lot of penalties, a lot of penalties. Yes. Penalties, a problem as well. Zimmer has,

has basically only gotten corners that committed a lot of penalties in their previous stints. Right. I mean, Patrick Peterson last two years committed a lot of penalties in their previous stints right i mean patrick peterson last two years committed a ton of penalties too um and he has a lot of experience reducing the penalty count of the corners he i mean typically they're like more malleable right because they're like rookies right but but like you know xavier roots trey waynes both of them had penalty concerns coming out of college right cameron dancer i think had i think he was penalized

a lot in college but that was on a scouting report is that you know the next level he could be based on how he plays uh Gladney same thing um I think he's just very comfortable with like getting a corner who's too aggressive and tough yeah what does he say it's uh it's easier to say whoa or something like that well easier to say whoa than go yeah whoa than go that was it yeah it's easier to say well than go uh and so i think he he wants a guy he would prefer that the thing that's taking them out of the market is their aggressiveness than their tentativeness and so i think that's part of it i think he feels like he can coach the penalties out so and and that's true of breland dancer gladney if he ever sees the field again peterson um because because breland without penalties

he's like a pretty good corner honestly from what i can tell i'm going to do a deeper dive later but from what i can tell he's pretty good not like amazing but pretty good you just you just got back from iceland i don't expect you've watched every rep um and by the way the penalties 13 penalties exactly in four of his seven previous seasons that's a lot of penalties i think peterson was one of the most last year with 12 yeah yeah that's wild yeah that's a lot of penalties coverage grade coverage grade 24th last year which is among that's one of the better years he's had um but i i like his coverage numbers are elite like uh receptions per snap yards per snap

um they're elite i imagine his uh but because those numbers don't include penalties i imagine his coverage grade suffers a lot because of the penalties because sometimes that does get folded into the pff grade if they occur in the process of coverage um sometimes they don't it really depends on the penalty but i think that's probably what hurt because the the numbers are great um let me ask you a question see if you know the answer the the the six week one uh cornerbacks for the vikings last year how many combined years of experience did they have in the nfl going into the season like like like so like for example chris boyd would count as one one because even though he didn't really play. Okay. So, Holton Hill was the most experienced corner of the six, maybe? Christ. God.

So, yeah, the rookies count as zero. Holton Hill counts as two. Chris Boyd counts as one. So, it's three. Four combined? That seems low. Even for that. Mike Hughes was the other one, and he had two. What does Spodkin says once it's three, four combined. That seems low. Even Mike Hughes was the other one and he had two. So five is the answer.

Um, and combined starts was, I, I believe it was nine. It might've been 12 really low number. Yeah. This is, this is the one thing I can say I knew more than Zimmer on. Like you needed to adjust.

The back group was going to come apart at the seams. Yes. And that he needed to adjust his scheme for the fact that his cornerbacks were all young and new. Like I asked that question. What like you were there. I think every time I asked that question, like three times,

like you've got one of the most complex coverage schemes in the NFL and you're very proud of that. But do you think you'll have to adjust that for the fact that, you know, your corners are all babies? And he said, no, the number of this year combined years of experience. And this is, so it was five last year, week one, six corners this year. If you're projecting who those six are, let's project Boyd in hand just because they would be the incumbents per se.

The answer is 26, which is not bad. Yeah. And if that was evenly distributed, that'd be nice. But, you know, 10 of them sound like Patrick Peterson. Who has like 156 starts in his career. So the total starts is like around 200. But like the start contrast, it clear that they they wanted to make this group over make them more seasoned and i liken them a bit to 2018's team with the vikings

where roads i think was starting to lose a step but was still very good and i compare him a bit to peterson in that sense um alexander was alexander you know if dansler can be waynes then i think i think the vik Vikings would be in a decent spot with him and maybe even better than Waynes because Dantzler had very good stretches last year. And then you've got, you know. Waynes as a rookie was not as good as Dantzler at all. Well, he didn't play, though.

Yeah, but I mean, do you remember the preseason? It was one of the worst preseasons I've ever seen for a quarterback. Horrible in the preseason, but we didn't see Dantzler in the preseason either he might have been horrible too i mean fair enough but i mean the vikings chose not to play waynes and they they needed that corner at the other side of roads and they were like that waynes isn't ready no fair enough fair enough they babied him along for sure and i don't know if he was ever an elite corner but he was at you know solid enough um in that year and then their fourth corner you know if he was ever an elite corner but he was at you know solid enough

um in that year and then their fourth corner you know that year was hughes um and hughes was actually quite good up until the acl injury yeah i mean in retrospect might have just had been a huge that might have been the whole thing yeah roadblock in his career rough uh bashad breland probably an upgrade though for mike hughes you know from a rookie and is bashad reeland better than how good we assume healthy rookie mike hughes is probably i wouldn't say it was a lot like hughes was like quite good actually i don't disagree with that that might that be right, but I wouldn't say it's a certainty that it's true. I'll agree with you, but conditionally.

Yeah, I mean, we just don't, we'll never know on Mike Hughes. What he was, what he could have been. He was a great college player. He flashed in very, very brief spurts. Four games, yeah. At the highest level. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Summer is here, and you're games. Yeah. At the highest level. Yeah. Hey, everyone.

Summer is here and you're trying to get out on the golf course. But if you're like us here at Purple Insiders, spending all day golfing isn't always an option. That's why you need to check out Birdie Golf in Woodbury. I'll give you an example. My wife is new to golf

and she's intimidated by the big courses. But at Birdie Golf, she could come and play without the pressure. You can make golf a family experience at birdie golf, bring the kids still get all of your swings in. They have eight of the world's best golf simulators where you can sharpen your swing and still have a great time. I've heard from several listeners to the show who have tried out birdie golf and absolutely loved it. You'll want to try the whiskey or beer float flights. And every time Sam and I show up at birdie golf to record our podcast, we always get the boneless swings, make golf a night out. It's the perfect place to hold parties, events, fundraisers, and even your fantasy football draft.

Check out birdie golf at four 94 and Valley Creek and Woodbury. Just a short drive away from from anywhere in the Twin Cities Metro at birdiegolf.com, B-I-R-D-I golf.com. Call 651-998-2200 today, and I'll see you there. Folks, if you are pumped up about how the Vikings did in the draft and now the schedule's out, it is a great time to get yourself a Skull Flag or Bud Grant shirt. And of course, there's much much more if you go to sodastick.com s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com check them all out and if you use the promo code purple insider you can get free shipping on all your original minnesota sports inspired goods and if you're ready for

the summer months we're going to have hockey playoffs so you can get your dollar bill krill shirts. And if you're a golfer, you have to see the Minnesota golf hats. They are classic. All of SodaStick's apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. Follow them at SodaStickCo on Twitter. Go to SodaStick.com for your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods.

Code Purple Ins insider for free shipping before we get back to the vikings i want your take on the news of the weekend julio jones traded to the tennessee titans so here's what strikes me a reef i can't i can't get excited about this news here's a team that offensively is you know high level very much the vikings they are just above them in like fewest 11 personnel sets they're number one in 12 personnel sets workhorse running back uh and an adjacent star receiver in aj brown. Now, if you're the Vikings though, wouldn't you love to have a wide receiver three like Josh Reynolds, you know, like the Titans now do because the Titans have, have, have gone. They are now, I think legitimately three deep at wide receiver,

even though they're not a three wide receiver offense. And they had Josh Reynolds at less than $2 million this year. I think like the Vikings might be this year. And I'm more certain this is true of the Titans than the Vikings. They'll be forced to play a lot more three deep having lost Johnny Smith. Right. Like for, for Xers actually kind of underrated as a tight end. He's not bad, but like,

I, I think this is not an offense where I want to have two tight ends out there as often as possible. I think that they would want to go with, so they essentially traded Corey Davis and Johnny Smith for Julio Jones and Josh Reynolds. And I'm high on Josh Reynolds, but we just,

we don't have any really good evidence on how good he is yet, but I like him. So it's interesting. And I expect them to, to throw the ball more. I mean, they were one of the most run heavy teams in the NFL. You always have to exclude the Ravens from the calculation

because they've got a running quarterback and are the only efficient running offense, really, in the NFL. But, I mean, they're one of the most run-heavy teams, period. Now, they did change their offensive coordinator, so that could change, but I think that could actually be a detriment because the reason they lost their offensive coordinator was because he was so good he got promoted um and so

uh the worry is that tannahill much like cousins might be dependent on the talent of that offensive coordinator like he's got great skill players obviously even better than last year although i think the upgrade is overstated not because who Julio is not elite anymore. He is, but at Corey Davis was quite good. Like if you, if you traded Adam Thielen for Julio Jones, you obviously got an upgrade, but like you didn't really like supercharge the, like,

you know what I mean? Like you got better, but it's not. You go from eight out of 10 to a nine out of 10. Exactly. Yeah. Go up by 12%. Yeah.

And like Corey Davis is not quite as good as Adam Thiel, but I think it's the same concept. Right. And so I don't know that that offense really got that much better after losing Johnny Smith and Corey Davis, and then going to Josh Reynolds and Julio Jones, they did get better. Probably that offensive coordinator change scares me.

Tan Hill is just kind of one of those quarterbacks that nobody seems to buy into and trust the numbers of kind of like her cousins i guess um both play action heavy rollout heavy uh play actions unbelievable wide zone heavy yeah um but this is a team that i think is going to regress for reasons unrelated to julio and uh it there is no world where you can argue that they should have blown it up but they're one of those teams that's just good enough to consistently compete out themselves out of the ability to find an another solution it's kind of like the marvin lewis bangles right where um and and maybe they're better you know they made a run in 2019 but like even if the defense gets better the underlying numbers of that team they were closer to a nine

win team really than an 11 win team last year and they added a bunch of defenders none of whom i'm a huge fan of like bud dupree i like danicoico Autry. Honestly, that's fair. But like Caleb Farley, maybe the best athlete in that draft. You can't tell. He never tested. But I just feel like it's going to be a year before Caleb Farley can be like a good corner. And I don't really buy Bud Dupree. He's only a double-digit sacks, I think, once in his career. And I've always been kind of a critic of him.

So maybe that's just coloring my expectation. But that defense I don't think is going to be good it might be a little bit better and that offense i think is going to regress just because you change offensive coordinators and tan hill's kind of whatever and the offense is kind of figured out and derrick henry is hitting the age where running backs kind of fall off so i don't know i it's a great deal for tennessee and i understand why they make it if i'm running tennessee i have, I have to believe that we can make a run at the Superbowl. And this is one way to do it, especially after losing Corey Davis. So I get it. I just, I can't get excited about it. And man, this sucks for Atlanta who I assume kind of felt strong armed into it. Yeah, that's brutal. I mean, yeah, we, we, we talked a little bit about the undisputed.

Were you, were you in Iceland for that? The cold call with Shannon? I think it was right before I left, actually, I think. OK, because I remember I wasn't obviously on the show on this show talking about it. But I remember thinking about my first reaction was that this was unethical. I was kind of surprised that no one was talking about it. And then people started talking about it. And then I think a lot of enough people pointed out he probably knew that he was on TV.

There was a good chance that he knew he was on TV and he didn't seem to react when he found out that he was on TV. And so it might have just been part of the bit. My first reaction was that this was unethical journalism. Yeah. If it was like going to be an unethical thing, I guess it would it would be undisputed. Right. It would be a Bayiff's lead program yeah um but i never bought that julio wasn't in on the bit yeah i always uh thought that was intentional on his part i wanted to a complete one-off here i'm i'm on the tennessee

titans our lads website which is like a depth chart you know kind of tracker guess who they currently have slotted in as a second string cornerback on that team this might not be what the team is thinking but our lads thinks this second string cornerback i i don't know uh this is giving me no information. Okay, I'll say this. We've mentioned his name on this show. Like today, you mean? Today. Jesus. I was going to say like Mike Epps or something like that. Former Viking.

Former Viking. Mentioned his name on the show. Oh God, it's not Chris Jones, is it? Yeah, it's Chris Jones. Good luck. The man who didn't get Erfud the vikings are signing every cornerback that walks the earth except chris jones who would have been literally free yeah he would have negotiated done it with anybody else yeah it wouldn't you wouldn't have cracked the top 51

wouldn't have affected the cap at all they were just like look buddy roster space is real valuable also we're only signing 86 players this year bye what a slap in the face um i'm i'm just curious if tennessee like was was privy to this all along and were really confident they would make a move and maybe i guess if they don't get jones they're you know going after one of those those free agents that are still sitting there but before julio who's that guy that we kept on saying the vikings should sound like dark has an art is he still out i think he's still out there um that was an iceland piece of news that you missed he signed with arizona oh interesting okay yeah good luck yeah um and once againly, like very late to get signed,

but I just don't know what Tennessee would have done if they didn't make this trade because are they just going to go play action to A.J. Brown? Yeah, it would just be the A.J. Brown and Derrick Henry show. It would have been. Yeah. Like I like Josh Reynolds, but man, that is a lot of responsibility. A ton, especially when they lose Janu. And I know Tanneill's great at play

action he was like better than lamar and russell wilson and patna holmes last year but i mean that's performance under play action is one of the least stable statistics that it's a it's performance under pressure performance under play action one of the least stable corebacks are better at play action but how much better they are varies substantially from year to year so the fact that he was really good at play action and that he's losing the guy that designed all those play action plays um he's due for regression i think somebody's gonna be fading the titans in uh in week one i think they're still gonna win the division i'm like yeah this team sucks but yeah they won't they're gonna win division. They've got an insane schedule.

Have you seen it? It's like the it's the AFC East, right? Which I have no idea how good the Dolphins or the Patriots are going to be. But, you know, they've got the Bills, right? And it's the NFC West, which that sucks. And then they've got the first place AFC schedule, right? So they've got the Chiefs and the Steelers. That's really hard.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. They're lucky that they've got that division schedule to land on. Like goodness. So the Vikings don't play the Titans until 2024, at which point Julio will have been a free agent. So will the Vikings ever face Julio Jones again?

Oh man. Yeah. I think it'll stick around for longer he'd be 35 yeah sure yeah I don't know I don't think he's actually really lost that much of a step honestly no I mean they're 32 years old but like he's not he looked per game numbers last year where he looked pretty darn good against the Vikings last year. Like that was not a guy I know he's facing, you know, rookie Gladney rookie day.

That's not a guy who's washed. Yeah. Plus, I mean, he's always been, it's kind of like Patrick Peterson, except, you know,

Peterson's 31. He's already lost his step, but it's like, he's a guy that he's combined his like physical capability with remarkable technical capability. And as, as he ages, and I don't think that he's really lost that much speed or strength, but when he does begin to lose the speed or strength, he's going to find other ways to win. It's going to actually, Larry is probably the best Cardinal to compare him to out of the Cardinals. um but yeah i i i expect that the vikings

will play against julio again at some point hey everyone i want to tell you about our friends it's scout logistics and i really do mean it when i say friends they are fans of purple insider over at scout logistics and since they reached out wanting to support this show i want to tell you about what they do scout logistics is just is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads. And if you're wondering what that means exactly, well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America. And we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right?

They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out scoutlogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. Here's the activity that I want to do to end the show. I'm going to go, trust me, I've come up with far more embarrassing activities in our podcasting past than this one. We're going to go position by position to save time. We'll do some

consolidation. We'll consolidate like O-line, D-line, secondary. But I want you to give the most interesting player to you on the Vikings roster. And that can mean really whatever you want it to mean. It can be the player that you are most intrigued to watch the player with the most like to to lose this year or with the most interesting storyline or maybe they're just like an interesting guy but i want to hear your take on whatever you think that means so um quarterback okay i just i love bottom of the roster guys so it's just going to be a bunch of people that are probably going to get cut love it um that's the preview uh for quarterback though the answer is obviously kellen mond who's obviously not going to get cut i don't really have to explain why

and i figured you would go mond i think it's cousins just because i i don't think mond you know plays for performance reasons this year and it's unlikely he plays for injury reasons so if this was like i guess who you're most intrigued about in the pre-season i would go with mine oh yeah but like this kurt cousins season is you know landscape changing for him as an individual and for the course of the team so i'm gonna go kirk your interpretation of interesting is fundamentally uninteresting for this one. Well, how do you know that I'm going to follow that rationale for all of them? Yeah, that's true. Give me some credit.

I'm just saying that for quarterback, the guy who plays is the least interesting answer. Well, the Vikings don't give us a lot of options here with Jake Browning and Nate Stanley. There were two to choose from, and you chose one of them. Oh, so we can't choose the same player well we can but it's more fun if we don't okay okay let's do running back uh yeah can i obviously um i'm curious i'm curious if he's gonna make the roster but you know he's like what fourth round picks we probably will um i ran the numbers on this a while ago fourth round picks get cut from their team,

their rookie year before the season starts once every two years, which is to say one out of 64 times. So for the Vikings, it was Willie Beavers a while back, but yeah, fourth round picks almost always make the team. So he's going to make it, but like, is he going to be the kick returner? I'm curious about that. That's a really interesting thing. Is he going to slot into the mike boone role right away which was not really much of a role unless devlin cook was hurt i don't know but he's got a lot of speed he didn't get to play a lot at

iowa state who knows i want to do a tangent quickly on fourth round picks because i'm writing a little bit about this for wednesday um from 2000 to 2010 these these are the Vikings' fourth-round picks. And there are some absolute studs in here. Wait, Jerry's right's in there, right? Well, not in this subset. So in this first decade, Tyrone Carter, he was pretty good. Antonio Wilson, nah. Sean Worth and Cedric james and

then it gets good brian williams ontario smith moweldy moore yay net yeah moweldy nat dorsey and uh theatric face on man and then these three in a row ray edwards Ray Edwards, Brian Robison, Everson Griffin. Yeah. Wow. They hit on half or more of those fourth-round picks in that decade were good or great. Yeah. Not just reliable starters, but good starters. Yeah. Couple guys that were cult-follow like moeldi yeah um and then

some legitimately awesome pass rushers now look at the the track record of late starting with 2011 christian ballard um and then this year was probably the best year they got jarius right and red allison and greg childs who didn't work out oh poor greg childs i know that is my teammate right yeah oh my god yeah so you've got two that were all right right there then it's gerald hodges oh jay clemmings i want to know more about gerald hodges by the way like was not bad for the vikings gets traded kind of suddenly to the 49ers right well that there's pay up paving the way for uh kendrick's yeah there must have been more to that story though yeah there there has to be okay so gerald hodges then who uh clemmings and beavers in consecutive seasons brutal um jaleel johnson

um ben gideon who you know had was a person aside from, I thought Gideon turned out to be a good pick, and I don't think I even liked the pick at the time. Yeah, he started games in a base defense guy. Jalen Holmes, though. Then Drew Samia. Then Lynch, Dye, and Wanham. Jury is out, but the first two of those were not great but it's just it's just a a decade of like very like bad or mediocre fourth round pick yeah uh nearly started off on a on a on a high note was it 2012 was jerry's right is that what you said yeah yeah that was fine and

then it's just kind of downhill from there and he's probably the best right and ricky's son um so that was a tangent um i'm also going to go with kenny wongu because it feels to me like the vikings are going to go into a cycle of just churning through second running backs as long as dalvin cook is around yeah so i don't know if alexander madison's beyond a four-year guy so wongu maybe you can fill in you know settle into that role that would be a lot that would be huge for him and that's why i'm intrigued about it interesting okay yeah um wide receiver uh smith-marset that's such a boring answer for this interesting answer thing but um led iowa in receiving still didn't get a ton of yards led iowa in receiving i think two years actually still never got a ton of yards

um huge deep threat guy the vikings don't really have one of those i mean they've got you know all rounders like thielen and jefferson but they don't really have like a deep threat guy which uh theoretically changes the geometry of the defense for the better um if he works out as a third receiver and it sounds like he, you know, he's a rookie fifth rounder, right? So he might not do it this year. Probably won't do it this year. I should say. I think that would be a really big boon for the offense. Plus a stunningly talented kick returner, even more than Wangu. And if they can figure that position out,

like they were spoiled at that position for so long with harvin and patterson um if they can figure that position out and don't have to rely on you know worrying about amir abdullah fumbles or mike hughes doing whatever mike hughes does back there um or whatever i mean that'd be that would be cool so um i think he's interesting plus he on the field he's shown a lot of personality i haven't talked to. Plus, on the field, he's shown a lot of personality. I haven't talked to him yet, but on the field, he's shown a ton of personality. Yeah, that juggling routine on the sideline on that Mond fade

was very personality-filled. It doesn't make him that interesting. Last year, it would have been Dan Chisna, so this is at least a player that's probably going to make the roster. Dan Chisna did make the roster. He did, but he probably shouldn't have no um i'm gonna go with my potential i'm not locking this in potential mr mancato pick wow okay really well you don't you don't like it he's a good job till you're standing he's a good college player i just i don't think the skills translate if i was picking

mr mancato out of the undrafted i think it'd be blake prole i think he's like prole i think he's good i pegged prole as um my like least favorite of the three wide receivers but what do i don't know anything yeah who who freaking knows about these guys yeah seriously i mean i liked i liked jake winnicky until i saw him on the field right um how about tight end uh i'm gonna stick with um brandon dylan because zach davidson as interesting as his story is he's a totally fair pick and if you picked him i won't argue with it as interesting as the story is brandon dylan i think um has a better chance to make the roster than the fifth round pick i I think they ran out of, I think they started digging into the priority free agents in the fifth round

this year. And I think Zach Davidson's a perfect example of that. I think he's destined for the practice squad. And I think it's going to be, it would be frustrating to watch him if he was supposed to fill a tight end three rule. And I think the Vikings maybe didn't signal that they trusted Brandon Dillon. Maybe they just didn't have enough resources to grab a third tight end. But we'll need to trust him, I think.

And he has shown a lot of growth over the past two years in camp, according to my eyes. I don't know. It's training camp. Your eyes will deceive you a lot if you're a stupid reporter like me. But I really like Brandon Dillon. I think that he's grown as a blocker. I thought his first year in camp was really exciting

from a receiving perspective. He's interesting to me, an AIA player that was basically just a big receiver at like Marist, I think it was. Marion. Marion, that's it. Marist is not an AIA school. Yeah, Marion.

And I don't know if the Vikings want to run a bunch of two tight end sets. Brandon Dillon's going to have to be a legit third tight end for that to be a comfortable option for them i'm gonna go with conklin because they're fair actually yeah they're entrusting a lot yeah that's a good point and this is a big year for him like if he has a really good year he could get a big contract or at least like a life-changing contract for a fifth round pick oh yeah and they're they're they're trusting a lot based off of it admittedly very good but still just a five game sample totally totally um and typically with the vikings you know we don't we

don't see a lot of those kind of late round tight ends rise up the ladder a lot of them peak at that third tight end role yeah and they're almost always like the the hybrid fullback like the ryan de imperio types yeah and conklin seems to have a chance to be more than that and clearly the team didn't didn't even think about like bringing in someone to challenge him because yeah there weren't even rumors connecting them to tight ends this year and this was not a bad tight end free agent market the only tight end they brought in was the converted tight end shane zylstra that's right yeah yeah how about offensive line a lot to choose from and all five of those tight ends would have been actually fine answers huh um offensive line geez uh i'm gonna skip the draft picks i think they're maybe a

little bit obvious uh if oleodo had a real shot to actually compete for a starting job i would have picked him um i'm gonna instead pick uh kyle hinton because um he's obviously he's just competing for a roster spot right there's no chance he's gonna play um but incredible super athlete i love the small school super athletes collar makes fun of me for this every single year and he's absolutely right too um but uh you know they moved him to center he played left tackle at washburn i want to say um and uh i i i think that they kind of see more for him because they grabbed a bunch of guys that can play center, including they just grabbed Cole Cabral,

which actually I don't really get that fit at all anyway. I just don't really see Cole Cabral as an NFL player. I'd love for him to prove me wrong, obviously. This is not just like trying to hate on someone. But Kyle Hinton, I am pretty excited by the fact that they've held on to him through the practice squad for this long, you know, maybe,

maybe there's something there. Um, I'm going to go with Ezra Cleveland. And I think the reasons are pretty obvious. Um, he's, you know, a tackle who's been switched to guard and now he's going to left guard.

And like another guy that the team is entrusting a huge amount to this year. Um, because their guard depth is not great. Such a weird trajectory for that dude, man. I almost feel bad for him. Six game sample. Pretty good.

Like, I think that's encouraging, you know, at least. I disagree. The PFF grades are positive for him, but I, I did not,

I was not impressed with what I saw. I thought it was actually fairly poor play, but most people disagree with me so i'm probably wrong i don't know you're you're a trustworthy analyst to reef so that that gives me pause um how about the let's pivot to defense defensive line i think there's some some juicy intriguing guy everybody man um man if james lynch wasn't such a disappointment last year, maybe I would have picked him. DJ Wanham has a lot to prove, but it's so crowded for him. I think I'm going to pick the answer that I guess is obvious, but there's a ton of answers at work here,

so I'm not really taking much off the table. But I'm going to go with Jalen Twyman. Weird kind of offseason for him. Obviously, he didn't play, but he essentially tried to build himself like a nose tackle had in my opinion an awful pro day except he had the 40 bench press reps um had a remarkable 2019 at pit incredible right you know cat quick right just incredible stuff right good sacks um when i was doing Christian Derrissaw breakdowns, obviously I watched the 2019 game against Pitt where Patrick Jones and Jalen Twyman combined

for like a couple of sacks. Incredible stuff, right? So the Vikings, Spielman sat down at VEN with Gabe Henderson and said, hey, we're like monitoring. We've asked this kid to send us weekly updates on his weight with pictures of him on the scale um we want him to lose weight um he played at 285 at pit i think

he's listed at 290 but he played at 285 at pit weighed in at the pro day at like 320 so remade his body and that was to unremake his body and that you don't get to always snap back to what you were sometimes it's irreparable so i'm curious if this works out for him because if it does and the vikings get um the guy that was playing for pitt in 2019 they've got a second maybe first round talent um at defensive tackle that can rush the passer which is going to be huge given that they don't really have interior pass rushers yeah i wrote a big feature about patrick jones and twyman for our website yeah you did it was good yeah thank you um and twyman is just like a really interesting person so i like that answer on a couple of different fronts because he's he's a guy who and people can read the story but as a freshman

redshirt at pit they're sharing the practice facility with the steelers and he's going up to like tj watt and bud dupree and asking them how they pass rush, like what their philosophy is, what their mindset is. And he's trying to befriend Aaron Donald, and he has no fear about asking advice. And I think that's probably a good trait. Like if you're if you're that like humble and that curious when you're that age, that's going to suit you well. So I like Jalen twyman a lot i'll go with the more obvious michael pierce because i think he's a really interesting person i love talking to him on the conference calls yeah and we just haven't seen him in two years is he gonna be you know how's his fitness gonna be is he gonna be the run stuffer that we

all envision is it gonna be linval like or is it going to be disappointing i've got fitness was a question for him in baltimore too like they you know he was suspended for a couple of days in camp for showing up overweight like and then that year he had like injury problems which might have been weight related so that's an interesting question um just for time we going to skip linebacker because that's a little bit obvious. Let's do secondary. The whole secondary. The whole secondary. Personality wise, I'd probably have to go Cam Bynum.

And then everything else, I'm going to go with Cam Bynum. Out of the 20 options that were available, I also chose Cam Bynum. Incredible charisma, first of all. But second, I don't know, just like a guy that's not, he's both confident and humble, which you love to see, right? But also is just a great combination

for somebody making a position switch um somebody who played really well in college at the position that he was playing um and could not this year but could um take over right because xavier woods is on a one-year contract if he plays well enough he'll beat out josh matelis um for the third safety spot or you know the primary guy to take over if there's an injury or whatever and he could do it immediately right as a fifth round pick um the he was a guy that was considered a reach by the consensus board and i think that if more analysts had considered him a safety instead of a corner he might have been uh slotted higher by a lot of these draft boards so he might not have been a reach by that measure but um just an interesting person and a super hard worker that um't let the seriousness of hard work define kind of his demeanor.

Yeah, the highest safety draft pick, if you consider him a safety draft pick, says he was a corner. The highest safety draft pick since Harrison Smith that this team has devoted in. And we talk a lot about how the Vikings want to kind of practice their more experienced players with the ones and twos, like above the rookies at this stage. But the exception this year is Cam Bynum, who is above Josh Metellus on the depth chart. Metellus is with the threes. Bynum's been with the twos every rep that I've seen.

So there's already a little bit of preference being shown to the rookie which i think he's being groomed i think they want him to be the the future starter that yeah it only makes sense and they might have two spots to fill yeah no that's true yeah um yeah i i don't know. You've, you've, you've, you've kind of fleshed it all out. I think that he's the answer here. Yeah. And my specialist is Zach Von Rosenberg. He's a left-footed punter who's 30 years old and a rookie and was a professional pitcher. Yeah. So it's gotta be him.

I don't think Riley Patterson makes the roster based off of what I've seen. This is what else you missed while you were in Iceland. Was he mailing them all in OTAs? Riley Patterson had a terrible OTA practice last week. Oh, really? Because he had an awful minicamp. He had a rough. And I didn't count every make. I don't know what his percentage

was i clocked at least four misses so that's not good there's not there's not there's not enough kicks in a kicker's practice day for four to ever look good for four misses to ever result in a good percentage no no so he was rough in minicamp Like I kind of like three misses, but then also two near misses, which like even practice conditions, you're not going through the center often enough. Like if, if you have to like lean to try and get the field goal in practice

conditions, like, and it was clear he was not aiming for the field goal. Right. Cause sometimes kickers will aim for the post. It was very clear. He was not doing that. Advantage Greg Joseph. Yeah yeah at this stage yep uh arifasan he's at arifasan nfl i imagine he'll be back at otas and uh and mandatory mini camp because it's mandatory and it's yeah i don't

want to get fined it's attached to his contract so uh he writes about the Vikings and nationally for theathletic.com. Make sure to check out his work. And he's very good on Twitter. Thank you, Arif. Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam.