Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Mike Sando is fascinated by Kyler Murray with the Vikings

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

National NFL writer Mike Sando joins Matthew Coller to talk about how he sees Kyler Murray fitting with the Minnesota Vikings. He also discusses the Vikings' future at general manager and how they will structure the front office. Plus Matthew answers Viking fan questions about the NFL Draft approach by the team. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here and on the show from the athletic Mike Sando. I am fascinated by what people say about Kyler Murray because one, I think that a lot of folks just haven't paid much attention to him over the last few years for decent reasons. It's been a bad franchise. They've gone through some really tough years. And the interesting thing, though, is in 2024, he underwent a. pretty significant offense change with Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petzing.

And it stands out to me, Mike, that he was asked to play a lot more traditional quarterback than backyard quarterback. I'm curious about through the years when you do the quarterback tiers and what you've heard about him, if that progress is something that shows up or if that change is something that shows up when you talk about Kyler. I think there's two things that come up with Kyler. one was hey he's the been he's kind of the entitled guy in from the entitled generation super talented

but like um he had the he probably didn't benefit early in his career from being the number one pick who didn't have to probably listen to anybody and you're going to play anyway you get entitled i think too had some of that too so these guys who come in they're not all wired like tom brady who waited till the sixth round and tom's wired that way sure we give him credit as being a grinder, but being picked in the sixth round is a big part of that. Like if Kyler had to wait, come on up, this is Joel, by the way. If Kyler had to wait on that and came in the league with a chip on his shoulder, it would be different for him. So that's one component that always comes up with him. And the other is you are limited to some degree by the size. He can't do certain

things. So I think now as you go to the Vikings, well, the entitlement part, unless it's just wired into his DNA, look, if he doesn't study or know stuff, he doesn't play. Like, they don't have to play him, you know, unless JJ's just not able to play or they don't have a better alternative. But they can sign Carson Wentz. Like, if he doesn't, if he needs the clause in his contract that was so famous, you know, hey, you've got to study because he wasn't ever turning on his iPad and everyone's joking about when the latest video games are coming out, that has a chance to change now because

the terms are different for him, right? So we'll see, right? Now, I also think way better weapons, better organization. Kevin O'Connell's been there a long time, and I think we'll probably embrace the idea of all these coaches like him, you know, their friends are going to be watching the Moreno League. They want to see what are you going to do with this guy. So you're not going to square peg round hole him. I think they'll play into some of those things. That will be fascinating to me, how that comes together.

So it's those two things. How does the size limit him and where's he at in terms of being a self-starter? You know, being a leader. Those types of things have not come naturally to him, but the circumstances are different now. I'm always curious when it comes to stuff like that, like if we get too fixated on one thing that came out, one story, one narrative with someone. And I think what made me start to think about that a lot was Sam Darnold and seeing ghosts. it just really fit for the way that he played early in his career and struggles with reading defenses or whatever it might have been.

So then as we even went along and he had some bad playoff games for the Vikings, it came back to, well, that's just who he is. He just sees ghosts. And I don't know if there's a connection there with Kyler Murray, but I do wonder about like how real are narratives that are told about players based on, you know, the thing in the contract or based on, I mean, he's, Now there's all sorts of athletes streaming.

Sorry, Kyler was ahead of his game, I guess. Yeah, exactly. It could be overblown. I do think, though, that, you know, I draw a distinction between seeing ghosts, which Sam Donald has and was. I mean, look, everyone who goes to that market, you know, for the most part is, I mean, shoot, Adam Gaze was seeing ghosts, right? We didn't hear from him for a few years.

He's back now, right? Like, it was just like, that place choose you up, you know? And so I think the concern with Kyler is that criticism is a little bit more of a personality traitor, a character traitor, something that isn't necessarily. Like that's a, it's been a real issue. That has been a real issue. Overblown? I don't know. They put it in there.

Like, you know, they were, you know, I think the story was like, you know, like Tom Brady was putting in, you know, whatever. Tom Brady, do remember the movie Back to School? I do not. Back to school, Rodney Dangerfield. Check it out. mid-80s. The idea was that Rodney Dangerfield, as an old guy, was going to go back to college with his son. And in order to study, he was hiring guys from NASA because he's a guy with money, you know, but to pass the finals, he was, he had the books. He's like getting, he's a rich guy getting a

massage on a table. And even when he's doing that, he's studying, right? Every, every aspect, you can't go to the bathroom without being studying. You're having a meal you're studying because he's trying to, he's trying to pass. That's like Brady, right? Brady's on the training room. he's reading that thing. And I think a lot of the best guys at that position do that. And Kyler hasn't had to do that. And Kyler wasn't doing that. Sorry, Doggy, he's so emotionally attuned that when I get excited and raise my voice, he's trying to comfort me now. I don't need comfort. Let's go take a thing over here. Let's make this a professional operation. But I think that I'm a little bit more worried about that being a defining trait of Kyler than I am seeing ghosts,

that sort of a thing. So, you know, when you haven't been a grinder, do you become one, right? And I think even in our industry or in any industry, you know, people are wired a different way. And yet, Kyler has undeniable talents. And I would love to know. This would be a fun thing for me to find out, like, is it really as bad as people say? And I think not. You know, I've talked to some of those guys in Arizona. And they never, they weren't trashing him behind the scenes, you know. I have honest relationships with people that were there. And yeah, would they like him to do some things better? Or would they like him to be more of a grinder, probably?

But I never sensed that the people that have coached him there the last few years were at wits end with him. I never sensed that. Okay. And it doesn't mean that they didn't want to move on from him or, you know, there's not limitations. He's been hurt too. But I don't think his flaws are necessarily fatal in a new place under new terms.

So the breakdown that I got from Josh Weinfuss, who you know, it works for ESPN on the relationship and that change was that when he came into the league, he was running an offense that was so similar to what he had always done that maybe didn't feel like it took the extra work. Now, that doesn't mean it's okay. That doesn't mean it's okay that it didn't. But I also think that it was a weird situation with Cliff Kingsbury. And it reminded me it pinged in my mind with Caleb Williams, how she's. Shane Waldron tried to do half of his college offense and half of his regular offense. And I was just watching the other day an interview with Justin Pugh, who does some media stuff now, but it was an old interview where he talked about how they would just go on first clap when Cliff Kingsbury was there.

Yes. In the NFL, you're going on first clap. So I think that the environment that was created early in his career was like, Kyler just go be special and figure it out. And I think that shifted significantly when Jonathan Gannon got there. Well, no doubt. And those guys want kind of, you got the sense they wanted to play, Djy Jujobi Berset, just because he was a better fit for what they wanted to do offensively, even though he wasn't nearly the same player. I thought it was a little bit mysterious.

There's money involved there, too, and they want to, you know, organizationally, they're not the Eagles, you know, let's just face it. And so they could have been trying to mitigate what they owe him and doing some things for non-traditional reasons in terms of holding him out when he could have played and those sorts of things. What I'm really fascinated with the Minnesota, though, is in that division, you've got two, let's put Matt LaFluor's side. You've got two guys in Kevin O'Connell and Ben Johnson who have young quarterbacks and are, if they both got fired today, they'd probably be hired quickly as offensive-minded head coaches for their ability to work with quarterbacks. But they do it in different ways. I think that Ben Johnson has been a publicly.

call out guys. I remember when they took over Caleb Williams, a lot of the same issues with Tyler were brewing behind the scenes. And we saw the big story, you know, that Tyler Dunn did going into last season that was like, oh my gosh, you know, that, Kyler-Murray times 1,000. Like if you wanted to do that story about Kyler, you could do it, right? You could do the exact same story of the one, Caleb. It doesn't mean they're bad guys, but it means you could find those false with them. So what did Ben Johnson do? He really walked that line of like public accountability. he was talking publicly about body language, not just with Caleb, but with other players. And he really, when he went in there, like, I thought he was not coddling at all.

Like he sort of got his attention. Kevin O'Connell doesn't really do that publicly as much. He's a little bit more of their friends a little bit. That's my perception. Now, Kevin, if he heard that, you know, he might slap me across the face. He might pull me. If you see this, he may pull me aside at the league meeting and say, what are you talking about? I coach these guys as hard as anybody, and he might.

But my perception is that, you know, for the most part, it's a friendlier, a little bit of a friendlier approach and a little bit less of, I don't want to say less accountability, but you know what I mean? Just a little bit less, I feel like there's more of an edge to Ben Johnson. And that may be kind of working a little bit with Caleb. Now, the difference is that with Kyler, he's not Caleb anymore. Right. He doesn't have that big, he doesn't have that big contract and that, that free pass.

You know what I mean? I totally agree with you. And I don't know if it's the right way to put it of be their friend, but, you know, Connell having played in the NFL recently, it feels more like a teammate when it's a veteran quarterback. But with J.J. McCarthy, that was quite different because he was trying to teach him how to play quarterback. and publicly, you are never going to have Kevin O'Connell call out people,

even as poorly as JJ McCarthy was playing last year. And there were a few, I think, slips maybe of things that he kind of let, like, oh, you know, something's getting to him at some point. But he's- I felt it last year. I did feel it last year. I feel like Kevin was, you know, and I remember analyzing. I don't have all the details fresh in my mind, but I remember, I remember sensing a shift too.

And at that time, we were also sort of wondering, like, okay, there's all that stuff sort of swirling behind the scenes of. there's something off there, the GM, the coach, who picked who. You know, there was some of that sort of, it felt like a little bit of positioning almost at times on some of the stuff, which happens in these organizations. So maybe we get a little bit of a cleaner slate for everyone. I don't think everyone is banking on JJ. Like, hey, JJ's, at this point, it's a little bit more on JJ to show that he can be healthy and be the guy, right? They're not having to prop him up in the media this year to me.

Yeah, that's true. And I felt like there has been some propping up over the time in the media and trying to manage this situation. And you never know as a coach, as a front office, who you're talking to, the owner. You know, this is, there's a lot of different things involved here. And I do feel like it's a little bit cleaner this year where, hey, not, no one's quite as invested in any one of these guys. Do you feel that? Oh, yeah. No, that's absolutely true.

And I think from the public comments of Kevin O'Connell, he left all the breadcrums that left you understanding that they were going to look for other quarterbacks, whether it was him talking about McCarthy kind of doing his own thing out there and then coming to the sideline and giving him feedback that he didn't understand because it wasn't what they had game planned. And that's not something I would have expected him to say publicly, but it was also, you know, their five and eight or whatever and their ranking dead last and, you know, quarterback rating is a team and so forth. And I think at some point you probably get so exhausted that you can't help yourself from letting some of that out at times, you know?

And remember you were saying, hey, did Sam Darnan get too much into them? People just, the ghost is the only thing or the contract clause? Is Kevin now saddled with the, hey, organizations fail these quarterbacks more than quarterbacks fell them? I feel like that's become his sort of, you know, it's either on your plaque as you go in the Hall of Fame or it's on your tombstone, right? And it's like, that may be over, that may be overstated too, right? Kevin has said that he feels that, but it doesn't mean that he thinks these

quarterbacks all should get a pass either, right? Totally, totally. And I did an entire show when the season ended of like, did Kevin O'Connell fail J.J. McCarthy where we like dove deep into the offense and what had happened there and the circumstance and everything else. I mean, I did not come up with, yes, Kevin. I didn't come up with that conclusion. but I do think a lot of circumstances played into it, which is coaches in that comment,

it almost suggests that you have complete control over what happens with your quarterback. And in reality, you have very little control over what happens with your quarterback and whether they succeed or not. I think there's an overestimation in that comment of, well, if you control the environment well enough, if you give them the right weapons, if you give them the line, if you give them all the right teaching points and everything else, but you know what you can't control is his meniscus, which got damaged and he was out for a year. And then the impression they had from 2024 camp that they were using to project him onto this year, they didn't realize he was going to go back to square one.

And then Daniel Jones didn't show up. And then they looked around and went, uh, what do we do now exactly? And the only thing they could do was just see if they could make it work and see if they could set things up well enough. Then Christian Derasaw is out. then Jordan Addison suspended. And, uh-oh, you can't control everything to make sure your quarterback doesn't fail. Also, some guys just don't work out, which is another thing that none of us ever want to accept. We need a million different explanations.

But sometimes a guy just isn't as fit as well for the NFL as you thought he was. Absolutely, yeah. I totally agree with that. I think there's things that press Kevin's buttons. I think he's passionate about stuff. And I think sometimes you get a reaction out of him almost unexpectedly over something that he really feel strongly about and in some of those cases that candor you know gets used against you later when it might be disproportionate to what you really feel right it just got you at that at that moment so

I think it's going to be a really fun interesting season I think I love the clarity I mean I I don't wish for anyone to get fired but I think it's a cleaner thing without quasi there I think that was a you know at some point there'll be a book written or or stories written about what actually was going on there because you just heard so many things. And yet everybody would say, Quays, he's a great guy, you know. Yep. I think he's a good person. And yet, it's cleaner this year.

You know, we'll see what they do after the draft. I know they could bring in a GM, but I get the feeling that, well, what's going to happen there? I'm just curious. With the draft? With GM. Oh, with GM. Oh, yeah.

So they're going to do their search after the draft, it seems. And Kevin's going to be very involved. in that, I think, in the fit. I could see Brzynski become president. What is Brzezinski president right now? He right now, I'm going to have to think of what his exact title is. Vice president. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of these teams are having somebody be the president and do a lot of the admin. And obviously, he's a huge pillar there, you know, Rob is. And he's really well regarded in the league. I can see that happening. And then, you know, let's get some one in there that we know is a good fit with the coach. because we just heard so much that it wasn't a good fit in sort of ways that were hard to report or it wasn't really a fact, but it was just, that was the perception in the league. And so I'm anxious to kind of see it feel fully aligned and not be like, okay, Kwayze wanted Sam Howell

and then, you know, all of that type of stuff. Like I just, there's been too much intrigue for a team that's had some success. I kind of want to see that go away and just like, hey, let's see how he coaches Kyler. Let's see what JJ can do. You know, the struggle that I had during that whole thing and even going back to McCarthy last year was as they were doing what we had expected them to do the entire time, going to McCarthy, and as they were winning a lot of games and getting graded extremely highly by the NFLPA and seemingly making moves that made total sense with their timeline.

and you had free agent signings that appeared that the coaching staff and the front office were aligned on. It all kind of made sense and clicked. So then you would hear about how there was the headbutting, but also this is the NFL. And I don't know how many buildings have headbutting between a general manager and a coach. I'm going to guess it's probably a lot. Right. So it's hard to think of it. It's hard to think of crazy headbutting anybody, you know? Yeah. Yeah. He seems like it was a nice guy. So anyway, there's just a little, there seems like. like there's been a lot of stuff kind of floating around there that wasn't really maybe rising to the level of it being a story. You weren't 100% sure what was true. But there was something there.

There was some smoke there that I feel like has a chance to not be there. Yeah. Yes. I would agree with that. Yeah. And it feels like there's not whatever competing agendas or there were or maybe just a style. You heard about like quasi style of, you know, he wasn't a traditional GM or whatever, whatever it is. My hope for the Vikings would be and my expectation for the Vikings would be that that stuff kind of clears up and we're not trying to re-between the line so much there. Yeah. I think the main- I'm going to be a huge goal of this.

I think it has to almost be the result of this. You know, they're not going to hire someone to come in and shake it up. I think they're going to find a piece that fits and they may divide the duties. You know, we're seeing in a lot of these organizations where, hey, James Gladstone's super new. So we're going to have Besselli, who's not a seasoned administrator, but he's been around the game a long time. He can be the liaison of the owner. And, you know, the budgets for the budgets in whatever, public relations or marketing or

football ops or those sorts of things, that's not going to be what Gladstone worries about, right? And I think the Vikings are set up now with Brzezinski, who's going to be there to, maybe he's been doing that already. But, you know, to just sort of have this thing streamlined in a way where you're not reading between the lines. I think they can be very healthy for the organization. I think the best structure would be if you had Brzynski being the direct line to ownership, because when you don't have an ownership that lives in the city where the team is and the facility and everything else, I think that there have been a few times where they've lost the finger on the pulse a little bit of the relationships. And it was sort of like you're fighting with your siblings and then you go tell mom and dad,

everything is fine, even if it's not, right? And so I think they need someone that they really trust at the very top and then GM and head coach. Absolutely. So Brian Flores lived that in Miami. Stephen Ross is an out-of-town owner. And so I talked to a lot of coaches around a league of like, in fact, at the Combine, I was talking to a lot of people about it because Kevin Sfansky was going right from one job to another in Atlanta. And so I was talking to people using that as sort of an example of like, what would you do differently the second time, you know? And I think when you come in as a coach or a GM, you don't really know how it's, how it works and how it's going to be. I think one of the biggest regrets that, people have is managing up and how you do that. And so I used to do a podcast with Randy Mueller. Randy's now back in the league with the Saints, but he's been a two or three time GM. And he was executive of the year with the Saints in like 2001 or two. And he was like a fire year later.

And so we used to talk about that on the podcast. It wasn't because he didn't do a good job evaluating. He wasn't probably, if he could do it again, he probably would have managed that relationship with ownership a little bit differently. And so I think that's a challenge in some of these buildings where, you know, you about the wolf will summoning people to new jersey a week after the season and all of a sudden quays he's out you know that's a so there's a management that needs to be done there and if rob is the person to do it and is on the same page with kevin and can can convey those types of things

honestly you're in a much better position the problem you get into and the the thing that coaches and even some jams worry about is okay there's a tendency too for that person who's liaison to to see it in from their viewpoint and they would do things differently but they would do things differently but they They wouldn't do their, they wouldn't go to the owner and say, I would do things differently. That for myself, they would say, I wish the coach would do this or we would have drafted that. And that becomes a hard thing, you know, for the coach or the GM. So it's a, it can really work like in Seattle. Not only is the owners not there, haven't been there, but they only have an office in the building.

Yeah. Like Paul Allen, I was on the beat for when he was the owner. I was in the beat for nine years. I like met him once when they were opening a new stadium. and they talked him into giving an interview. Like wasn't even there. If he came to practice, he'd be like, oh, my gosh. He never went to the league meetings.

Yeah. All of these places are different. And I think, you know, that communication is so critical to making sure everyone's on the same page. And for whatever reason, the last couple years in Minnesota, even though I don't think any of the people were bad people, it felt like there was a little bit of a disconnect there from everything that you heard. Yep.

And San Francisco immediately brought Quasi back as soon as he was. was out here, which I think, you know, that's an organization that is top-notch and says a lot about him. And I think that individually you could have this work if it was done maybe a different way. Because what ownership wanted to do was they wanted to have collaboration because Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer, you talk about budding heads. I mean, that was more than that. That was a total class.

Well, Zimmer, but said Zimmer's like a ram on those National Geographic shows. This is what he does. Yes, right. John Payton's that way, too. You know, they're just old school parcels guys, you know, and that's what you get. Right, right. So I think they wanted the total opposite of that, which was a new way of thinking and they wanted everyone to work together and be a kumbaya kind of thing.

And as we know in the NFL, it's very hard to make that actually work. Hey, but think of what I just said about Miami. That was Miami. They had flow who's a hard, it was, you know, a hard tough guy. And then they wanted to go to McDaniel, who's the opposite of that, isn't it? But like the problem is in the structure. The problem is in the structure and the absenteeism and what that allows internally. And you get people then who become the voice to ownership at the expense of other things.

And expenses sometimes of that clear communication and everyone being represented. So that's why I think some of these coaches insist on, hey, I want to report directly to the owner. You know, nothing against UGM, but I need to be able to say my thing. And I get that. You know, I get that. So hopefully for them, you know, that. whatever was out of alignment, to whatever extent,

you know, gets streamlined. And some of that is the personalities involved, but also it's the ownership. I want to circle back to Kyler Murray for I let you go and play your dog and drink diet, Dr. Pepper. Yeah, he said,

he got down and gave up. There's a lot of fascinating comments about Kyla Murray's game in the, through the years. I read all of them and looked at his rankings. He's consistently ranked somewhere between 12th and 17th. And the only time he was 17th was coming off of when he had the ACL, the recovery starts in the middle of the year.

He was 15th coming into this season after a pretty solid 2004. And there's still some comments on the negative side of Kyle and Murray about closing out games. And is he a guy that, you know, you're going to be really afraid of at the end of a game who's going to put the dagger in your back? And maybe he's not quite that. I'm curious and our friends over at Fandul have the Vikings over under at, 8 and a half, just from what you have gathered with Murray and his actual game, put the video games aside, his actual performance on the field,

like, what do you see as necessary to make this work? Because I think we both know, this is not Josh Allen, the Vikings just acquired. He would not have been available. So with the shortcomings and the strengths, like, what would be the checklist of this is what has to happen in order for the Vikings to win the NFC North to hit the fan duel over with Kyler Murray's their quarterback. I actually think it is what's been the big key to them doing that so far already, which is that defense, Flores keeps the defense in the top five, top 10.

Yep. Because one of the studies I did, and I've probably, yeah, in fact, if you look at the quarterback tears, I just called it up for this last year. I wrote about this. Murray could use more help. He's one of 32. This is going into last season. of 32 quarterbacks with at least 25 starts over the last three seasons.

None of the 32 has gotten worse support from his defense and special teams on a per-start basis than Murray over that span. So if you look at the, if you look at those 25 games that Murray started and we look at, let's just say, the other 35 quarterbacks that have done that over the same period of time, right? We're looking at anyone who's played as much as Kyler the last three, four years. Kyler, the offense of production would rank like it's something like 13th, 14th, It's almost in the top third. But the defense special team support has been last. So I think that the I would be telling betters.

By the way, they won nine games last year. It felt like they won't two. Right. They won't nine games last year. Like I would take the over all day on that with Minnesota. As long as we feel comfortable that Flores is able to manage whatever changes or, you know, obviously they weren't in a big addition mode this off season. And if we think Flores is almost like the defensive GM right now, you know,

and is getting some of the things that he wants and feels comfortable and he can be a top 10, I think they're going to, I think, I don't know if they're going to, you can't say if they're going to win the division, but like it wouldn't, they'd be a good choice as a team to go from, you know, to win the division who didn't last year. I do believe that because that's an extreme, I do this thing called the betrayal index. Yep. Have you ever seen that?

And the betrayal index is basically like, hey, what quarterbacks are pulling a 5,000 pound weight sled up the hill and which ones are, you know, skateboarding down a hill, right, with a wind, they're back. And Kyler has had way less support defensively. And even last year, they loaded up on defense. All the guys got hurt. And so I think he's going to be living in a world that he's never lived in. And the games are going to be much easier to win for him. They're not going to need. He's going to be able to be a tier three quarterback and win 10 games, in my opinion,

in Minnesota. And maybe he'll be, you know, tier two some of the time. I don't know that with those weapons. Maybe he will. But I think it's a good addition under the circumstances. And I would be very surprised if they are not better than the eight and a half wins. Where do you think he's going to rank in your quarterback tiers? Obviously, it won't be this year.

2027. Oh, okay. 2027. So he's been the guy I think in 2027 he may, should, he may still be the top of tier three. I mean,

maybe he straddles and gets to the bottom of tier two. He hasn't really gone higher than that. I think the ceiling for him is low tier two. I do because what happens here is I feel like there's delayed reaction among the voting panel in quarterback tiers, which I like.

They don't just all the sudden after one good year change what they think on Sam Darn. Right. Now, after winning the Super Bowl and having another good year, it's like Sam Donald's probably might go into low tier two, you know? I think that's a possibility for Kyler, but I think he's still going to be right along the upper tier three. I do in a year with if he does it.

Then if he does it again, he gets into tier two. And how much do you pay that guy if that happens? Well, you'd be hoping to do, you know, one of those middle deals like, like Donald did, you know? Yeah. And then if he does it again, you're talking about going higher. Like Seattle's going to have to make a decision on him on San Donald in a year, right? I'm sorry, I'm laughing at Joel playing with his toy in the background. This is Joel saying, hey, pal, you've been on here long enough.

It's time. He already brought a sock over. He's down by near the laundry room, and he's going to sock. He brings that over, knows he's not supposed to have it. And now he's just going to sit there and do a little squeaky ball. Now that I'm looking at him, he drops it. Okay. He's so good.

I agree with Joel. It's time to go play with the dog. So raise our diet, Dr. Pepper's to another fun football conversation, sir. I really appreciate it. Hopefully we bump into each other in Phoenix at the owner's meetings. I hope so.

We'll definitely. Yeah. And who else going from the market there? I know our guy, Alec Lewis is amazing. Covers of Vikings. He's going. I hope Seifert's going.

Oh, Seifert's going. Yeah. Owners meetings. That's his thing. Yeah. Yeah. I see for it's one of my closest friends. You know, we were ESPN together.

And I admire him as much as anybody in the business. So it would be great to see him. Yep. Kevin is the best. Well, thank you, sir, for your time. And we will absolutely do it again soon.

Probably when quarterback tears comes out. I'll get on the very long list of the media tour that you do. Oh, I love it. We try to do as we can. It was like 65 in a week last year. And so we have to go to 70. I love it.

It's just like all I do that week. It's so fun. So we'll do it. let's sign up fantastic thanks mike okay we'll see you right all right i've got a couple of questions that have been sent in to me that i want to answer before we wrap up the show let's start with biernt who wrote in which would pay better dividends over four years taking a safety at 18 and a wide receiver in round two or three or taking a wide receiver at 18 and a safety in round two or three my sense is that taking then thinemen if he's there at 18 and then a wide receiver would be the

best combination as we need a wide receiver two level guy as long as Jefferson is playing and the potential ceiling for Thineman is so high. If we did wide receiver first, it seems a little redundant and the cost of a much bigger drop off at safety in round two or three. So I'm not sure that I see it the same way as you. And first, because I look at Jordan Addison as a first round draft pick and how important in 2024 especially, but even in his rookie year, 2003, he was to the offense as wide receiver two. I mean, wide receiver two is not that far down from wide receiver one in terms of the value that you can provide.

You could take a look at any of the teams that have great wide receiver combinations. The first one that comes to mind is Jamar Chase and T. Higgins, where the Cincinnati Bengals are still paying T. Higgins a huge amount of money, even if Jamar Chase is getting more than him. And even if Jamar Chase is their clear-cut wide receiver one driver of the offense, if you're talking even the average of the first two seasons for Jordan Addison, which is 900 plus yards, 19 touchdowns over the first two years, that is 100% worth a first-round draft pick because if that player would become a free agent,

he would make as much or more than the number one safety in the NFL, which I think shows you how much the league values those guys. even take a look at, how about Puka, Nakua and Devante Adams and what they were able to do with the Los Angeles Rams and how Matthew Stafford performed when he had two wide receivers of that capability. I think, especially with this team in their history, I don't have to actually reach that far to other franchises to say, Thielen and Diggs and how they elevated Sam Bradford, how they elevated Case Keenham.

Jefferson gets here with Thieland and Kirk Cousins performs at a very high high level and got everything out of Kirk Cousins with those two wide receivers. I think that wide receiver two is very, very valuable. It's kind of like left and right tackle. Well, yeah, left tackle is still the number one position over there. But right tackle is pretty darn important too and is worth a first round draft pick because there's so many good edge rushers in the NFL. It's kind of the same way with this, where it is a cheat code to have a wide receiver

2 that is taking up what percentage. Think about what percentages over an entire season of pass attempts. If you're going to throw 150 passes to Justin Jefferson, but you're expecting to throw 550 to 600 total passes, that's a lot to go around. It's not like, oh, well, we have wide receiver 2. He can't get the ball as much. And you're going to have checkdowns and throws to the tight end. There's plenty of opportunity there.

Well, the guy might not get Jefferson numbers as Addison. has not, you're still talking about a lot of value. Now, in the first year where Addison is still here and that guy's playing wide receiver three versus Dylan Thineman who would start right away and, you know, play the entire season and in the best case scenario becomes a very quick star and things like that. It's a more of a longer term type of thing, but you said over four years, well, over four years, if you hit on this guy, then he can replace Addison and the surplus value. This is how I think of these things.

The surplus value is, if the guy is great, what do you have to pay him? Versus for every other position. Like, if the guy is great, what do you have to pay him at safety? What do you have to pay him at wide receiver 2? And the answer right now is if the guy is a great wide receiver 2, Alec Pierce shows us this, it's $30 million. If Dylan Thineman is the best, best number one safety in the league, it's like $21 million.

So there's very clearly the NFL has sort of spoke. when it comes to not only how much this is worth, but how hard it is to find these guys. If you're paying Alec Pierce $29 million, that means they were going to do anything and everything to make sure they didn't lose a top wide receiver, even if he is not a CD Lamb or Justin Jefferson or Jackson Smith Najibba caliber player. And speaking of Jackson Smith, the Jigba, now top number one wide receivers are making double what the top safeties are making. So the wide receiver, too, is valuable in terms of how much they are paid and the

surplus value, but also, how are you getting another wide receiver is a great question too if you're not going to extend Jordan Addison. Now, there has been some reporting that they would like to do that with Addison. I think you can't do it right now. I also think long term that that is maybe not the best move because you end up like Cincinnati, where you're paying number one and number two so much money that you're spread thin on the rest of the entire roster because so much of it is wrapped up with those two guys. You'd love to have, you know, that player on the rookie contract.

But if you were to move on from Jordan Addison, where are you getting the next partner for Justin Jefferson other than the draft? And I would want the best one that I could possibly get. I think that this is the position, wide receiver, other than quarterback, is the most driving success in the NFL. And we certainly saw that from Sam Darnold throwing to Jackson Smith, the Jigba, or as great as Matthew Stafford was last year with Nakua and Adams. Those were the two best, real two best teams in the NFL.

We've also seen how much it's hurt someone like Buffalo or even Kansas City. When they lost Tyree Kill, they were able to survive it for a bit, but it's really hurt. Patrick Mahomes to not have true top wide receivers. So how would you get one if you were in a position where you had to move on from Addison? And even in a certain scenario where you sign Addison and Jefferson and have this other top wide receiver at wide receiver 3, you're probably losing T.J. Hawkinson to free agency. And are you going to go out and draft a first round tight end or second round tight end?

Are you going to go into free agency and get one? can you get top receiving free agent tight ends or is it going to be better to have a wide receiver three who's super talented that's the argument for still taking a wide receiver now to your point though at thenaman i don't know what they think his ceiling is i think his ceiling is probably pretty high but we've seen also a lot of second round third round safeties turn out to be really really good players. Just last year, Xavier Watts for the Atlanta Falcons was a third round safety

who stepped right in. I don't know that you have to take a first round safety in order to get somebody that's good, especially in a draft that is considered very deep at that position. And I'm not entirely convinced that someone like Emmanuel McNeil Warren even goes in the first round because we saw

last year that Nick Iman Warray didn't even go in the first round and he was a great prospect. The other thing is too that even if you don't draft a safety they do come available a lot so unless you believe he can be a superstar which i guess if you do then your case makes sense i don't think that those guys are anywhere near as hard to replace unless they are of the harrison smith elite type of level because we've even seen second tier safeties come available and get signed third tier safeties which are still really good starters like

cam biman or trevon morrig we see that all the time so you can fill out that position. It would only be, in my mind, if they felt like this guy's upside is an absolute superstar. He's Tyron Matthew. He's Harrison Smith. He's Derwin James. If that's the case, then I agree. About this specific draft, though, and here's where I could get on board with what you're saying.

This specific draft, the drop off from a wide receiver that you take at 18 versus a wide receiver that you take at 49. it might not be that big of a difference. When I keep looking at the landscape here of wide receivers, of course I'm always going to make that argument when they're worth so much. But if you're talking about a prospect, let's just say if we were doing it on a 1 to 10 scale, I don't think that there's any 9 and a halfs who are going to be available at the 18th overall pick this year.

I'm not even sure that the number one wide receiver in this draft is a true number one type of wide receiver prospect in Carnell Tate. So you might make an argument that you would rather take a, and I think this is what you're getting at in part, because I don't really agree with the thing about Jefferson. Like, I wouldn't even factor that. I just get amazing wide receivers and figure that out. But the part about the caliber of prospect, where you might be saying,

Thineman is a nine and a half out of 10 safety prospect. And the wide receivers who are going to be there are like a seven and a half out of 10. and if you drop to the second round, they're a six and a half out of ten, you'd probably rather just wait and try to get the best player that you possibly can. So there are definitely a lot of different layers to this, but the way that the receiver position drives success passing the football is always going to be compelling to me.

And the way that the Vikings have succeeded with that model so many times through their history, I think is pretty strong evidence that you should keep going back to that well. But I think you do have a fair point that if the gap is enormous between the caliber of the Thinaman and the caliber of the wide receiver you can take there, then you've got a pretty good argument. Next question comes from Lauren says the Vikings have a lot of defensive needs and multiple draft picks. Given that Brian Flores has been reluctant to start rookies on defense, how do you see

them filling those holes and do you think Flores' philosophy will stay the same? So when it comes to Flores and his defense since he got here, it's a crazy little stat that the Vikings have spent exactly uno one top 100 draft pick on defense, one since Brian Flores got here. Now, there is some history recently of them not having any patience with young cornerbacks and young defensive players where you have a Caleb Evans, you have a Nashan right and you don't want to develop them and you'd rather go get Fabian Moreau and Jeff Okuda, which to me is not the way that you would do it if you were thinking long term in any way,

shape or form. You would try to kind of hide those guys away a little bit, develop them over multiple years, and then when they're ready to go, you would push them into the limelight if you needed them or you'd use them as depth. But instead, because it's been so much of a, you need to win now, win now for this team, they have chosen to go with the older veteran type of players. And has it paid off? I would say a little, yeah.

I mean, it certainly did with going with Shaq Griffin and Stefan Gilmore in 2024 as the starters. But I think in terms of the backups, it has not. I mean, Jeff Okuda, Fabian Moreau was good last year. I don't want to take away from him. But they were out of the playoffs by the time he was playing. You would have rather had somebody like a Zamea Vaughn or something out there, some younger player getting some experience in those games.

rather than, hey, it's this 31-year-old guy who's not going to be part of this really at all. I think that's been a bit of a struggle. He has pushed some younger defensive tackles forward. Levi Drake Rodriguez, they did start Ivan Pace Jr. But if you're only talking about, well, they traded Andrew Booth Jr. for Nishon Wright, okay, but he wasn't a top draft pick. And, you know, Caleb Evans wasn't his draft pick. He was somebody else's draft pick.

Ed Donatel, he was a fourth rounder. he has not had the expensive merchandise outside of Dallas Turner. And I don't have any criticism of the way they've handled Dallas Turner. I really don't because he was playing behind Granard and Van Ginkle in 2024. He contributed here or there. And then last year, early in the season, he was trying to fill out Van Ginkle's role, which I just don't think is a fit for him. And I think it's really tough for a younger player to do the, like,

there's not, there's not 10 guys in the league who have that role at all because it's so complicated, Van Ginkle's just kind of a freak. So once he got into the Grenard role and rush the passer, we saw all the traits and everything and the development from Dallas Turner. So I don't think that they mishandled that. If Grinard or Van Ginkle hadn't been there in 24, he would have played, I think for Brian Flores. But it's more of a matter of they've been filling these spots with veterans.

They traded away a lot of their draft capital over the years. When you have five draft picks, it's like, who are you supposed to throw in there? Now, would I have preferred that they kept Kobe King or something? Like, yeah, I think that would have made some sense to try to hang on to anybody young and not just say, well, you know, he didn't fit in right away, didn't work for us right away, let's move on. They never, not that I think Brian Asimwa or someone like that is going to just prove the Vikings wrong and make five Pro Bowls, but he never even saw the field over the last, well, over the years, the two years that Brian Flores was there. and then they cut them in a training camp. And there's reasons, I'm sure, for every one of those, but it was just very clearly not a long-term approach.

They were keeping the players that were going to help them the most right here, right now. And that was understandable. They won 14 games. They thought they were going to have a super competitive team this year. But if we're talking about drafting Dylan Thineman, or we're talking about drafted Caleb Banks or Peter Woods or these guys, they're going to play. I would assume that they're going to play unless something is really wrong

from the outset like it was with Lewis Seen and Andrew Booth Jr. But if it's not, if these are reasonable prospects, then they will get in there. I think Flores does believe in taking it slowly. And I do think that this defense is complicated. So whoever they do draft, there's going to be a learning curve. But I think that's part of the explanation for why Flores hasn't had a bunch of young players' success stories. It's just he hasn't had young players to work with because they haven't had draft capital. It all kind of goes back to that.

But it'll be something that I'll be interested in if they draft a safety, if they draft an Avion Terrell. Are they going to put him in right away? Or is he going to be a backup? And this also is not limited to Brian Flores. If you remember, Xavier Rhodes took some time. It wasn't until year three that Trey Wayans was really playing for this team. So, you know, this happens all the time.

I think one of the things that's frustrating about, the draft is people get so excited about all these new players. They read our features and they read scouting reports and we talk to their high school and college coaches and everyone like these are the best players ever. If you read everything from the minute they get drafted to the start of the season, but a lot of times it takes development. It just takes time. And when everyone gets so excited about it, it's sort of like the Ty Felton thing.

Like you can't write off Ty Felton. He's in his second year. Like you've got to give it. time. Josh Mattelis is a guy who was kind of written off and then, you know, ends up emerging. We've seen that many times. So I think that, you know, the philosophy of Flores overall is that he wants to take his time with development. But if they take someone in the first round, very, very likely first and second round, those guys are going to have a role right away. Next question comes from Ice Cold North says many draft prognosticators mock Oregon

safety, Dylan Thineman to the Vikings at 18. The operative assumption is apparently that the draftee could step into Harrison Smith's shoes if Smith retires and be able to replicate what Flores has had Harrison Smith doing on defense. What's your take? My understanding is that Blake Cashman has the green dot for communications on our defense. So I'm trying to figure out what role Smith still plays in calling and directing the defense and whether it is likely that a rookie safety would be able to assume Smith. 's role. So, great question. The answer is absolutely not in no universe is Dylan

Thineman or Emmanuel McNeill Warren or anybody else stepping into Harrison Smith's role. That role exists almost nowhere else in the entire NFL. Now, there's play calling safeties. I mean, there's safeties who communicate and make adjustments. Of course there is. There's not a guy who has, I assume, there might be somebody. Maybe someone would say, Well, actually, in this defense, I haven't seen it other than Harrison Smith talked about many times, where you have someone who is a defensive coordinator on the field that has total autonomy to make any check, any change, any time they want, or blitz, anytime they decide to do it. So let me see if I can kind of paint a picture for you on what Harrison Smith does.

And then we could talk about what Dylan Thineman would do. Think about any scenario. let's just go 50 yard line offense has second down in 10 and they're lined up in the shotgun, right? So if you're just envisioning this in your mind, all right, here's Harrison Smith. I know you can already see him. He's moving around. He is looking over at the offense, looking at, all right, he knows the scenario. He knows it's second and 10.

So he already knows in his brain all the tendencies that team has on second and long. He sees their formation. Okay, what is it? Let's say it's a bunch formation. on the right side for the quarterback. Now, they say like the field side or the boundary side, but let's just say it's on the right side, quarterback's right side on the right hash.

All this stuff matters. I'm not kidding. So you got a bunch formation over there and the tight end is so low on the left side. So he's going to be thinking about all the different route combinations that this team tends to use when they have a bunch formation. So he is going to call a defense that would fit against something like that. So let's just say for that scenario, based on his research, it's a cover three is the best thing that he thinks is that call.

So he's going to give a signal to the rest of the coverage, to the rest of coverage players. We're playing cover three against this. Now, there's a million different details. If this, then you do that. But let's just keep it broad. All right, cover three. Then the offense sees Harrison Smith making a call. And they think, all right, Jared Goff.

He thinks, all right, he's switching to cover three because he knows. we do this. So Goff says, can, can, can. Switches to a two by two formation where they have two guys on each side and they've changed to something that goes vertical because that's how you beat cover three is down the seams. So then Harrison with five seconds left on the clock, three seconds left on the clock, he signals back to his guys, okay, we're going cover four. Now we're going cover four. But then at the last minute, Harrison realizes that the linebackers are kind of up and the running back is moved himself to a spot where he's going to have a tough time getting to somebody blitzing off the edge.

So he's made this call, but then he's going to go, you know what? I'm blitzing now. And then he knocks down a pass, then he gets a pressure, then he gets a sack, whatever it might be. Because he saw something in that whole cat and mouse game that said to him, I'm going to do this. Can a rookie do that? Nope. No chance. Zero.

Not unless he is the smartest rookie who's ever walked into the national football. Football League. Can a rookie eventually do that? Yes. Could they do it after two years of some version? Not the same one, but communicating, changing coverages, trying to understand tendencies, yes. Josh Mattelis can do this, not to the same degree.

Harrison is totally, totally on his own thing. But that doesn't mean, don't put Dylan Thineman in the game. It would very likely be Josh Mattelis who was making the changes right away. he is a very intelligent player. And I think in terms of being able to do all that stuff that I described, he's at least in the ballpark. And Harrison's a Hall of Fame talent. It's just a little different.

And he's done a lot of it in the second half of his career with what's upstairs rather than just his raw physical ability. So then you would have Thinemann. And he would have to know what coverage he's getting into based on the call that's being sent to him from Josh Mattelis. But that's all he would have to do. He would just have to understand the nuances of their coverage. at first.

And then eventually, you're hoping, because he was kind of the quarterback of the Oregon defense, that he can learn all this stuff and be that guy eventually. So I hope that makes sense. But with Blake Cashman, the green dot means he gets the call into his headset. And then he delivers the call. So he gets into his headset, tells the huddle, this is what defense we're playing. And then Harrison Smith either just goes with it or makes changes to the coverage while he's out there and then the front seven is a different thing.

So it's a lot. This is a complicated game and that's what makes it so great. But it's not something that a rookie could do right away. You would want them to play more of a free safety, like roaming back there, making plays, coming downhill, making tackles. That's what you'd be looking for immediately and then eventually you get to that spot. All right. Last question comes from Jason says, is this the year for Zimmer's always use more

corners approach? I'd be okay if we walked away with three in the draft. Well, if we look forward to 2007, it is very complicated because you can make a lot of different arguments. Well, hey, Van Ginkle, we don't know what is going to happen with Grenard. Could you use an edge rusher? Right now, Blake Cashman doesn't have an extension. And Eric Wilson is on essentially a two-year contract. Could you use a linebacker?

We just talked about safety. and everyone is mocking safety to the Minnesota Vikings. But the cornerback position also falls under that category because Isaiah Rogers is a free agent after this year. And with Byron Murphy Jr., if they love how he plays this year, then sure, they'll keep him. But they could also move on after next year as well. Like every contract is only as long as its guarantees are. And that's how the dead cap hits work. that kind of thing.

So, and there's a lot more to that. But if they wanted to get out from under Byron Murphy after 2026, they could possibly do that, which opens the door for a whole new unit of corners. And I think you need to have three or four in the NFL today because they do get hurt a lot. And also you're playing nickel at such a high percentage. They've been using big nickel with Josh Mattelis, as opposed to traditional nickel with a corner in there, in part because they just don't have anybody. and Byron Murphy, they always talk about wanting to play him more as a nickel, which could actually mitigate some of the loss of Harrison Smith if he retires, being able to move him to nickel more often.

I think they'd like to do that. So Avion Terrell is the guy who comes up the most. I think he's a really great fit. He's smooth. He is aggressive and competitive. He's a little bit undersized. But I don't think that he has that big of an issue with playing against the run, but especially instinctually. and the way that the guy moves, I feel like is a really good fit for Brian Flores.

I'm sure there's others that he's identified as well that could be that guy. But if you were to draft one in the first and one in the third, would I think it was wrong? Absolutely not because it is a hard position to keep stability at. I mean, from year after year after year, how many years in a row have the Vikings had the same two corners since Rhodes and Wayans? and that was really only 16, 17, 18, right? So, but how many years in a row? I guess that would have, did that leak into 19? Maybe it did.

So how many years in a row have they had the same corners? I'm going to go with zero. I think it's been zero years in a row since Rhodes and Waynes left. I'm sure that they would love, love to find some combination with Xavier or like they had with Xavier Rhodes and Trey Wayans because then those guys get to know the system. They develop over years together. I like that idea. It didn't work the last time they drafted two corners in the same draft, but I think this year

has a lot of really good corner talent at the top and in the middle of the first round that they should be interested in. I would prefer corner over safety because the corners are now making $30 million and shut down guys. I mean, they're worth their weight in gold and they're very hard to find. They don't become free agents. Good, really, really good safeties become free agents. Top corners, usually they don't.

They're like wide receivers. So I am interested in that as well. Anyway, great questions, you guys. And thanks to Mike Sandove and his dog for popping on the show. Really appreciate it. And owner's meetings up next for Purple Insider on, well, I'll arrive there Sunday. But Monday is when all the action happens. So make sure you keep an eye out for all that.

And, of course, if there's any breaking Vikings news, we'll be right here on top of it. So thanks everybody for watching slash listening. We'll catch you next time. Football.