Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Robert Mays talks about a wide range of Vikings scenarios

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Matthew Coller is joined by Robert Mays of The Athletic Football Show. Robert talks about the Chicago Bears drafting Justin Fields and how that transforms the Bears. Matthew and Robert then dive deep into the range of outcomes for the Vikings. Can Mike Zimmer take the defense to a level high enough to be a legitimate contender? What needs to go right in order for Kirk Cousins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collard here and joining me from one of my favorite shows and really, frankly, one of most people's favorite football podcasts, the Athletic Football Show, Robert Mays. What is up, buddy? Great to catch up with you. It's very nice of you to say. I really appreciate that. I always enjoy coming on here. I always enjoy our conversations. People should know that we're supposed to start this at nine. You and I just spent the last half hour talking before we actually hit record, because that's always what happens when you and I get together. And I enjoy that. I know I, I, when we schedule it out, it's like, well, why don't you add in a little like, you know, catch up time? Well, the other part is that you were not able

to come up to Minnesota and catch up at training camp. So I hope that we're going to see you this time. I will, I am actually going to be there at the tail end is my plan. I have not spoken to any of the members of the PR staff. So this could be news to them that I'm coming out there, but my, the way my schedule is this year, I'm actually swinging all the way back around to green Bay and Minnesota. I'm like August 23rd and 24th is my plan. So not technically during training camp,

but before the season, because the plan for us is, I think I'm going to go to 16 teams from the start of camp until the start of the season, just because after not having it last year, I just got the itch. Like I always want to go places and talk to people and all of that. So I'm doing a whole Midwest swing, but I'm going East first and then flying from the East coast to the South East and then Southeast to West coast, West coast, back home. And then when I go back home,

I'll do all the NFC North teams. You know what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to build up your travel stamina again, because I took, I don't have it. I took several flights and was completely gassed just visiting my family. I've taken two work trips in the last two weeks. And for whatever reason, we've really revved it up here during the summer and I'm out, I'm out. And then I'm also going on vacation. So I'm hoping that the seven day vacation that I'm about to go on

starting tomorrow gives me some energy. But I also think that those two flights I'm going to take might do the exact opposite. So I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit intimidated by the travel schedule that awaits me in the next 40 days of my life. Yeah. I just, there was a coming back from visiting my parents. There was one of those, Oh my God, it's delayed the exact amount of time that is in between your connection. And so I did the, the wild sprint made my flight. But once I got onto it, I was like, I forgot about this. I just, I forgot. I forgot, especially, you know, this you, when you get into Chicago, you're like, Oh, I have like 20 minutes and you never get off the plane in Chicago. You just sit

there and sit there and sit there and you like drive miles to get to the thing. So we had like four minutes to go several terminals or whatever. But yeah, I know. And I, I totally forgot about how stressful that is, but so I, I just, I wish you the best of luck as you travel about the nation. So I really appreciate that for sure. And, uh, I just wanted to compliment the show. So if people have not heard of it, they should have by now, but if they haven't, um um you and nate tice mike tice's son just do tremendous extreme football content and that's what i like about what you've done with the show robert since you went from the ringer to the athletic you didn't change your style which is

to go just crazy deep into the footballiest football and i think that's the right way to do it right like you didn't decide to just sort of, you know, make it a little more streamlined, a little more mainstream. Like you had Deontay Lee on there and you guys are breaking down crazy defenses and stuff. And it's like, yes, this is the way Robert, this is the way. I appreciate that. I think that the benefit and the really one of the things I've enjoyed about working at the athletic is that the show they've allowed the show to be a vehicle for my curiosity. And I think that's really cool is that I kind of sit there, whether it's the month before with the training camp or excuse me, with free agency in the draft or right during that dead period between May and training camp or during training camp before the season. It's like, what interests me and what am I interested in?

What do I want to learn about? What do I want to talk about? And that's just what we do. And that's really fun. It's fun to feel like you get to do this research that you do anyway. And again, it's just, I think about what I'm curious about and see if we can talk about it in a way that other people would enjoy. And so far, my bosses have allowed me to do that. And I'm very grateful for that because it doesn't require a lot of unnatural planning I guess it kind of comes organically because these are the things I'm thinking about already and we can just put that energy back into the show yeah it's turned out tremendously well but I have not had you on the show since Justin Fields became a

Chicago Bear how mind bleeped were you that they did the right thing and drafted a very exciting quarterback? Like this has not happened in a very, very long time for the Chicago bears. I think the biggest thing beyond that, which I think there is a little bit of, I can't believe they did this right. But the more unbelievable thing to me is I can't believe he was available. Like that's what I've said several times since it's happened, is that I wrote in June of 2020, when I was still with the Ringer, I wrote about how the Bears were just in total no man's land. Like, where are you going?

And as a Vikings observer, I'm sure you understand some of this. And you're looking at it, and this team feels like an 8-8 team. The defensive talent is still good enough, but you don't have a pathway to a quarterback. If you're doing that, you have this Nick Foles, Mitchell Trubisky battle that no matter who won it, no one really wins, especially me. And what are you going to do? Where are you going to get your guy? You're probably picking 20 to 25. That's exactly what happened, right?

They went eight and eight. They stumbled into the playoffs, lost the the game they had no business playing in and now you're sitting there with the 20th pick in a draft where most of those guys are expected to go in the top five and the pathway to a quarterback didn't seem like it exists they signed Andy Dalton and it felt like we're just on that merry-go-round again that carousel mediocrity that they've been riding for a while now and that teams like the Broncos are have have just hopped onto. It's not a fun place to be. And that's what I thought would happen.

When I watched Justin Fields play against Clemson that year in that game, my thought was, man, I wonder what Jets fans are thinking. Him or him or Zach Wilson. It wasn't maybe he'll play for the bears in next season. It just was so far off. It was such a remote possibility that when it happened and when I was watching him before the draft, I really liked him. This isn't hindsight. This isn't revisionist history.

When I was watching the quarterbacks, I don't know when I'm watching, but I liked him more than anybody else except Trevor Lawrence. I just thought that the accuracy, the physical talent, all that stuff. He was my second favorite quarterback. And the fact that the bears got my second favorite quarterback in the draft, the guy that some people believe would be the number one pick or should be the number one pick in any draft that didn't involve Trevor Lawrence. It's still hard for me to fully comprehend. And then there's a Vikings element to this too, which is that they half-heartedly tried to trade up for Justin Fields and didn't really go all in on their offer. So Carolina said no. And then your division rival ends up with the quarterback that you didn't try hard enough to trade up to get because you really needed to tackle and everyone's

on the hot seat. So like, oh, I tried. What a shame it didn't happen. And then I don't think they expected Justin Fields to end up in their division, which is an interesting little Vikings related twist to this. You know, I was thinking about this from a broader perspective that anybody who doesn't have a quarterback, but has a halfway decent roster can get one easier than ever before. Now, I think, right? Like if you're Tampa Bay two years ago, now this is like a weird situation, but even think about Indianapolis two years ago. And you're like, well, Jacoby Brissett was starting or James Winston is starting, but we have a good roster

and we can just like attract someone to come play quarterback. Or there's probably going to be five quarterbacks every year who get drafted in the first round. I just think like it sort of has taken this step forward to where if you are a quarterback desperate team, it's easier than it ever was before, which I know is a weird thing to say to a Bears fan because you've tried so hard for so long. But I just feel like even like even Denver has a possibly competent quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater and they're like in the worst quarterback situation in the entire league, but you could still see them being halfway decent with someone they're not locked into. So I just feel like

there's a connection here, even to the Kirk cousins thing and paying quarterbacks. But I don't know. I feel like this is a recent shift where it's become easier all of a sudden, if you're a decent roster to get a quarterback. I wonder if that's true. And I've had similar thoughts over the last couple of years. I wonder if that's simply a product of a class of quarterbacks and a group of quarterbacks aging out of their previous teams. Like there's never going to be a free agent class again that includes Tom Brady and Phillip Rivers. You know, that's just a weird bit of circumstance where those guys happen to be leaving the sport or on their way out toward the end of their careers at the same time, like Drew Brees is the same way.

So I wonder if that's actually going to be true. And because you can get a quarterback, but I also think that we've reached a world where it's more clear than ever that you need one of the quarterbacks. Because, and the Rams went through this this offseason. The Niners went through this this offseason, where they're sitting there looking at their guy and just saying,

he's not good enough. And we know that, and I think that's important. And I think that the Vikings may be in a similar place, where Kirk Cousins is definitely a good quarterback. He is a guy that can pilot you to a top 10-ish offense with the right help. He has flashes of being very, very good. But when you look around at the rest of the guys in the league and you see what those special guys can do for you, Kirk Cousins, within the structure of the offense, does a lot of really good stuff. But when that structure

breaks down, Kirk Cousins cannot make a play for you. And I think that's one of the biggest things is, yes, could it be easier than ever to get a quarterback, a functional quarterback? The answer is probably yes. But what does a functional quarterback do for you in the grand scheme of things? And I think that's what a lot of teams is. That's the existential question they've had to face here over the last year or so. So I was thinking about this from an expected points type of angle to kind of make the point about the difference. If you have the 11th best quarterback in the league, the difference

between him and say the sixth best is probably not much, but the difference between the sixth best and the first is enormous. And so I was looking up passing expected points added and between 130 and 170 there's a bunch of teams right but the top teams are at 250 points like there's a there is a hundred point advantage to having Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady over having Kirk Cousins and so I think Vikings fans will look at this and go he's a top 10 quarterback though and you're like right but he's a hundred points away from being Patrick Mahomes. So what your roster has to be in order to get to that point where you can compete with those teams, it has to be incredible. Like it was for the 49ers,

like it was for the Rams when they reached the Superbowl and the math just doesn't add up. Like how do you make up a hundred points then with the rest of the roster? Well, you can't do it. If one guy's taking up $30 million. dollars that's exactly right and that's the biggest difference is what are you paying that guy and if you look at the guys in that range i think there is a clear distinction between the rosters with a rookie quarterback and the rosters without like baker mayfield even though he was the number one overall pick i think his cap this year is only 11 million

dollars so the browns have the most expensive offense in the NFL with a $15 million quarterback. The support system that he has is insane. And the Vikings are trying to patch together their offensive line with duct tape. And that's just how this is going to go. And in that, I think the Raiders are another really good example. Derek Carr is not making a ton of money, but he's making twice as much as Baker Mayfield. And you can talk yourself into this idea of, well, you know, he's a top 10 quarterback. We're a top 10 passing offense, but that gap between you and the top guys and that financial gap between him and a rookie quarterback is huge. And I, I'm really interested in the teams in the middle because for the most part, every year at the ringer, I used to do power rankings and the teams that are 32 to 24 are fascinating because they're a mess.

There are a lot of them are rebuilding. There's a lot of new coaches involved with those teams. So it's fun. It's fun to think about them. The teams from 18 or from 24 to 18 are not interesting. They are hard to write about. They're spinning their wheels. It's not a group that you typically have a lot of enthusiasm for, but those teams look very similar. If you take a look at the actual nuts and bolts of that, they often have either terrible rosters or a decent roster with a 25 to $30 million quarterback. And that's how you get in that cycle. That's where you're just sitting there for a while. Like the Ravens were in there before Lamar Jackson for a couple of years. The Raiders are firmly in there. I think you can make an argument that the Vikings might belong in that range this

year. And I think that a lot of those roster constructions are similar and they're exactly in that sweet spot that we're talking about. Right. Yeah. The Vikings are sort of ish in there because they went out and signed everyone they could find on defense. And so I think that there's a lot of talking ourselves into, well, you know, Mike Zimmer's defense will bounce back, which I think is okay to talk about because they made a lot of good signings to bring people in. But what it ultimately usually comes back to is what is Kirk Cousins going to do? And if he's a hundred points behind the top offense in the NFC, then he's that your defense is probably not going to be so good that you're

going to make up for that based on older Patrick Peterson, Bashad Breeland, like these are not massive, you know, movers of the needle on the defensive side. They're more of just like solid players who can allow Mike Zimmer to do his job. Unlike last year. But it feels very much to me like they have a similar roster strength to like 2019, where you go like, yeah, it's a good team. Are they going to beat good teams? I'm not really sure. And when you talk about the offensive line, this is, you know, it's always a thing. It's always a thing. I was just writing this today.

Let me see if I can find where I was writing it. But it's truly incredible that they have ranked in the top 20 by PFF and pass blocking one time since Mike Zimmer got here. Once. That they have not been in the bottom third. In the last two years, I think it's 29th and 28th. And this is the thing. You have the absolute wrong quarterback for that. And so then they draft a bunch of people and say, oh, okay, now rookies, you go face off with Khalil Mack twice. And it's just like,

this is where the money comes in because you just can't bring in Joe, Joe Tooney or someone like that. You just don't have the money to be able to do it because you have kirk cousins and i don't know if they can ever make that formula really work it's a great question i i'm fascinated by them i always have been i think that just because i spent a lot of time talking to you or up there or thinking about it just because they're in the division i've always enjoyed talking and thinking about the vikings and i've probably spent an inordinate amount of time doing it and it's for that exact reason. I just, where they are in the hierarchy and how they get out of it. And just every single year, I also really enjoyed that 2017 team.

And I think that kind of restoked my interest in what they were and where they were going. But if you look at this right now, I'm looking at the over under wins. They're 18th. And that just, it feels right. Like, is there a world where they win 10, 11 games because the line clicks and Jefferson's a superstar and we see a really good version of cousins. And obviously Dalvin Cook is great. And they're a top 10-ish offense. And the defense has a resurrection to the point where they're like a top 12 unit and they're a borderline wildcard team.

Maybe the Packers fall off, they win the division. Absolutely, that could happen. But there's also a ton of outcomes on the other side of it. So I just that middle range where they're right in the middle of the league just feels right to me. Hey, guys, I know we have all had this conversation at home. Are you really going to spend the whole day out on the golf course instead of being with the family? Well, that's what makes Birdie Golf so great. You can make it a family experience at Birdie Golf, bring the kids and still get in all of your swings. They have eight of the world's best golf simulators where you can sharpen your swing and have a great time and you won't lose

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Again, that is SodaStick.com. Minnesota sports inspired goods. Keep your eye out also for our SodaStick giveaways. Right. goods keep your eye out also for our soda stick giveaways right and that's where i think there's so much interest for this season because if they do land in the middle again it makes for a lot of very hard decisions for their ownership if you go 10 and 7 this has been the i've been asking people like is 10 and 7 good like what what do we think of 10 and 7 and the answer pretty much across the board is like no not really no 10 and 7 is really not all that good but if you land at 10 and 7 and you make the playoffs let's say you even win a playoff game because mike zimmer schemes his ass off what does that mean even right like you know it brings you back to 2019

it's exactly what you're saying right so then you just seem to be in this in this cycle but then how do you break out of the cycle is it like should should you stick with Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman because they have built good rosters but make the quarterback change because we were just talking about how you can get somebody on the free agent market. If they decided to trade cousins, it makes things really difficult if they do end up in the middle, but there's also the outcomes that you mentioned. If Kirk cousins is great and they go 13 and four or something, assuming, man, let's say Rogers retires, uh, that you, but then you're saying, okay, well, they can do that. And you're going to keep these people going forward. And I feel like this is the season where we all decide what this is. I agree. I 100% agree. And I think that we could decide this isn't the group.

I think that at the end of the year, even if they go 10 and seven, I think a reasonable choice from ownership could be to say, you know what? The Rick and Zim thing, it has run its course. The Kirk Cousins thing has run its course. And that's okay. It's okay to come to that conclusion. It has been, in my opinion, a successful era of Vikings football. They are consistently relevant.

They've had flashes of greatness. They potentially could have gone to the Super Bowl in 2017. They caught a buzzsaw Eagles team at the wrong time. Did they live up to the lofty expectations that teams, people probably had for them and the fan base probably had for them in 2018? Was that a disappointing season? Yes. But I think they made a great run at this thing.

And if this is it, it's okay to say we're not going any further. We've made as much headway as we're going to we need to try something different that's not that doesn't admonish the job that mike zimmer did because i think he did a very good job i'm already talking about it in past tense but i think that's okay and i think that that is a reasonable outcome and a reasonable projection for how this season goes for them there are a lot of fans who are sort of, I think, nervous about changing a direction, and I totally understand why, because if you bought tickets to a game, most of the time you saw a good game.

If you turn the TV on Sunday, as long as it wasn't Christmas Day against New Orleans, you probably saw a very competitive Vikings team. You got a trip to the NFC championship based on a tremendous Zimmer defense that he sort of built in his vision. All the time, memorable moments, like little flashes that will stick with you forever. Like the teams were fun. That case came here was just enjoyable.

Like everything you could want as a fan short of a championship. Right. And if you end up as the jets for the last, whatever number of years that they've been it sucks your soul out right i mean like how how can you be a fan of a team like that but at the same time if you're the jets now you're like oh okay suddenly we have this chance yeah and that's the weird thing is like the jaguars and jets have been about as worst franchises you could be say for the one random year with the Jaguars.

And yet you would say, would you rather be them or the Vikings? You got to go. I don't know how I pick the Vikings here. Right. I mean, that's that's the that's where it's sort of difficult, I think, for a lot of fans. You're like, well, I guarantee we're going to have wins and we're going to we're going to have good games at the same time are we really on a path to the super bowl not unless things go super weird like you know somebody brought up the the 07 giants or something it's like yeah if kirk cousins goes on the road to lambo and beats uh rogers or at farv is what eli did there like that'd be a surprise to me right if he if he goes to tampa bay and d Dallas and all the teams that uh Eli beat that year but the point just being that you know you have to be super random lucky weird like that's not where

you want to be necessarily I totally agree and it's funny because this is a conversation I used to have a lot with myself about the Bears it's the exact same conversation I remember last year early in the season when the Trubisky-Foles thing clearly had fallen apart, and somebody asked me, would you rather be a Bears fan or a Jets fan? I was like, are you insane? I would absolutely rather be a Jets fan. And this was pre-Justin Fields, and it's for that reason. It's just that it didn't seem like there was an exit ramp from where the Bears were as a franchise.

They stumbled into one in this ridiculous way, and now things have changed a little bit, but I think that the Vikings are in a really similar spot and it's almost harder with the Vikings because the quarterback competency is so much higher than it was in Chicago. And you talking yourself into the games are relevant. The games are watchable. You want to go. You don't think ownership is having that exact same conversation and it's thinking about it from the exact same way and that's what the bears were doing well we're a borderline playoff team every year matt nagy's above 500 as a coach like we're in the conversation the stands are full like that's okay and i think that's the danger of being in that tier of teams is that it's really,

really easy to talk yourself into. Yeah. It's not that great, but it's not that bad. And that's the problem. Right. And they, you know, they did that to themselves last year where they convinced themselves that like, Oh, well, you know, we'll just kind of revamp this and we've been developing this player and it will, it'll, it'll be fine. We'll just fix it. And then they had two injuries and the season was over. But this is sort of where they've been on since they signed Kirk Cousins.

And it's a very difficult thing to make work. And when you follow, like you're saying, the exit ramps, or when you follow the road and you look at the road signs of what they say, like the Jets road sign says, maybe you can go to the Super Bowl if Zach Wilson is really good. And the Vikings road sign says, maybe if the other team's quarterbacks get hurt, then you could win in the playoffs and get all the way to the Superbowl. So that's, that's what makes it so tough, like you said, for ownership. And I think they're really going to struggle because they love Mike Zimmer. They don't necessarily want to move on from him, but there's got to be a point where you go, you know, what do we do here? And I want to get your

take on this since we sort of went this, this route is the Vikings with Zimmer since 2018, uh, after John D Filippo, they've really gone to this hardcore. We're going to carry everything with Delvin cook, and he's going to be the center of the offense and there's always been a part of me that has thought i wonder if you leaned into kirk a little bit more if instead of getting scared by john d filippo who probably had the wrong offense for kirk cousins not probably definitely um but it was a terrible terrible marriage it was a really bad idea from the start yes yes you should have hired Stefanski from that at the beginning it's and that's a problem but guess what happens when you go on the road with the best defense in the NFL and you get shredded

by a bunch of RPOs in a very specific system and you have a defensive-minded head coach who's grasping at straws when it comes to figuring out his offense this is how you end up in this place but that's what's so weird is that pat schirmer ran a similar offense to what they have now with a lot of play actions and bootlegs and stuff and so he loved pat schirmer loved that offense and then went a completely different direction to a shotgun spread it out which was working until Zimmer got frustrated but anyway that's another story uh I think their offense is mostly efficient it's definitely explosive they just don't like to throw the ball very much and you look at how much Kirk was allowed to throw the ball in the first

quarter it was hardly any and they got themselves down in games because they didn't have the defense to make three stops in a row for last year. And I guess I will always wonder if we get to the end of this path and everybody's gone, if Zimmer, Spielman, and Cousins, and if we'll look back and go, I wonder if they didn't have the 28th offensive line and pass blocking. I wonder if they had thrown it like 60% of the time instead of 47% of the time. Like there there's always going to rest over me that thought of, I wonder if you just got scared at the beginning and, and, and backed off of this to the point where you eliminated that chance where variants could

strike your way. I think the biggest question is, and this is always the big question when it comes to those types of offenses. It's similar to the question facing Seattle over the last couple of years, even though I think Russell Wilson is more talented. The efficiency numbers are great, right? But if you crank up the volume tab, do the efficiency numbers stay good? Is more Kirk Cousins a good recipe to get the best Kirk Cousins? And I don't know the answer to that. And I think that the Vikings have decided not to open that box. And so we don't know the answer either. But I think that is the question that faces them is, yeah, if you look at the numbers, they would dictate that if we did this a little bit more, maybe we'd be more explosive. Maybe we'd be just a better offense

overall. But is that the case? And I think that's the biggest question. Or if you just got people who could pass block for him. I mean, that would be another part of it, right? Let me, let's do this to wrap up. Easier said than done though. No, it is. No, that's true. And they've tried.

I mean, it's not, it is lack of investment because they ranked 32nd in offensive line spending, I think three years in a row or two years in a row, but they have drafted all these offensive linemen. It's just the problem with drafting them is our friend Duke many, whether it's great at his job, but he can't make these guys instantly great. Right. So, I mean, even if you know, they work with whoever and what rookie offensive linemen are always going to struggle from here to the end of eternity. So it's drafting them doesn't solve your problems right away. And that's the issue they're going to run into this year.

So let's do this, though. Let me throw some random teams at you and you rapid fire kind of tell me if you're on the same page as me. I'll give you my take. I think the the Rams thing won't work. I think that they're getting all the hype, just like the Vikings did in 2018. But it's going to be similar results. Opinion. It's hard for me to pin them down because I understand the argument on both sides.

I think that we could see the best version of Matthew Stafford we've ever seen. And I don't know what that necessarily looks like. Is that a top five quarterback in terms of the numbers and that production? Possibly. And I do believe they're going to do a lot of different stuff on offense. I think that not only did McVay sit there and say the quarterback isn't good enough. I think they understand the scheme needs to be tweaked a little bit. We need to do some different stuff than we've done to,

in order for us to take the next step. I have faith in their offensive staff's ability to do that. They've made some changes over there. So we'll see that the flying coach moved on, Shane Waldron's now in Seattle, all that other stuff. But I do think that there is a world where they're really, really good on offense, like a top five-ish offense. My question is, what does the defense look like?

Because we're just assuming that this is the best defense in the NFL from last year, and they'll be one of the best defenses in the NFL again. Not only did they lose their defensive coordinator, they lost assistance from that defensive staff that have gotten promoted other places. And just simple math, simple regression is probably coming. And their personnel isn't as good.

They've lost John Johnson. They lost Troy Hill. The players on the margins just aren't as good as they were last year. And they weren't even that deep of a defense last year. So I just think that if this is an average defense and a top five offense, it could be a really good team, but the defensive progress that some people are just penciling in, I don't think you can do that. And that's, that sounds very Vikings 2018 ish where it was like, oh, well, most people are coming back on the defense, like, but not everybody. And you were healthy before, and that's a huge deal too.

And that usually doesn't happen year to year, especially when you went deep in the playoffs. Okay, last year, you remember when we drafted the best teams? I think I picked the Dallas Cowboys second overall. Whoops. Now, I didn't project Dak getting hurt, but they weren't good before that either. What do we feel about the Dallas Cowboys? I think that they could be pretty good.

I mean, I was on the Cowboys like you were last year. If you hadn't drafted them second, I probably would have taken them third. So you saved me from myself there. I think a lot of the reasons we were excited about the Cowboys offense, which was good before Dak got hurt last year, it wasn't as efficient as people remember. There was a lot of volume associated with those gaudy, gaudy stats, but it was still a good offense. And I think that beyond the Dak injury, their offensive line was already hurt by the time

the season started. You didn't have Lyle Collins. Tyron Smith was banged up for most of the season. That may just be a going concern for the rest of his career. But you get Collins back. You'd hope that the line is better and you get Dak back. And I would assume CeeDee Lamb is an even better player in year two. Like that offense could be really, really good. I still think schematically when you watch them, it's a little static for me. Like I think that there are, there's more exciting version of this offense out there with this personnel, but even with those concerns in mind, I still think they could be a top

five issued at one of the best offenses in the league. It's the big, the biggest question is the defense. And what is the ceiling for the defense? Is it 20? Is that a good outcome on that side? I think it might be when you consider the coaching change, the fact that they really didn't add much talent to that side of the ball outside of the draft. I mean, they're relying on a lot of really young players because they're capped out when it comes to everything else. They have this super expensive offense. So I think there's a world where the offense is really, really good, like the best offense in the NFC. But I think there's a world where the offense is really really good like the best offense in the NFC but I think you have to have serious concerns about how good the defense could be yeah that is

my hold up as well and then they even lost people like Alden Smith and Tyrone Crawford is a good player and they you know he retires I think so not even having the same level of personnel that they had last year when they were horrible is certainly a concern. I'm letting myself get talked into it again, though. Like just, you know what? That offense, man, it's just so exciting with the amount of talent, but then there's also the element of like, will they give Ezekiel Elliott the ball way too often? Probably. So there's also that as well. All right.

One more. That's kind of what I mean with the static offense is that it's, there's a version of this offense out there that is much better than the one we might get even if it's very good right right and i think that the nfc east will actually be more legit this year i think uh it would low bar from last year okay one more uh 49ers who when the vikings face the 49ers i forget what date it is but it's later in the season. It's Trey Lance, right? And he is inheriting a very, very good situation, I think. But I don't know how seriously to take a team that's likely going to have

a rookie quarterback. I would take them pretty seriously. I mean, I just think that they could do so much stuff with him. I am good for Jimmy Garoppolo getting that contract. I'm happy for Jimmy Garoppolo. His family is set up for a very, very long time. I'm okay with Jimmy Garoppolo in San Francisco. I don't need to see another step of Jimmy Garoppolo with, with couch and head. I want to see what it looks like as soon as possible. And I just remember what that 2012 Washington offense looked like with RG3. And I don't think the Trey Lance is going to be RG3 out of the gate, but I think with a quarterback

that has that level of physical ability, Kyle Shanahan can do some stuff. And I just want to see what that offense looks like. I want to see what the quarterback run game looks like. There's just so many different things I think they could do so I hope we get Trey Lance sooner rather than later my question with them is the secondary is a fragile situation you know they really they have a lot of the same guys they brought back last year but you're really banking on Jason Verrett being a healthy starter for you those kind of things I think that is the area of that roster I have the biggest question about if they can be good on defense with who's their defense coordinator i keep always uh tomiko ryan's i was new as an older player that people are excited about but if they can be good on defense that

for in year one with tomiko ryan's i think the offense can be fantastic if and when trail ants gets in there so i think there's a version of the 49ers out there that contends with the Bucs as the best team in the NFC. Yeah, I could see it. When you look up NFL assistants, that is the random NFL player name, D'Amico Ryan's just like, yeah, Madden 03. We're very excited about him. I've never had a conversation with D'Amico Ryan's. I don't know him at all, but I think a lot of people are really looking forward to the job he's going to do there. Yeah, that will be a very interesting one. And the fact that the Vikings outcome this year could be determined by Jordan, love Justin Fields and Trey Lance makes their schedule very interesting in the second half of the season. Uh, Robert Mays,

you are going to want to go listen to the athletic football show. If you have not, uh, it is super nerdy in the best way. And, uh, your cohost Nate Tice is just, just terrific. He's a former quarterback himself, Mike Tyson's son. He's got great stories. Um, so make sure you go listen to it if you haven't already and Robert, great to catch up with you, man. I will see you in training camp. Always buddy. Good to see you.