Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Ted Nguyen breaks down how the Vikings should rebuild their defense

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Matthew Coller is joined by brilliant X's and O's analyst Ted Nguyen from The Athletic to talk about how the Vikings should build their defense and even potentially add some more modern elements after... what we saw last year with offenses going wild. Ted talks about why there's an argument for drafting a cornerback despite the Vikings' need on the D-line and how quarterbacks and being bunched into game managers and volatile QBs that could have extreme highs and lows.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:10 Reach for the beer that is made to chill Get Coors Light in the new look Delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart Coors Brewing Company Golden Colorado And as always, celebrate! celebrate. Oh, welcome to another episode of Purple Inside. I'm presented by Scout Logistics, Matthew Collard here, along with one of the absolute best at breaking down football in the world, Ted Wynn from The Athletic.
Starting point is 00:01:44 Ted, I love to see it because you came on the show way back in the day when you were with Inside the Pylon, just getting yourself started. And now I'm seeing Mina Kynes tweet out your stuff. I have former NFL players say, hey, I love reading Ted Wynn. The Vikings read your stuff. I just see you everywhere. And it's great, man. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I mean, you know, just staying busy this season was just crazy as far as, you know, dealing with the pandemic and staying at home, not being able to go to any games, but I felt like, you know, got a lot of good work out there, being stuck at home and being forced to just do, you know,
Starting point is 00:02:22 you have nothing better to do to work, so I felt like this season I did some good work not to pat myself on the back too much. And, yeah, I mean, thank you to you for having me on your podcast when I was, you know, had a very small following and just starting out too. Well, I think I'll give myself a little credit for this, that I think I have a bit of an eye for when someone knows what they're talking about and and you can see early on in your stuff and I'd love you to talk about this before we get into some football stuff of just your process of watching tape and breaking it down
Starting point is 00:02:55 things like that because when I could tell somebody knows what they don't know and when they put in the actual effort to really truly understand it, which it takes a lot of work to really get what's going on. And a lot of times it's talking to other people and sending somebody a message and saying, am I doing this right? Or am I way off here? Like, what is what is even going on on this play or this coverage or whatever? And I just felt like from your work, you do that.
Starting point is 00:03:23 And then now you've taken all this knowledge that you've built up. And each week you're putting out like explaining how other people can learn even more as opposed to watching this film and guessing. So I just I love that that you can tell your hard work that goes behind it as opposed to just let me call up the all 22 screen grab a couple of things and I've got an article. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think it's just really having an obsession with trying to get the details right. And I don't get every detail right. But, I mean, it probably works to my detriment sometimes because I'll spend two hours where I shouldn't have on a small detail.
Starting point is 00:04:03 But I just want to make sure I really put my best effort into it. So, you know, it might be a small detail like what is – what's like the exact job of this guy in this defense, in this situation. I'll dig through like three different playbooks and, you know, try to reach out to coaches. And, you know, sometimes I'm sure coaches get annoyed with me. I believe my messages are read, but, you know, they have a lot of work to do too. But, yeah, I mean, I just really want to get every detail right,
Starting point is 00:04:35 and I'll put in the effort to do it. And, you know, it might be a small detail on this article, but once I get that information, I know it now. So then next time when I'm looking at film, you know, I might be able to recognize that and derive, you know, get a little more information from that piece of film. So it's just always I think the key is it's always trying your best to add to your knowledge base. One thing I think, too, is that the more that I read you and then I can look myself for certain things that you bring up. So it's it's majorly helpful. I joked with you before we went on about you doing free work coming on the podcast.
Starting point is 00:05:07 But you do – you get paid for your work at The Athletic, but I can't tell you it's worth more than you think to all of us journalists who also want to go back and find out what the Vikings were doing with this play or what this might have been or what someone's assignment for something that went right or wrong and all those things. It's just that it's great in terms of a resource. But I also think what's fascinating, too, is once you go down the rabbit hole on the NFL, you're like, I can't believe anyone can play this and get it right.
Starting point is 00:05:37 Like you think about all the – I was watching a – the Vikings hired a new defensive backs coach. And on YouTube he has a symposium or whatever you call it, a presentation on cover seven. And so I'm like, okay, let's kind of see what this guy's about. And by the end, I'm like, my head is not attached anymore. It just spun around in circles and fell off. I mean, there's just so many things. And that was at Alabama.
Starting point is 00:06:00 That's not even in the NFL. And that's the one thing that I think I love digging deep on these things and trying to figure out like all the details I think someone like Harrison Smith for example like how do you keep it all straight in your brain Harrison Smith that's the I think that's one of the coolest things about the NFL is the insane level of detail that you have to have to be good at this yeah and I mean that's one of the reasons why the Vikings keep guys like Harrison Smith around for so long, because he has all those checks and this defense down.
Starting point is 00:06:31 And, you know, it's covered seven and quarters in particular. There could be a ton of checks and a ton of information you have to process like this. And if you get it wrong, it could be a blown coverage. So, you know, it's just credit to these coaches and you know some you know we rag on coaches sometimes but they put an incredible amount of effort into uh what they do and teaching these players and these players have to be so tip-top mentally and physically uh i mean that's why the nfl is what what it is is you know one of the most competitive it is the most competitive league in
Starting point is 00:07:03 in all the sports in my opinion, as far as being complicated and multiple and mentally demanding. I love when I'm watching things about coverage and studying them, how quickly you have to process it if you're a defensive back. So how quickly you have to figure out, is this an inside route? Am I taking the one receiver? Am I taking the two receiver that's going outside where's my leverage supposed to be and then oh by the way if he does this then everything changes and so in this presentation I was watching uh it was like yeah it's all this
Starting point is 00:07:37 way unless the guy does a hitch and then they're running slot fade and then you have to get back it's like wow man I mean there's just so many things that happen at such a fast level and yet still teams pass the ball successfully all over the place yeah it's it's a it's a crazy amount of information at the process and that's why you know even if you have the greatest athlete that runs a 4-2 and you know has a great cone time and it has all the size the size you want in the position, they still might be a bust because it's not a guarantee they can process all this information that quickly and put that athletic ability to use.
Starting point is 00:08:14 So, yeah, I mean, it's an amazing game, and it takes a lot to learn. And credit to you for trying to learn Cover 7 and all that when Carl Scott was hired. You're talking about the Carl Scott Alabama Atlantic, right? Yeah. That was a great one. It is great, but, again, like I'm trying, man. There's only so much space in my skull for understanding every player.
Starting point is 00:08:37 And the other thing, too, is then you're watching film and you're like, well, it might have been this or it might have been that, and I'm not sure whose mistake it was. And that's something – there's so many great people doing it. Like Darius Butler does some great videos where he'll watch it. And he was a really good defensive back. And he'll say, this might've been his assignment, but it might've been something else.
Starting point is 00:08:55 And it's hard to say. And sometimes on broadcasts, it'll be, this guy definitely blew his assignment. Well, maybe, or maybe he didn't. So just like any other profession, the more you know, the more you think you don't know. But let's talk about some Vikings related things. Here's kind of a broad question for you, but people love to do this. And I want to hear your big brained assessment of it. When you watch the Super Bowl and you study it really closely,
Starting point is 00:09:21 it was actually a fascinating thing thing to study even though it was not a fascinating game to watch on television that night is there something to take away from the Super Bowl that you say this is going to be what everybody looks at or this is how the league will apply the Super Bowl or do you think that that's overblown like was there something that you saw in studying it where you thought you know what I think that this is going to be some kind of trend from now on or was it just hey Tampa Bay was really good at football and everybody else tried these things but wasn't able to pull it off one it wasn't an exciting Super Bowl unless you bet the bucks know it's a very exciting Super Bowl. But I think one thing I always harped on when watching teams defend Patrick Mahomes is how do you keep letting him escape to the right?
Starting point is 00:10:14 And obviously, it's not the defense letting him escape to the right, but they're not putting a big enough emphasis on stopping him from escaping to the right because his stats getting outside of being flushed out to pocket to the right are way better than him flushed out to the left. Not that it's bad to the left. It's just they're just a lot better to the right. So when I watch teams, I'm just like, how do you keep letting him go out to the right? And, you know, you have to coach your defensive end.
Starting point is 00:10:44 Do not let him get outside to the right. And there's some scheme stuff you could do to not let him out to the right. And, you know, you have to coach your defensive end. Do not let him get outside to the right. And there's some scheme stuff you could do to not let him out to the right that I thought the Bucs did particularly well. And part of that is, yeah, the Bucs and the Chiefs offensive line was beat up. I mean, they had two out of five starters from week one, and one of those starters was playing out of position. So that line was beat up. But they did a few interesting things just to make sure that Mahomes was going to his left.
Starting point is 00:11:10 They invited him to go to his left. They would use a slow stunt where that end on the left side would crash in, and then they'll have a linebacker that come all the way from the right to contain him. So they'll make mahomes feel like that left side is open have them run that way and then they'll chase them down so they did a few interesting things but i don't think that you'll have as much success as the bucks had doing it because of the state of that off the fly but those are things that you can implement in your game plan that might help slow him down when he does have a healthy offense. So one of the topics I want to ask you about was sort of as the Vikings rebuild their defense,
Starting point is 00:11:48 how they should do it. Because get good players is obviously number one. Just get good players at every position and then you're fine. Then you're all set and then you win. That's kind of what they did before with Zimmer's defense. It was like every level they had pro bowlers. That's probably not going to happen again. One thing I wonder your opinion on is the idea of using three safeties on the field at the same time. Mike Zimmer experimented with this a little with J. Ron Curse, and he kind of bailed
Starting point is 00:12:15 on it because of who J. Ron Curse was. And I liked it though as a concept because I just thought there's so many teams now that are saying, hey, we will put two tight ends out there and run over you. We will put a fullback out there and run over you. We will run the football effectively if you're going to play your two deep safeties. And just like, how can you be in the middle? And it seemed like Tampa Bay, that was one of the things they were trying to do is put, you know, some bigger size defensive backs out there and not just, hey, all a bunch of corners who are going to get run over if you hand the ball off. Yeah, I think the whole three safety thing is doable,
Starting point is 00:12:53 but I think a lot of it is done on third down too where you can have a little more tailored or designer-type coverages or pressures. I don't think it's something you'll do too often in early downs. So I think in passing situations, you know, you don't really have to worry about the run as much. So you can get that third safety in there. But like you said, that third safety has to be a good player. It can't just be some, you know, fourth string safety you're just going to throw in there.
Starting point is 00:13:21 I mean, you know, Chiefs did it pretty effectively. They put Tyron, you know, the Honey Badger in that middle hole too. And as we know, he's super instinctive and he made a lot of plays from that third safety position. So I think you need a guy that can be instinctive and be able to read the quarterback's eyes and jump passes and that sort of deal. And, you know, when I asked you for talking points and you –
Starting point is 00:13:47 and I kind of thought about this, you know, I think Mike Zimmer is pretty ahead of the curve when it comes to defense. I think a lot of teams are doing what he's been doing for the past few years now, playing a lot of two deep coverages, playing more match and quarter style defenses. And I think he's done a good job of adapting and adding on to his defense as the year goes. You know, he adds some more RPO defenses into his system. We remember when he got torn apart by, you know, the Eagles by RPOs
Starting point is 00:14:15 in that championship game. I think he added more, you know, he kind of adjusted his defense after that. The Rams kind of ran him out the building on that Thursday night game a couple years back too. But if we're talking about the most modern defense in the NFL, we're talking about what Brandon Staley has done with the Rams. And what he has done is he's playing a lot of odd front with that quarter coverage. So Zimmer already runs a bunch of quarters coverage.
Starting point is 00:14:43 I think if we want to say let's take the next step into being more modern, I would say probably I don't know if the Vikings have the personnel to do it, maybe run some more odd front. So I think if you want to be more modern, respect the run less. Let teams run on you. It's okay if they get four or five-yard gains here. As long as you're not getting big chunks in a passing game, you can pressure, too.
Starting point is 00:15:11 So instead of single-gapping, which the Vikings are a single-gap team, when you single-gap, you have to have multiple players in the line of scrimmage to account for all these gaps. But when you're playing some more odd fronts, you can do what the Rams are doing where they're playing one-and-a-half gaps. But, you know, you need the personnel to do that, and it's nice to have a guy like Aaron Donald to do that. So I think Zimmer is pretty modern, but I would say if you want to move
Starting point is 00:15:34 even a step further, respect the run list, play some more odd fronts, and play around with those concepts. Hey, everyone. We're in the full swing of winter now now and SodaStick has you covered. If you're a hockey fan, check out the North state icon shirts or the Mick Goldenlight snowmobile designs. All of these along with great football designs like the skull hats,
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Starting point is 00:16:16 That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINS purple insider for free shipping and and that is one thing that was interesting to me with Zimmer where you know they spent a lot of money to sign Michael Pierce he's going to come back and he's a good player but it was a lot of money to sign Michael Pierce right to sign a nose tackle who doesn't really get after the passer they played Shamar Stephan even when they had Linval Joseph a bit. And he didn't produce anything for pressures. But when they had Tom Johnson and Sheldon Richardson there, those guys were able to penetrate really effectively.
Starting point is 00:16:51 And it seemed like they didn't put as much of a premium on that after 2018. And they paid for it at times. And that's where I wanted your opinion on just, you know, if you're building a defense from scratch, which the Vikings almost are here, except for at the linebacker position, even a safety is likely to leave with Anthony Harris. The cornerbacks are kind of up in the air. We don't know yet whether either one of them is going to be a long-term hit. Where are you investing your cap space and draft capital into to get the most out of that style of defense? I think you need good cornerbacks. I think with that style of defense,
Starting point is 00:17:37 you can blitz a lot. You can bring pressure, and Zimmer is one of the best at drawing up pressures. So you can create pressure, but obviously you only can do it so much. I mean, you know, it's hard to do it so much when you have a bad four-man rush where you're kind of forced into pressuring every play. You don't want to get into that situation. You want to have a decent four-man rush if you can. But I think investing in corners is the most important for that defense because you're going to have corners in one-on-one, a lot of one-on-one situations.
Starting point is 00:18:09 If an offense does this, offense does that. Or there's some coverages where they're just going to have the corner play one-on-one, like, you know, if they're playing solo coverage, that outside corner on the trip side is going to play one-on-one and he has to be able to hold his own. So I think when you take care of the corner position for this defense it kind of just makes everything a little bit easier and I've already received some draft snark from fans Ted who are like man if they draft a corner I bet Zimmer wants to draft corner but I yeah I mean I agree
Starting point is 00:18:41 with you and this is why I don't think it's ever insane to draft corner, is because coverage just rules in today's game. And, of course, pressure is a huge deal, and you need both. You need both playing off each other. And in the game with Tampa Bay and KC, when you have a massive mismatch like that, you're probably going to win a lot when it's like that. It's usually not like that, though. And every team is throwing so much. And we even talked about how complicated you have to be in terms of coverage to even be
Starting point is 00:19:09 decent at this. Like if the Vikings were to draft a corner in the first round, I wouldn't criticize it. I would probably say like, look, this is a key piece. And I also think it's much easier to find someone who can get five sacks for you and 30 or 40 pressures than it is to get somebody who's going to be great at coverage against top wide receivers yeah it's those are two premium positions corners and defensive ends and i i just think that you know i think it's we're seeing more teams blitz more i don't i don't have the exact numbers, but it seems like there's more blitzing going on. So I think you can make up for not having great pass rushers more than you can make up for not having great corners or really good corners. If you have liabilities at the corner position, I think it's just killer to your defense,
Starting point is 00:20:06 especially nowadays where the focus more is on stopping explosive plays rather than trying to stop everything. And just having those corners and outside really helps kind of slows down those explosives. It is fascinating how they play off of each other because there's the coverage sack, and then there's also if you create pressure under two and a half seconds, you make your cornerbacks' lives easier. So all cornerbacks will tell you man i need those guys up front and all the guys up front will say man i need those corners to do their job in the back end and i know i made the joke like have good players everywhere but even when xavier rhodes was at his best and zimmer was able to roll coverages to the other side because he could leave xavier rhodes there like
Starting point is 00:20:43 the impact of someone like stefan gilmore when he was at his best in New England, if you have one of those guys, I feel like it's just like a golden ticket to having a great defense. And Jalen Ramsey, you know, played that sort of role in Los Angeles. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you find that rare shutdown corner, it's like you take, he just eliminates one side of the field, and then you can bring attention elsewhere.
Starting point is 00:21:06 You can blitz more. It just makes things easier. And I think the coverage aspect is even more important, but the emergence of some of these young quarterbacks that can buy time. So even if you can pressure, these guys can get away from pressure and buy extra time. And if you don't have corners that can plaster, that's a big play. Oh, yeah, that's a great point, the increased athleticism of quarterbacks let me ask you about quarterbacks
Starting point is 00:21:29 uh because here's something i'm really struggling to figure out talk about not having all the answers i don't have all the answers here ted who's good at quarterback today seriously because you have so many systems that make guys and situations and circumstances and one year Jared Goff you'd be like no way am I getting rid of Jared Goff man they just led the number one and then the number two offense in the NFL back-to-back years they went to a Super Bowl pay that man his money and then here we are a couple years later they lose some receivers they lose some linemen you know maybe some people figure out some things of Sean McVay all of a sudden uh-oh we've got a trade for Matt Stafford who by the way has always been the guy we say well you know he doesn't have the good enough circumstances and that's the problem and that's why Matt Stafford's not good
Starting point is 00:22:13 tell me what I should be doing here Ted to figure out how we separate these circumstances and Kirk Cousins falls into this too how we separate circumstances from how good a guy can be and how high a ceiling can potentially be with a quarterback. I think there are a few ways to do it. I think when you separate how effective they are as a passer in comparison to how they do with play action, if you're just looking at their drop back stats and you compare that to their stats with play action, if there's too big of a difference favoring towards the play action side,
Starting point is 00:22:52 then you could kind of say, look, this quarterback is getting a lot of benefit from the play action passing game. He saw that with Jared Goff's numbers where, you know, there's just a huge discrepancy between his drop-back numbers and his play-action numbers. And I think you might find a similar thing if you look at Kirk Cousins. You want to look at the type of throws they're making. Are they making tight window throws downfield? Are they being aggressive?
Starting point is 00:23:17 And if you don't see those things, then you're likely looking at a quote-unquote system quarterback, even though I kind of hate that term. But, you know, I mean, when you look at Patrick Mahomes, when you look at Josh Allen, these guys are making uncommon plays, and they're making enough plays in the regular schedule of the offense where they can move the ball consistently too. So I think it has to be a little bit of both. But I think when you're looking at quarterbacks right now, you're looking at guys, you want to find guys can make
Starting point is 00:23:49 plays out of structure, but there also has to be enough good play in structure to where they can function in a regular offense. But I think right now where the game is moving, you want those guys that could make plays outside of structure and get those explosive plays for you tell me if you agree with this i think that there's a lot of quarterbacks that are separating themselves into the categories of very predictable and you know exactly what you're going to get from them and that would be your system guy that you're talking about and volatile and then of course there's like the aaron rogers where i mean come on this is a different universe from everybody else everybody likes likes Aaron Rodgers. No one's
Starting point is 00:24:28 going to argue with you when you say he's great. But if you were to say Josh Allen versus Kirk Cousins, for example. Now, Josh Allen, I think based on his accuracy numbers and stuff like that, the PFF annual, I've been poking through that. You might say next year, the guy could throw twice as many interceptions because he's got volatility to his game but he could also win the mvp james winston is sort of like this but like i think he'll always throw those interceptions but with cousins you're going to say unlikely that he'll lead the league in big time throws and tight window throws but pretty darn likely he's going to give you the most consistency and you know exactly what you need to do, where the bar is. So he's never going to ruin it for you.
Starting point is 00:25:10 So you have to just give him what he needs to succeed. I think they've sort of broken off into those two categories. And then as an organization, you have to decide, like, do I pay either one of those types of quarterbacks? Because the volatile guy is going to frustrate you. And so is the system guy at times. Yeah, I think with the system guy, you have to pair him with – I mean, if you have a team that's defensive-minded
Starting point is 00:25:32 and you have a strong defense, then you would want the system guy because he's going to provide that baseline. He's not going to turn the ball over for you. But the problem is, as we've seen proven by statistics, it's hard to maintain a good defense year to year so i i think that's why we're trending more towards um building a great offense and finding that that great quarterback even though he might be volatile because we've seen that you know you can consistently have a great offense year to year especially if you find that
Starting point is 00:26:04 that quarterback. So I think that's where the league is moving. But, you know, I get that there are teams that have strong defenses too and defensive-minded coaches. And for those guys, having that consistent system quarterback might be more valuable and more palpable for them. Okay, I have two more questions for you, Ted. Number one is Mike Zimmer said he thinks that defense is back next year,
Starting point is 00:26:28 right? Because there will be fans in the stands. There won't be the pandemic stuff. There will probably be what we hope, right? Like, please, please America.
Starting point is 00:26:36 But less anyway. And so there'll be more protocols and everything else that they can do. OTAs and vaccinations and all those things, whatever. There'll be a lot of things that are closer to normal than they were. I wonder if you agree, or if you see when you watch all the tape, if you look and go, I don't know, man, offenses are just finding so many ways to succeed and quarterbacks are so good that we probably are going to continue where we're at as opposed to fading backwards.
Starting point is 00:27:07 Yeah, I think offenses are just – I don't think the trend towards more offensive production is going to slow down, but I think it did take kind of an unreasonable jump this season because Zimmer does have a point that without fans in the stands, the offense can't communicate more at the line of scrimmage. We saw a ton of that this season because Zimmer does have a point that, you know, without fans in the stands, the offense can't communicate more at the line of scrimmage. We saw a ton of that this season. They can operate a little easier without tons of crowd noise. And I think, you know, the pandemic affected defenses more than affected offenses because these quarterbacks
Starting point is 00:27:40 and wide receivers, they still got together and were able to do timing routes and that sort of stuff in the offseason. I think there was also a big emergence of young quarterbacks and wide receivers they still got together and you know were able to do timing routes and that sort of stuff in offseason um i think there was also a big emergence of young quarterbacks this this um this season i think offenses you know when you're learning an offense it's the same stuff over and over again there might be some new stuff and you might call it differently you might shift some things around and mix things up differently. But you're just learning the same stuff over again if you're in the same system. And, you know, you could study your playbook. You could know your individual roles.
Starting point is 00:28:12 But defensively, you're reacting to everything. So, you know, you have to make your calls based on what the offense is doing. You have to step this way based on what the offense is doing. And you have to physically practice those things. So not having training camp, not being able to get together, really affected defenses. And I felt like defenses did start catching up towards the offense at the end of the season, which usually happens.
Starting point is 00:28:34 You'll see that happen in any season, but I felt like we saw that happen to a bigger degree this season just because defenses start know, defenses start getting used to seeing the offenses. They get their checks down. They react a little bit better. And that's why in the playoffs, you know, scoring goes down towards the end of the season. Scoring goes down a little bit. So I think Zimmer does have a point.
Starting point is 00:28:57 I think with, you know, when things get back to normal, defenses will be better. But I don't know if it's going to be back. Like, you know, defenses are all suddenly going gonna shut down these offenses i just don't think the ridiculous numbers are gonna um be as prevalent as they were this season hey if you've been listening to the show lately you've been hearing about scout logistics and trust me i've been trying to get them to come out with a line of vikings merch or something because my listeners are hearing their message all the time now.
Starting point is 00:29:29 Maybe we can get them to partner with SodaStix for the draft in those Scout Logistics scouting reports. Anyway, Scout Logistics joined up with us here at Purple Insider because they enjoy the show and they wanted to get behind us. So if you have a business with shipping needs, then you're going to want to join up with them. Scout Logistics has a 99% delivery rate. They know exactly how to handle perishable goods and increase shelf life. They also ship non-perishable, oversized, fragile goods
Starting point is 00:29:51 with the utmost care. You can contact them and see why North America's largest shippers and receivers have chosen Scout Logistics at 855-217-2688. That's 855-217-2688, extension 232, or at scoutlogistics.com. Yeah, and the home field advantage thing is absolutely real, though. I mean, I'll tell you when it really hit me is when I watched Mike Glennon comfortably at the line of scrimmage on a third down, make all of his calls and checks, and then deliver a dime against the Vikings. I was like, okay, if Mike Glennon is having no problem with third downs in U.S. Bank Stadium, then I think the fan thing is a huge, huge deal
Starting point is 00:30:37 for the Vikings, and that will naturally improve them. The last thing is broad question here. You can take this anywhere you want. You can take it to your X's and O's. You can take it to free agency, draft, whatever. Give me the thing that for this offseason you just can't wait to find out. Because, I mean, for me there's like 30 things with the Vikings alone. But, you know, whatever.
Starting point is 00:30:57 I'm like, are they going to, you know, give this restricted free agent a new deal? But just give me the thing that you're sort of like let's let's find out what's going to happen here uh this is kind of a cheap answer but i mean it's true i've been thinking you know i i think everybody thinks about this a little bit every every day where's sean watson gonna land yeah yeah yeah i mean you know you we've never seen this happen a young quarterback that's, you know, a legitimate top five quarterback getting moved around. We just never see that happen.
Starting point is 00:31:34 And I think the Texans want to keep him, obviously. And right now he's not on the trading block. But I really feel like Deshaun Watson is, you know, he's pretty honed in on his stance. So I think things are going to get ugly. And eventually the Texans have to make a move. I think it's rational for them to make a move before the draft. This is a strong quarterback class. So why wouldn't you want to get a draft pick before the draft and maybe pick his successor?
Starting point is 00:31:57 I know it stinks having to trade a top five quarterback, but that's just the situation you're in. You have to make the best of it. But, again, if the Texans were making rational decisions, they wouldn't be in this situation. Yes. That one's going to shift the league, man. I mean, whatever division he goes to changes immediately.
Starting point is 00:32:17 Imagine if he goes to the Broncos. I mean, oh, my gosh, like that division is now complete insanity. Or if he comes to the NFL. That would be terrible for me. Yes, it would. Yes, it would. For you to cover the Raiders out there. That would make things a lot tougher.
Starting point is 00:32:34 But, I mean, hey, even the Raiders had some rumor to could they move Derek Carr and try to get Deshaun Watson. In fact, I think every fan base has had their rumor that they've clung on to involving Deshaun Watson. But something that big of an impact, seismic on the entire league. Absolutely. There's a, at some point, I don't know if you watch, used to watch Chappelle show back in the day, but there was like one of the bits where it's like, it just got real or
Starting point is 00:32:54 whatever. I want to know when for the McNair family, it just, it's going to get real that Deshaun Watson is not playing quarterback for you. I kind of can't wait for like the, oh, he's actually not coming to OTAs or something like that because they don't seem to be taking it seriously. Anyway, you have to, not just, this is not a suggestion, but a demand to follow Ted on Twitter at FB underscore film analysis, a Twitter handle you made clearly before you knew that you would be having, it was as big of a platform as you
Starting point is 00:33:25 otherwise you would have gone with Ted Wynn I think right anyway so at FB underscore film analysis the athletic tremendous tremendous stuff and I love to see it Ted love to see you doing the great work man keep it up and thanks for coming on we'll do it again soon appreciate it Matt and you know good luck on your website Matt. And, you know, good luck on your website. I'm glad that, you know, you found so much success.

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