Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The injury bug bites Vikings and whether they should add more free agents

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Matthew Coller is joined by Will Ragatz of SI.com to talk about Andrew Booth Jr. and Trishton Jackson's injuries at practice, whether Will is sticking with his 11-win prediction, Kevin O'Connell's comments about Dalton Riser and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome into another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, Jonathan Harrison as well. And we are going to pop in a very special guest. The first guest to come on a Vikings Camp Day camp day recap will raggetts from sports illustrated the i would say will that you are the most diligent note taker at training camp like of all the reporters that you are the one that is most buried in your phone after every play taking very diligent notes you you scoot right back into the media room. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes when I can't remember what I saw

or something that happened that was notable, and I'm like, who was that that made that play? Like, I'm just going to go to Will's Twitter, and I'm going to check out his article and see it. So I appreciate that because you're sort of like the stenographer of training camp sometimes with the way you pay attention so closely. I appreciate that. Yeah, no, I try to be I try to do the the daily recaps and kind of break down everything that happened. And it helps to kind of have those notes, articles, whatever, to go back at the end of camp in the middle of camp and say, OK, here's what was happening on day three.

And then here's how this has changed. And here's how a player's performance has changed over the course of the few weeks. So yeah, we try to, try to pay some attention and see what the trends are and what's happening on the field. Well, we have got a lot to get into with you. And of course, as always with hot routes with Jonathan, I have five questions that I've written down about training camp. Well, and one is more a little bit about a strange kerfuffle between Sean Payton and the New York Jets, which has just Jonathan.

You're I want you to break this down real quick. You are a WWE super fan. You know more about WWE than anybody I know. And this trash talk by WWE standards, I would give this like a two out of 10, maybe a three. Some of the, I mean,

if somebody gets slapped in the face all of a sudden, but out of nowhere, like Robert Sala just smacks a dude, then we're going to go up to like a six, but this has just been sad. Like Aaron Rogers, keep my coach out of your mouth. Like your coach was terrible,

man. Like, does anybody not think this? I'm just like exhausted of this pretendo storyline. Yeah, it's, it's some pretty weak smack talk from each side. And it's just kind of a boring off season thing that just, it seemed to fire up out of nowhere. And I, I kind of agree with him.

Daniel Hackett, what he said this week is that I'm glad it's happening now instead of week five during the season because I just didn't want the mid-season distraction of it and getting it out of the way now. So, yeah, it's just kind of weak by WWE standards. Also, Sean Payton is right. And I am sorry. I want to apologize to people. I forgot to put on the Oakleys to start the show. They were sitting right here.

And do I, or do I not will look just like Justin Jefferson with these on his were a version of this, but even cooler to where they didn't even have this top part. They were just all like this awesome reflective thing today. So when we were interviewing him after practice, I was like, you and me,

man, like we're in this together. I had my oakley sort of sitting on the top of my hat that's become one of my looks because it's like a decoration and maybe a little bit of clout chasing of me just like oh yeah i mean i'm out here in these cool shades but for the hot routes i always put them on no it's it's a good look i mean you guys are basically the same you know oakley sponsorships probably have a similar amount of Oakley. No, he probably has every imaginal pair that they've ever come out with

and slightly different swag styles, but I would say similar overall amounts of swag. I will give you that. I think that I can also catch a football just as well as him. No, we've, we have really seen quite the show from Justin Jefferson, and we're going to get into everything from training camp, but we have to talk about some injuries. Will.

And I think that's a good place to start our hot routes is we saw Andrew Booth jr. Leave today. And there are two places that players go when they leave the field. One is if they have to use the restroom, and they're usually jogging off with some haste if that is the case. And so we don't have to report on every person who's jogging off who's going to use the restroom. But then there's another door that if they go into, then it's concerning. Then it's like the injury door.

And that's the door that Andrew Booth Jr. went in and did not come back out. Are you ready to call it with Andrew Booth Jr. will? I mean, we are two padded practices in and he's already going in the injury door, even if it is not serious, even if it was just a cramp because it's hot out and maybe he didn't drink enough Gatorade or something, which is what I'm trying to replenish after we sweated like crazy today. It was so incredibly hot. So maybe he had a cramp or something, but it's almost like, I don't even care if it was just a cramp Andrew Booth jr. Not being able to finish the second practice. It just feels like this is the biggest worry that everybody had coming into this

about him taking another step. And even if he's back out there for the next couple of days, I'm still going to be like, I don't know, man. Like that's just the thing that can't happen when you're him and you've had so many injuries. Yeah, full disclosure, I'm kind of sweating right now. It's a little hot in my apartment. So I'm keeping the AC off so my sound quality is good.

But we'll battle through it. No, I'm kind of getting there with Andrew Booth. I mean, I don't want to kind of have to give up or bail because I really thought it had a chance to be a steal of a pick last year when I would throw on his college tape and I'd look at just kind of the mentality and having a you want to have a corner that plays with some of that swagger and that aggressiveness and that that's Andrew Booth but none of that matters none of the athletic stuff matters if you can't stay on the field and he just hasn't been able to stay on the field he said it to us last year he hadn't been healthy since high school I think

that's still the case I still don't think he's been healthy since high school maybe for a brief period this offseason but now you see him leave practice and you're like here we go again I it it's hard to blame the guy because I'm sure he's not trying to get hurt he wants to be out there he wants to be competing for a spot but it's just not happening he hasn't been able to stay on the field and even when he has been on the field during training camp so far he's been pretty buried with the twos. I mean, it's been, it was Jawan Williams playing with the ones for a bit. Now it's Makai Blackman in that spot, Byron Murphy and Caleb Evans, who was picked two rounds after Andrew Booth has been,

have been kind of locked in with the ones the whole time. So there's still a path for Booth. Like maybe this was just a precautionary thing and he'll be out there soon and he'll start making plays and work into the mix. But that just feels to me like that is more and more of a long shot of him turning into this really good starting second round caliber cornerback by the day. And, and when you see him leave today, it's just not a good sign. Yeah. By the way,

Jonathan didn't quit the show after one wwe question uh he was just having some internet trouble so he's just gonna reset that and uh pop back in shortly but i mean it would be funny if jonathan's whole contribution is like all right you get one question about wwe jonathan and then you're out um but uh i know you didn't hear uh some of that jonathan but just when it comes to Andrew Booth Jr., it seems way too early to call it on any player, but also has the same Mike Hughes feeling of once you get to a certain number of injuries, there's just no really coming back from that.

Like those things, they tend to add up. And with him, he was injured five or six different times last year where he was either on the injury list or mispractice or miss games or had surgery. And then even a small thing here, combined with what Will was just talking about and the fact that he wasn't getting any first team reps at all. They start with Jawan Williams, a guy who's a free agent, paid $1 million. And I think he was there to be beaten out by Makai Blackman, but there's just been no sign whatsoever that Andrew Booth Jr. is going to be a player for them. And I think it's just the nature of the beast, Jonathan, where this happens with draft picks.

Sometimes they don't get healthy. Sometimes they don't work out. I understand the logic of them saying, Hey, if everyone else is going to let this guy drop because of injuries, we're going to get a steal because he's a top 15 talent. But I also think that if you're going to question draft picks, this is one you actually can question. I mean, positional value, what he did in college, I mean, all good. And so there was that part when it happened. I thought, I don't know about this like Will mentioned on draft night he's saying he's always been hurt like that's not something I want to hear on draft night but I think that you you there's like a formula for when are we allowed to question

a draft pick and I think with Andrew Booth Jr. we are allowed to question that draft pick. Yeah I think going off this early in training camp after coming back from a season-ending knee injury and having all the troubles that he had in college with the injuries that he said on draft night, as you guys said, I think, yeah, we're at that point where you can question the draft pick and you can kind of, as much as it would stink for him, I think you can just kind of pencil them out because of the injuries. I mean, if you get something out of him down the road, then that's great. But right now, I don't think you can reliably hope that he can turn into anything because of the injuries. They keep popping up.

Seen this in the past with guys who come in from college and have injury history and it continues to follow him in the NFL. It just never seems to work out because the NFL is much more physical. It's much harder on your body. And as you get older, as we all know, those things don't tend to get better. And so he's kind of experiencing that already. And yeah, it sucks because that was a high pick and you don't want to kind of waste those early round picks. And, but at this point, he's had too many injuries. I think, I think you just hope that you can get something, but I don't think you're, you're expecting anything at this point. So we are looking at also another question throughout the night. That's going to pertain to that draft, which also goes under the category of, are we allowed to question it? We'll get to that a little later with a player that they had

visit and certainly sounds like they want to sign in Dalton Reisner but let me stay on the injury train here uh we were standing right there when Tristan Jackson went down grabbing his right knee today well you really don't enjoy seeing that there's been a handful of injuries throughout the years training camp that have happened right in front of me and I it's I mean no one enjoys that but it's really something you don't like, but with Tristan Jackson, it looked very serious. They carted him off. Every wide receiver came over to him. He was holding where people hold when it's an ACL. I don't want to get ahead of myself and have it be, you know, some strain and he's okay. Uh, so I'm not reporting that I know

what it is, but it just had all the feel where he was emotional as he's being taken off the field. That one is really tough because Tristan Jackson was having a legit training camp. In fact, even just earlier in the day, he had made a great catch yesterday. He made this over the head catch where he kind of reached out with one hand and grabbed it. He was one of the emerging stars of training camp. And we were it's it's very kind of spooky because we were having this discussion right before it happened. Like, is Tristan Jackson just smoking fools? And like, is he going to is he going to force them to keep six wide receivers with five

and a punt returner? And then now him going out it's sort of it doesn't like destroy their receiver depth but this is one that you just really hated to see happen for a guy who looked like he was just about to break through yeah it just stinks it's the worst part of football it's something that sometimes happens in training camp and you wonder like you know these players have just been off or not really playing football for a while. And then you jump back in and you're, you're going hard and doing all these jobs.

And it seems like with wide receivers, we've seen it a few times, Blake pro I think about BC Johnson. Like, I think we've had one ACL type injury the last for a wide receiver, the last few training camps. And yeah, we don't know if that's the case for Tristan Jackson,

but it did not look good. I mean, he was down being attended to by trainers for four or five minutes, which just isn't a good sign. He had to get carted off, couldn't put any weight on it when they were able to help him up. So it sucks. I mean, this is a guy who was an undrafted free agent in 2020 out of Syracuse, signed with the Rams practice squad, then came over to the Vikings, has been on their practice squad for a couple of years.

So this is fourth season. He hasn't played in an NFL game. And you're starting to think as you watch him, I'm thinking back to OTAs, minicamp and then the whole first week of training camp. Like this dude is a legit NFL looking wide receiver. The way he just has the combination of size and speed and, and route running. And like, he's, he's never going to be a star, but he was looking like a guy who could potentially get onto the field

this year, especially if there was an injury in the depth chart above him. And then to see him go down and it just sucks. I mean, all of his teammates going over there to show him some love was cool, but you really feel for the guy for how hard he's worked and and how far he's come over the last three years just grinding away on practice squad so hopefully it's not bad or even if it is then he gets the year on ir and he gets to come back and do it again next year because

uh been a fun guy to watch through this first week there are some guys though that you feel like this was their chance and and that happened with bc johnson actually kind of twice where it just felt like if you are on the very very edge of being in the nfl and you have to take a year off because of an acl even if most people come back pretty well from acls and again i'm not announcing or reporting that it was it just looked like it and and if it turns out that it was something else and he can come back, well, that's really big. It just had all the telltale signs of somebody who's going to be out for a very long time.

If that's the case, I think it's going to be really, really hard for him to come back. And it's just like this is how hard it is to make it in the NFL. Even when you are a great college player, he set like Syracuse records and then you grind and then you, you stand out in training camp against NFL players. And this guy actually took full advantage of Jalen Naylor being out a few days. Naylor had, has some sort of leg injury. He's supposed to be back at some point this week and Tristan Jackson just stepped right into his role and all of a sudden was making plays all over the place.

And then now, you know, obviously he doesn't get to do that. So the depth looks a little bit less. The competition kicks up for somebody like Thayer Thomas, Brandon Powell, players like that at the back end. I was going to ask both you guys and Jonathan, you go first. As it pertains to Booth Jr. or Tristan Jackson, For different reasons, these were guys that there was reason to believe in, like Andrew Booth Jr. as a talent. In fact, he had a moment last year in training camp. He had a sick interception in one of the first days of training camp,

and everyone's like, we got a star, here we go. And honestly, it did look really good for him just from the very outset, and then the injury slowed him down and it never seemed to work out. And trish and jackson i was joking with you guys it's trish season like he was just doing so well uh i want to know from you guys who a player was that you bought into and then it just never materialized for that guy like Like during training camp, got you excited and then nothing happened at all. Who do you got Jonathan? So I've got two from the same class. They're both quarterbacks. This is when I was a teenager. So don't kill me too much for these. This was back in 2008. I'm going to go with John David booty, USC quarterback, because I was all in on USC

quarterbacks at the time. And I thought fifth round pick, you got to steal. This is going to be great. He's going to develop into a long-term guy. Unfortunately, he didn't. That didn't turn out. He didn't get anywhere near the starting roster. I think he did well in the CFL, if I'm remembering correctly. But other than that, he didn't really do anything in the NFL. And another guy, non-Vikings related, Brian Brom.

He was killing it at Louisville, was a second round pick, and then just completely flamed out. Couldn't even beat Matt Flynn in that roster. And yeah, there's two guys from the same quarterback class in 2008 that I was all in on that. I thought we're going to be great and just didn't do anything.

How about you? Yeah, those are good answers. I was thinking more recent and Viking specific couple of guys. Cause we didn't training camp and everything in 2020 was weird but then in 2021 we were kind of like fully back and i remember um there's one guy who got me excited during training camp and that was amir smith-marset and i'm just i'm watching this guy and i'm like i had watched him in the big 10 too these are i have two big 10

guys actually um and i had watched him and i was like this this guy can fly he's a playmaker like this guy has a chance to be not stefan diggs but a good find in the fifth round and he was making plays and then just never really happened for him he did some things kind of late in that year but uh then got cut the next year and then the other one which wasn't really as much of a training camp thing, but just like when I saw them draft him, I'm like, Wyatt Davis is going to be a really good guard. He was a two-time All-American at Ohio State. And I think even maybe some one-on-one reps or whatever in training camp,

I'm like, all right, yeah, this guy can play. Just never happened. I don't even know if he's still on a 90-man roster two years after he was drafted in the third round so uh maybe i gotta be a little more skeptical with my with my big 10 guys when uh mike zimmer said that wyatt davis wasn't in shape and then made him do gassers after practice i was like it's over that was even in his first i i didn't even give him the obligatory well maybe you know you're too and i was like no no no that's a if you can't even show him the obligatory. Well, maybe, you know, you're too. And I was like,

no, no, no. That's a, if you can't even show up to your first NFL training camp in shape. And there wasn't any COVID excuses for that. Like, come on,

man. It's obvious that you are not really committed. I'll give you a two recent ones from training camps slash drafts. Rodney Adams was one for me when they drafted Rodney Adams. I watched the guy and you know, his highlight reel and everything else was so impressed thought, Oh, they've got their next Cordero Patterson here. This guy is a playmaker. And then the camp tie-in is we talked to him a couple of times, great personality, like really upbeat guy, great energy seemed like a very intelligent dude but another guy that maybe wasn't the most dialed into football when he made videos a youtube career

or something yes yes when he made videos okay so he was making like vlogs at training camp in mankato which i think is totally fine. Like follow yourself around the camera. Here I go. I'm having dinner. Okay. But he carried it into the season. Like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. That's not going to work. The team is not going to like that. And the other thing was he kept getting hit in the head with punt returns. He looked like us. And I remember the one time you remember how quiet Marcus Sherrill's was. I remember one time I made Marcus Sherrill's laugh when I made a comment about Rodney Adams getting hit in the head with punt returns. I was like, Marcus, you know, it's harder than, you know, people think it is to catch those punts. Like Rodney Adams getting hit with them. And he actually had like a, a go fall. And I just like Marcus Sherrill's is the quietest man I've

ever covered. And, uh, to make him laugh was, was pretty good. I like this nomination from a sloth here. I thought Moritz Bollringer was going to be a dude. It turns out knowing how to play football is important. Moritz Bollringer, his, his athletic profile was the same as Andre Johnson. And so everybody got super hype about that. The other one was Kenny Willekes. Man, you talk about Big Ten disappointments. I thought Kenny Willekes early in training camp was just crushing one-on-ones and was going to be a guy. And then they had a practice at U.S. Bank Stadium, and he got hurt, and we essentially never saw him again.

He got in a few games here or there and nothing ever really materialized. And of course there are the famed Kyle Slaughter and Alexander Hollins and things like that, that people on the outside kind of got excited for, but actually at practice, maybe not as much, but there is a long list. Jonathan, when you brought up a John David booty, I thought you were going to go McLeod Bethel Thompson, which was another one. So good question. And by the way, people can ask all the questions you want or answer our questions along with us in the chat. This is a good question here from Jordan. Does this open the door for Jalen Rager? Is he worth rostering at this point? What do you think, Will?

I don't know that this changes anything for jalen regger because i just i have tristan jackson and jalen regger in kind of different buckets on this wide receiver roster depth chart situation to me it's always been jalen regger and brandon powell are like very similar players so you're only going to keep one of them and i've been i've had my mind made up since training camp started that brandon powell is going to win one of them. And I've been, I've had my mind made up since training camp started that Brandon Powell is going to win that battle. And it's possible that the Vikings look at it differently and they, they could keep both and have some versatility there.

But to me, it's like, they're just, they're both kind of short gadget guys, punt returners, but Brandon Powell has a better track record of returning punts is more of a track record in Kevin O'Connell offenses. I just don't see Rager being on this team.

He had a drop today, and you're just like, I don't see it, man. He's athletic. He was a first-round pick for a reason, and there would be like $2 million in dead cap if they cut him, but I don't think that matters too much in the overall kind of business of roster construction. So I think Brandon Powell is over Jalen Rager. And then if, if, if the Tristan Jackson injury creates room for anyone,

it could be a different guy like a Thayer Thomas, or I don't know, somebody else even deeper down that depth chart to maybe get onto the practice squad at the very least. Yeah. I think Thayer Thomas is an interesting one. They might also just keep five. They'll probably keep five after this. Thayer Thomas has been making plays every practice. I think he's a practice squad guy for sure with his route running.

100%. And just like ball tracking, he catches everything that comes his way. Maybe the next Adam Thielen or Wes Welker or wayne kerbet or julian edelman or those who don't know who thayer thomas is just sort of figured it out um but he's uh you know he was a good baseball player good athlete he was a walk-on at nc state and then became uh like a really really good player for them so kind of an overachiever along the way. And he will absolutely get asked about Adam Thielen if he makes the team somehow.

I just thought about actually who could be the potential beneficiary of a Tristan Jackson injury. It would just be the other Jackson who goes by the name Lucky, the former XFL star. He's kind of a similar like x type bigger outside receiver made some he's made some plays he caught a ball from from nick mullins in a team period today so maybe that's another deeper guy to sort of keep an eye on yeah at this moment i would say probably regger gets cut and i will die on the hill of put regger in the backfield that someone should try jalen regger

because he's so fast and so quick and so explosive in the backfield but someone should try Jalen Rager because he's so fast and so quick and so explosive in the backfield, but the man can't catch or run routes and like, well, okay, that's what happened with Cordero Patterson. So, uh, why not give that a shot? But I think that what I see in Brandon Powell is a guy who can actually run and catch routes, like run route or wait, run routes and catch the ball uh and like at least if you had to put him in at wide receiver you wouldn't feel like it was a a disaster like it was last year mostly with um you know jalen regger when he was in there so i yeah i think this does pretty much clarify it unless somebody comes up and uh steals a job question from Dustin here does Addison seem to have what it

takes to take the number two from KJ before the start of the season what do you think I think he does I mean I think I've been really impressed by what I've seen from him over this first week of training camp I mean even in rookie mini camp like the first time I ever saw him on the field in a vikings practice i'm like all right i see it i see why he's a first round pick it's just you can kind of see it or you don't with the movement ability the route running the hands and that's just been the case this whole week there was a play today that made me be like all right yep jordan addison and uh no it's not happening for Juwan Williams they were doing a one-on-one and he just absolutely roasted Williams off the line of scrimmage and got like

10 yards of separation within a second or two and I'm like this this guy can move man like he he just looks the part it's twitchiness is is really the thing it's just quick twitch acceleration burst coming in and out of the breaks these things that are really important even more important arguably than running a 4-4 in a straight line to create separation and get open in the NFL so I think KJ Osborne is a really good player back to back like 650 yard seasons I think Kevin O'Connell trusts him to do a lot of the kind of dirty work with helping out and run blocking and various things like that good receiver too but Jordan Addison was a first round pick for a reason I think I don't know if it happens week one but I think there's a point at some point this year where we start to see Addison

out there more than Osborne when it's just two wide receivers on the field I really do yeah I think that he has that potential what we've seen is a lot of guys whiffing, thinking that they have them, and then they don't, like a ghost just disappearing. He is so fast that it's quick more than fast that it messes with your eyes sometimes. Like you expect a turn to happen at a certain rate, and then it happens just faster. And so it just like takes you back a little bit like when i don't know like when an outfielder releases a ball and it just flies faster and you kind of go like whoa well you're like that like that's the same sort of effect

um and uh christian wants to know how he's doing against physical press coverage i don't know that i could say definitively at this moment. I think I have to see a little bit more. I mean, you mentioned he smoked, you know, Juwan Williams, but as far like you have to get a bigger sample to be able to tell exactly how, I mean, I have to watch it closer, but I mean, I just think he's so shifty and so quick that it's not going to be a massive issue. And plus we have seen him out of the slot a lot. So this is a question that actually leads into our next question from R Nelly 94. Any thoughts on how Reisner would contribute to the run game?

I feel like the RB room and the addition of Oliver might be a huge surprise this year. So I'll get to that in a second, but I want to throw it back to you, Jonathan, to talk a little bit about Dalton Reisner. The way that Kevin O'Connell was talking today sounded like Dalton Reisner's on the team. I, it just was weird. Cause he was at first he said, well, I can't really speculate about a guy who's not on our team. And then we were like, so left guard, right guard.

He's like, well, you know, we asked him and then wait a minute, you guys, you Wiley reporters, you media, uh, that's kind of how it was with him. But do you think Jonathan that Dalton Reisner should he sign is being brought here for left guard or right guard? I think that's, it's really difficult because you can make very good arguments for either. I think because the four-year starter can make very good arguments for either. I think because the four-year starter at left guard and the fact that he's coming in and he'll be coached by a former assistant coach with the Broncos who knows him already, I think he might come in to replace Ezra Cleveland because, if I'm remembering correctly, Cleveland's on the final year of his contract if I'm right on that and so they're they I think they would bring him in to slot in for Cleveland because Cleveland's a pick from the last regime Ed Ingram's not Ed Ingram's from this regime I think they would want to try and make Ed Ingram work at that right guard spot and they probably don't want to be flipping a guy across the

offensive line uh in a new place so they probably I would imagine they would bring him in for left guard, have him compete with Ezra Cleveland for that, because you look at their PFF grades, they pretty much are the exact opposites of each other. Reisner is a better pass blocker than a run blocker, and Ezra Cleveland's a better run blocker than pass blocker. And considering it's a pass-first offense, I think they would want Reisner to succeed there at that left guard position

alongside Derrissaw on the left guard position alongside a dare. So on that left hand, on the left side of the offensive line. Boy, if you want to know what it's like on the sidelines of training camp, by the way, with the reporters and stuff, it's just like this,

where we walk up to each other and you're like, what do you think? Left guard, right guard. What do you think they're doing this for? And then we talk about it as we're watching practice. Your opinion will. Yeah, this is super interesting to me uh for several reasons i think dalton reisner is a quality starting guard in the nfl he's proven that during his time with the broncos he's like

jonathan said he's played exclusively at left guard so i think he comes in and you could just slot him into that left guard spot um but then what do you do at right guard i don't think it necessarily has to be ed ingram staying there remember ezra cleveland as a rookie played right guard so i think you could have a competition there possibility if if you see what you want to see from ed ingram um and who is the the draft pick of this regime and the younger guy with less experience, maybe theoretically more potential. You could maybe look around and see if you could get anything for Ezra Cleveland in a trade or just hold onto them and have better depth. And I don't know.

It's interesting because I think Ezra Cleveland, I have more faith right now in being a good football player than Eddie Ingram because Eddie Ingram had just a disaster of a rookie season. But again, it's the last year of the contract versus having a guy who we just drafted in the second round last year, who's under contract for three more years. So that'll be really fascinating to me if they bring in, if they do sign Reisner, which I don't think is a sure thing, but you're right that there was one Kevin O'Connell sentence where he almost was talking about him as if he was on the team.

And I was like, are we doing this um if they do bring him in like who who he will replace because I don't think they're bringing him in to be the sixth offensive lineman I think he's gonna be a starting guard because of how good he is and consistent he is as a pass blocker and what that could mean for keeping Kirk Cousins from being the most hit quarterback in the league again it's just who who does he just who does he force out? I think it could be either one. Okay, I'm going to take my glasses off in a very investigatory way. Here's my evidence that it is Ed Ingram that they're looking to replace.

When Kevin O'Connell was talking, he said that they had a discussion with Dalton Reisner about positions. Why would they have a discussion with him about positions if he was just going to replace the left guard, right? And here's the other thing too. So last year, I'm trying to do my sort of Brian Windhorst. So last year, when you look back at Ed Ingram's play, he had a PFF grade in the pass blocking that was the same as TJ Clemmings 2016, which is the worst offensive lineman play over a full season I have ever seen.

And I think when you review game by game at Ingram, uh, it's brutal. And now we say, Oh, could he take the next step? Whatever the next step would have to be really big. And so if they didn't like what he did in the off season, like which one of these two guys would be more likely to have had a bad offseason that the team would be upset about. Ezra Cleveland, who has proven to be a pro over the number of years. Now, he's not perfect, but he's a pro. Or would it be Ed Ingram, who is going into his second year? And the other thing is, too, and gosh, I would just despise this.

You could also have Reisner come in and move Cleveland back to right guard where he played before for a season and was like, okay, serviceable. I don't, again, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. I would want him to stay at left guard, but that's making the case for it. I honestly think that if they were to do it, they would bring him in and just have him compete with both of those guys but something spooked them something made them nervous about what they saw and i feel like it's more likely that it's ezra cleveland and now dramatically put them back on what do you think the timing of it is interesting too because it was they had one day of padded practice

and they're like all right go go get me the top guard on the market. Let's bring him in for a visit. I agree with you. I don't know if you want to move Ezra Cleveland back. He started at right guard. I mean, he played tackle in college. Then he was right guard as a rookie, left guard. Like last year, playing left guard for the second straight season

was the first time he played the same position two years in a row since college. So I think they probably want to keep him there he he you hope he could take like a garrett bradbury year four leap where he figures out how to anchor in fast protection because he was like a top five graded run blocker in the league at the guard position last year but he gave up 50 pressures and 20 quarterback hits or whatever which i don't i think would have been talked about more if ed ingram wasn't giving up 60 pressures and 20 quarterback hits or whatever, which I don't, I think would have been talked about more if Ed Ingram wasn't giving up 60 pressures and however many quarterback hits he gave up. The one thing about Reisner where you could talk me into moving him to right

guard, even though he's played left guard for about 4,000 snaps the last four years, he played right tackle and center at Kansas state. He didn't even play guard. And then he just went to left guard with the Broncos and has been very solid at that position. So he strikes me as a guy with some positional flexibility just with his history going back to college. Did I talk you into it, Jonathan?

You were very staunch that it was going to be Cleveland. No, I think you guys have made excellent points, and I think I've converted that he's coming here to be a right guard if they are able to sign him. I like that idea. And as you said, something clearly made them react in a way to bring this guy in. Because I can't remember hearing anything about them looking on the market still for players to bring in. And Collar and I, you and I, have talked about this plenty on this podcast about these camp,

these late camp additions and how it's some, how sometimes it doesn't work. And it kind of shows you kind of tells you that they didn't do a good enough job in the off season. I don't know if that's a good sign or not, that they're still bringing in guys, but if it shores up, if it helps shores up their offensive line, which we know, especially the interior side of it, part of it, if it helps them shore that up, then I'm all for it. And it doesn't matter to me which side he goes on,

as long as it helps out this offensive line and stops getting the quarterback hit as many times as he was last season. Thor asks, do you think the Netflix QB show had anything to do with reevaluating the O-line? Now we all laugh and go, Oh, come on. We all saw it last year. But, um, I guess I would also say that maybe ownership watched it for the first time. And, and maybe, maybe Mark Wilf was in a private jet or something. Let me see what this quarterback thing is all about. Oh my God. Uh, Kwesi Kwesi, we got to get the guard, do whatever it takes to

get Dalton Reisner. Uh, I suppose that that is possible. And, you know, I've been listening to the Sumer sports show with Eric Eager and Thomas Dimitrov and Dimitrov is a former NFL GM, a two time GM of the year for a long time. And he talks all the time about, well, you know, when the owner knocks on your door and whatever, I think that all owners have more to do with what's going on than we understand um this is also a funny thought that was kirk

lobbying for riser by wearing number 66 so i i was told that that was about like a message about ryan wright who was like the last guy that anyone would have expected to make the team and made the team and he wore 66 last year but also that's what they would tell us if he was campaigning i mean you can't really do that because if you don't get him then ed ingram's gonna be like guess who's getting sacked more this year bucko that's you how do you like your ribs not anymore they're broke it was a funny coincidence i was looking like why is why is kirk wearing 66 and i'm looking in in twitter applies and everyone's like oh that's riser's number and i was like wait it is it is riser's number but no it was yeah and they like retweeted something that basically confirmed that it was you know ryan wright came in last year as

an undrafted free agent his original number was 66 and he still made the roster. So that's some kind of inspirational Kirk Cousins message thing that was just a little odd to me, I guess. Just a couple of notes here from people that I think are good observations. If Reisner comes in and replaces Ed, Kwasi 2022 second round draft picks of Booth and Ed Ingram, not looking good. I agree. And both of them were highly questionable at that point.

And I mean, just reaching like crazy on a guard. And again, we don't know which guy he would be coming in to replace, but this is also a point as well from sloth. Honestly, just put the three of them in a cage together and only let two out. Yeah. Like in Batman, break the pool stick and toss it on the ground. Somebody, somebody is winning this job that actually could be true.

There's two guys who are not good at pass blocking who wants to be replaced by Dalton Reister. Let's see some people. I mean, it also could be Chris Reed is not out there and Austin Schlotman right now is the backup guard or only Udo in a pinch. They just don't really have one. So part of that could be just that they don't have any depth on the offensive line. So even if he does win the job, somebody gets bumped down. Then if Ingram is your backup, or of course, if Cleveland is your backup, you feel a lot better about that. So let me move on to another question.

We've seen a little bit of training camp so far. Well, and if I recall when the schedule came out, you and I did a podcast in which you declared with extreme certainty and you, you would not back off this. You fought just like you were in that cage with the offensive linemen that the vikings were an 11 win team and i'm i'm mostly kidding i'm completely kidding about your conviction to that but you picked them as an 11 win team uh jonathan is will looking good

so far you think about his 11 win prediction for the minnesota vikings well if i'm coming from will standpoint i don't think anything that we knew at the time when the schedule came out has really changed from what we knew would happen throughout the rest of the summer. We knew at some point they would move on from Dalvin Cook. We knew at some point they would move on from Zedaria Smith. Those things happened. We just didn't know what would happen with the Neil Hunter.

Now that he's back, I can't really argue that considering what the rest of the NFC is what the rest of the NFC North is I can't really argue that he's not he's he's wrong on this point uh that he was wrong at for 11 wins right then and I don't think anything right now for me through the first week of training camp has really changed anything uh to change my mind that this could be a team that wins a ton of games again well here's the thing all right go ahead it was it was definitely optimistic at the time and it remains optimistic now but like jonathan said there isn't anything that's happened since i did it that has made me want to drastically revise it other than just uh maybe i've thought about it more and realized uh

okay well the guards aren't very good and the the defense was really bad last year and just things like that but i knew all that at the time when i made my pick so i'm not going to come in here and say no 10 wins 9 win no i'm sticking to it 11 wins i i know the schedule's tough guess what brian flores is a master tactician defensively. He actually knows how to use Harrison Smith, which we saw today at blitzing him off the edge and their offense is loaded. So I don't know. I'm sticking with it.

Kevin O'Connell has some magic in, in one score games that I think can carry over to this year. Yeah. Even Justin Jefferson mentioned the one score games. And it's funny how intuitively almost everyone understands what the whole point was last year about regression. But sometimes when you mention like other statistics, like DVO way and things like that, people's brains will shut off and just be like, I don't like that. I like the winning that's happening now. And I don't want to hear anything else about anything else.

But even Justin Jefferson saying that we have to be better than we were last year to get the same results because a lot of those games were close. That's not an exact quote from him, but kind of a general thing that he brought up. Also, Joel says that Tristan Jackson posted on IG he will be back soon. Sounds like he avoided major injury the second part of that i don't know i would jump to um back soon could be back soon sometime like next year i mean you know what i mean like as fast as possible i just don't know i i mean

for his sake uh i hope so because you hate to see somebody go down like that after they were having such a good training camp. But to the point, I think, Will, that since you decided to lock into that 11 win prediction and not move, then I think it's been good for you. I think the start to camp has been absolutely ideal for you because Brian Flores' defense looks pretty nasty. And the Vikings' offense was horrible today against it. And it looked like there was a lot of frustration against Flores' defense. And we did see, you know, you're always going to see that at training camp as they implement new things. We saw that at times last year.

But so much, you know know blitzing movement um players emerging mckay blackman taking over first team reps uh josh metellus everybody is high on josh metellus at this point and that is why i am writing an article about him um but you know i think that you know metellus is a guy who's a unique weapon that wasn't used last year that he seems to know how to use and hunter being back is a really big deal on this jefferson not doing anything weird with the contract not being any sort of distraction and just throttling dudes at camp that's good for you kirk seems very relaxed uh that we have seen camps before in the past 2021 where from the very outset, it was tense. It was awkward.

And I remember at one point Kirk throwing a touchdown and yelling you like that. And everyone just looking around, just being like, I don't know, man, I don't know. I guess our, Oh, we're doing that. Yeah. Okay. But there is a new vibe with Kirk cousins, like it's his team or at least for now. And the contract doesn't seem to be on his mind. He's played pretty well to start training camp. And most importantly,

I think for your prediction is that Jordan Addison has looked very, very good to start camp. If they are going to win 11 games, will, I still believe no matter how much Brian Flores blitzes, they have to be a top 10 offense. And that's not going to happen unless Jordan Addison is really good. Yeah, it's, it's been pretty ideal. There was the few injuries today that weren't optimal and you know, Brian O'Neill is still working back and Jalen Naylor's

missed all the time, but nothing nothing nothing super huge that you're changing the outlook for the season I think the defense has to go from being abysmal to being like fine for this prediction to work like if they could be 17th or 18th that would be a huge jump and I think I just tend to buy into whatever Brian Flores says and kind of believe that he has a chance to do that with these pieces especially now that Daniel Hunter is back only because Daniel Hunter is back in fact if Daniel Hunter was traded I would be revising this but I think I think he's that important to everything that they want to do and then offensively yeah they have to be a top 10

unit I think I think they can be I think they can push for being a top seven type of unit uh if Kevin O'nell continues to progress as a play caller just the amount of versatility and variety that he has at his at his fingers uh with this offense and the personnel that they put together is pretty remarkable because you can go huge and put two wide receivers out there justin jefferson and jordan addison and then load up with hockinson and josh ol who is a massive human being. And you throw CJ Hamm in there and then you can get all different kind of looks out of that. Or you can take some of those guys off the field, spread Hawkinson out, put KJ Osborne on the field. Suddenly you've got four good pass catchers who can win in space.

And I think the running backs are fine enough. I just don't think losing Dalvin Cook really matters all that much for the outlook of kind of the EPA efficiency stuff with this offense. So I don't know. There's a lot of questions still. It's still really early in training camp. It's August 1st. The schedule is the biggest kind of mountain to climb to get to 11 wins.

But I'm feeling okay about it. I don't hate it right now. I like calling your shot. tattoo it on your neck. Will 11 win SZN. Okay. So a listener asked a really good question. Listener, Joel, we haven't done like fans only episodes recently because we've been just going live every night, but you know, feel free to keep shooting me messages on

those. But Joel sent me a dm and just asked about adding another pass rusher from free agency to go along with daniel hunter would that be an option there was an adam caplan report that they were considering pass rushers now i don't know if that was if they were gonna potentially move daniel hunter it sounds like they were talking about moving to Neil Hunter and then he just signed. So did he? Oh, and by the way, having moved recently, I get it. I'd sign anything to not have to move again. I was, I was saying to the wife, like we die in this house. There is no way

I'm ever moving these boxes ever again. Sorry to make that dark, but football does that sometimes. Anyway, what was the question? Oh yeah. Pass rushers. Well, you think they should chase more pass rusher? Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't hate the idea because I just still don't really know how much I believe in a DJ one. I'm Patrick Jones as your, as your third and fourth guys there, you want to have some depth I like what I saw from Marcus Davenport and some one-on-ones today he didn't do any full team stuff for an undisclosed reason but yeah I mean if you're gonna if you're bringing back to Neil Hunter and you've got this offense with all these pieces and let's say they go out and sign

Don Reisner all of a sudden you, you're kind of shifted into like, let's go for this thing a little bit. And that doesn't mean you're mortgaging your future or anything. They can still be the competitive rebuild and definitely is. I mean, Demi Hunter, Marcus Davenport, a bunch of guys, TJ Hackinson as of now, not under contract past this season. But yeah, I mean, why not? They have a little bit of cap space.

I don't know the exact amount off the top of of my head go to over the cap and see it but why not go see what else is out there and go get like a 32 year old pass rusher on a one-year deal there are guys like that out there um that again i'm blanking on names right now but go get one sign up to a one-year deal and you just you just feel better about the depth. And then you can do things like on third downs when you're, when it's a clear passing situation and you want to throw a bunch of outside edge rushers out there, do it. And you just have more kind of a higher floor. If you're able to go get somebody, then if you're just saying,

we got to, we got to keep playing DJ one, I'm here. Ken says pay movers. I did because my back has issues sometimes and there was no way that we just we just got a couple of 19, 20 year old dudes who were strong and not old enough to have back problems yet. But boxing it up, unboxing it, selling the old house, buying the new house. I mean, like there's even today I'm waking up early to go and they have to inspect the old house to make sure that you're not selling a house that's about to blow up or something.

And there's like one thing after that. It doesn't matter. I won't complain for much longer. I love, but, uh, you know, I love where you're coming from on the point of just buy new stuff, like burn it down. Don't even sell the old house, burn it and just buy new stuff for the new house. Jonathan, I would like you to attempt to make an argument against what will was just talking about. Is there any argument against trying to get another veteran pass rusher? I think Melvin Ingram is still out there. I think he would be the name, but there's a couple of guys always kicking around at this time who are sort of situational rushers. So make the argument against. Making the argument against considering the lack of depth they have that position is going to be difficult, but I'll give it a try. I'm going to say they, my only argument against it is that I would rather have them use the available cap space

to get a Justin Jefferson contract worked out and put a lot of that money into this year. So you have a little bit more flexibility down the road. I would rather have that take the hit on defensive, the defensive side this year and hope that you can find some kind of depth in there. You can move some guys around and not have to rely on too many of those depth pieces too often. And I would rather have the flexibility down the road with that massive Justin Jefferson contract. That's certainly going to come here hopefully any day now. And then put the TJ Hawkinson contract, put a lot of the,

put a lot of that money into this year, the cap numbers at least into this year with the available cap space. That's what I would do with it. If I was them considering you are in a competitive rebuild, if you're not in true win-now mode, but if they signed Dalton Reisner, I think that kind of signals they're in win-now mode because they're shoring up an offensive line issue.

But if you're not going to go out for an edge rusher, put that money into the big contracts you have to sign here. That is a good attempt. And I tend to agree with that i also think that part of it is because so the the price matters here of course you want one year one million all right come on whoever you are come play football uh if it's anything more than that i don't want to hear the words void years uh then we then we've got problems but the other thing is too it depends on how much you believe that dj

wanham and patrick jones could be anything and the answer is probably we don't really think that there's a whole lot there now i mean patrick jones hasn't played a lot he's a third round pick he's developed for a couple years he gets occasional reps i mean he's mostly taking with the second team every so often if marcus davenport like today mostly taking with the second team. Every so often, if Marcus Davenport, like today, is not with the first team, Jones steps up. Luigi Villain, like these aren't players that I necessarily think are going to be future pieces. So I have no problem if it's at the right price,

which is kind of how everything goes. So real quick, this question here, does Dean Lowry still play for the team? Don't think I ever hear his name. There was a tournament that i came to know uh in baseball when i did minor league baseball and the scouts would say he's just the guy and that's how i would describe dean lowry and i'm sorry to him for that because he's had a really good nfl career but he's not somebody you'd watch a practice and be like, Whoa, Dean Lowry's out there smoking up. Like we know what Dean Lowry is. So he hasn't gotten a lot of like intrigue or discussion.

I think he's an okay player, but not really like an impact guy that you're going to see get like seven or eight sacks or something like that. Let's finish up on this fellas. So the trash talk where we started with Sean Payton, it's just, it's kind of embarrassing for everybody. I mean, I've just, I've heard better trash talk at little league games. This is just not impressive. Anyway, between Sean Payton, Nate Hackett, Aaron Rogers, Aaron Rogers, by the way,

pretending to be a leader now is so rich, just so rich NFL films puts it out. Look at the veteran leadership from Aaron Rodgers. Excuse me, like the, like the number of headlines of this man straight calling out his coaches, just embarrassing teammates, all this stuff this stuff and i mean to go along with the thousands of other diva behavior things including not taking a pay cut for the packers to keep davante adams potentially but then taking a pay cut as a middle finger to them and now this is the guy we're going to be like, wow, really stepping up for his man. Are you kidding me?

So anyway, what I want you to do, though, is I want you to give me some hard truths because that's what I think. I don't think it was actually trash talk. I think it was just hard truths from Sean Payton. Nate Hackett is one of the worst head coaches who has ever stepped onto an NFL field. Just historically where you were expected to be, where you ended up. It's not Les Steckle, but it's pretty darn bad. So I want you to give me some hard truths about the NFL, Will.

It doesn't have to be about the Vikings. You can just throttle some other team. What do you got? Well, when I was thinking about this question, I just started thinking about the league as a whole and kind of some of the things that we overlook or maybe don't question as much as we should about the way the league handles certain things. whole season for gambling on some not unrelated sport like right in the lobby of your team facility but then Deshaun Watson can do what he did and other people can do these heinous crimes and get suspended for less than that and we just kind of don't really bat an eye because that's just how the NFL does it so that's one to me that is like that that's a hard truth another one that's

less uh maybe I don't know serious than that is uh last year's quarterback class was so bad like i'm just seeing these clips from falcons camp and desmond ritter is just not you can't you can't throw a simple like out route accurately and uh kenny pickett is also really bad i think these teams uh specifically those two kind of just those teams need to just move on and try again because that that quarterback class oh boy that was bad oh and isn't sam howell gonna start for washington this year like i don't i don't even know what we're doing there sam howell might be good i'm gonna die on that hill might be might be that you that a take of yours i don't know that

i've heard that one it actually is a take of mine because I thought, and whatever, like this didn't play out in the draft. I thought he was the best quarterback of that draft class. And when he played in a game last year, he looked competent, like he knew kind of what to do. And that's more than I could say for Desmond Ritter. That was going to be one of my hard truths. So I'm going to have to think of a replacement for what were you thinking, Falcons? You have so many good players and this is your quarterback but uh jonathan give yours

uh besides uh nathaniel hackett being a really bad coach i think we're all forgetting that urban meyer was a thing that existed in jacksonville for a year and made them look atrociously bad and made us all question whether Trevor Lawrence was actually a good prospect or not. And then Doug Peterson comes around and shows, no, this guy's really good. It's just the last coach was actually the worst head coach in NFL history. And I will die on that hill that Urban Meyer was just atrociously bad and deserves to be recognized as the worst NFL head coach in all of this league's history.

Another one, I just forgot it too. After going on that rant about Irving Meyer. So I'll remember what I had. All right. Well, forgot it. You're supposed to write these things down, Jonathan,

but you're forgiven. You're busy. I think it's, I think it's a hard truth for the Vikings that if you are bringing in Dalton Reisner appearing a little bit panicky about your guards and you're playing Vita VEA in week one, Kirk better wrap himself in bubble wrap, put put bricks underneath there as opposed to just the rib protector. I mean, Kirk better be prepared to get throttled in week one by Vita VEa because the interior of that off a defensive line for tampa bay is pretty serious so you might want to like have the kind of hard truth that that is

maybe more of a hard matchup than you think if they're already nervous about that i also think this this is a little bit of a hard truth um i think that if d Moore and Justin Fields find the connection that they've been reportedly having in training camp, hard truth for the Vikings, that could be scary. I mean, more is a really good receiver and he is very digs like in that his previous location probably held them back a bit just because of the quarterback play. That wasn't the problem here. It was the offense. But I think that fantasy numbers tell you more is good, but he might be even better than that. And I saw some highlights of him today from their training camp. If DJ Moore

and Justin Fields become a thing, hard truth is that's going to be very hard to stop because we think about all this blitzing as being so great. But if you have Justin Fields athleticism, I mean, yeah, that dude is just running away from everybody running for touchdowns. So that's, I guess that's some of my, also, I think Giants fans, hard truth, your team stinks. Your team's just not good.

It's just not like, look at that roster and explain to me like i'm five how anyone would think that that's good they have a good coach i don't know if he's as great as everybody made it seem last year sometimes i think the giants won 14 games and they won like nine i don't understand why the hype has happened for them jonathan did you think i think donatel made uh daniel jones quite a bit of money, it was really games against the Vikings. It was two games. Which doesn't count. Look at Daniel Jones' game log,

and he had like 150 passing yards every week, except when he played the Vikings twice and put up like 370 in both of those games. It baffles the mind why Ed Donatel said, I think you're going to like the way we play in the wild card game. I'll never forget it. What do you got,athan did you remember what you're gonna say yes i did uh i don't know if the falcons were every ever interested in but i think derrick carr made the wrong decision the wrong choice of nfc south teams to go to go play for i don't think the saints are have a long-term prospect of being good uh Their salary cap situation is a mess, as always.

I know they find ways to work around it, but I just don't like the rest of that offense compared to what Atlanta has in the young pieces that they have to throw to and have in the backfield as well. And their offensive line is pretty impressive as well. I think Derek Carr made a monumental mistake for his career going to New Orleans as opposed to choosing maybe anywhere else I would be willing to say I also am almost ready after following the beat

reporters from New England to say it's a hard truth that Mac Jones will be better with his second team than he is with that team because like I see Belichick doing his nonsense about like not saying Mac Jones is even the starter. Why do you hate this guy? It's like, you've gone out of your way to give him the worst possible situation. It's very Ryan Tannehill esque where the, he had like Adam gaze, no great receivers. And then he goes to his second place and wins the entire AFC with the right circumstances. Whoever gets Mac Jones next, we'll probably get an okay quarterback that they can win with. But in new England,

hard truth is they're winning five games this year and it's going to be miserable and ugly and horrible for them. And Belichick is just, I think washed. So there you go. There's like, this is why it's hot routes. Will it's been,

it has been so much fun. I enjoy watching practice with you. Will reading your recaps, si.com. Um, I'm sure everyone already follows you on Twitter at will raggets, Jonathan, you're still the same. It's there's nothing new to say about you. Uh, but, but, but thanks for coming and playing along. And, uh, we'll definitely do this more often having people on the live stream when we can.

Thanks everybody for watching and participating as you always do. And we will be back here tomorrow night. It's just going to be a walkthrough. But you know what? There'll be stuff to talk about and we will talk about it. So thanks again. We'll really appreciate your time. And again, we do a weekly show.

So make sure you're checking that out. A lot of times it's just on the podcast feed. So go find the podcast feed. Make sure you're a subscriber there as well. And we will catch you guys tomorrow night.