Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Jets paid Dalvin Cook how much??? Plus Arif Hasan shows up and talks about GM skepticism

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Matthew Coller talks to Arif Hasan about Dalvin Cook's contract and whether the Vikings did the right thing letting Cook walk and then discusses the criticism over the Vikings' 2022 draft class and how we should feel about the GM in general -- including why there are such harsh critics of the direction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here again. And today's Vikings practice was just a walkthrough. So there isn't a whole heck of a lot to take away from the practice. And tomorrow is an off day, but it does set up for a very, very interesting week. The one note that I want to start the show with before we dive into a lot of different things. I've got some questions that people have emailed me that I want to read and answer. Of course, all of your comments and so forth.

And yes, Delvin Cook has a location and it was the location that we all kind of expected anyway. So he signs with the New York Jets. We'll get into all of that. But it was worth noting that TJ Hawkinson, who has not done all that much in practice the last couple of days, was participating in the walkthrough 11-on-11 reps. So that doesn't mean that he was doing anything hardcore,

but he was doing a little bit more than he was before. And that was somewhat notable. Brian Asamoah didn't come out until halfway through practice, didn't really do much. So still waiting on whether Asamoah is going to return after this day off and who we're going to see against the Tennessee Titans of the players that have been banged up. So I figured I'd give you that little update there and then we can dive in. And yes, the studio looks a little bit different here. There's going to be some changes that I'm working on. This was kind of like the initial setup.

And then now we're trying to improve the setup a little bit, and it's going to get hopefully a lot better later in the week when something shows up at my house that's going to go behind me that I think is going to be really, really cool. So I'm working on it. I got a little bit of a new camera set up here. So hopefully I'm a little bit clearer and it's a little bit of a wider shot. And so I'm working on it, but suggestions welcome. This is the first time that I have done the streaming thing on a nightly basis on YouTube. It's always just been podcasts. And then we started throwing some video up and then trying to build on it. So you

guys are the reason that we're building on it, though, because you show up every night and we have a lot of fun chatting. And I want to continue to do this on a nightly basis. So that's why I'm trying to improve the look. So when you you are logging in i don't look too fuzzy or weird or uh you know i i think i had no idea how to even put lights on myself and i was looking like casper the ghost so um which i kind of look that way anyway and you know i'll you know so hopefully it's a little bit better now but let's get into delvin Cook signing with the Jets. $8.6 million, or at least, finger quotes, up to $8.6 million. But it was reported that a good amount of that is guaranteed. And I will tell you guys the truth.

That is a little bit more than I expected Delvin Cook to get. Though I'll wait for the final details when you hear that most of it is guaranteed what does that mean is five million dollars most of it that's the majority it's more than 50 but is that you know is that a lot is that more than we thought or is it going to be a lot of it that comes along with incentives he He has to run for 1,000 yards. They have to win a playoff game. They have to whatever in order to get $8.6 million. They love to put those numbers out. The agents do because it makes them look better.

Oh, wow, he got this guy a contract. And then when OverTheCap.com gets a hold of it, they lay out the entire contract and we go, oh, okay. Kind of like when Josh Oliver signed for three years and 21 million. And we looked at it and went like, wait, they signed a second tight end for that much money. And by the way, I mean, he's looked really good in practice and it looks like they're going to use them. So maybe they knew what they were doing there, but I mean, it wasn't really three years, 21 million. It was more like two years and then they'll decide what they want to do, like extend him, cut him, whatever, after two years.

So these are always, you know, kind of, you know, pumped up numbers as much as they possibly can. Still, even the highest of this is a little bit higher than I expected. And I got a message from a fan who was a fan of the show, who was talking to his jets fan friends about like, they're all excited. They think this is, you know, the big move that's going to put them over the top and everything. And of course him having watched Delvin cook play last year,

maybe not feeling like that's really going to be the case because Delvin Cook was not the same player last year as he was in 2019 and 2020. And even at the start of his career before he tore the ACL in 2017, where he was just a straight up, I mean, MVP candidate halfway through the season, freak show, like top three running back he was that during 2019 2020 but i thought 2021 there was a dip and then it didn't come back up last year and he was much more of an average running back that had a lot of inconsistency and i think the fact that it took this long for him to find a home after the Vikings cut him probably was evidence that a lot of teams in the league just weren't really interested and saw what the Vikings saw

in deciding to move on from him. And the Vikings made it pretty clear that one of the reasons they moved on was just the inconsistency, the negative plays, how often he was getting caught in the backfield and the physical running was just not the same as it was after all the injuries. With that said, I think for the New York Jets, it's fine because I mean, how else are you spending your money at this moment? There's just not a lot of other free agents that are out there that you're trying to load up on. I mean, maybe Jets reporters would know of, well, maybe their guards aren't good. I'm not sure whether the Jets guards are good or not. So maybe they should be calling Dalton Reiser.

I'm not sure. Maybe there's one other guy that they should add. But more likely than not, like you've got the money, you're in this all-in type of situation. But also the all-in situation kind of reminds me of the number of things that the Vikings did throughout those years where they were pressing just like the Jets are now. And it's interesting to be in a little bit of a different spot for the Vikings than where the Jets are having just traded for Aaron Rodgers, where we're looking at this roster, both through the lens of when the NFC North, be in the playoffs and set yourself up for the future. So don't sacrifice your future where the Jets, they traded for Aaron Rodgers. They already gave

up their future. There is no future. They're all in on this. And so you might as well just go out and get a running back that you think can help you. And it's not a guarantee that Delvin Cook won't be better than last year. It's possible that he could be in a part-time type of role. Certainly is a lot of money to give a running back in a part-time type of role. But if he ends up being a part-time back for them and runs 180 times and he gets a handful of long touchdowns, they're going to call that a success. And every so often someone like the Damian Tomlinson, who is an all-time great running back, goes to the Jets and is helpful and useful

there. There's a handful of examples of that throughout history of players who are really good going somewhere else. But I still think after seeing this and even seeing how much the Jets gave him that the Vikings made the right call and even seeing that the Vikings backfield beyond Alexander Madison, of which I feel like we spent the entire spring talking about how interesting this was going to be. And then we kind of get to a point and go, oh, well, you know, all right, this backup running back situation is not as great as we expected. And Alexander Madison is very likely going to have to carry the load unless they sign Kareem Hunt.

But I don't think that that changes a whole heck of a lot if they sign Kareem Hunt. It's still Alexander Madison's show, but I'm still okay with that. It's like you break up with somebody and they start dating someone else and you go, wait, should I have broken up with them? And the answer is still yes. When it comes to Delvin Cook, because I don't think it was a great idea to still pay him this much money. If this was how much he was looking for from the Vikings, I think the Vikings money was better spent on other guys or would be better spent on bringing in, you know, a guard or somebody else to be a situational pass rusher on you know like a one-year deal uh by the way i had an unannounced special guest to join the show this evening i didn't put this in the description or tell you guys beforehand because i wanted to be surprised that my friend arif hassan is entering the show uh arif, just randomly inviting you with no connection to anything

happening in your life into the stream. But how are you, man? What's going on? I'm doing well. My life has had some, it just turns out, updates. Who's to say? But yeah, no, I mean, things are going well. And as you may be aware, I have followed in your footsteps and launched a sub stack of my own. We'll see if we kind of cannibalize each other in terms of viewership. I'm sure that's how that works. And so, yeah, it'll be a ton of fun. I'm here to destroy us both. You know, I've never been concerned about that.

You know this. This has always been my theory when it comes to other reporters and content creators and stuff coming on my show. I've always felt like there's room for all of us, and I feel that way on Substack as well, that there is room for both of us. But, yeah, so you left Pro Football Network and now are starting your own sub stack called wide left which i mean an assault on vikings fans right off of the bat but to continue in a different place with your

football writing career i think is an awesome idea i think it's a great fit for you and your writing style that allows you to just be you and just be a reef and write the way that you do. And you have such a unique style that I've always had a lot of respect for, which is why you come on shows. And we have, and I, plus I just like to pick on you. Like, why are you wearing a jacket? Like you just have like strange tendencies like this. It is still summertime, man. Like, what do you, you know, you do weird things, but I do enjoy it. I get it. Do you want to explain it? Because this is weird. Yeah.

So where I'm at right now does not have air conditioning. So I've got like a ton of fans blowing around everywhere. And sometimes they overdo it and it's really difficult to modulate the fans. And so now it's actually colder inside than I'd like it to be. So I've got a hoodie on plus, I don't know, hoodies are like comfortable for me. I'd wear a hoodie in the summer. If you know, I could. Yeah. This is also like, you have not knowing how to like do anything,

but I'm also that way as well. Like I'm not surprised that you can't even use fans correctly because you pretty much just football and tweet. So anyway, no, I'm just kidding. But getting to getting to the football parts, but people should go check out on your Twitter that you've put out an announcement, a first post explaining what you're doing with Wide Left. And I think it's going to be cool. So I imagine it's WideLeft.Substack.com is probably the place. That's what it's going to be. The person who owns wide left dot substack.com has agreed to give it to me, but it's pretty

slow about updating when that happens. So right now it's wide left post dot substack.com. Okay. Why? I still, so I created a separate website that has everything, but I still couldn't figure out how to get purple insider.com to just go to the substack. So I just built separate website that has everything, but I still couldn't figure out how to get purpleinsider.com to just go to the sub stack. So I just built a whole other website. But I believe that if you go to purpleinsider.football, it does take you to the place.

And I bought that just because I thought that that was awesome. That's so funny. Yeah, feel free to take it. So anyway, well, why don't you jump into the fray here, Arif, because I've been doing this every night, and there's a lot of questions that people are asking that I think everyone would also enjoy your perspective on and not hear me give some of the same answers.

And I've got some fan questions to answer as well. But how about a reaction to what I was just talking about, Delvin Cook signing with the Jets, and I made the comparison of, like, when someone else signs your player and pays you a bunch of, pays him a bunch of money. You go, wait, did we miss something? Were we supposed to be paying him that much money? But I think the answer is that Delvin Cook will probably be fine and have a few highlight plays that make people think it was great with the Jets, but it overall won't be that efficient of a play. And the Vikings made a better choice just moving on, even if Madison is not the next Adrian Peterson. Yeah. In the unlikely scenario that Madison is not the next

Adrian Peterson, I think the Vikings will still find a way to weather that storm. But yeah, it's actually, I'm kind of curious about it because the way the deal was reported, you could tell that an agent, you know, kind know, kind of let some people know how it worked out because it's up to 8.6 million. And I don't know how incentive laden the structure is. I don't know what guarantees there are in it. I don't know what the base salary is, that kind of thing. So that is some context, but I imagine a good chunk of the incentives that they would ask him to hit, he's already hit and would be likely to earn. And so they would cost against the cap. And that allows us to have the conversation about whether or not it would have been worth it for another team of the Vikings specifically to do it. And I think that if you're approaching something like, let's say it's a $6 million cap hit with like two and a half and incentives. If that's what it turns out to be,

I don't think any details have been leaked yet. Then I think that, yeah, that would be too much for the Vikings. I think that, you know, right now the Vikings are kind of cycling through some interesting names. You know, I think if they were aggressive about wanting to sign something like Dalton Risner, they would have been more aggressive and they didn't. It's not like he's got this remarkable market that he's testing right now um so you know there's that but

they also you know want to figure out kind of like what are we going to do with tj hawkinson what are we going to do if we still want to have long-term plans for genial hunter i think that in terms of like starting players hitting free agency in 2020 for the Vikings near the top of the list just in terms of numbers of projected starters. And so there's like a lot that they have to juggle there. And so they're going to want either rollover space or they're going to want to extend those guys now put some of that into this year's cap. And so I don't know that investing in a running back like that,

especially at six to eight and a half million dollars in cap at whatever that turns out to be would make a ton of sense. You're just, I don't think you'll get the same production from Madison as Cook will get with the Jets this year, which, by the way, from the Jets' perspective, I don't think it makes sense. Maybe it's like, hey, we got this quarterback, he wants him, so he's our guy now. And it doesn't escape me that it's like right after the Zeke deal

to the Patriots got announced, like I'm sure that played a role. But yeah, I would have to think that like, yeah, you're not going to get the same production out of Madison. You might get some big play stuff out of Ty Chandler. I'm kind of a little bit further down on Kenny Wongu just after kind of watching what he did, you know, last year when he had opportunities, obviously he's been a little bit too injured to play, you know, a serious amount or any amount in the preseason or participate in a serious amount of practices. But I don't know if that there's going to be a ton of big play potential outside of Chandler. So if he doesn't have it, you don't have it,

but that's not really, I think what the run game is fit. Eventually you'll get a 60 yard touchdown, which is just a dangerous way to live. But here I think it's just like, Oh, Connell is just like, yeah, you just can't, you just can't have negative plays. Three yards in first and 10, not ideal, but you live with it. And Madison is good at that. He's good at avoiding the negative plays. If you want, you know, three to five yards, you know, it's there.

He's got maybe a ceiling of 10 yards if everything's working out for him. And that's fine because the floor of like, you know, one or two yards on most runs is going to for him and that's fine because the floor of like you know one or two yards on most runs is going to be there and that's good and you're going to keep the offense on track he really emphasizes having an expansive playbook available to him on second down and when you're on second and 13 you don't have it so yeah i think that having something uh like that available to you in alexander mad is more worth it at $3 million or whatever it is than having Dalvin cook, who I am still pretty skeptical about in his ability to, to create the positives.

What would Dalvin cook could provide somebody like the Vikings. And that's funny about Kevin O'Connell. And I respect this because this is the way I would do it is everything about his running back is just about the passing game. Like, can you pass block? That's the thing with Ty Chandler. Ty Chandler is way faster than Alexander Madison.

It's not particularly close. His acceleration is better. His breakaway speed. He runs a four, three, eight. And yet at the same time, it's,

Hey, he can't pass block. It just keeps coming up. Like he can't pass block. He can't pass block, which is very difficult for inexperienced running backs if you care about that sort of thing which kevin o'connell clearly does and i think a major part of it is that he likes these long developing routes he likes to have you know corner routes post routes developing down the field with multiple

moves for justin jefferson and he knows that kirk is going to have to sit in that pocket and just got his tail completely whooped last year doing it and would like, and here's the thing about, you know, Delvin cook when Delvin cook came into the Vikings, he was presented as sort of the anti Adrian Peterson, somebody who could do it all. Like maybe he wasn't as good of a breakaway back, but he's amazing at catching the ball, pass blocking. He's going to do it all. That turned out not to be true. By the PFF metrics, he wasn't any better at pass protection than Adrian Peterson was. And we know as far as a receiver, we rarely ever saw him go downfield. It was almost exclusively just screens of which any running back who's serviceable can run after

getting screens. One of my favorite stats ever, I brought this up on the show the other night, is that Leroy Horde averaged more yards per catch than Marshall Falk because that's how running backs as receivers work. It's just that Leroy may have had a couple of big gains or something and, you know, that worked out for him. That's a good stat to have in your pocket. That's a great talker. Isn't it great, though?

But every running back averages 8.2 yards per catch for their career like that's just how it's going to be and their catch numbers are entirely how much you like to check down or throw swing passes or screens to your running back so you got to figure that like madison can do every bit as much or more in terms of catching the ball and running after screens for the most part it's just those breakaway runs and i even looked at this i looked at how often madison got a 10 yard run and not like a 15 25 whatever and it was pretty similar to delvin cook for it for a 10 to 15 yard run it's just that there was no 75 yard runs and that does matter. And look, even that play in Buffalo where no one was around him, it still probably doesn't result in a touchdown if it's Madison. And so that is

the difference, but how many of those are there a year, one or two, if any. And so I think they're looking for the consistency. They want to be in second and five. If they're running on first down, they want to get to third and one, if they're handing off on second and six and not get caught in the backfield and i think that they're okay with that for madison but for me it was more just about like why would you go with a known commodity that is not improving when you are trying to figure out who's going to be a part of this because if you give madison this opportunity and he just isn't good i think that's okay because then you know if he works out great then you have your running back for next year and maybe a couple years after that because he doesn't have that much mileage on his body maybe you've got your

latavius murray who just continues to be good in the nfl but if you just had uh delvin cook for another year even if he's good then he's's 29. And what are you doing anyway? Right. Yeah. I mean, that's like, that's kind of like a big part because the contract that he was on, you know, kept him for the Vikings or kept him around the Vikings for a little bit. And so, you know, trying to figure out, you know, what am I going to do with a 29 year old back? Has been a primary bell cow. And the only reason that he's not been on the field is because he's been hurt, which is the thing I'm concerned about anyway. Right? So, yeah, it's, you know, maybe that they could have invested in the back earlier than the seventh round and maybe been a bit more aggressive about finding a three-down guy.

But honestly, I think that this is a pretty good approach because you've got Madison available to you, right? And having that as a floor, just in terms of the baseline production that you're going to get, is a good place to be as an offense, especially an offense that wants the run to be effective enough for you to be able to build play action off of it for you to be able to have second and fives for you to be able to you know credibly threaten it in any situation where you want to run the ball without losing too much on the back end to allow for example cousins to be at the line of scrimmage and feel

comfortable checking into a run or checking out of a run based off of the back that he has. He doesn't have to think about that one too much, right? So having all of that available, I mean, that's actually kind of tough. Like you said, the pass production stuff for backs who don't have experience with that in college, it was really difficult to learn. It actually was really difficult for Alexander Madison to learn the first couple of years that he was with the Vikings. He just wasn't getting his assignments right, just like at Boise State. Now he has that, and it's just a really difficult thing to get backs into. I mean, some pretty talented backs have been cut even, but even pushed back down on the depth chart

because of those past production issues because you can't check out of plays when they're in there. I think Jeremy McNichols is a really good example of that. Tampa Bay is like a third-round pick, I want to say. And he just, he got cut pretty early. It is in his contract. And it's just people underestimate like how critical that is to coaches.

And this is one where, where coaches and like analytics groups agree a lot. In fact, analytics groups think that the most valuable skillset that a running back has, that is not replaceable from back to back and has an appreciable difference on like epa output is pass protection if you're good at pass protection you can do so much more it's not even just that you prevent a pressure from coming to the quarterback that's really important but it's that you've got a wide variety of plays available to you don't have

to run empty all the time and throw short because they're going to blitz and, you know, that kind of thing. Having that sixth, you know, blocker in there gives you a standard set of passing plays that you've been drilling since the spring began. And so having that when whatever you do is going to be pretty important. And so, you know, it is a big part of the way coaches design plays and figure out which back they want to go with. And I believe this is pure speculation, I haven't heard anything, but I believe that that might be a reason that Ty Chandler

hasn't outright overtaken Ken A. Wanwu, right, is that pass protection question, right? If I were to ask a linebacker to run into a running back, I would trust Ty Chandler to survive that more than Ken A. But in terms of knowing which linebacker to run into, it seems like Ken Aet may have an advantage. And so that's a part of the discussion that doesn't tend to get enough weight. And that's something that Madison just provides, just baseline. It's something that you can work with. And if he's just not a good enough back at age 28, 29,

it's very little risk to the Vikings to just move on and figure out kind of the next running back solution. And I think when it comes to running back, so much is determined by things that are out of their control that pass protection is one place where it is under their control. If you can understand where the pressure is coming from, be in the right spots, you can save your quarterback from just one more hit give him one more second to throw and go down the field uh you know and actually have more trust to dial up plays if you're kevin o'connell that are going down the field if you know that guy's going to be in the right spot if you're concerned that ty chandler for example would be uh not understanding where he's supposed to go, then Kirk's just going to get smacked. And also that teams know that as well.

They would know in their scouting, oh, that guy's in the backfield who doesn't know how to block. Like, let's dial up something that's going to confuse him and we'll get to the quarterback. So that's always like a cat and mouse game that you need to have that good pass protector back there. But as far as Madison, a lot of whether he succeeds on the ground will have to do with whether the guards are good at run blocking, which I thought that they mostly were last year. I think that both guards are serviceable and Garrett Bradbury might just be good at run blocking.

The tackles are terrific, so they can do that. And then the scheme and does it fit with the running back? That I don't really know yet. Are they going to run a little more power? Are they going to stick with this middle zone that I know you wrote about last year, but it was not the same fit for Delvin Cook as outside zone, which he was so excellent at doing. And I think that that was never quite a fit, and that might have also played into it. So I think that they was never quite a fit and that might have also played into it. So I think that they they made the right move.

Jason, the comment said it was six million dollars with two point six in incentives. And that makes a lot of sense to me. That sounds very different than the you know, the number that's put out there. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Which is very typical of agents and reporters who get their information from agents and so forth. But there's another question that keeps coming up on the show that I wanted to ask you about, which Connor sent me a message today, just about the 2022 class. And he writes, is there anything in the defense that Kweisi was brought in later in the process and thrown into the fire in 2022 and wasn't given

the same amount of time to prep? Now, I brought this up on the show that I asked Casey after this most recent draft about this very thing. And his answer was there was no question. He felt way more prepared this time, but I also go back to, there's a few factors that trading down wasn't a preparation thing. That seemed like that was something he had predetermined. He was going to do a,

no matter the price or maybe his, you know, analytics felt like that was still a trade that you should make. And I just didn't like it. I think when you're trading out of the top 15, you're forgoing a chance at a pro bowler, just the odds of being great in the top 15 versus the odds of being great at 32.

And I think you win super bowls with great, not a bunch of good players, but because you can find good players, you can't find great players. So that was my like logical questioning. I think you can logically question Andrew Booth jr. Considering how injured he was. You can very logically question a guard.

Like what about showing up late would mean you draft a guard where they did in the second round with the amount of reach? And you're the consensus board guy, the amount of reach. So I guess I feel like the answer is probably yes, that you're right, that his preparation for this most recent draft, which felt like a quasi draft versus the last one, may have played into the success or failure. But I also don't think that means we can just go like, oh, well, you know, that was a great year. Like he had a few months. He was in the NFL before.

It's not like he was just working at Bank of America and they said, hey, can you run the draft for us? Yeah, I think what's important to remember is that a lot of times when a new front office comes in, they fire most of the front office and bring in their own guys. That did not happen here. The Vikings kept basically the entire front office. Obviously, they lost like George Payton a couple of years ago.

And Jamal Stevenson, I believe, you know, got elevated to a similar role. And I believe he's still with the Vikings. And, you know, maybe, you know, having somebody like a Peyton would have been nice to ease the transition or whatever, but like they had all the same scouts, they had all of the same. And so, you know, maybe the process is something that, you know, went awry there. Right. And that he, that he didn't really have, you know, an established up, but I don't think that has anything to do with late in the process. I think that's just a first time GM thing. It's just like, Hey,

I don't really have a lot of feel for what it's like to trade down or up in the draft. I just know that generally speaking, it's good to trade down. And then I'm a rookie GM and I just kind of got hauled by all of these other more veteran GMs that kind of know how to manipulate the trademark, you know, that kind of thing. Right. I think he maybe leaned on a heuristic a little bit too much in, in the first draft. I think, you know, you might've seen it, but there was like some pretty good posts about how like everybody that the

Vikings drafted in 2022 was like in a top 10th percentile and 10 yard split, which is just like across every position. Like, is it important at every position? That's interesting. I mean, that didn't happen? That's interesting. I mean, that didn't happen this year, right? So yeah, I'm sure that like, it may have played a role. But I think it's just, as you kind of alluded to the comfort level that he had. And that is more about being a first time GM than it is about a GM that came in later in the process than other first time GMs. That's just like, hey, I brought in my buddy, Ryan Grigson. I'm going to lean on him.

He says, this Ed Ingram guy is a dancing bear. That sounds like a good thing. Let's go with that. You know, or, you know, our doctors say that Andrew Booth has like a 50% chance of being as healthy as we want him to be. And hey, he's real good. So a second round, you might as well get him. You know, like I'm sure he made made really quick shortcuts because it's easier to

take shortcuts when you're uncomfortable with the process that you're involved in. But I don't think that it resolves the talent evaluation question. I don't think it resolves some of the questions about how assertive he was in trade negotiations, that kind of thing. But it's something to keep in mind. Like if, for example, this draft class bears out, I would say that is more of a credit, I mean, to the extent that, you know, GMs are responsible for the draft classes.

I would say it's more a credit to Kweisi than the first draft is a demerit, right? I would say that we should say that this is more likely representative of what he could do, but that doesn't mean that we don't have concerns about what happened with that first draft vis-a-vis quasi's overall performance, or that he gets kind of a pass for that.

Like, I think if he has a bad draft next year, or if this draft doesn't try, Jordan Addison is just a camp preseason highlight machine and that's it. Right. Then, you know, oops,

like the two bad drafts in a row. That's tough. You'll probably get one more knowing the Wilfs, but like that's tough. So, yeah. Yeah, no, you're right. Well, and so this is where I always kind of swing back and forth on like how much do we put on the general manager for the draft success or failure? And I think it's entirely about the process so the process of this year's 2023 draft drafting a receiver when you didn't technically need one is to me great process because of how much if you wanted to go to free agency and get

a player who's going to be your number two receiver potentially or even number three you're talking about spending 10 to 20 million dollars depending on who you're getting and instead you get him for four years for very cheap and the high end of Jordan Addison could be an excellent number two wide receiver there was what the Tyler Lockett comparisons man if he's that guy like wow you are in really good for a long time with him paired with Justin Jefferson setting up for your next quarterback to have two really good wide receivers to pair with potentially TJ Hawkinson and great tackles like that's good process to me uh drafting Makai Blackman you were probably more against it than I was consensus board wise yeah um but it's a late third rounder to me that's a little a little more in the like oh you love them like okay that's okay it's a, you love them? Like, okay, that's okay. It's a corner.

You love them. Go for it. But they also drafted, I think, in the last two years, a lot of players in the secondary, which I think is a pretty good process, trying to build up your secondary. So I don't dislike that. And I also think a lot of it rests on really one guy with that 2022 class because all draft classes have busts a lot of

except for well even 2015 old michael pruitt never really made it i mean that but all draft classes have multiple busts and what you hope for it's like the rick spielman's 2021 would you take it over again i would because you got christian derisaw out of it. Thank you. I don't care about the third rounders. That's life in the draft. If Lewis scene was crushing camp right now, of which there was no real reason to see his odds, not being good. If he was crushing camp right now and Kyle Hamilton hadn't been as good as we expected, then, uh, you know, we'd be talking about what a great decision it was. Oh, they got the top 15 prospect trading down. Super brilliant. Well, even though Andrew Booth didn't work out, Caleb Evans is starting. It really swings on that one player. And was it

hit? I mean, I doubt it was crazy. Adolfo Menta's evaluation, but probably there were people in the organization that he was listening to that said, look, we'll put him next to Harrison Smith, watch him play in the national championship. Was he not the best player on the field in the national championship for Georgia's defense? He was incredible. And the thing that really sticks out to me is that multiple Georgia defenders

credit him as being the brains of the defense on the field, like a coach on the field, kind of the smartest guy they had. And it's like, man, I would love to see that. Right. And that's just not translated to the NFL because different. That's why it's just it's too. I've said I've said before, it's not like triple A to the majors. It's like T-ball to the majors when it comes to college college football to the nfl and the complexity and what we hear from every player when they get drafted is like oh i mean we did this in college you're like it's all no you didn't it's all football at the end of the day no it isn't uh so but when we talk about the process okay i don't love the positional value because it's a

safety but if this guy was paired with harrison smith and he was great and then he took over as the number one safety and was this dominant player this derwin james type of do anything safety playmaker change your life we'd be talking about it very differently and so that's why i think when there's so much focus on the 2022 failure of that draft it's like yeah i get it but it's not like they drafted some guy out of montana state who no one had ever heard of like they drafted the best player on georgia i don't need to do troy anderson like that it sounds like he's lighting it up for the falcons i just have to uh one thing to kind of keep in mind is that it's like one year, right?

Like we're really aggressive about evaluating a draft class. And I grade drafts using a – it's not even my grades. And I'm like, yeah, this team had a terrible draft. And, you know, I am comfortable with like, you know, being uncertain about kind of these strong takes, right? It's like, yeah, you know, the Seahawks had a bad draft, but it was, you know, the Seahawks, right? That kind of thing.

But I would say it is a lot to just say, man, is he a failure after one year? Like, that is a lot. Like, Ed Ingram looked, aside from a moment or two where he looked lost in the preseason game, he looked good, right? And I don't, I didn't like the pick. I thought he was by far, you know, the biggest with that one's not a hot take that he was the biggest liability on the offensive line last year.

I didn't like the pick at the time for a number of reasons. We don't have to go into them, but I think they're pretty obvious. But also, even if you remove kind of all of the stuff that makes people kind of, you know, uncomfortable, and he's just not that good of a prospect in my eyes and according to the consensus um and uh you know i didn't like um a lot and i thought that he looked good in the preseason overall and i thought that that you know so if he turns out and if brian asamoah is or asamoah is everything the vikings seem to think that he is and man do they love, right? If those two turn out to be, if Eddie Grimm turns into like an average guard and Brian Asimov turns out to be

an above average linebacker, right? You know, maybe the draft is not ideal, but I wouldn't call it a failure, right? To end up with, you know, a couple of players that you're pretty happy with. I mean, just remember KJ Osborne did not take an offensive snap his rookie year. And now, you know, it is a possibility despite how good jordan addison looks the possibility that

kj osborne out snaps him just because of how good of a blocker he is and you know how much more of the offense he knows and stuff like that and i don't think anyone would be oh i'm sure a lot of people would be upset but i don't think it would be a huge detriment to the offense for kj osborne to be taking so many snaps as you know a, a wide receiver too or whatever, right? And so, okay, yeah, you know, the 2022 draft didn't pan out, but neither did KJ Osborne after one year. So there's like a lot of room for us to keep on, you know, checking in on this draft. Like, okay, yeah, Andrew Booth doesn't look like that's going to work out. Louis Seane, I'm not so sure.

But if Caleb Evans is more than just a starter, if he's good, now, I mean, you come out of the draft with like three starters. That's not common that you might be in a good spot. They might not have been where you expected, but you might be in a good spot. So it's fair to to wonder what's up with that 2022 draft. But it's also important to remember, you know, that those contracts aren't up yet. Right. I mean, every day, like this is how we just do things this is like every day uh we're looking at the new information on the 2022 class and going uh ivan pace is getting first team reps over asamoah a little concerned about that and you know andrew booth jr is not playing and lewis

seen is not playing but even if you go back and this is not, again, to defend the process, I didn't love it for the 2022 draft. There was a lot of things we questioned and I would continue to go back and question and wonder, was that really the right way to approach it? But Louis Scene's career is not over. And Trey Wayne's going into his third year in 2017. We were like, is this guy can this guy even play? they had a disaster he was the first two years right he had a good camp and then he ends up having a really good 2017 season plays starting outside corner on the number one defense in the nfl i mean not that he was an amazing pick and it's hilarious that he was the first rounder compared to the other guys taken in that draft by the Vikings but that's just the point of sometimes these things change on a dime even

Garrett Bradbury I've had maybe two people ask the entire offseason hey is Bradbury going to keep doing what he did last year because he suddenly took a step forward that we didn't necessarily see coming after being benched in 2021 because it was a better fit and that's how offensive linemen work and life is weird. So we can't really call it yet with this. It's just the early trend is not particularly good with 2022. But I think it does devolve into a different subject regarding Kweisi Adafomensa

because I think that this last offseason was maybe underappreciated by vikings fans in how bold it is to take a 13 win team and get rid of everybody who's old i don't remember seeing that very often it is it is a very bold approach remember um when they didn't do that after 2009 right they they held on to i mean they should have kept on holding on to antoine winfield but they held on to antoine winfield and kevin williams and jared allen and you know i think ben lieber stayed on for that year too um and it's just like you know all of these guys that were pretty instrumental to that 2009 season it was pretty i shouldn't say't say clear, but like it was the, the writing was on the wall,

right? Like that was your shot. You know, you're not going to get like, you could try to woo Brett Favre back, but you know, is that smart? Turns out no. And then you could have begun, you know, like, okay, we got to keep Phil Lodeholt, but you know, Bryant McKinney, you got, well, I guess he was out of there, but like, we got to, we got to move on. You know, Steve Hodgson's not going to be here forever. We got to find but you know, Brian McKinney, you got, well, I guess he was out of there, but like, we got to, we got to move on. You know, Steve Hutchinson's not going to be here forever. We got to find, you know, the next guy, it's not going to be Anthony Herrera, that kind of thing. Right. And they didn't move on. Right. And so they ended up having to, to, you know, move these guys or just cut them for no compensation, whatever, move these guys for very little compensation

after the 2010 season. And it was really tough. And it caused a lot of problems in the locker room because it's like, well, Antoine Winfield, you're cutting him right before he hits an incentive. What are you doing there? And so moving on from the guys that are probably not going to be huge assets for you, it's a very cruel calculating business.

Right after a 13-win season, I think shows first awareness of what that 13 win season really was. Right. And it's really difficult for a team to be aware of that. So props to them for that, but also like they were also, I don't know about aggressive, but they were also assertive about having plans in place for that sort of thing. Right. Like, okay. You know, Eric Hendricks,

he's unfortunately going to have to go, but we're really excited about Brian Os oswald and we're gonna sign the top undrafted you know linebacker and free agency right um harrison smith that's an interesting one because they did have a safety but like it's harrison smith that one's a little bit different but i'm feeling they're like well you didn't necessarily produce we're just gonna draft a guy if that guy's not there when we draft kj osborne was pretty good good. And hey, Irv Smith is gone. We've got TJ Hawkinson. We traded for him, which when we talk about GM moves, we don't usually include the TJ Hawkinson trade

because it didn't occur in the GM period of the offseason. But hey, props, right? Great, great move. Oh my gosh, right? And, you know, consistently building on that secondary to be comfortable saying, hey, Cameron Dantzler, I know you started, but that was the problem. So you're gone. You know?

I think that that, that is something that the front office definitely deserves credit for. And not just because they had a plan moving forward, it's because they had players in place where they could say, all right, if we don't draft our corner, a Caleb Evans played. All right. Let's hope, you know, maybe he'll have to compete with some guys, but he'll play. And then we'll bring in some like a Jawan Williams, and we'll spend up that quarter with Byron Murphy and so on.

So it's not just that they brought in guys to deal with some of the veterans that they had to let go of or trade away. It's that they also had plans in place already. They're like, Kyrus Tonga might have something. Dalvin Tomlinson,inson you were amazing but you got to go um kairos tonga we've got something we're going to bring in you know uh you know a guy in the fifth round maybe he'll do something but and dean lowry right but yeah i i think that that is something that you know we don't really kind of because when we get when when teams that go veterans we just kind of isn't yeah it was inevitable not every front office does that and certainly never after a 13 win season i mean they

always run it back i i just cannot think of another example of where a team won 13 games and especially i mean usually they do something even crazier like they'll sign kirk cousins or something but i mean even just other teams it wasn't it. Didn't the Eagles win something like 11 or 12 games. And then they went and signed a bunch of guys. And that was the dream team. Yeah. Right. Right. Like that's, that's what I think of when I think like a team wins 13 games and thinks that they're a blank away. And then they just sign whatever, spend too much money, like a running back, Delvin Cook, and think, oh, right there. Right. And so to do that, I think was very bold that if it's not nailed down or it's not going to be a part of the future, then it's going to go. And it was a slow burn. So I think that changed it, too.

It wasn't like on one day when I was a kid, they cut Thurman Thomas, Andre Reid, and Bruce Smith on the same day. And so like, yeah, wow. What a day for the Bills organization, right? And then Thurman Thomas signed with the Dolphins, and it was just a disaster. Note for Immaculate Grid users. Yeah, exactly. Any Buffalo Bills for that, I just crushed. Yesterday, I got Matt Bowen for buffalo and washington it

was like 0.3 percent the only one who got it i'm sure was matt bowen himself so i'm very proud very proud of that speaking of guys that like taught me way too much about football early in my writing career matt bowen shout out oh he's the best yeah matt bowen's the best but anyway the point just being that it never happens they did did it. It's bold. It's unique. And the competitive rebuild idea is even, I think, a difficult one to pull off. But they had a plan when they started. And this to me, this offseason stuck with that plan. And so I think I have to evaluate what Kweisi Adafo-Mensah does versus the plan and what is going to take for the plan to succeed, which also involves like drafting Jordan Addison and getting young defensive players to try to get that defense to peak at the right time while your rookie quarterback contract is happening and know who you're going to keep for the future so you can sign the rest.

Like I see it. That's the point is that I see what he's trying to do. And I don't think it's as effective as tanking for the top quarterback. I know it isn't, but I also think that in the circumstances that you're given the plan that you laid out, I think it makes a lot of sense. And yet at the same time, I think that there are a lot of people and and you can speak to this because you uh have been following this team your entire life but i think that there is a viking fan psyche from some people that just no matter what they do until they are actually in the super bowl it's going to be the person in charge doesn't know what they're doing and i that that is i'm not saying that i think

because yeah it's always easier to tear down than build up so i'm not saying like yeah like you put a ring on him right now okay or something or what did denny say like you want to crown him i'm not crowning him okay not crowning him all i'm saying is that so far the information we have i think they did the right thing after that season with all of the people that they let go. And I think their approach was good to set up for the future. And that's all I can judge Kweisi Adafo-Menson on right now. Yeah, exactly. Like, you can only kind of figure out kind of some of the results and mostly the process.

And if you think that process is playing out in a way that it makes sense, right. That's kind of the way that you can evaluate. Like obviously some of the results include like what's happening in these drafts, what's happening, you know, in like contract world, like if Eric Hendricks and Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook all have banner years, like, yeah, I mean, I didn't see it coming. So clearly I'm not qualified to run a team, but that's that guy's job. And so, you know, if he doesn't see it coming so clearly i'm not qualified to run a team but that's that guy's job and so you know if he doesn't see it coming that's a problem uh and so you know i like that approach right now based i mean i might have still kept eric hendrickson

being honest but i like that approach right now based off of kind of all the things that we know we know they probably wouldn't have been able to retain sidarius they had to do something there um high times mentioned that they lost out on tomlinson i i i if they wanted tomlinson for real they would have got um like that's kind of my thoughts on that but um you know they they were um very disciplined in that approach you know and then we're like hey like, Hey, you know, these are kind of the, the graduation steps that we have some things we didn't expect. We didn't expect the Zedaria Smith thing. We're going to have to figure something out. Cool.

We got Marcus Davenport. We have Zedaria Smith at home, right? Like, you know, he plays inside and outside. What more do you need? But like, yeah, I think that they were disciplined in the approach. They rolled the punches and they've, they've kept that plan. And I think one thing to kind of keep in mind is that i'm pretty confident this ownership doesn't allow tanking i think the ownership hates the very idea of it and so your job just doesn't allow it right you don't get to be the 76ers um and so i given those constraints how they've gamed this out i it's it's interesting because i I was really critical after the first offseason of the way that

they, and then they go on to win 13 games, of course, of the way that they chose to try and walk this really difficult tightrope of replenishing the team while maintaining its competitive status. So, you know, props to them for so far navigating that tightrope really well. But like, yeah, I think that there's a default assumption, right? That you mentioned that until someone comes home with the Lombardi, right? They just don't know what they're doing. And it's like one of those things where in assumption, if it keeps on getting proven correct by whatever metric that you're using, that's just going to, it's just just gonna reinforce it no matter how like ridiculous it is right like i mean mike zimmer ultimately was a good coach right like that's yeah they were right to move on from him when they did especially

when they did but like we should not look back on the zimmer era as if it were a failure even though he didn't get a ring he was a good coach They were a three-win team when he took them over. You know, like, but, you know, people will just, like, the only time I've seen a pushback on this is Denny Green, actually, when it's like, yeah, they didn't give him enough of a chance, which is true. But like, yeah, they didn't give enough of a chance. And then, you know, they suddenly started being bad

after they fired him. Who would have thought? But yeah, for the most part, it's just like, yeah, this team has never won anything. Why should I trust them? And OK, I get it. But at some point you have to fairly evaluate what's happening. I also think that there is a reaction to how different Kweisi Adafo Mensah is from every general manager you've ever had.

Rick Spielman was the GM for a long time. Rick Spielman is a, I think probably a very, very knowledgeable football scout and evaluator. And I would love to watch a bunch of college players with him and learn about how to evaluate them. And I think that he knows that inside and out upside down. And I think that he tried to push into the analytics world, but sort of like, sort of like in the way that if I tried to learn Spanish right now, and then talk to you in a, in a couple of weeks in Spanish and you'd be like, okay, well, those are some Spanish words. And it sounds like you've got a few sentences down, but Kweisi Adafo-Mensa made his bones there, but he's very different. And I think anytime that someone is different in

their background, someone who came from an analytics background, the wall street thing, and just how different he is in comparison to what we think of with football scouting GMs, which of course he's not the only one like this. I mean, Howie Roseman is the one that's easiest to bring up Andrew Barry in Cleveland. There's a number of guys who don't have exactly the, I played football and then I did more football and scouted more football. Like not everyone's like that, especially in other sports for sure are not like that. But I do think that's an adjustment. I also think him talking to the public has been an adjustment that he's consistently getting better at.

But you have to remember this is someone who's never done that ever before. So I think that there's some of the things that he said along the way that you can kind of grab onto and be like, I don't know. Like, who says this? But that's, I think, what, like, I asked someone the other's, I, that's, I think what, like I asked someone the other day, did you want an old football scout robot to take over for your old football scout robot? Like, I thought that what you wanted was something different in, in something that seemed more modern.

And if you look at from top to bottom, from the way that they're coached to how rarely they have hard practices to who they don't play in preseason to all of these things, right? Like they are doing the cutting edge stuff and, and look, it might not work. It might not work, but in a way it's like, and sometimes I think like, well, what do I, what am I, what do I, what can I be mad at? If I think that their process is going right, right now, like if you're a Vikings fan fan you have to be mad at something and uh because they haven't won a championship but i just think that a lot of those things that for years you and i would do these podcasts and just shout into microphones that they we like we're so frustrated with them that quacey is like oh yeah i i i agree

with you guys you know what i mean So maybe it's like, yeah, someone accused me of this and they're exactly right. They're like, well, he does things that you like with analytics. I'm like, uh-huh. Like the whole rest of the football universe or in the rest of baseball and basketball and all the like, yes, that's absolutely right. So again, that's not to say that we're like, oh my gosh they have the best gm in the league and they should just like win a championship tomorrow it's just that i think that a lot of the things that they did wrong under spielman and zimmer have changed in the right direction and let's see where it goes from there yeah and and like you know obviously they have to be built on a

foundation that works you have to be good at football evaluation and scouting. You just have to be good at those things for any analytics process to work out. Like they always kind of assume that we're that like the decision makers have a pretty good grasp of the things that decision makers usually have good grasp of. And maybe that's not always fair if you switch somebody's background. Obviously, he has attempted to account for that in a lot of ways. And credit to him for being humble enough to be like, I don't know anything about football, so I'm going to surround myself with people who do. But yeah, I think that your approach makes a lot of sense here because it's just like, OK, well, given where we're coming from, I'm really happy about the direction that we're coming from, I'm really happy about the direction that we're going in. We can't just give someone a gold star for thinking in ways that the rest of the league is thinking in, right? Like we can't just be like, great, you know, you, you, you've now accomplished what most of the league has done. Right. But that doesn't make you the Ravens or

the Eagles. It's like, yeah. Okay. They also use analytics, but also they're good at the stuff that if they didn't use analytics, they'd still be pretty good. Right. That's like, that's like the thing. And his mindset is really like, he talks about like, you look, all you can do with, with you know, analytics and data analysis and all that, all you can do is just improve your odds a little bit. That's all you can do. And you need to stack up those opportunities for that to matter. You can improve your odds every so often. And you want to go from being the sucker to the house. That's the only thing that I really have much control over. And that's probably true. But, you know, it makes it really difficult for us to kind of say, well, OK, now that we have a good process in place, are you executing it well?

Was it was it correct for you to just say, Dalton Risner, I know you're asking for seven. Best we can do is five and a half, right? Does that make sense? And those are the areas where we can begin to have a conversation about like, okay, well, now they've got the priority set. They understand kind of the way that they need to approach things. They're comfortable with running a football team now, which wasn't necessarily true a year and a half ago. But have they made the right decisions within that framework? And that I think is kind of the next step.

Now we've taken the Vikings kind of out of the basement when it came to the way that they made decisions. And now they're starting at the ground floor. But like we're trying to get them to climb a ladder, right? Like to extend the analogy. And they haven't done that yet. And so now we're going to evaluate the way that they go about doing that. And here's the other thing.

Someone has to say it. When we get to the end of this road where we've sort of gone through all of this stuff and how we feel about where they are from the general manager standpoint. And what somebody has to say is their decision at quarterback's going to make him a genius or a fool i i think that's just the reality right that i mean that's just football i mean if if kansas city drafted patrick mahomes and he turned out to be sam darnold andy reed would be fired their general manager would be a laughingstock because he got rid of alex sm Smith when they were a winning team. Like a lot of things. Right. A lot of teams.

A lot of teams' entire histories just rest on, did you get the right guy to play quarterback? But here's where I would give him more credit than any other move through this offseason is not extending Kirk Cousins and leaving that door. And I didn't love the way that they restructured thought that that was probably a bit of, maybe they should have just released Alvin cook early on,

made that cap space to get under the cap. Like a hindsight, did you need to switch the fifth round picks with the sixth for Zedaria Smith? But you know, hindsight on that one, but I think we could have said early on, you're not getting much in trades for those guys.

So you probably should have just, just done it. They are not restructured, kept Kirk's contract the way it was, but leaving that door open to draft the next quarterback or however it's going to happen. If we're talking about what can swing you the most toward a ring, it's probably having the quarterback on a rookie contract, hitting on the next quarterback, whatever it is, is going to give you the best chance. So the fact that they are in a position to do that at some point, and there's a season that's got to be played, so I hate bringing this up.

It's like I love talking about the quarterback situation, but also I kind of want to move on quickly because it's like there's a season and there's camp and everything, joint practices. But I just think that that i think that that's the entire reality of the situation is they've set themselves up for the next quarterback to come in here have one of the best circumstances in the league and succeed if he doesn't they're in a lot of trouble and that's just the fact of the matter yeah i mean like what we're talking about is you know making sure that you've got a weighted coin on your side, right?

That it's not 50-50, it's 55-45. But when it lands on heads, as it will do 55% of the time, is it going to matter, right? Like, are you going to get a payout from it? That is the quarterback question, right? And the ability to kind of refine the evaluation process for a quarterback um no one has really demonstrated that they've been able to generate a consistent advantage at that um the closest you might be able to get is the patriots which that clearly has not turned into a new starter for them like okay yeah you turned out jimmy garoppolo and jacoby brissett and uh brian hoyer maybe i don't know if that counts uh and matt castle who didn't even play in college so you know salute but um like you did all that well let's call brady a fluke we're not even going to give you credit for that

you did all that with all these other things you're bold enough to trade away drew blood so uh and now you've mac jones Jones. You can't just be right. Like, you just, it's not, like, you also did the Ryan Mallett thing, right? Like, you can't just be right all the time. And so even if that's, that's probably the closest we have to a team that's, like, kind of consistently gotten on the better side of this quarterback question. Maybe, you know, the Eagles, the Gardner Minshew outplayed his fifth round pick. Jalen Hurts, obviously. I don't know about Carson Wentz. I don't know what to say about that, but, you know, that whole thing. Nick Foles, they were just like, yeah, no, we'll resign the back of that one. Yeah, let's do that. But like, for the most part, you can't, you just can't do it. And so,

you know, you can set up all this other stuff. You can gain edges and saying, hey, I like tackles this much more than guards. That helps your team team that kind of investment helps your team a little bit more um you know i don't think that defensive interior guys need to rush the pass unless they're aaron donald so i'm going to make sure that i've got edge rushers and blitzers that can make up for that's going to give us a percentage odds here but unless you've got a quarterback that's that's the difference between you know five and seven wins maybe right that quarterback is going to move you from you know five and seven wins maybe right but that quarterback is going to move you from you know those seven wins to like 12 so that's that's kind of and it sucks because like when you when you cover a sport that is so that rotates around one position so much it really stops a lot of

conversations but that's just you know the way that it works. That's the reality of it. So I'm chuckling at this from our friend WhatAboutBob, who brings up the Packers, but who wants to say Brian Braum? Do you want to bring up Brian Braum? Did they crack the code when they drafted Brian Braum? And with the Graham Harrell, right? Yeah, that's right yeah the um it's really funny because uh you know i'm bring up buffalo a lot because that's where i grew up but you know buffalo had jim kelly and they went to the super bowl over and over and over because he was just

so freaking good and then they just chased and chased and chased and chased and chased and it felt hopeless it felt hopeless. It felt like never again will you ever have a good quarterback. And you should shut down the franchise and not even move it. Just shut it down. Implode the stadium. Like, it's never going to work. J.P. Lossman, Kelly Holcomb, E.J. Manuel.

Just why? And then Josh Allen comes and all of a sudden, there it is. is like just the clouds part. And there he is. And now you're in the, now your expectations are super bowl every year. So that just kind of demonstrates how random and weird that can be, that that franchise has two unbelievable quarterbacks mixed in between bookending a horror show, including drew Bledsoe,

which was a total disaster for them. And that, and that was my time. I probably would have made the same move if i were them isn't it funny though that i uh left and then they got the good quarterback like the whole time i was there they i never covered i think i think it's causal i think you know it's yeah for sure yeah for sure i i mean if there's if there's correlation, there is causation. I think that that's what we've learned anything from the analytics movement. It's that. hockey playoff game and then they never made it again my entire time there and the bills never made it my entire time there so the 2017 minneapolis miracle was the first playoff game i actually ever covered as a reporter how about that crazy stuff crazy stuff uh a reef this has been super fun i'm really glad that you could uh stop by and we will definitely do it again. This is where you can find a reef hilariously. A wide left post.substack.com. It's better to just go to a reef's Twitter,

which everyone already follows the reef anyway, and just see your first post there and writing about your new venture. I'm very happy for you and always happy to support you in whatever you do. So that's where your football writing is going to be. You're going to write Vikings. You're going to write other stuff. And I think this is cool because having become independent after being in traditional media for a long time, one of the things that I just have really enjoyed is doing it my way and, you know, kind of making my own decisions and writing the way I want to write, not feeling like I have to do it for somebody else, how someone else wants to do it.

And I feel like that's really perfect for you. So again, I'll throw it on the screen, wide left post that sub stack.com, which will soon be wide left that sub stack.com. So, uh, good luck with that. And, and thanks again, man. This was a really fun conversation. Appreciate it. Yeah, this is a ton of fun. Thanks for bringing me on. And people don't know this, but Collin gave me all kinds of really useful advice on starting this substack. So it's more than just like bringing me onto a show. He was really supportive. He's a softie. I just texted you. I just texted you. You're going to fail and you should stop trying. And that's what motivated me. That was, that was, Oh yeah. Okay.

It's like, yeah, like Zimmer, like I created a culture of fear. And then that helped you. So you're welcome. All right. Well, I'm going to stay on and chat with some fans here, but thanks. Thanks so much, man. And, and best of luck with the new venture. Yeah. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on. Peace out. For sure. All right. Our friend, Arif. Great stuff. Always, always, always, always love chatting with Arif. So I got a few more fan questions that have been emailed to me, but of course you guys have been listening to this conversation the entire time and it was suggested. I'll take more suggestions,

by the way, on the background, but I'll tease what I've got coming. So I've got, I bought this giant picture of downtown Minneapolis. That's like in panels that is going to go back here. So I'm hoping that it looks awesome. And then the bottom side will be these pictures and the book that's lit up over here. And I'm hoping to get this lamp actually to be on and stuff like that. So, you know, and maybe some bookshelves on the outside. I saw bookshelves get suggested. Love that. So we'll get them out here and it'll be a whole thing. It's going to look really cool.

And at some point we're going to have people coming into the studio like Manny Hill to do hot routes. You know, we'll get a whole, it's going to be a whole thing. We're working on it. Speaking of whole things, by the way, where is my file? There it is. So later this month, I am going to be doing some live broadcasts from Las Vegas for a couple days because it is the Circa millions. It is the biggest pro football contest in Las Vegas with Circa.

It's back for another year, 14 million in guaranteed prizes, only at Circa Sports. They're flying me out there. We're going to broadcast from there for a couple days. It's going to be really cool. You enter in Vegas with a couple of ways to play, but it doesn't have a rake to it. And you can play from anywhere, but you enter from Vegas.

And it's the million pro football contest with quarterly payouts, 100% payback. You pick a winner with the survivor contest, select the team each week, no point spread, and you get your share. If you can obviously win with the survivor contest.

So you got to sign up there, but you can play anywhere. So, you know, if you're headed out there at some point, make sure you stop by circa. It is a very cool place. They are sponsoring the show. They're going to bring me out there for the game as well when the Vikings play Vegas. So that's going to be like Purple Insider crew assemble when we do that. So make sure you get in on this and go to

Circa, C-I-R-C-A sports.com for more details so that's going to be fun neon lights in the back i have this here and i don't know what to do with it exactly i've kind of just had it here illuminating me this neon light need the oakley's on the table where are they you want to put them back here maybe put the oakley's back here does that look cool it doesn't look that cool but it's not it's not a bad idea maybe i can get those illuminated yeah it kind of looks cool all right we'll work on it we'll keep working on it so uh if you guys have any more questions we'll keep going for a little bit i did get some more emails that i wanted to answer as well so i'm going to do that uh ryan sent me an email and asked on positional value we draft

offensive line and sign veteran defensive line doesn't it make a lot more sense to sign veteran guards and draft defensive linemen i agree with you i agree with that i totally agree with that actually i think that highly drafted defensive linemen are the only place to get great ones most of the time yes there are exceptions daniel hunter is certainly one of them great ones most of the time. Yes, there are exceptions. Daniil Hunter is certainly one of them. But a lot of the time, success on the defensive side, and there was a great article in The Athletic last year about this, success on the defensive side, especially the D-line,

usually correlates with what kind of athlete the guy is. I mean, yeah, not all great athletes succeed, but usually the guys that succeed are great athletes. And that exists on the D line where with offensive line, because it takes so long to develop that you're really not sure you could be three years in with a guy and think that he's coming along and just never have it work. And, and then you're just up a Creek for three years waiting, as opposed to spending your money on the defensive line where it's or I'm sorry, the offensive line where it's proven players. The only trouble with that is teams don't like to let go good offensive linemen.

So if they do, a lot of times it's hard to get a bargain, I think, on the offensive line, because usually if they're good, the team just keeps them. And so you end up with a lot of like Dalton Reisner. Why is he on the free agent market at this point? That always ends up coming up. And we saw with Josh Klein, clearly there were some injury issues with Josh Klein. He played for a year and then that was it. And he retired or just never played again. I assume he's retired. I never saw anything about why he never played again, but I imagine that it was just injuries that piled up over his career. So that is part of the issue,

is if it's a great offensive lineman, you pay massive, massive, massive money to get a Joe Tooney or a Trent Williams. And then the next level down, it isn't like great, pretty good, okay, bad. It's more like great and then okay and then bad for the free agents. It's hard to get someone who's a good deal. But theoretically, I agree with you that drafting defensive linemen is probably the right way to go,

and drafting offensive linemen comes probably the right way to go and drafting offensive linemen comes along with a lot of risk at the same time your two tackles are elite players so maybe this is a guard thing because tackles i also think it takes usually elite athleticism to be a great tackle so and maybe it's more of a guard thing uh let's see um Um, gay, uh, no, I, uh, I be strafing, uh, on Twitter sent me a note said, uh, Vikings ran a three, four fronts with keep maybe one less linebacker, but I also think that the backup linebackers are going to be entirely special teamers and whoever they trust. So if they're very happy with how Troy Dye or Troy Reeder plays from a special teams perspective, and if they can trust them to hold down the Jordan Hicks role, then there you go. That's what's going to happen. I don't think it will majorly

affect how many linebackers they keep or who they keep, because once you get one layer down from the starters, it's probably going to be Pace Jr., Hicks, Asamoah, some combination of those three starting. And then the rest of the guys are just special teamers and break glass in case of emergency i don't think that it will change much but it is going to look a lot different than what we've seen in years past to see one linebacker out on the field as opposed to you know the traditional two linebackers that they've always had even through last year with ed donatel so it is going to be a little bit different i think uh question from gabe brian florist loves flexibility

could you see a scenario where they keep six safeties well uh no i don't think they're going to keep six safeties i think it will be bynum lewis scene j Metellus, maybe one more, maybe like a Theo Jackson or something more likely than not though, past the third one, it's just, um, on the practice squad. And if you have like a Theo Jackson, no one's picking him up off waivers. So you can cut and put them on the practice squad and then, you know, bring him up if you need to. I do agree with you that he likes flexibility, but I also think you have to have guys who can play and impact the game. And that's where you need, you need a certain like talent level, uh, as opposed to just being kind of a replacement guy to have one special skill.

Like I think Mattel is, does have a special skill. And I think that Bynum does have a special skill of understanding the defense, knowing where to be, having chemistry with Harrison Smith. So and then, of course, Louis seen physically gifted player who is going to be depth and then also impact the special teams right off the bat, I would guess. But you're also developing him to be a first round pick. And eventually they're hoping work out those guys. You'll keep anybody else's sort of like, all right, we'll bump you up if we need to. And, you know, we'll see if that happens. Uh, Sarah sent me a note, long time listener to the show. Uh, she works in a hospital in Texas, I believe, and said, uh, she doesn't get the privilege of

watching many ER or not ER that's where she works uh many vikings games unless they're in prime time or playing a texas team will we get to see them on tv this year the vikings actually have a lot of prime time games i did not realize this until sarah asked this question uh they play week two against the eagles prime time if count three 25, they also play week five. That's a three 25 at the chiefs seven 15 on a Monday against San Francisco week seven. And then a couple of noon games, Sunday night football week 11 in Denver week 12 on Monday night football. So they have back to back and then a three Oh five start in Vegas., is that because of the time change? That might be because of the time change. And Sunday Night Football on New Year's Eve.

So you will get a lot of those games this year. That is a fun schedule. I need to do more on that schedule. One other one from Hickory71. Have you learned things from your reporting related to Vikings ownership, coaches, players, and you have decided you wouldn't report out to the public. Yeah, in reporting, you're always having conversations with people off the record. And that's an important designation when you talk with people, whoever it might be, just

might be in the sport, might be with the team, might be whoever. Just it's important to know when we're talking off the record, when we're talking on the record, because certain things that can be said to add context or that are just in conversation are kind of not fair game, if that makes sense. Like if you're just talking to someone, just for example, I'll go back to like my hockey past. So we're not talking about the Vikings. When I covered hockey in, in Buffalo, I had a conversation with a coach where he told me about a player who was a fourth liner, who wasn't any good, who marched into his office and demanded to play first line center. And he told me this story.

And we were like, what? That's so weird. Uh I didn't run to the radio to report this because we were talking off the record, just having a conversation. So, yes, more information comes your way by being around and having discussions with people about certain things, but it's just sort of like a code of ethics here that if you put out stuff that you're just having in the run of conversation out there and report everything like that, you're not going to get any trust from anybody to talk about stuff. And then what often happens, and this happened in my hockey career. So I'm going to, again, focus on that, uh, where this same coach, I had written something and he contacted me and basically said, well, here's kind of what's really going on with that player. And I was like, off the record, here's what's going on with that player. So then I knew that.

So then the next time I wrote about it or talked about it, I could add more context without saying, oh, the coach told me, or here's his quote, because he wanted it out there. Like the truth. He wanted me to get it right, but he didn't want to like, say, here's what's going on with that guy. So does that make sense? Like, you definitely can't say everything you hear, but I also don't want to think that like, I'm not like holding back on you guys. Like, I don't know all the, where the, the, all the bodies are buried. And I'm just like, I'm not like holding back on you guys. Like, I don't know all the, where the, all the bodies are buried. And I'm just like, not telling you that's not, that's not how it goes. So it comes out in the run of reporting. So sometimes just for example, I I'll have an

opinion on something that's a little more informed than just the press conference. And I'll give it throughout the time that I'm on the show and then it will come to fruition and you'll be like, oh, he knew what he was talking about. And that's just not my guess. It's because, you know, I was around and knew what was going on. So anyway, it's, yeah, it's, it's not like all that complicated. It. When you're having conversations with people off the record, yeah, it's not stuff that I can bring to the show or bring to my written side of my reporting, but it also ends up all being part of my understanding of the team,

and it ends up filtering through that way. So that's the best way I would put it. Let's see. See, I don't know about this. Zalene says, uh let's see see uh i don't know about this uh zline says uh it sucks that someone like scene is going to make the team by default while someone deserving who works their ass off like tristan jackson is probably going to get cut well i don't know that tristan jackson's going to be cut um that's an interesting one for sure and here i mean this is the reality of sports though right isn't it if you are the general manager who drafted lewis seen in the first round and you see his size his speed and his potential

are you going to give him every chance to become the best he can possibly be or are you going to say well you know look tristan jackson was better in camp that would probably not be a good method i think i get what you're saying if you're one of those players and this is where you see players on twitter who you know don't have careers or whatever will be like i was better in camp than whatever tommy first round pick that's life uh that is life in sports because we like we were talking about earlier, if it clicks, if you just cut Louis scene and he didn't make the team and you had a sixth wide receiver,

who's probably never going to impact anything. If that's the way you did business, if you just, after the second year, just cut every pick, that's not the people are going to think you're insane. Like it's not a good look, but also other people are going to pick up your picks.

And if it works out for them, I mean, that's the thing with Lewis scene. I don't know whether it'll ever work out for Lewis scene, but if you just cut them and they picked and someone else picked him up and he became a star, like you look horrendous and everyone's going to go, wait, you cut him because you liked the way a sixth wide receiver played. And this is coming from me who comes here every night and says how good Tristan Jackson is. So,

yeah, I mean, I think that's a really tough thing to do. And, you know, you got to give somebody like Lewis seen as much time as you can. And when it's over, it's over and we'll all know it's over,

but I don't think it's time to say that it's over right now. Christian says the O-line is not good enough for a rookie QB right now, unless they expect him to throw number one or bust. Well, they don't have a rookie quarterback right now. That's kind of part of the point, isn't it? That what you've done is set up in the most difficult things to find for your next quarterback. Christian Derrissaw, Brian O'Neill, Justin Jefferson, possibly Jordan Addison, and TJ Hawkins. How many teams have a good tight end? Not many. How many teams have elite tackles? Not many. How many teams have Justin Jefferson? Nobody. So that's a really good setup.

If you get a rookie quarterback and the guy is even okay, he's even can play. You can then sign some guards and spend the big money to get the Joe Tooney. You can do that because you're in a position to do that because you have not spent $40 million on the quarterback position. That's how that works. Like, yeah, I mean, this comes up all the time. We talk about drafting quarterbacks. Well, it's not going to matter if he can't throw the ball. Well, another part of it, too, is if you're drafting a quarterback, let's get one who can scoot a little bit, right? Who can escape the pressure.

I think that needs to be part of it if they're drafting the next quarterback. But it's also that you can spend the money. You can fix the line. You've already done the hard part by getting two elite tackles. I mean, you can't tell me that one of the reasons some of these guys don't bust is that from the very outset of their careers, they're playing under such horrible circumstances because their teams are atrocious, right? Because they don't have elite tackles. They don't have elite receivers.

I mean, I don't know if Justin Fields is going to be good. I tend to think he's never going to be a great passer. But was that, that's a different universe from the Viking situation. If you draft Justin Fields and immediately give him elite wide receivers and great tackles, like I think we might have a different story. So,

you know, it's a little bit chicken and egg, but I, that to me is never, never a reason not to draft quarterback because that quarterback by drafting him gives you a bunch of cap space to fix your problem. So that's the way I look at it. Anyway, tomorrow they are off.

So here's the deal with the show. I am going to go to the twins game and I will be out a little bit later, but I will also be back and then I will be on the air with Jonathan to do hot routes. We will preview Vikings Titans joint practices. This is a big call it moving week for a lot of players. If you've made an impression so far, this is your time to move up on that depth chart. And so we'll be here tomorrow night,

but it'll just be a little later. It'll we'll be starting kind of around this time around nine o'clock and, uh, sorry to the people who go to bed a little bit earlier, but, um, today off for the team. So I'm going to take advantage of it, but you guys are the best. Thanks so much for everybody tuning in as always. And, uh, keep giving me advice on the setup. I really like that, like where we're coming along with the studio here. And I think it's going well. But it'll keep improving, and it'll be fun to continue to put this thing together. So thanks, everybody, for dropping by. And we'll be back tomorrow.

And then, of course, the rest of the week after joint practices, a lot to break down. It'll be a lot of fun. So we will see you then. Football.