Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The night practice showed the Vikings offense is a work in progress

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Matthew Coller attended the Minnesota Vikings' night practice and it didn't have a lot of offensive pop. What should we think of that? Is it a big deal? Also which players stood out and is there a surprise emerging receiver in the group? Plus Kevin O'Connell's comments on development and Cousins' progress within the system and questions about the offensive line and Cousins comparisons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and we have ourselves a recap of a night practice. Who's excited? Also, Kevin O'Connell and Daniil Hunter did press conferences. I want to bring you some of that, but let me just start off by talking about what happened last night. Then we'll get to the press conference analysis. And then I have some fans only questions to answer as well and keep an eye out this is going to be a big week for some people to come on the show um eric edholm is going to come on he is now with nfl.com also brandon thorn who studies offensive line he's

going to pop by the show and tell us what he thinks of the next step for christian derisaw what they should do at center and all that. So keep your eyes out. Also, I'm a little bit short now on fans only questions. We've been running through them and doing a lot of episodes. So purpleinsider.com, you can send me an email there, or you could send me a DM on Twitter at Matthew Collar or just a regular tweet. And I will get back to you also just while we're doing all of the house cleaning, the folks who have given five-star reviews have helped push us into the top 50 on the iTunes of all football podcasts to start training camp here and that is really cool

to see. So, if you haven't left a five-star review, please do that. You guys are the absolute best who have done that so far. So, uh, all right. Well, last night I would say the first overarching point that I want to make is let's not overreact to a practice that was not exactly electric because this is a new offense. It's a new scheme and they're working their way through kinks when it comes to this, but it was not really the practice that I think that people wanted to see when they showed up. I think they wanted to see big throws to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen and lots of fireworks and then actual fireworks at the end. And it was more like a regular practice, which there's some ups and some downs at the end of practice. As far as the good things go, Kirk Cousins led a nice drive

that resulted in a field goal. Greg Joseph was once again fantastic. He went 7 for 8, including a 58-yarder at the end of practice. He's just been kicking extremely well, and everybody's making the same joke oh you're testing fate by bringing up how good greg joseph has been no not really i mean look curses might be real and vikings kickers have some kind of history but i don't think that us mentioning he's looked good in training camp is a jinx. Normally, if someone looks really

good in training camp, that's a nice indicator for their season. And that was the case last year with Greg Joseph, where he was really good during the regular season. He missed one kick against Arizona that was problematic and they lost the game because of it. But aside from that, he was nails for the rest of the season and would you rather him be like missing kicks of course not you want him to look as good as possible so he had another fantastic night cousins let a nice drive there got high fives at the end but there were a lot of rocky moments throughout there was a drill that they did at the goal line that was a struggle i think they took maybe three four chances chances at it, scored one touchdown.

Another time, Kirk was, quote, running for a touchdown, but not exactly because they can't tackle him, so he has to go in the end zone. But it was not one of these practices where they just hit on all cylinders and are completing everything, firing the ball all over the place, and really putting on a show. And I do think that in the past, Mike Zimmer purposefully set up the script to take a lot of shots downfield because every year, including even when Jake Browning was the quarterback,

there were a lot of deep completions and big plays to get the fans excited and especially the year where Sam Bradford in 2017 just put on an absolute laser show the final year at Mankato that that was one that years later we were still talking about like remember when Sam Bradford just lit that thing up that night that I don't think was the design for Kevin O'Connell it looked like a regular practice and when we talk about kind of going out there day after day, and it's not the most exciting thing to watch practice day after day, like that's what it looks like sometimes where they're clearly trying to get something down and it's not necessarily always working.

That doesn't mean it was an atrocity or anything. It's not like cousins was throwing picks left and right and fighting the left guard. It was just that there were a lot of moments where cousins would have a tough rep and he would walk back to the quarterback coach or he would walk back to the receivers, or he would be looking up at the video board and pointing something out as they showed replays of the plays. It's like, yeah, this is the work in progress that is the Minnesota Vikings offense. And I think that was my biggest takeaway as far as like who was playing where not a lot was changed. It's not like they debuted a center change or anything, uh, for this night. It was

mostly similar to, um, how things have been. There was some notes maybe from the second team that, uh, I noticed Luigi Villain, somebody that Chris Trapasso from CBS Sports that he had mentioned on the show is an interesting UDFA to watch. He was getting with the second team, which is worth noting that there's a UDFA getting some second team looks there. Louis Scene was not in attendance. He had an excused absence and was not there.

So that was kind of unfortunate for fans that they couldn't see the first round pick out there. Caleb Evans was also not practicing. So that was another draft pick that they didn't get to see. But, you know, Jesse Davis was at right guard, took all the first team reps there, and everything was pretty much standard for the way that it's been. So overall, it ends up being a night that you didn't walk away from saying wow I remember seeing that night practice where Kirk Cousins just was flashing all over the place and hitting all these big plays I think throughout the entire night

Justin Jefferson only had two catches in 11 on 11 drills one was the first pass they threw like a slant and then another one was on the final drive as kind of a hitch or something, like a short pass to set up their field goal. And in that case, they executed what they were going for. They took two shots downfield to Jefferson. Both were incomplete. One was at the end where just kind of flung it out of bounds. Maybe it was one of those if it's there, you throw it.

If not, that's the right play. But for the fans in the stands, they weren't going to rise up. As far as the second team goes, it was just a tough go. But clearly, I think right now, Kellen Mond is emerging as the second team quarterback because he got way, or they just want to look at him more. So I shouldn't say clearly because Mond got way more reps just overall.

He got a final 11 on 11 drive. Sean Mannion did not. Mannion had a pretty tough time. He threw an absolute duck in the end zone and the goal line drill. Neither Mond or Mannion could get them in the end zone on the, on the goal line drills goal line. I mean, it's not exactly goal line as in right on the goal line. It's starting at like the 20 or 25, and they try to get it in the end zone.

And it was just a struggle. In the final drive for Mond, he completed one first down, and that was it. So they weren't able to score. He dropped a fumble. He threw a ball way out of bounds to where it almost hit the equipment in turns. I mean, it was a pretty tough night for both Kellen Mond and Sean Mannion. And I think that if you were seeing them practice for the first time, if you're in the stands, you're probably saying that they need to go get a different backup quarterback.

Now, there's a long way to go. There's preseason games. There's lots of practices. And maybe at some point, you know, they start to get it and start to gel a little bit, but based on priors, yeah, backup quarterback probably needs to be a thing. I will say that one player who stood out to me is Tristan Jackson. He's a guy that was an undrafted free agent for the Rams and they let him go. The Vikings signed him and all of a sudden Tristan Jackson's

getting second team reps and is actually making plays, which is the thing you look for when you're talking about a Mr. Mankato and somebody who rises up out of nowhere. I mean, as far as the backup wide receivers go, BC Johnson, Amir Smith, Marcet, Albert Wilson, nobody has done a whole lot to be inspiring in practice. And Tristan Jackson has made some plays and he continued that last night. I mean, there is definitely a chance that somebody could surprise everyone and take a job there. I saw a lot of Albert Wilson with the third team that kind of makes you think that it might be a similar Kendall Wright type of signing or Tajay Sharp although Tajay Sharp did make the team but uh you know one of those non-impact

signings that's kind of the way that that's trending right now again plenty of time to change that but if Tristan Jackson a guy that none of you have ever heard of and I hadn't before he signed here is stepping up and getting those second team reps and making plays while Albert Wilson is mostly working on the third team that's probably a sign that Jackson has got a leg up there and also that Wilson is not somebody who's really really competing for that job we'll see how that plays out It might just be one practice that they decided to elevate Jackson and, you know, Wilson is the veteran player. It's usually before we get into the preseason games, we kind of get a nice snapshot of where

everyone stands, but that can change when it comes to the depth players. You know, people step up, people have great games, and sometimes that's influential to the coaching staff. Normally they'll say, well, it's body of work and so forth, but there's nothing like replicating what you can actually do out there in a real game setting versus practice. So that's something to keep an eye on. Do they have kind of a diamond in the rough here in Tristan Jackson,

or am I just desperately searching for any player to stand out because most of this team is kind of set with the first and second teams. I'm still noticing a lot of Patrick Jones playing with DJ Wanham that those guys are the ones rotating in. Nobody else is rotating in with the first team on the edges except for Patrick Jones and DJ Wanham, which kind of tells you that that's the depth chart. I know that soon this week they'll release the unofficial depth chart,

and I guess we can go over it because it's like a yearly tradition. Even though it's not the official depth chart, it gives us their first snapshot of where everybody stands. Kenny Wongwu looked extremely explosive last night. I don't know how many first-team reps he got, but he just looked good. Looked like he was blowing up through holes. That's what you want to see after you had to sit out a few days. And as far as everybody else, it's like, you know, the defense, I thought, had a good night.

There was a lot of pressure on the quarterback. I know some of you have asked about Jalen Twyman. He had a couple of good reps last night where I noticed him, and he blasted through the offensive line and got pressure. And also, you know, Kevin O'Connell explained, I know this was a question from somebody the other day, Kevin O'Connell explained why he likes twos versus ones, which they did some of last night. And he was talking about how they see it as an opportunity for development. And he thinks that, you know, you can just say

development or you can really develop. And he prefers to choose to really develop, which I think is the right mindset. I mean, every coach is going to say, yeah, we want to develop players, but are you really putting a lot of effort into doing that? Going twos versus ones on either side of the ball is to give a chance to see if somebody plays well versus better competition. But also if it's younger players, if it's people with potential, I think it gives them a good shot too. So the overall of the night practice was the ambiance was great. The atmosphere was great. The place was loaded. Fans were excited and they just didn't see a really exciting practice. And sometimes that's how it goes. I mean, we go to practice after practice, after practice and stand out

there in the sun and watch football. And so I'm not complaining, but some days, some days are much less exciting than others. Some days it's super intense and the offenses are executing and the players are getting pumped and you're kind of hanging on every rep. And other days it's like, yeah, well, you know, this isn't really flowing all that well today. And that was kind of what we saw from the night practice. So we do usually use that as kind of a data point to say like, all right, here's where everybody stood in the big night practice. But maybe with this coaching staff, the big night practice was treated more like another practice as opposed to with Mike Zimmer, where I think that it was something that mattered to him was how people came out and performed when they had that chance under the lights

and in front of the fans, and I think they got excited. At the end, Kevin O'Connell gave an impassioned speech about how he didn't want to see other jerseys in the stadium and how the fans are going to be a huge part of this whole thing, and that was a little different too. Mike Zimmer would usually say two or three sentences and try his best to hype up the crowd, but it wasn't, if you guys know Mike Zimmer,

it wasn't really his game to be a hype man. So there was a little bit different feeling there. But I think that there was more of an emphasis as far as the importance of this thing and how they set it up for the Zimmer era than maybe it was O'Connell. So I don't think that overreacting to anything is a good idea. But I also think that at some point,

you have to have backup quarterbacks who can at least execute general reps to drop back and throw someone the football. And at this point, they're not doing that at all. And again, not that we're going to make too much about a backup thing here, but it just has not been the next step that anybody was looking for. So, all right, let's get to some of the things Kevin O'Connell said in his press conference and also Daniel Hunter, and then a few fans only questions. Okay. Let's get into some of the most interesting things from press conferences that led into Monday night's night practice, starting with Daniil Hunter. And the biggest storyline of training camp for Hunter is that he is now an outside

linebacker as opposed to the traditional defensive end. But part of that is him moving around a lot. And that's something that Daniil Hunter has really never been asked to do that. It seemed like every year Mike Zimmer would talk about, yeah, well, we want to move guys around a little. And one time against New Orleans, it took the Saints completely by surprise in the playoff game when just even on a couple of downs, they moved Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter.

But this seems like it's going to be a common occurrence. And Hunter talked about, A, the role that Zedarius Smith has played in him understanding how to move around, how to rush from different places, and also the benefits of that as they go up against centers and offensive guards that may not necessarily have the athleticism to handle Daniil Hunter as many of the NFL's best tackles. Definitely, you know, and that's where Z comes in. the athleticism to handle Daniil Hunter as many of the NFL's best tackles. like guard, center, whomever. So it's definitely been a plus with him and just being able to see things faster with him telling me what he knows. Can guards stop you? Can what now?

Can guards stop you? I mean, tackles are a little bit more athletic, I think is the fair word. Can a guard or an interior guy stop you? I just feel like it's – for us, we feel like it's a disadvantage. So we'll work on that throughout the season. But we see it's a big disadvantage. Another comment from Daniil Hunter that stuck out was regarding Christian Derrissaw. And I've mentioned to you guys a few times that Derrissaw has really looked good to me.

I mean, looks like a guy who's taking the next step to be a star in the league. And I don't want to go too far and hype him too much here in training camp, but a second year, first round draft pick, this is exactly what you're looking for. And I think that we've talked about it numerous times, but when you're trying to figure out, is it just players saying nice things about each other or is it meaningful? A comment like this coming from Daniil Hunter who is a very quiet guy is meaningful when it comes to Christian Derrissaw so listen to what he said oh I like what I've seen from him so far you know he took a big leap from year one to year two definitely not the same player he was last year he's above and beyond what we've seen from practice

and that's that's big time right there because I like what I see from him we all beyond what we've seen from practice and that's that's big time right there because I like what I see from him we all like what we see from him in front and um the potential from him it's it's limitless so he's going to keep improving as a player on to Kevin O'Connell two things stuck out to me the first was Kevin O'Connell explained why they do twos versus ones, whether it's offense or defense, and talked about the value of development. And I think that this really matters as far as when we look for around the edges and the nuances of what's different and what's a more modern approach or what's a little bit of a smarter or more clever approach by the new regime from the last regime and a major part of that

could be development and the focus on actually developing players as opposed to if you develop that's great but otherwise look it's about the starters i mean i think that zimmer especially when there was a lot of pressure on him was not going out of his way to say, Hey, fifth round pick, let's develop you slowly and get you reps. It's like something we didn't see before is twos versus ones at any point. So O'Connell explained why he does that and the value of development. If you talk to some of the great quarterbacks in this league, I can remember Drew Brees one time talking about training can't be in the time to try things and really, hey, we're coaching progressions. But what that looks like in that razor thin margin of error, like that's you got to test those out.

You got to understand, hey, you know, maybe I took the wrong footwork. Maybe I was a little late because I was hung on my first progression a little bit too long. And that's really how our pass game works. You know, we're going to try to build progressions in the rhythm and timing of what we believe they are. But every once in a while, you know, depending on who's running the route versus the coverage that they get, you might hang on a guy a little long and then be late to something. You've got to check the ball down. But those reps that you're talking about, each and every time we've had kind of that learnable moment.

As for all of our quarterbacks, Chris and Gerard are doing a great job with those guys, making sure that mistakes that are made, you've got to coach off those. You've got to coach hard off those. But in training camp, you don't want to ever coach so hard that guys are so scared to make a mistake because the repercussions aren't the same now. Now as we work into the season and we look back on some cut-ups and we look back on, hey, let's go look at that rep from training camp where it didn't go our way. Why was that? And nine times out of ten, there's a tangible reason that you can say, we do this differently or I script a better play, better formation, better spacing. There's so much that goes into it.

It's a great question. But ultimately, you know, there's a reason why stats during training camp for me personally, we don't talk about them a whole lot. Now, if we turn the ball over like we did one day, had the ball on the ground three or four times in offense, they heard all about that multiple, multiple times from me. So those are the things we can control. But I never want those these quarterbacks, especially this time of year, worrying about the outcome.

It's more about the process of playing the position that will hold true for the rest of the year. Last thing before we get to your fans only questions. Kevin O'Connell talked about Kirk Cousins and some of the interceptions that he's thrown and what role those play in Cousins trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work and using training camp reps to figure that out. And I want to say also that I've seen some tweets about this of like, oh, well, Hey, you can't really judge on camp performance. You most certainly can on a lot of players, but when it comes to a veteran quarterback who has done it in the league many times, I would say that, yes, it does become more muddy to try to figure out was that interception just because he was trying something out or is that because he

doesn't know what he's doing with a veteran player you you can lean on their history more than what you're seeing in training camp but at the same time you want to see the vikings offense succeed in camp you want to see these things working early in camp i would say less judgmental than when we get the full picture of the entire offense like last year we didn't think by the end of training camp that the offense would never score any touchdowns or anything, but we looked around and said, something's just not really quite right here. And this could cause some Rocky moments.

They came out of the gate, pretty good offensively in Cincinnati and in Arizona, but then hit some stumbling blocks as they went along Detroit, Cleveland, and other games like that at different times. And I think we saw the weaknesses throughout the year in that offense. So as they go along, what we want to see more and more padded practices is success. But O'Connell explained how he values the veteran quarterback, trying to learn the offense and experimenting with also judging what he sees in terms of his quarterback learning the system. You know, I think it goes to a lot of different stops. You know, I've been at, I think I'm a big believer in organizationally. We talk that development word is something a lot of people throw around. But

are you doing things on a daily basis to really, you know, not only test out those development skills of your coaching staff or your support staff around the players, but are the players seeing it? Are they feeling like, hey, I'm not only being told what to do, you know, by watching the ones on the one field, I'm being told real time as they do it on that other field. And a lot of times we'll use clips from that field because it'll look different. You know, you might not get the same check defensively. We might get a play run, you know, versus a completely different look. Even though the scripts are the same, that's the way our systems are set up.

They're going to adjust. And sometimes those adjustments are made. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes guys see it differently. So we're constantly using that tape to really apply to really all 90 guys on our roster right now to make sure everybody's getting the most out of the time when they're at our facility folks training camp is here and there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to sodastick.com and checking out all their minnesota sports inspired goods the best football designs, in my opinion, are Randy Moss's disgusting act and the purple people eaters look.

But look, there's lots more for you to check out at SodaStick.com. S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. T-shirts, hoodies, hats, whatever you're looking for. Use the promo code Purple Insider at checkout for 15% off your purchase. Well, since I'm home on a day off to answer these fans-only questions, the Vikings not practicing on Tuesday, let's open a Diet Dr. Pepper, if we will. Okay, here we go uh let's see this from at chris graywin on twitter uh wisconsin runs a 3-4 base defense in the past few years has blitzed inside linebackers more have you seen blitzes coming from

ek and company oh yeah i mean they'll do that. They'll definitely do that. And when you look at Jordan Hicks history, Jordan Hicks blitzed a lot. I can actually call this up for you because it was something that caught my eye about Jordan Hicks. And of course the Vikings ran a lot of interior blitzes with Anthony Barr and Eric Hendricks in the past. And I felt like it was more last year. The data said it was only a tad bit more, but it felt like they were doing that a lot from last season. So last year, the last three years in Arizona, Jordan Hicks has rushed the passer a lot.

He had 95, 108, and 102 pass rush snaps, so really like one out of every 10, and he had double-digit pressures each season and pretty solid pass rush grades in two out of the three years. So that's something that Jordan Hicks knows how to do and is a very much traditional part of a three, four type of scheme. And every time we have to clarify that they're not going to play a ton of this three, four, but I think that what the staple is of this style of defense is being able

to rush a lot of different people from a lot of different places. So Z'Darrius Smith ends up being a really big part of this, that even if they're not rushing Jordan Hicks or Eric Hendricks on a play, you might see Z'Darrius Smith lined up in a spot where you would expect Eric Hendricks. On any given play, we're going to have to look around and try to find Z'Darrius Smith and where he's rushing for. And already in practice, it's like, wait, who was that in a defensive tackle? Oh, that was Z'Darrius Smith. Like we end up having that a lot thinking like, oh, is a different guy getting first

team reps? Oh no, that's just Z'Darrius Smith in a different position. And even Daniil Hunter, when he was asked about it, you know, he was saying that it's an advantage to be able to rush someone like him over a guard or center. Like, think about the physical difference there. And I think that there's a balance between wanting to do some of that while also not wanting to move everybody around so much that it becomes convoluted or that it becomes like someone's out of position and isn't doing what they're best at.

But I think that this defense, kind of a staple of it with Vic Fangio, has been moving guys around, rushing from different places, blitzing in different ways. And you're going to see a lot of that. I don't know how much you need Eric Hendricks to blitz. I think, you know, if you're talking about key situations every once in a while, but he's so good in coverage that you probably want him covering more often than not. And then every once in a while throwing something that's really surprising at the defense with a blitz. But the answer is I do think that they're going to blitz more. And I do think that you're going to see some creative blitzing,

but I don't think that it's going to be so wild that it's like Tampa Bay or something. I'll look up the numbers, how often the Denver Broncos blitzed and we'll see because the, they have this on pro football reference and we'll see if they blitzed more. No, it was, it was about 25% according to pro football reference and we'll see if they blitzed more. No, it was, um, it was about 25% according to pro football reference, which was almost dead on the same as the Vikings last year. So the Broncos and Vikings, and that doesn't necessarily mean Ed Donatell is doing exactly the same things.

Uh, and if we use green Bay also as a barometer with a similar defense, 21%. Even Chicago's kind of similar, 22%. So, like, the top of the league is closer to 40. Miami and Tampa Bay, close to 40%. I wouldn't expect that the blitzing amount changes wildly, according to those numbers, but I do think that on a lot of those key downs, you will see mixing and matching. This guy drops back

kendrick's blitzes here comes you know jordan hicks and so forth like i i do think um that you'll see that so thanks for the question man appreciate it uh this comes from mike friendly acquaintance of the show if you guys when you send questions want to label yourself some sort of friend of the show, feel free to do that. I appreciate that. Let's see. A couple of fans only for the podcast. One, what's your favorite off-field, I can't believe that actually happened, story?

I still occasionally chuckle about Ontario Smith and his original Wizenator, which if you don't know what that is, go look it up. It's a very odd story. I'm sure all of you beat reporters have a collection of stories that you laugh about on a regular basis. Uh, yes, that's correct. Uh, the one that is the most baffling to me is probably George Edwards. Uh, when George Edwards got a DWI, uh, which is not funny by the way, and do not drink and drive. Uh, that's, that's not funny by the way and do not drink and drive that's that's not funny at all but the the odd part of that was that it was going through a taco bell drive-thru and he got his food and he

left and then he came back because there was a wrong order and so the thing that was puzzling is we were trying to put together the pieces of what happened with this DWI. Cause of course, remember we're the ones who have to ask about it after it happens. So like, yes, you can say, uh, this is funny, but it's uncomfortable as all have to ask about this. And George Edwards came out for the next press conference and tried to read us a bunch of stats about the Philadelphia Eagles. And it was like, okay, George, we've got to ask you about this DWI man. Uh, but the, the part of that that never quite added up was that he went back

to Taco Bell. I mean, if you think about Taco Bell, uh, you know, everything is kind of the same and this is coming from a big Taco Bell fan, but you can miss pretty badly on that menu and still get the more or less the same thing. I mean, it's mostly just, uh, a tortilla of some kind chicken or beef. I mean, there's not like not a whole lot of difference. So going back and getting in trouble that way was the part of that where we sort of tried to work our way through that. Like, wait, he went back? Why did he go back? And isn't all Taco Bell food basically the same? So that, you know, yes, these discussions do happen.

J-Ron curse going around a barrier. It's like, where did you think you were going? I mean, if there's construction, then you're not going to drive through the construction. There's a barrier there for a reason. There are some odd things that happen. Probably the funniest one that I've ever covered wasn't here, because during the Zimmer era, there weren't a lot of super hilarious, crazy arrests or anything, or just incidents like you're describing with Ontario Smith. But the craziest one was Aaron Cromer, who is the offensive line coach of the bills.

And he and his son got in a fight with somebody at a lake over beach chairs. And he was, I think, arrested over this. And it was like, what you, you got in a fight over beach chairs. Like you're an NFL coach and you're just like not letting it go. You're putting your career potentially at risk over beach chairs. Like, come on, man, you've got to be kidding me. So sometimes that stuff, yeah, that stuff does come up and it can be, it can be a little, it can be a little strange and weird to talk about.

The other question is, this might be a dumb question, but can you take a minute to break down shotgun versus under center? What's the up and down side of each? Sure, that's not a dumb question. Shotgun, I think the idea of shotgun is there's so many great pass rushers in the league. It gives you more time to get the ball, survey the defense, and they have to attack you while you're not moving backward, right? So if somebody gets through immediately, you can just deliver a quick pass as opposed to under center take the snap one two three four five you're going backwards if somebody blows up somebody on

the offensive line there's not a whole lot you could do when you're under center even if you're escaping from under the center very quickly and dropping back like you're kind of forced to go all the way back and then stop and set yourself as opposed to being able to catch the ball and set yourself. Um, quick passes in the NFL have just steadily increased year after year after year. And the shotgun, uh, basically increases that, um, you know, you could snap, catch the ball, get rid of it. Uh, the RPOs are a big part of this too I mean it's not just Philadelphia who ran RPOs other people were running RPOs before Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles they did not invent them but you see them more in college and the fact of the matter is that

you know quarterbacks are coming up playing shotgun in high school and college in part because offensive lines struggle but also because of these quick passes are a lot easier to execute for college offenses. So take the snap, catch it, get rid of it, get it in a playmaker's hands. It's safer, lower chance of turnover, especially in college. If a receiver or running back is quicker than everybody else, but then the RPO game is very difficult on linebackers where you don't know if it's going to be a run or a pass. And those are not something you can execute out of under center. So you have to take the snap out of the shotgun, kind of hold the ball out.

You've seen everybody do this, right? Pull it back in, make the throw, that kind of thing. Read the linebacker. So that's an effective weapon that everybody wants to use. The benefit of being under center is the play action game where you can run those big bootlegs where you're having the entire offensive line go one way, the running back go one way, and then your quarterback can go under center, fake the handoff and roll out. And oftentimes you end up with a quarterback with no one around him. And you see this with Jimmy Garoppolo a lot.

You see this with Kirk Cousins a lot. It's a good way to, again, fight against that pass rush, because if you're an edge rusher and you've got the, you know, the fire coming out of your nose and everything else and you're just shooting upfield and then whoops, they ran a play action in the quarterbacks way over there. Right. field and then whoops, they ran a play action and the quarterback's way over there, right? So you're, or you are a defensive lineman and you attack the running back on that play action and whoops, he doesn't have the ball and there goes Kirk Cousins. And now he's got five seconds to throw the ball downfield. And if you give a quarterback like Cousins, and you've seen this many times, if you give him time to get in space, set his feet, he's also surprisingly good at throwing the ball while running. I think just technique wise, he's really good at it. And so you give him that opportunity where you can't really do that on a play action shotgun. You can

run play action shotgun, but you can't really run the bootleg where you would go from being set in one spot and then just like running like you can, but I don't think that's something that's very common or, or really effective. So they give you a different options there. Uh, it's kind of based on really like what kind of offense you want to run. And most offenses have gone to shotgun more often than not, but it, you know, under center is still a pretty good weapon to use. And I think the Vikings will continue to use it. So that's not, uh, not a dumb question at all. Um, let's see, let me read the rest of this email. Thanks again for the great work. I went through 16 weeks of chemotherapy this spring and summer,

and the podcast was great to listen to while I was stuck in the chemo chair. wow. Um, thank you. Uh, that's, it means a lot, man. I I'm really glad that I could help you out, uh, with that, I guess in any way I can, in any way I can, my small contribution to your recovery. So I hope that you're doing well, Mike, and I hope you get better and, uh, that you can listen to the pod while you're doing lots of other things, but not in the chemo chair ever again. So that means a lot. All of you guys who share stories, I listen to your show when I do this or do that. They mean a lot to me. But, Mike, that's a special one.

Thanks a lot, buddy. Get well. All right. On to the next one. This comes from at Vikesman85. Matthew, love the show. Podcast plays every morning as my wife and I get ready for work and she's okay with it. Good to hear that I'm not causing marital problems. I go from helping someone recover from cancer. I'm kidding, Mike. I didn't help. But to breaking up a marriage, like don't get me in the middle of that. So I'm glad that your wife is at least tolerant of the show.

Anyway, do you feel it's time to trade Madison for a center or tight end? Well, I think that looking for another center or tight end is a reasonable thing to do. I'm not sure that they will look for another center if they believe that Chris Reed is the answer. And I've been trying to read between the lines on Chris Reed, Chris Reed between the lines, right folks. Uh, I've been trying to figure out like what they think of him. And it seems that they do think that he can handle center because if they didn't, then they would say, oh, you know, guys guys we were just trying somebody there and it was one of those kind of things it wasn't there's no competition or whatever else but instead there's actually been a lot of praise for Chris Reed which makes you think all right

that it's possible that and they've talked specifically about the things he does well and why he'd be able to move to center so it seems like they're setting up for him to be potentially the guy who challenges based on how he performs in these preseason games. And also what they see the rest of the way in these padded practices from Garrett Bradbury. I don't think that they would make a move for a center unless the JC Treader thing happens. But as we've gone this far, it makes you think that the possibility of JC Tretter signing with the Vikings at this point is pretty low. I wouldn't want to dismiss it. It's just that we've gone a long time now. And if you're going to do that, you got to do that. I don't believe there's another team that's trading you a potential starting center for a backup running back as much as

Alexander Madison is good. If you want somebody else's player right now, more likely than not, you have to give up draft capital. And the same thing goes for tight end, but, but who's tight end that they're going to trade you is worthwhile is the question. Like Johnny Muntz has played in the league. Zach Davidson has shown us a potential. There's a couple of free agents who are still out there, but tight ends are so rare. Is another team going to be like, oh yeah, here, we've got this bevy of tight ends. You want one? Like I it's, it's probably, it's probably unlikely. So, um, I don't

mean to tell you it's not realistic in front of your wife. Who's listening as you guys get ready for work. But I do, I do want to say that I think Alexander Madison is a good guy to have. Delvin Cook gets hurt sometimes. Madison has a ton of experience. Like I think that what they need to avoid would be the panicked trade that Rick Spielman became kind of famous for. So I don't think it's something they should do. They should probably look to free agency if they want somebody hanging around still who might be able to play at those positions, because I think other teams want to hang on to their good players. And if they're trading someone to you, that means that maybe there's a problem

there. Okay. Let's get to two more real quick here before we wrap up the show. And I appreciate all of you listening as always. And the battery on my computer is dying. So I'll talk fast. Um, okay. This comes from, I see you too ugly. Oh man. Is that at me? Is it, was that made on purpose to tell me that I'm ugly? I hope not. Uh, all right. Question for the show. Everyone says Kirk cousins isins is good, not great, including his GM. I agree. However, people say that you can't get a Super Bowl with Kirk, and I disagree. Look at Matt Ryan. Well, Matt Ryan doesn't.

Well, he's been to one Super Bowl. He doesn't have a Super Bowl. But anyway, you can't get to a Super Bowl with Kirk, and you disagree. Okay, that's fine. Since 2014, Kirk's win loss record is 61, 62 and two perfect example of Kirk. Uh, Matt Ryan is 60 and 68. That includes his 2016 MVP performance and Superbowl run, uh, to then lose the biggest lead of all time in the Superbowl. Well, he didn't lose that. Uh, the defense lost that he played great. Uh, let's see both quarterback stats are almost identical as well.

And I've always seen Kirk as very much like Ryan or Phillip Rivers. The question is, do you think Kirk can have that MVP year? I don't. And I really don't think that they're all that similar from Phillip Rivers and Matt Ryan because of the high end of those players. So when we look at Matt Ryan's history and you bring up his win loss record, that's, uh, and, and, uh, and I'm not accusing you of doing this on purpose, but like it cherry picked for certain times to look a certain way, right? Like the Falcons

completely fell apart as a franchise and he got old at that point. So if you look at Kirk Cousins has started from age 27 to 33, correct? So, uh, during that time, I mean, Matt Ryan, what, like you, like you said, won an MVP, um, had a 13 win season, had an 11 win season, had a, you know, I mean, he had some downs at that time. So he did have two down seasons. Uh, but at the beginning of Ryan's career, the high end of Matt Ryan is unbelievable, right? He goes 56 and 22 to start his career. He was well over 500, even with those bad years, um, from 2012 to 2017. So it's kind of like how you pluck it to make it

look like Matt Ryan is similar, but Matt Ryan has two 13 win seasons, a trip to the super bowl, two more 11 win seasons and MVP. Like these are things, this is an accumulation of a lot of things that Kirk cousins doesn't have. And cousins is also, you know, not six foot four and 220 pounds.

And the other part of it is too, that if, if you're saying that old Matt Ryan, like the last few years is kind of like Kirk, like, yeah, I think that's probably right. Because Ryan is with seven and nine, seven and eight, seven and 10. Like that's probably right. And Atlanta's rosters were a little worse than the Vikings. And yeah, old Matt Ryan is similar.

Uh, and, but I don't think that young Matt Ryan was similar. And so he was still 31 years old, so still pretty young and in his prime when he won that MVP and went to the Super Bowl. But, you know, the older version is the one that really started to fall off, especially with a bad team. Yeah, I mean, with Cousins, there's never been a sign of a higher end. And with Philip Rivers, same deal. Phillip Rivers might go to the Hall of Fame

because the early part of his career was absolutely unbelievable. And he still pulled off some amazing seasons later in his career, including an 11-win season with the Indianapolis Colts at the end of his career where he was really, really good at 39 years old. He had a 97 quarterback rating that year, was only sacked 19 times, won 11 games. He had a 14 win season, 13 win season. I mean, I get the rivers comp and that's probably a little closer of like late again, late career rivers, but still had another

12 win season mixed in there. Led the league in passing yards, led the league in yards per attempt three years in a row, quarterback rating, like AP first time or first team a bunch of times, like eight time pro bowler. I mean, these are, these are guys with, with resumes that are just, that are just above Kirk Cousins and talent of first round picks. They're both huge. I stood next to Phillip Rivers once after a Vikings and chargers game. The guy was gigantic and there's just differences there in their actual skill levels. Now that doesn't mean that cousins can't have a pop-up year because when you go through the quarterbacks that have reached the super bowl, there are quarterbacks, including Matt Stafford, who is again, more physically gifted than cousins,

but we can include Matt Stafford here of a quarterback who did not have this unbelievable otherworldly Peyton Manning career who ended up having something go right. Uh, can he have an MVP season? I just can't see it. Like look at the quarterbacks in the league. When you go into the year as the 16th best quarterback, like Matt Ryan and his prime never go into the year as the 16th best quarterback like Matt Ryan in his prime never went into a season as the 16th best quarterback he was always a top 10 quarterback even if he was more toward the back of the top 10 at times but he was always up there and the same with Phillip Rivers like those guys were considered second tier elite quarterbacks I mean is he going to beat out Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Russell Wilson?

Like, you know, probably not for an MVP. I mean, they would just have to go absolutely crazy. But is there always a chance that you have an 11-win season that results in good playoff matchups that you win and have things go your way? Heck, you know, Joe Burrow is great and another elite quarterback who could win a Super Bowl. Joe Burrow had a lot go right to get a 10 win team to the Superbowl a lot. I mean, Ryan Tannehill throwing picks and, uh, you know, the, the heck, the Kansas city chiefs melting down, uh, the Buffalo bills losing that game.

The bills probably beat Kansas city, right? So there is is I don't want to ever dismiss the idea that you could get into the playoffs and go deep but I think that when we're talking about comparisons for Kirk Cousins we've kind of been over this a little bit on the show at times but I think you're setting the bar probably too high there and it's more in the range of Trent Green and Jeff Garcia where you know they can have great year, but the physical gifts do not really allow them to have those, you know, Phillip rivers or Matt Ryan type of seasons. Um, that's kind of how I feel about him that I think that we're, you're setting the comps as guys who are either borderline or in the hall of fame. And that's just not the 16th best quarterback in the league. So, uh, yeah, I mean, I think that if you're looking at, can Kirk have a great year with Kevin O'Connell, can they go deep in the playoffs? I I'd leave the

door open to that. I don't think that's impossible just because he hasn't done it, but I also need to see this magical season before I believe in it, if that makes sense. But we have to look at more than just, Hey, this guy had some nine and seven seasons. So he's sort of similar to cousins, but he also had 14 and 13 and MVPs and stuff. So yeah, I think it's a little bit different. And the way that I chunk quarterbacks is, you know, at the very top is your Peyton Manning's and Tom Brady's who go into every season with a chance to win the Super Bowl.

The next tier down is if you have even a good team, you've got a chance to go to the Super Bowl. That's where I'd put Rivers and Ryan. And then with Cousins, it's more in the, if you have a great team and a lot of things go right, like 2017, for example, for the Vikings, then you've got a real chance. And that's not impossible that that could be this season.

And that's why we're here letting it play out. So thanks for the question. Appreciate that. Again, more questions on the way. Start sending them again. Purpleinsider.com at Twitter. And I will stack them up and continue to read them as we go through camp. Really appreciate all the questions.

Another super fun episode. And we will talk to you guys soon.