Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The risers and fallers of Vikings camp so far

Episode Date: August 5, 2023

Matthew Coller lists his players who are emerging and those who are falling behind in training camp, including thoughts on the receivers, rookie Mekhi Blackmon, the 2023 Vikings draft class, Lewis Cine, Kirk Cousins and much more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here on a Friday night. Thank you everybody for joining. Also, while we still work the kinks out a little bit with the studio here, hopefully now we have upgraded to HD from standard def through the first few days of the new studio. And I think it's working and it looks okay. So let me know if there's any glitches for those in the comments, but always improving. So this thing's going to continue to look a little better, sound a little better. And so far as we go along, but glad to have everybody back tonight on an off day for the Minnesota Vikings.

But of course, the Vikings could not go a day without making some news. So we'll talk about that. Also, I have made a list. I went through the entire roster one by one, and I picked everyone who I think is trending up and everyone who I think is trending down. And I think that this is a good time to do it where we've gotten past the first night practice. And we talked about that. If you missed the recap of the night practice, go back, check that out. That's on the podcast feed. It's

on the channel here as well, but a really fun event as always the night practice. It also serves as a quarter mark on the way to the season. So we've got still over a month to go before we get to the season, but there are just these sort of markers along the way and they're not evenly spaced out necessarily, but I kind of look at this one as get past the night practice and then we'll have our first preseason game. And so we're always kind of updating what we know about the Minnesota Vikings. And this is a good time to do that. And then we'll evaluate it again after the preseason game. And you folks who liked late night live broadcasting, you're really going to like the Seattle one.

So I'm not going to Seattle. So I'll be here in the studio. I'll be watching it the same as you will. You know, the, the O'Connell preseason games, probably not always worth the travel, I guess. So I'll be watching it with you. And then I'll be on the channel right after the game ends, like literally the final gun right here on the YouTube channel, going live to break it all down. And the same is going to happen after every game throughout the regular season. It won't be exactly when the final gun sounds. It will be after I come back from the locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium or Lambeau Field or wherever that there will be usually going to try to be live here. Sometimes on the road that gets a little

complicated, but I'll do the best I can. So anyway, let's get into first a little bit of a news item. James Lynch, according to Tom Pellicero of NFL Network and then confirmed by everybody else, has torn his ACL. And this was kind of a big year for James Lynch. He had been kind of jerked around quite a bit early in his career, started out, they want him at the three technique position, and then they moved him at the three technique position and then they moved him into the nose tackle position and he actually did have a decent season as a rotational run stuffer and now he's going to be out for the year does open up the possibility of bringing somebody else in on the defensive line he was working in occasionally with the ones mostly with the twos but a guy that i had making the roster as potentially fairly valuable depth so you know now we'll see if they have to replace him

with someone else or if they're just going to kind of let it battle out from there with the depth although it does maybe solve a little bit of a problem because when I was making the 53, one thing I was having trouble was fitting everybody in the defensive line. I think I had 11 defensive linemen and I was still cutting people that I wasn't sure that they were actually going to want to cut. So someone like Asazi Otomawo who flashed a little bit last year, but has been mostly on the third team. Is he going to be a guy that makes it that kind of thing from the interior? This certainly helps Jonathan Bullard. Kelvin Avery's name comes up. I think he's more of a practice squad guy, more of a third teamer,

but Kelvin Avery, you'll notice him in the preseason game. That's for sure. He is Michael Pierce size is about six foot and three 40, but it does help him with a chance to get on the practice squad. So very unfortunate for James Lynch and his time here ends up sort of just being a failure to launch as a Minnesota Viking after being drafted with some hype, because he came out of Baylor with very high sack totals, but they just couldn't ever seem to decide what they wanted him to be. And I still wonder, so now they have this base three, four system and not that it's really three, four very often just because of how the NFL works with nickel and so forth. But he kind of struck me

as a three, four defensive end, somebody who lines up inside or right over the tackle. And he just never got to play that under Zimmer's system. They had him put on a bunch of weight, become a nose tackle. He was okay last year in that role. And I thought was starting to kind of come around on that as it takes a few years to develop when you're asked to move positions. He also falls under that category of the many defensive linemen under Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman who were drafted as something. And then we were told they were something else. And then we were told actually they were something else and didn't ultimately work out.

So a very, very tough day for James Lynch. If he comes back, you know, I think next year he's got a chance to make the team. But if I'm not mistaken, this is last year on his rookie contract. It might be. So he might end up elsewhere after he comes back from this ACL injury. So very, very tough for him. So let's I can get into your questions throughout the night. But I also made this list of all the guys trending up and down.

So I'm going to get to that. But let me start with just a couple of quick comments here from Nathan, who is going to wear the green dot this year on defense. I would assume that that is Jordan Hicks. I think Jordan Hicks will probably play every down and be in there all the time. And he's the one that's going to be directing the defense because he's just been around the longest. He's a high football IQ player, and they kept him for a reason. We went into the offseason wondering, are they going to cut like everybody and just have all young players?

And they elected to keep Jordan Hicks, I think in part, because they wanted a guy who could lead the defense, be a true leader and middle linebacker type out there. So I don't know that. I haven't asked Jordan specifically. It just makes a lot of sense that it would be him. Brian Asamoah has barely played football and we're going to talk about Ivan Pace, but he mixed in a little last night that caught everybody's attention. I think Jordan Hicks is one of the few that you can say

this guy's going to be out there all the time, pretty much on, on, in every situation. So I think they would want it to be him, uh, for major 33. I'm looking for the joint practice with the Titans. Oh yeah. Well, me too. Uh, when is that a couple of weeks from now? Um, I guarantee you that'll be a breaking point to call rise their back. Yeah. Uh, they still have Jeffrey Simmons, right? Um, yeah, that, that is, it could be. It could be because those joint practices are going to be more intense than the preseason games and probably more meaningful. But I think that we could probably call it right now, even if Dalton Reisner showed up and they weren't super thrilled with how he fit immediately into the offense, you still would love to have him for depth, right? Because if somebody gets hurt, who is the backup right guard? If Ed Ingram gets hurt, it's already not the best situation,

but then it's what Austin Schlotman for the rest of the season. That's the most Dakota dogery thing I've ever heard. So I think that they really do need one more person there. Chris Reed was supposed to be that guy, but Chris Reed has not practiced a single time yet. And, you know, Brian O'Neill is starting to progress and actually, you know, did some stuff last night, still didn't do like all the 11 on 11s, but did some stuff. But Chris Reed has done absolutely nothing so far during training camp. And it is still early, but when they signed him, it really felt like he was going to compete for that job or be really great depth. And, uh, you know, he's just been hurt so far this year. We didn't see him at all last year because the interior was healthy. Uh, let's see is, uh, the interior

offensive line, our biggest need right now, feeling okay with the starting interior D line, but lacking depth Tonga truck season. Yeah. I mean, uh, Tonga has looked like he's going to be a legit nose tackle in the league. And I wouldn't say that if I didn't see what he did last year, but he really stood out last year and he's looked very solid, had a pressure on Kirk cousins. I mean, I think he could actually push the pocket a little bit. Uh, and he did last year, maybe not rack up a bunch of sacks but

Tonga has been one of the emerging players and I didn't include him on the trending up trending down but I probably should have because he is a guy that is uh trending up interior line if they don't like what they've seen from Ed Ingram so far is definitely uh their biggest need if they are worried about Ingram I I mean, it kind of reminds you, it might remind you, I can't say this definitively, but it kind of reminds you of everyone that they sort of drafted and pinned their hopes on in recent years. I mean, the Drew Samia's, the TJ Clemmings, the Willie Beavers that, you know, it's kind of those and Ingram was a back end of the second round guy. You draft somebody, it's kind of those, and Ingram was a back end of the second

round guy. You draft somebody and you just kind of hold your breath. And Ezra Cleveland falls into that category too. And they haven't really gone into free agency and spent money on that position at all at guard since Kirk Cousins has been here. And this is what you get sometimes with rookies. If they don't take the next step from my own eye it's very very hard to tell I know that there's a lot of pressure on Kirk Cousins but certainly their offensive line coach the coaching staff the offensive staff would have a much better sense and if they're bringing in Dalton Reisner it means they're not happy with something so if it's not him I don't know who else is out there. It's kind of a unique situation with Reisner to be out there. And that's why it feels like whatever Kweisi Adafo-Mensah's price is

and whatever Dalton Reisner's price is, let's get Adafo-Mensah over to Reisner's price. Because I think with his pass blocking ability, which has been quality throughout his career, that could be not just a little upgrade. It could be a big upgrade if he were to, and it's a couple steps there, if he were to fit in quickly, win the job and so forth, because you think about it and I could call this up and just see what kind of the difference is here between last year. Let's take a look. I got PFF up here. I'm going to take a look.

So when it comes to, let's say, let's just look at pressures. So Ingram allowed last year, 58 pressures and 11 sacks. Now let me just type in and find Dalton Reisner here. Dalton Reisner allowed 29 pressures and three sacks. So imagine if last year, and I know it doesn't work like this and Kirk is hard for guards to block for, but just imagine you could subtract 30 times that Kirk cousins was pressured from last year. That's a big deal. Like somebody asked the other day, if I thought that they should move the wind total with a guard. And my initial response was, I don't know, do you move a win total with a guard but if you were to subtract 30 pressures over a season that's two per game that's a couple of plays that you know that kurt cousins one of the best clean pocket passers gets versus getting pressured

could be a big deal so i'm very much on that train uh reisner hasn't signed anywhere else i thought maybe if i went live on a friday night we get you guys a signing um let's see who are the backup guards according to the Vikings website the backup guards are Ole Udo and Chris Reed yeah Ole Udo is clearly a tackle I mean maybe they would put him at guard but uh he has really been a better tackle than a guard he's been a very serviceable fill in swing tackle, but the year that they tried him at guard in 2021, it was a nightmare. So I don't think that that's really a job he's up for.

He was holding a lot. He never played guard before. He was a developmental tackle. And we talk about the galaxy brain, like, Hey, what if we just move this guy position? Like that was one of the most egregious not getting a real guard and chris reed is injured so it's really austin schlopman i mean that and i think that chris reed's injury could play as much of a role of them going out and talking to dalton

reisner but it just tells you if somebody gets banged up you are in pretty pretty deep uh in an interior and those guards get hurt a lot you know people fall on their legs and stuff like that hanged up, you are in pretty, pretty deep in an interior. And those guards get hurt a lot. You know, people fall on their legs and stuff like that. So that's a very, very thin position that they have there as far as depth goes. And even if it's not Reisner, if it's somebody else, it feels like there needs to be another guard unless they're confident Reed recovers. But the fact that they didn't even give Reed a chance at all to play last

year, as bad as that Ingram was makes you wonder, do they have any confidence in him? But maybe when he comes back, he'll compete for the job. I'm not sure. From Will, cornerback depth is a serious problem on this team. Don't you feel that outside of maybe guard, that should be the top positional need? Yeah.

And that's why they brought in Ron Darby and I will once again look something up while we're talking but I'm curious about what Ron Darby has done recently but I think they agree with you also when you see Andrew Booth Jr. go down and even if it's not serious it's always serious with Andrew Booth Jr. because he's just been hurt so much during his career. He didn't practice last night in the night practice. And you've got to be thinking about another veteran player because behind Byron Murphy, I mean, the oldest guy is what, Jawan Williams? And he's only 25 and Jawan Williams is on a one year, $1 million deal after being a bust

with the Patriots. There's not a whole lot of confidence there. I'm going to take a look at what Ron Darby has done recently. So he played a handful of games for Denver last year and was okay. Looks like he was just solid. He played, he only played 280 snaps last year. It was fine over his career. He's been mostly an above average corner, except for a couple of seasons that have been rough. But when we look at his coverage grades, even recently in a small sample size, it was okay. And I covered him a little bit in Buffalo and there was some ups and downs like most corners. But if you had even an average corner on the other side and then

say Blackman or Caleb Evans, you're happy with, or just even depth because corners, as we know, also get hurt a lot. So their depth right now with Booth Jr. down, we don't even know if Booth Jr. can play anyway. It's not very good. And it does seem a little bit like odd to be a week into practice and then going oh yeah guard oh yeah depth corner like i i don't know did you guys know that these would have been

things to pick up because i did i mean i i don't know i guess it doesn't make any difference a lot of these guys are in such great shape that they can come in but it maybe would have been nice during minicamp for them to get the playbook if they're going to sign them and get rolling so i i think that maybe it is possible that daniel hunter swung this thing a little bit that daniel hunter signing um sort of pushed the gas pedal down and made them say like oh you know what we should actually try to try to add to this team because we could have a decent defense. If everything goes right. The perfect way to describe Ron Darby serviceable cornerback, but he has to stay healthy as well.

Hasn't played a full season since 2020 was his last full season in Washington. He was good that year, 76 corner coverage grade, and then 66 in a small sample last year. He is a great athlete from what I remember. And I know that he's on the older side now, but he is a tremendous athlete. I think he ran like a 4-3 or something like that. So yeah, those are two guys, Reisner and Darby, who I think instantly make this team better. Drummer Dave says, I'm concerned about a chunk of the payroll going to a receiver. Seems like great teams have massive offense and defensive lines giving your quarterback time. And there's not thoughts. Well, it's not just what you're paying. It's when you're paying is also a big deal.

So I'll give you an example. A.J. Brown last year, I believe his salary cap hit was under $10 million. He's one of the highest paid receivers in the NFL. But the way that they worked it out with his contract extension was to have kind of a window so he could be fairly cheap in their winning window, which they felt with Jalen Hurts was going to be before he became very expensive. A lot of your question also just goes back to the quarterback. If you have a $40 million quarterback and a $30 million wide receiver, it is very difficult to afford people uh but if you have a four million

dollar quarterback on a rookie deal and a 30 million dollar receiver it becomes a lot easier and that's the whole theory behind rookie quarterback contract so i mean yeah and look when a big amount of your money goes to just Jefferson, I think you're okay with it. I mean, the Packers won with Devontae Adams a lot of football games, wasn't it? Three straight seasons of 13 wins. It also depends on how you draft, right? I mean, the Vikings in 2015 drafted all those great players. And in 2017, all of them were on the rookie deal still. That was really important

that Stefan Diggs, Daniil Hunter, those guys were on rookie deals. So if you end up with drafting some guys that work out and are on rookie deals, that makes a big difference at these premium positions. Then you can overspend for this guy or that guy, or send a bunch of cap space into those players because you're getting great surplus value from other positions. So it's a really, it's a really tricky balance, but certainly does that conversation connect to the quarterback. And, you know, I also think that they just decided that they were going to solve that offensive line position by drafting, uh, and, and years ago that they were just to solve that offensive line position by drafting. And years ago, that they were just going to draft high and draft high.

And they stayed with that through the start of Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. But sometimes it's better to just get some guys who are veteran players who know what they're doing. So, all right, let's we talk for 20 minutes here before i've even gotten to the trending up and down keep your questions coming though i will absolutely answer all your questions but let me get to the trending up and down speaking of receivers my first trending up is literally every receiver is trending up uh the only one that might not be is jaylen rager but i'm not all that concerned with jaylen r. Jalen Naylor has also been banged up. He had a good start to training camp the first couple of days, but then it actually

might've even been the first day. So I shouldn't say that he had a really good mini camp and then he got banged up, but the overall buzz on Jalen Naylor was good coming out of mini camp and into training camp. But the guys who are going to determine how good this team ends up being, they are all trending up. Jordan Addison has been very good. I'm sure that some of you, and if you haven't, go check it out. Saw on the Vikings Twitter the highlight from Jordan Addison catching it in the back of the end zone with the toe tap, and he's been doing that pretty much every day where he makes some really really nice catch and is looking like a first round talent and no surprise let me get a little snarky on you

oh all of the first round picks who were drafted 20th or something for wide receivers are looking good in training camp who would have ever seen it coming? Except for me. I mean, Jackson Smith, Najigba, Zay Flowers, Quentin Johnston, and Jordan Addison were all good prospects that all probably could have had a case to go higher based on their positional value. But the Vikings are, you know, they benefit from that. So good for them. But Jordan Addison looks really good. Justin Jefferson is just crushing everyone all the time in practice. No surprise, but you know, the way that he's handled his contract situation has also been a big win, a big trend up because if he was taking half the reps, sitting out, holding in, talking to Jimmy Kimmel or something, I don't know. Does Jimmy Kimmel do sports content? Whatever. You know what I mean? Texting Adam Schefter stuff. He could do all this,

but he hasn't done any of it, which I think is a big deal. And KJ Osborne has looked really good too. He's been everywhere he's supposed to be. Last night, he had the biggest catch of the night in the night practice. And then he also had a couple of nice plays in the red zone at KJ Osborne has looked like a wide receiver two to start and they're in good shape. Um, the fact that Tristan Jackson was not hurt seriously, the fact that they are Thomas is making plays on a daily basis. And even Brandon Powell has been catching the ball and looking like a guy that is going to compete for a job. So all the receivers are trending up and that is a huge deal. I think for this Vikings offense, because a lot of it rests on those wide receivers. So I'll get into more, but let me go back to

your questions and comments here from Zach. I think our defense will be quite a bit better with Flores as defensive coordinator after covering them during camp. What do you think their overall stock is looking like for the season? Well, let me find it here. Trending up, Brian Flores, also on my list as trending up. And I think that the defense on the whole is trending up. I will say that I'm always going to have the caveat. It's not a guarantee that you get into the season. And what you saw from a defense during training camp was as, you know, telling as you thought it was going to be that, that it's not a guarantee because he's blitzing the heck out of Kirk,

that he's going to be great. There were times where Kirk, you know, didn't have great practices last year and the defense was a mess, but I also think that priors matter a lot. Flores is priors are really really good he comes with great pedigree as a former head coach as a Belichick defensive mind and I think so far it has just looked very aggressive and very frustrating for the offense on a lot of days and I think that those things will translate over and his usage of players

specifically has just looked to my eye like it's smart like get josh metellus on the field and when jordan hicks said to me hey we've known josh metellus could play basically since he got here that makes me think maybe josh metellus should have been on the field a little bit more last year in some sort of nickel package thing or whatever, as opposed to Shannon Sullivan. And so using him as that hybrid guy, using Harrison Smith up in the box and then having him drop out and do all those things that made him great. Like it just makes me think that Brian Flores is a smart man. And I thought that before, but I really think that now after watching what he's done. So he is trending up. Now, how far they could trend up is a difficult question because it might depend on who they play

as far as quarterbacks go. How many quarterbacks get hurt? What are the offenses like when they see them? Things like that. But if I had to guess right now, if you just said where the Vikings gonna rank, I would say like 17th, something like that. Like a big improvement, but I don't think they're going to rank? I would say like 17th, something like that, like a big improvement,

but I don't think they're going to be elite because there's too many questions at cornerback. I think they will be better though. Uh, from James, should the Vikings sign a D tackle for depth? Some decent names still out there. I think so because I don't think the Ross Blacklock thing is going to be a thing. And I also look at it like, can you get somebody who could maybe penetrate the offensive line and pressure and not just gap stuffers on the D line? I do think that that should be a plan for them. Now that James Lynch is hurt, uh, go out and find somebody who's not just, just, you know, just that guy who's like pushing the pocket or whatever. But I mean, who's out there that can do that? Usually if you could pressure the quarterback, then, you know, you've already been signed, but if there's anybody still out

there, they should look for him. My answer mostly to all questions of should they sign this guy? If it's a veteran who I think could maybe improve the team, then the answer is going to be yes. I just, I mean, I just think that they're at a point where they've brought back Hunter. The offense is looking good. The receivers are playing great. Like just, just go see what you can do.

Go try to win football games. Let's see from Christian. Is guard a potential pick for the Vikings in the first round next year? Christian, I cannot think about next year's draft today. I can't, I can't do that. My brain does not handle that much. Uh, seems like, um, a potential front runner or defensive lineman. If Hunter leaves, uh, just can't just, uh, just not gonna, it's going to start overheating and, you know, smoke is going to come out of my ears if I start thinking about

next year's draft. But I think the favorite for next year's draft at the moment is what you think it is. Quarterback. That's at the moment, but we'll see how that changes. I also think that they've spent so much on the offensive line in terms of draft capital. It should be the favorite for what they spend the most cash on next year is the guard position if they can, or if they have to, we'll see. I mean, maybe things will turn around at this time last year, we were talking about how bad Garrett Bradbury looked and that changed all of a sudden. And you know, he turned out to have a pretty good season. And that also goes to Wrigley's question.

Can we expect Bradbury to play at last year's level or would it be more likely to expect regression? Probably would be more likely to expect regression just based on the pure logic of how things work. If someone is way down for a long time, has a big spike, we expect it to come back to earth a little bit. It also could be based on who they're playing, how they're attacked, how he fits with what they want to do in this year's scheme. All those things will play into it. But I tend to think with somebody like that,

who has a lot of backers in the organization, I think they like Garrett Bradbury a lot, that he also, I mean, he just, he looked like he took a step and I don't think that he should just fall off the face of the earth. So I would say, is he a top 10 center? Maybe not, but maybe stay in the top half of, uh, you know, the league. And then they're fine. As long as you could be in the top half of the league with a center, it's kind of like offensive lines as a whole. If you're somewhere between 18th and 10th, you're probably fine. If you're in that top five or top three centers,

you're really making a difference. Like you are causing your offense to be good. If you have, you know, a Jason Kelsey or something, but I don't think he's going to be quite that. It is remarkable. Jonathan says we always managed to bring in solid wide receivers. Uh, historically, I have no idea why we have Minnesota has cold weather and great receivers always and forever. And I don't know why it's like when they got, when they traded digs, I remember talking about a lot. Like, oh man, can't replace that guy.

I mean, it's going to be almost impossible. You think you're just going to draft somebody and they'll be Stefan Diggs? I should have known based on this team's history. They'll always lose in soldier field and have great wide receivers. And those are just truths about the Minnesota Vikings. From Gary, have you heard anything about Naylor or Davenport's injury? So Naylor was actually talked about as potentially coming back this week. That did not happen, but I can't imagine it's going to be long. I don't know about Davenport. He's been around, like he was in walkthrough yesterday. So it doesn't seem like it's something super serious.

It just may be whatever banged up enough to keep him out for the night practice. And that was it. But I would suspect that both of those guys are practicing. Also from Gary is McBride really been putting the ball on the ground from drops and fumbles as I've been hearing. Yeah, he did have some fumble issues and that was a problem for him in college. And I don't know if some players are prone to fumbling or not, but it does kind of seem that way. And that is something that they have to be certainly concerned about. Uh, and he's not, he's going to have to not fumble during the preseason games, but it might also

just be learning the offense and not being super confident in the offense because fumbles during, um, fumbles during like the, uh, the, the training camp practices. It's not like guys are tackling you. So it's really just the handoffs. Um, all right. Uh, by the way, before we go forward, I have to tell you about the shirt I'm wearing. It is not because I am any type of underdog. It is because our show is sponsored by underdog fantasy. And so here's what I've been doing. I've been using the underdog app. And at some point, we're going to go through these, but this is, we're doing trends tonight, but, and doing these best ball drafts on the underdog fantasy app.

Now, here's let me tell you the thing that I like about it. If you don't know what best ball is, it's very simple. You just draft the players and then do nothing and see if you win. See how your team does. You don't have to manage drops and waiver wires and all that sort of crazy stuff. It is by far the easiest place in the entire universe to play fantasy sports, which is one of the reasons why I'm actually doing it because I have no time for that during the season to manage Ross. I will, I will forget. I'm the worst guy in the fantasy league all the time

until now with underdog fantasy. And I don't have to be that way. The other thing that's great is just for example, so I just pulled up the app right now, a six person best ball draft with a $5 entry fee. Now that's what I'm talking about. And look, I mean, if you enter at five bucks, you know, the prize is not going to be huge, but that just allows you to do something fun without a huge entry fee. There's, there's people who are psychotic about fantasy football and I love you if you are, and you can certainly participate in underdog if you are, but I think there's also a lot of people who are like, Hey, I'm not crazy enough. I'm not putting down a thousand dollars on a fantasy league. Well, neither am I. So $3, $5, $10 entry fees, like you can jump in and, uh,

it's very easy and fun to do. And if you sign up now with the code purple, you can double your deposits up to a hundred dollars in bonus cash. When you make your first deposit of $10 or more. So put in 10 bucks, get in a $10 league and they will match that deposit for you. So then you can get in another one, use the promo code purple. Also, if you do that and use that promo code, it supports the show as well. So I get a little kickback on that. So if you want to support the show, sign up for underdog fantasy with the promo code purple and make sure you get their app because it is super easy to use. So there you go. All right, back to our trending

up and trending down. You guys know this one trending up. Ivan Pace Jr. Mark Craig of the Star Tribune wrote about him and getting first team reps is significant. He was getting second team reps from really day one. And the guy just looks like a ball player. Now, whether that turns into an Audie Cole situation or an Eric Wilson or a London Fletcher. I have no idea, but at the moment, this man is leading Mr. Mankato because he is sort of what Mr. Mankato is, which is a guy that was a UDFA or a late round draft pick that we go, I don't know, maybe he's good. And it could turn into quite an analytics find for Kweisi Adafomensa because he had really, really good numbers by PFF. So good that it's shocking the league didn't draft him. I mean,

they're drafting long snappers, backup, you know, eight string tight ends who just block and not Ivan Pace Jr. who was a great ball player in college. I don't get it sometimes with those late round picks, but they end up getting maybe a steal. If he does anything, he's a steal. If he's a special teamer, he's a steal. And for him to be doing what he's doing already is I think a very pleasant surprise for them because usually you'd see a guy need to take years as a UDFA before he got any sort of momentum and buzz like this, but all of a sudden he's getting that attention and it will depend for him, I think on preseason. And that's why last year's preseason games were a nightmare to try to talk about. Kellen Mond, remember that

through a touchdown to Albert Wilson? Remember, remember what we talked about after that? We talked about that and it was terrible and i mean what what were we supposed to say everyone had already made the team everyone the depth chart was already set this year though not so much there's a lot of battles to happen this year and ivan pace jr is at the center of that at the linebacker position um you know fighting for some sort of role, or even if he is just depth trying to show that he can be good depth. So he is a player who is no doubt trending up. I'll give you one more trending up before a trending down the 2023 draft class.

Now there are not many of them in the 2023 draft class. And I guess we could count Ivan Pace because he was a UDFA. So, you know, he came in as a rookie, but, uh, you know, Makai Blackman is playing with the first team. Jordan Addison is looking good. Jaqueline Roy is, is playing on the second team and is looking powerful and might be somebody who gets in some games. Jay Ward has been more of a third teamer, hasn't made any buzz yet. And then Dwayne McBride is going to get his chance in these preseason games to show what he can do. So the 2023 class is looking like it can have a number of impact players. Trending down, however, is the 2022 class. They're bringing in veteran offensive linemen for workouts.

Lewis Seen is still with the second team. Andrew Booth Jr. Is banged up already. It hasn't been a very good start for a group that needed to take a big step forward. And you know, we'll see how it progresses from here, but certainly trending down is pretty much the entire 2022 draft class. And so, you know, and this is, it really speaks to how draft classes work, which is one year you hit everybody and you feel great about it. And the

next year you don't because out of probably 40 players that you targeted that you could draft, you get to pick six or 10 and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I learned a lot from the 2006, let's see, 2015 to 2016 Vikings drafts, 2015, you would have thought Rick Spielman was the greatest drafting general manager in the history of humankind. I mean, he got superstars and not even in the first round, but the funny fact I always go back to is that they picked Michael Pruitt ahead of Stefan Diggs. So who can ever guess with drafting? And that might be the case. You know, Kweisi Adafo Mensah rightfully got a lot of attention for the 2022 class.

And I don't think we let him off the hook because drafting is random, because some of the logic behind that drafting was not great. If you want a safety, just pick Kyle Hamilton. He's good. He's the best prospect you're going to find. But I do think, though, on the Jordan Addison or on the Jamison Williams front, getting Jordan Addison kind of cancels that out. Like they wanted a receiver to take over for Thielen. And so they found him the following season.

And, you know, we'll see which one of those guys turns out, but maybe not as tragic that they didn't pick Jameson Williams because he couldn't have helped them last year. Anyway, he came in with the ACL thing. It really is the Kyle Hamilton one that might stick with them for a long time. From T. Kubler. Cool. Is that right? Can pace be considered a fine by Kwesi? Kwesi is spelled with a K, but that's okay. K-W-E-S-I is Kwesi. Let's see.

The guy was consensus All-American on most boards, had him going early on day two or day three. Well, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. And this is the thing about how Kwesi Adafo-Mensah drafted in year two that made so much more sense than year one. He used, I think, I don't know for sure, but when you look at those PFF grades and the underlying data of somebody like Makai Blackman and Ivan Pace Jr. They're great. And even Jordan Addison, but that's a first round pick. So everybody knows.

But a third rounder, a UDFA, they have great analytic stats. And look, that doesn't always equal someone's great. Curtis Weaver is here fighting for a depth spot. PFF loved him. He never became what they thought he was going to be. But I think that those are good bets like players who are productive and their underlining stats are good then there's a better shot in my opinion that that's going to work out and i think historically there's a better

shot i mean it just stands to reason pff grading is not some bizarre like otherworldly process where there's a bunch of weirdos in a room going i want this player to succeed like no it's just people who watch the game and are trained to watch the game in a certain way a lot of them former coaches and then they grade it they watch every single play and everything they do. And then they have a system of plus and minus plays. So if you have a guy like Ivan Pace, who has a gazillion plus plays, it seems like that would translate pretty good. Like, you know, it's not, it's not some crazy theory, but I think we saw him doing it more often this year.

PFF is not overrated, not by any means, not by any sense. And here's how i know i wrote a whole book on it and it's coming out october 3rd so if you want to talk pff we could talk all day and i could tell you about how quesadilla fomenta in a chapter of my book which is right back here football is a numbers game comes out october 3rd but you can pre-order now I talked with the Vikings GM about PFF for the book there's a whole chapter on it and he basically said PFF played a huge role in him becoming a general manager so I don't think that the GM of the Vikings or me will agree with you on PFF being overrated every single single team, their systems inside the building, again, reported on this in the book, is a PFF system. So all their game planning, all their data, PFF systems.

So not overrated. But I will say this, the grading system is not perfect. You can't just look at a player's grade the same way you can't just look at interceptions or yards per attempt and know everything. And so if you think that you're going to do that, well, that's a mistake. So I don't, I won't rant further. We have more to get to with the trends, but I don't think anybody does that. Like nobody, nobody with a brain who's going to watch football is just going to be like,

oh, PFF said, well, that must be the whole truth. So anyway, Drummer Dave says, scene is going to blow up. Great future, I think. Here's the way I look at this. If Lewis' scene is not the starter out of camp, that doesn't mean it's over. It means that it's not in a good position, but it doesn't mean it's over it means that it's not in a good position but it doesn't mean it's over he's got the whole season there are injuries he could potentially carve out a role but i think that with him because he was set back the way that he was that uh we're going

to see him maybe have his best chance next year And so we're always kind of having this discussion of when do we call it? When do we say, yep, guy's a bust. It's not going to work out. I don't think that this can be out of this camp. I think that that was moved backward by the injury last year and he didn't get a chance to get in those games, play special teams, carve out a role, anything. So I think by, um, then we can really decide, I think. All right, let's get back to the list here. Where was I? Trending down, Jefferson and Hawkinson extension buzz. And really it's just because there hasn't been any. This is not a complicated one that needs a lot of discussion. Now, here's an important note though. We didn't hear any

Daniel Hunter buzz and then it just happened. This might be how it goes with these extensions. I thought today I better not sleep in because we might just have an extension and be doing an emergency podcast. And the last time I did an emergency podcast, it was super early in the morning and I didn't look great and i didn't sound great but i grinded for you guys but you know so i wanted to be awake when that happened but it was not a friday news dump today um maybe next week maybe the week after maybe the day before the season i don't know but at the moment there hasn't really been any conversation from anyone. No national reporting. No Jefferson saying, wink, wink, nod, nod.

Think things are pretty good. Nothing on either player. And it doesn't have to be done right now, but it would be advantageous for everybody if both of those extensions get done. Also trending down is the next step for the interior lineman. Uh, we've talked about that a bit, but, uh, once you're, you're sort of showing your cards by bringing Dalton Reisner in and saying, well, you know, we've got concerns. And if you got concerns, then I got concerns, uh, that Kirk cousins is going to be picking himself up off

turf quite a bit again this year after being hit by defensive tackles. That if Ingram doesn't take that next step, then it is a big problem. And even as for Cleveland in the fourth year, we did see that from Bradbury, but also could be a problem. At this moment, not really looking particularly great with them bringing in somebody else, but we'll see how that progresses through the offseason maybe by the end of the offseason we feel better about it i'm not really sure though i think that based on recent history everybody's going to be nervous about the uh offensive lineman and whether they're taking the next step also trending down another

thing that we've discussed is the D line depth, the Vikings depth chart. I can call this up right now for the defensive line. Oh no, not Detroit. I was, I was, I, instead of writing Vikings on my computer, I was writing defensive line. Um, anyway, let me get the depth chart here let's pull this up because after james lynch went down you have tonga and the backup for him is probably jaqueline roy right now and then behind harrison phillips is jonathan bullard and then at the edge rusher positions and you also have a sazi atomo and at the edge rusher it's wanhamham Jones and Valaine. And that's your D line depth. That is not inspiring defensive line depth. So that is trending down. We haven't really seen

someone emerge and start to get a lot of reps or like Patrick Jones was a guy we talked about. Could he be somebody that has not happened at the moment, and I think it is probably time to go out into that free agent market. Also trending down, the backup running backs, Kenny Wongwu being banged up, missing last night, not great. We mentioned Dwayne McBride's fumble issues. He does look like he is shifty and has good balance and that people are going to bounce off him, but if they can't trust him, then that's not going to be very good.

Ty Chandler looked, I thought, really good in the night practice. And we'll see how it goes in the preseason games. But as of this moment, if I were to guess on the carry distribution, I'd probably go 70% or more, maybe 80% Alexander Madison. At this moment, preseason games do have a chance to change this. And, uh, Ty Chandler certainly showed up with that last year. Also trending up is a Byron Murphy jr. I think he's been a really great fit. Yes. He's been roasted by Justin Jefferson. Everyone has, uh, just by existing out there, all of us have been roasted by Justin Jefferson. I mean,

he's just an incredible football player, but I just see a confidence in Byron Murphy and an aggression in his role that looks, uh, looks really good to me. Uh, what if they, uh, saw Reisner as a read replacement? Yeah. I mean, that's possible because, you know, Reed is injured, but somebody like that does not make the flight unless he is at least going to have a discussion about competing for a starting spot. The other thing is, too, that when Kevin O'Connell was talking about it, that's where he didn't say, hey, you know, we're just always looking for depth. He really left the door open for somebody like Dalton Reisner to compete. So if he had said, guys, don't make too big of a deal out of this. We love Ed Ingram. We love Ezra Cleveland. You media, that sort of thing. If he did that, anyway, if he did that, then I would have said, okay, well, maybe it is just for depth.

But he didn't. What is this? If you drafted better and stopped listening to PFF, you wouldn't have to dig into your savings? I don't know what you mean. The point is that they found two good players who had good PFF grades. I didn't say that he used PFF to draft those players, uh, that the two players they picked Blackman and Ivan pace who are trending up. We're both guys who had good data and everyone's studied this already. Look, I mean, more production and better play in college.

You have a better chance to be good in the NFL. I mean, it's not complicated. Uh, anyway, from Christian here, are there any cornerbacks trending up? Makai Blackman is. Yeah, that is the guy. And where did I have that? Did I have that somewhere? I meant to put that on the list, but Makai Blackman is definitely trending up. He started with the second team, cleared Jawan Williams in the second day of pads, and he's a guy they clearly liked. And so, you know, I think that he is somebody who they wanted to start from the very outset. It may be an Ed Ingram situation where they drafted him to start to fill a spot. And if that doesn't turn out to be great, then, you know, it won't be good for them because you're trying to start two very inexperienced cornerbacks, but at least from going from a third round pick to the second team,

to the first team, it's ascending, therefore trending up Mackay Blackman. And it also goes back to, and I'm not like trying to say told you so or anything like this, but the consensus board didn't like Mackay Blackman as much as the Vikings did. And at the time we talked about, if we're talking about a third round draft pick, the team is picking him for fit and what they like. And I'm not too concerned about it being a reach on a consensus board where very few draft analysts would have really studied Mackay Blackman like the Vikings did. Um, so they're off to a pretty good start there. I think with Mackay Blackman so far.

You're saying Andrew Booth Jr. Did Andrew Booth Jr. have good? Andrew Booth Jr., it wasn't about his talent. It wasn't about his talent at all. He has a lot of talent, but he's just not on the field. That's not analytics at all. That's just bad luck. And also, they should have uh looked a little closer at his medicals because you know some teams i think didn't have him very high on their board because

of that that wasn't um it's i mean i don't understand why you're trying to argue with me about this no one says that no one says that about pff i mean i don't. It's just senseless. No, no one says that. Anyway, from Jeffrey, any info on Andre Carter getting back soon? We have not gotten an update on Andre Carter. He is working off to the side like he has been every day. So he's doing a lot of drills and stuff, but he hasn't put any sort of like pads on or participated in any types of drills. Andre Carter, more likely than not is a guy who ends up on the practice squad. Uh, and he is more of a development player and we end up seeing him next year. I know that. And because Ivan Pace has done this, it's like, I can't say, don't get excited about UDFAs right away because Ivan Pace has made you get excited about UDFAs right away. But somebody like him was always going to be a project. Like Pace was a guy that played great football in college. He was well-developed, played a lot of football and was ready to step in. But Andre Carter was someone who was looked at as an extremely raw type of player.

Gary asks, should we look at another kicker? Well, here is a trending down the kicking competition after last night. Wasn't a great night kicking for either guy, but Lesney made a couple and then missed a 33 yarder, which is what the extra point. And Greg Joseph went three for six a couple of them were from 50 plus so you can't get too upset at missing from 50 plus but they really decided that they were going to buy into Greg Joseph I don't know if Podlesny is a serious candidate to win this job it doesn't really seem like that's the case it seems like a kid with a monster huge leg that maybe they want to put in

the practice squad because practice squads are so huge. Now you can just put a kicker on there if you want. So they might do that. Just throw a kicker on the practice squad and see if they can develop that monster leg. Cause he kicked one from like 53. That was way good. I mean, it just was an absolute bomb. So he could crush the ball, but Lesney, but do they trust them to make like game winning field goals and stuff? Probably not. And with Greg Joseph, it was spotty last year. It was very much up and down. Uh, and I don't know, I thought that there should have just been at least one more veteran in here, considering that he does not have a great history of kicking.

Let's see, trending down backup quarterbacks. We're not going to get too upset about that. That's life, having backup quarterbacks. They are not having very much fun with Brian Flores' defense. Jaron Hall was trending up to start, but then the last couple practices, he got a lot put on his plate and struggled with that. No surprise. He's a rookie. No one's saying he's a bust. It's just that, uh, you know, he's going to get opportunities in these preseason games and we'll see how he looks out there. But Hall even himself acknowledged in an interview earlier this year that it's,

this is a development thing like for him, this is a development year for him. And in the best case scenario, then he is going to be, uh, the backup quarterback next year for what, uh, whoever, whatever is the quarterback for next year. Uh, let's see, would you like to see them bring in Lewis Aguiar or maybe it's Louis Aguiar, like the old punter, the XFL guy. I think it was USFL maybe who hit eight field goals in a game. Just serious competition is what I would say. Serious competition is what probably should have been brought in for Greg Joseph. Maybe Aguiar is that, or maybe someone else signed him.

I'm not sure, but serious competition. So the last one I have for the night trending up mostly kirk cousins mostly uh against brian floris's defense it hasn't been always great there's been a couple of ugly practices i would qualify last night as kind of an ugly end to the practice but i also think that based on the vibes of kirk cousins theousins, the fact that he seems to be accepting of the fact that the contract thing is not going to happen. And he's just trying to go out and have some fun and joke around. He's wearing number 66 at practice and he has seemed extremely comfortable and has thrown the ball very well. You're always sort of monitoring when

a player's getting older. Does he still have the juice? He's still got the buzz on the fastball. And last year at times, I wondered maybe it was a lack of confidence in the offense. Um, geez. I mean, some of you guys just don't understand PFF at all. I'm sorry. Like, this is just silly. PFF are biased and use subjective stats to fill any narrative. They like what world are we living in here every team 32 out of 32 their entire systems for tape and analytics are built by pff come on you you think that they're like behind the scenes going you know what we really want to pump up those bears this year what are we talking about uh this is why you guys need to read the book so you can understand what the hell you're talking about with pff football is a numbers game pff background story right there i mean anyway so uh the point about uh kirk cousins though

is just that he looks to me like he's playing very loose out there and like he is going to um you know kind of just throw caution to the wind for his last season and just have a good time and see what happens. That's how it seems. Uh, Kirk needs some swagger. I think last year he got the swagger. Um, last year, I think he was empowered by this team to be the leader. And you know, what I also thought of was that the group before think about the perception of Kirk cousins. So you had all these guys, Anthony bar, Everson Griffin, Eric Kendrick, Stefan Diggs. They went to the NFC Championship with Case Keenum, who couldn't be any more the opposite of Kirk Cousins in the way that they played.

Right? Just run around and making plays, making it up and so forth. And he was kind of the underdog, the engine that could. And then Cousins comes in with a huge contract. He's much more buttoned up. He's not like a football guy from Texas, like Case Keenum is. Or he wasn't the same personality as Teddy Bridgewater either. And I don't know that a lot of them ever truly responded to Kirk

in the way that they accepted him as a leader because they were the leaders of that team. And Mike Zimmer, of course, never wanted the signing to begin with. So it seemed, and then made that pretty clear by the way he acted. So they remove a lot of those players who were the previous leaders. And now the leaders are, you know, Justin Jefferson, KJ Osborne, who have had a lot of success with Kirk, Brian O'Neill, Christian Derrissaw, Harrison Smith is always going to do his thing. And the coach is saying, Hey guys, this is our quarterback. We're all buying into him. And it's a lot of new players and the roster is sort of overturned with Kirk here.

And I think that there's just much more buy-in to Kirk's our guy. And even though, you know, the whole contract thing is out there, players don't think so much about that. So it just feels like there's more acceptance and appreciation for Kirk cousins from the players that starts with the coach and how he treats his quarterback. And that shows up in how cousins acts on a day-to-day basis. I think, I think that there's a pretty clear difference. So mostly Kirk cousins trending up

and that is your list. Um, and I, I'm not, I'm not concerned about the PFF trolling. I'm trying to inform here. Some of the opinions about PFF having spent two years of my life writing a book about where it came from, what it does. I feel like I'm fairly qualified to talk about it. So, uh, just thought I would try to help there anyway. Um, you guys are great. I I'm looking at the numbers of the amount of you watching at the moment. And I'm just, uh, I'm just always amazed that, um, the number of people that show up late at night last night on a Friday night to come watch. And I really appreciate all of you guys participating in the trending up and trending down.

There will not be a stream tomorrow night. I have a wedding to go to, one of my wife's friends. And so I'm going to miss a practice. And here's the thing, it's crazy. It's going to be the first Vikings training camp practice that I've ever missed since covering the team to go to my wife's friend's wedding. How about that?

That is quite a run. It's like my Cale Ripken run going back to 2017 was my first training camp. And so I will be missing my first practice on Saturday, but I will be back Sunday. And then we'll go from there on the preseason game. And there's another night practice. Did you guys know this? There's another night practice. I believe it is Tuesday. And so we'll do the same thing. I'll come back home. We'll talk

about the second night practice, and then we will go from there. And also just wanted to give a shout out before we closed out the show to our other sponsors, the Grillmasters Club, which is in my mind, the greatest thing that's ever happened to barbecue. If you're a barbecue person, then you want to try Grillmasters Club. They are the perfect solution for everybody who likes barbecue like me. They have, you know, what they do is they send you boxes and you can choose bi-monthly quarterly. You can pause them. You can start them again. Um, and they send you these boxes that have like all sorts of different barbecue products,

like sauces, marinades, spice rubs, grilling tools, like all sorts of stuff. So they sent me one. I've been using the spices they sent. It's great. So each month they have experts who come up with custom recipes that they will send you as well. Grill Masters Club, very cool for barbecue lovers. Make sure you check that out. Go to grillmastersclub.com and 50% off with the promo code purple. So remember that Grill Masters Club, check it out, promo code purple. And once again,

uh, you know, you support the sponsors that support us. It's always good for me. So anyway, great stuff again, guys. And, uh, uh, I guess it's always fun to, you know, debate whether it's, um, you know, what draft theory and everything else. But, you know, I don't know one thing that's clear. No one ever says that you should just look at some numbers and draft a guy. No one thinks that what they do is they combine all of their scouting with the data and I've seen the board. Okay. So they have a draft board that is the whole size of this room. Like imagine my arms go out each way for another 15 feet. They have a board that's huge and they have all the players. And so you can click a player on this board, just like a screen on your computer.

And it brings up everything. It brings up all their data. It brings up all their combine data. It brings up their scouting reports rick spielman showed us this thing it was built before even quasey got here and then they combine it all and then they have discussions about it with their scouts their their personnel people their coaches it's a lot that goes into it nobody ever says that you should just look at some numbers my point is just that with with ivan pace it might be kind of a, a clever find. That's the point. So anyway, great stuff. Great stuff tonight. Thanks everybody for watching. And we will be back Sunday evening live here as always.

And we'll talk again soon. Yeah. And order the book. Football is a numbers game PFF and how a data-driven approach shook up the game. Do it it see you guys later