Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings' communication will be tested against the Eagles

Episode Date: September 17, 2022

Matthew Coller updates from TCO Performance Center and answers fan questions, from whether the Vikings will use a spy to stop Jalen Hurts to whether this is the biggest Week 2 game in recent memory to why Kirk Cousins has caused fans to argue over him after seemingly every game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a mostly fans-only podcast. I'll have another one after this on Monday leading up to the game, so make sure you keep an eye out for that. But let's get into some of the things. First of all, from practice and TCO Performance Center today, two things that stuck out to me. One, Andrew Booth Jr. was not practicing again, which means it's more likely than not that he will not play.

And it should be a red flag with Andrew Booth Jr. It's the second time he's been hurt already, and you don't want to call anyone injury prone. It's just not fair to the player i remember kyle rudolph talking about this how early in his career he had some bad breaks and everybody said oh that guy can't stay healthy and then he stayed healthy for like 100 games in a row but with andrew booth jr when he had the history of injuries and Kwesi Adafo-Mensah on draft night brought up that he went to the staff and said, are you guys sure that we could spend a second round pick on somebody who's had this many injuries in his past? And they said, yes, we're going to go for it. The fact that he's already been injured twice and it looks like may miss this game is a concern it's also a

concern from the standpoint of depth at corner because already they're pretty short at that position if you go beyond Patrick Peterson and beyond Cam Dantzler you're talking about a Caleb Evans who got in for six snaps or something like that in week one a caleb evans is a project player who i think has really impressive size and movement skill but i don't believe is ready to play huge numbers of snaps perry nickerson is on the practice squad he's been in a couple of games chris boyd has been in a couple of games a corner throughout his career, but they really lack experience there. And Booth Jr. is not experienced, but certainly more talented than the other guys. If he had to fill in, you would feel more confident in him. But if he is out, then your depth is very short against the team with a lot of weapons in Philadelphia. So that

will be something that we're going to continue to keep an eye on because his health really matters for his first year here. Can he stay healthy through most of the season? Uh, because they want him to be a future corner on this team. Patrick Peterson is not playing that much longer, uh, at outside corner for this team and they drafted Andrew Booth Jr. more likely than not with that in mind of him being a future starter but if they can't believe in him being healthy it kind of becomes the same thing with Mike Hughes where Mike Hughes was a talented player but they just could never keep him on the field. And they have to be hoping that this is a blip in the radar. But when a guy has so many issues with injuries in college, can't participate in the combine

and is a first round talent, but drops into the second at such a high value position. Well, there is a reason for that because a lot of teams were worried about whether he'd be able to stay healthy. The other thing is that stuck out to me today is just the talk about communication. And it's really going to be tested by the Philadelphia Eagles atmosphere. We know Philadelphia has a raucous crowd, but particularly when they're not going to be let in the stadium until maybe seven o'clock at night, there's a lot of time to get into that parking lot and prepare for the game. It will be extremely, extremely loud there. And in week one, it was not, they were inside us bank stadium and everything was pretty easy for the Vikings.

And Adam Thielen talked about how they're preparing. And this is not a new concept, not they were inside us bank stadium and everything was pretty easy for the vikings and adam thielen talked about how they're preparing and this is not a new concept but using the big giant speakers to try to get on the same page and adam thielen said that they want to make it harder on themselves during practice so they can get on that same page but a lot of discussion throughout the week is how are we going to communicate with each other when you cannot hear the wide receiver? And I think that when they talked about how complex the offense was between the receivers and the quarterback, you know, for the first week, they had a long time to prepare for that, to get everybody on the same page with the plays that

they wanted to use. They had multiple weeks, almost like if you have a bi-week in the middle of the season. This one is not a short week. They get an extra day, but it is a regular week for the most part to get ready for this game and to go on the road and implement all those things that they put in and that we saw succeed in week one. So that is worth keeping an eye on. But, um, as far as, I mean, everything else, it's like, are you guys interested in revenge game? Talk about Jalen Rager or Jordan Hicks revenge game. If there is such a thing in Philadelphia, like the storyline here is pretty simple. It's two good NFC teams going up against each other

in a game that could be really important down the road and kind of a prove it game for both because both teams after a good week, one are getting talked about quite a bit as NFC contenders. So now for both of these teams, it's go out and prove it. That's really the biggest story. Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown. Jefferson comes off a week in which he goes for 184 yards. A.J. Brown was dominant. These two guys are going to go up against each other. Somebody asked me the other day on Twitter about why A.J. Brown gets so much love. And this is a thing about box score statistics is that they can be so impacted

by circumstance. So when you look at the back of the baseball card stats for AJ Brown, like they're just okay. 60 something catches last year, eight, 900 yards, a thousand yards the year before, but not like Cooper cup stuff, but go back to Stefan digs, 2019, and then go to 2020. When he went to Buffalo, he went from 63, I think catches to 127. And I wouldn't be surprised if AJ Brown does the same thing. And when you look at how he was graded on a play to play basis, he was graded as the fourth best receiver in the NFL by PFF last year Justin Jefferson was third so that gives you an idea of how talented A.J. Brown is but they had some injury issues even at quarterback last year where Ryan Tannehill was playing banged up you also had Derek Henry

banged up as well like their offense was not functioning the same way it usually does in Tennessee. And now after you trade a first round pick for someone like AJ Brown, you're going to set up your whole offense around them, not around the running back like it was in Tennessee. And I think you'll see AJ Brown's talent really shine through. So it's just like a cautionary tale of, I mean, yes, those box score stats mean something. If he had 14 receptions, then you, he wouldn't be saying that he was any kind of elite wide receiver, but the difference between a guy who catches 60 or 70 and the guy who catches a hundred is oftentimes situation, how they're used used what their offense is doing they were playing in a lot

of battles last year defensive battles their defense was kind of leading the charge that is not going to be the case in philadelphia their defense i think has some holes and they're going to have to score a lot of points and this guy is going to be their big weapon so this battle will be i think very exciting for everybody on the national audience who's watching and also a little nerve wracking, but a good first test, I think, for the Vikings secondary. And I think that going into this week, they should be a little anxious because they weren't tested last week. So it might come down to scheme coverages. Can you make Jalen Hurts think twice and then stop him when he tries

to run and not allow him to just deliver the ball over and over and over to AJ Brown so there's some opening thoughts for you how about we get into some fan questions all right let's start with Chris via the email fans only question for you. Much has been made of the new regime's emphasis on player health. I was wondering if there was any marked difference in snap counts at certain positions, defensive line, edge rushers, running backs, wide receivers, compared to season openers in the Zimmer era. In particular, I worry about the D-line and edge as we seem to be thin there. So I did take notice of this and I'll call this up. So I've got numbers for you that they were doing some rotating when it came to the defensive line. And I wonder about this as well. So as far as the, um, the snap counts, I've got it up here. Uh, Ross Blacklock, who they traded for, worked in with some pass rush situations.

Actually got a couple of pressures. Patrick Jones played 14 snaps. James Lynch, 16. DJ Wanham, 21. Jonathan Bullard, 29. So there are your rotational players playing a lot in these games. Now, as far as comparing it to Zimmer, that might be a little tough because Mike Zimmer had Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter who were not going to leave the game. And, uh, we didn't

see Zedarius come out a lot. Uh, both Zedarius and Hunter played over 45 snaps out of 61. So they were out there most of the time, but still probably coming out way more than with Griffin and Hunter. I mean, Griffin and Hunter were playing every single snap for the most part. So that is a little different for sure. I do remember in 2018, Zimmer talked about wanting to rotate. And after one or two games, he was just done doing that. The other thing is that they had Linval Joseph and Linval Joseph didn't need to come out of the game either. He could play in any type of situation. If it was third and long, he would come out. And sometimes they would bring in, depending on the year, Brian Robison to pass rush. Tom Johnson was in there a

lot. He would rotate with Shamar Stephan, depending on the situation. But we didn't see this much rotation from the Vikings very often in the past. It was really the four or five guys and maybe one guy's coming out, but the edge rushers wouldn't change. The defensive tackle wouldn't change a whole heck of a lot. And even in 2017, I think Tom Johnson played like 60% of the snaps that year. He had a very good year. He was the starter in for Sheree Floyd. I think that Zimmer preferred to have his starters out there all the time rather than mixing and matching. And when you look at those names of people who are mixing and matching here, Bullard, I think has some talent as a run stuffer. Wanham is questionable, Lynch, Jones,

and we'll see what Blacklock can bring for them. But you have some guys here that are not depth that you're super confident in. And if either of the stars, of course, Hunter and Smith were to get hurt, your next man up is either Wanham or Jones. And that's just not where you want to be. So it is important if they can rotate those guys from time to time, especially in a game, if you're up a couple scores and you don't need to have them out there. Remember Mike Zimmer got Everson Griffin hurt by leaving him out in the game

in London against Cleveland in 2017. He was out on the last play of the game, I think is when he got hurt and that impacted him for the rest of the season. He had to miss a game the next week at Washington. Like Mike Zimmer rarely took those guys out no matter the score. And I think there'll be a little wiser when it comes to this group. And if you're mixing in, you know, Patrick Jones or, uh, DJ want them from time to time mix and match. I think that's okay. But it is a balance for sure. It's kind of like with Byron Buxton with the Twins or a pitcher. If you have a really good starting pitcher, you want to throw him 250 innings, but you kind of just can't.

And that might be the case a little bit with both of these guys. Although I, I, I shouldn't, you shouldn't link them exactly together since I think Zedarius Smith's injury history is a little more concerning than Hunter, but how they handle it in close games, I would expect that they're just going to play the best guys. As far as Tomlinson and Phillips, surprisingly low numbers for those two guys. And maybe situation dictates that the fact that, you know, the Vikings were way up. There was a lot of pass rush situations like pure pass rush probably made a difference there, but Harrison Phillips only had 36 snaps and Delvin Tomlin's in 39. So they worked the interior quite a bit with different guys like james lynch and jonathan bullard that'll be something to watch be something to keep an eye on how they handle that but it

might have to do with determining this is how many snaps these guys can handle and we're just going to have to survive the rest when anybody else is in there um so do you want to you know push it to the max and hope or do you want to limit it know, push it to the max and hope, or do you want to limit it a little bit and try to keep them healthy, but also have to rely on the depth, um, a delicate dance for them to do with the rotations for sure. Thanks for the question. All right. This one on Twitter comes from at Josh VL 81.

Is this the most important week two that you can remember? It feels like whoever wins between the Vikings and Eagles will be anointed the next hot thing in the NFC. Well, no, I mean, you know, 2016, they played the Packers at home. So, I mean, that felt pretty important. It was the opening of us bank stadium, but as far as the rest of the time, let's see. They had the win against San Francisco in week one of 2018 and then went to Green Bay. So that was pretty enormous right there. And, you know, kind of looking to show that they were the Super Bowl or bust team, go down to Green Bay and get a win. And instead they came away with a tie uh in 2018

i'm sure you all remember that 2019 i i don't recall exactly what happened there i feel like they had a bad loss in in week two is that right i'll look this up um so i don't know that that it's like by far the most important but i also think that your assertion is right. Yeah, it was a bad loss. It was against green Bay. So they played green Bay several times in week two. Um, that's, you know, ended up being kind of, uh, uh, you know, a game that shaped how we felt about the team a couple of times. But I think what you're saying is that on the big picture type of view if philadelphia smashes the vikings then everyone's going to be talking about how philadelphia is now the team to beat in the nfc with such a weak nfc and if the vikings do it and just the jefferson goes for 175 yards then everyone will be talking about just the jefferson The Vikings are here and who's going to stop them.

And, you know, maybe neither one of those are insane. I don't know. Like I, I've just always take a longer view on the thing. I don't want to overreact. And I got a great email about all the times that they started out seasons hot throughout their history. It wasn't just when I got here in 2016, but you know, there's some years that probably have a lot of pain involved for you folks that

I won't go through particularly 2003. But, uh, you know, after two weeks, if you can go to two and Oh, that's a really excellent place to be going against the lions, going to London, going to Miami. Like there is a tough stretch in here at some point where they have to play, you know, at Buffalo. And like, there's some pitfalls in this schedule.

It's certainly not insane. And a lot of the teams after one week look kind of bad. So they could, you know, have a great start to this thing. Two and O gives you a cushion for, for a mistake, for a clunker. Uh, it, it certainly is a different vibe and a different overall feeling and confidence to get two huge NFC wins. And it helps you at the end of the year when you're talking about those tiebreakers,

because you could end up with the Vikings and Eagles fighting for third place, or you could end up with the Vikings and Eagles fighting for seventh place. I think both of those things are on the table, but a win in this one could determine who gets that edge. So yeah, I mean, it's, it is a big game. The football men will tell you every game is a big game and they will not be wrong, but this one carries a little more weight for how these teams are viewed what their strength is how confident they should be and then there will be or at least we expect there to be some battle between them for position although uh you know philadelphia is certainly in a spot with cooper rush starting in dallas to have a chance to win

their division i suppose the vikings are too with the way that the Packers looked. So yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. And if the Packers have some problems against Chicago and the Vikings win, oh yeah, there will be a lot of discussion about how the Vikings are here with Kevin O'Connell. All right. This one comes from gerald an email as i've gotten older i've come to the realization that blind loyalty to the franchise and or quarterback is not healthy i feel it's not only okay but a rite of passage as a fan to be critical of the team slash quarterback when it's

warranted during the cousins era my friends group has been fractured those that are critical of kirk myself included not being the leader that we hoped for have been ridiculed and at times shut out by others yikes i refuse to get into the arguments on twitter with blindly loyal fans because it's much like arguing about politics you will never change that person's mind or train of thought yet it still bugs me to see so much toxicity surrounding the quarterback because still after all it is just a game in the end it's meant to be enjoyed as entertainment also the vikings existed before kirk and they will exist when he is gone we are all vikings fans at the end of the day what do you think for such a vanilla

individual is kirk a polarizing figure figure in town why oh yeah yeah why do i think for such a vanilla individual is Kirk a polarizing figure figure in town why oh yeah yeah why do I think for such a vanilla figure uh that Kirk is so polarizing well I think it really comes down to a few a few things I mean one it's the starting point of Kirk Cousins when they sign him that I think if you recall there were a lot of arguments leading up to the Cousins when they sign him that I think if you recall there were a lot of arguments leading up to the Cousins signing should they do it should they keep Case Keenum should they keep you know Teddy Bridgewater should they get somebody else trade for Alex Smith draft someone there were big battles between fans when it came to that decision. And I think a lot of the people that supported the Cousins decision from day one were never going to move off that almost no matter what happened.

I mean, the first four years of Cousins in Minnesota is and then lost immediately in San Francisco and never returned to the playoffs and spent humongous amounts of money and cap space on Cousins at the cost of the rest of the roster. I mean, all of that is just not good, right? Like when the coach ends up fired a couple years later, when you sign somebody to take you to the next level, after going to the NFC championship, that is not a success. That doesn't mean that he never played well, but it means it was not the right decision as of this moment. And I think that the people who really supported it and really wanted it to work and believed in it as the right move. Uh, I think that they want to hang on to that opinion and want to hang on to, it was the right opinion and cousins was the right quarterback. It was the right choice. It's just that dot, dot, dot, they didn't play good enough defense.

And it's like, like well if we could only find the person responsible for the defense falling apart but they didn't play good enough defense they didn't have a friendly enough coach they didn't throw it to stefan digs enough which is true like and there are truths in all of these things like it's it's really actually a very complicated topic because cousins is very good at football. I mean, look at what he did last week. He has had many excellent games, but the bottom line is that it didn't work.

I think a lot of people dug their heels into this and have gotten very defensive about it. No matter how much evidence piled up that again, it wasn't the right decision, at least as of this moment, right? Not decided yet because he's still here and he's still playing quarterback here. That's part of it. It really almost has nothing to do with Kirk himself so much as it has to do with that people picked sides then, and they were going to stay on that side side no matter what happened, even though it clearly was not a success in the first four years.

The other part is I think there's a lot of people who want to look at the stats and then say, well, it's not his fault. Right. Like, well, look, weaknesses, the ways that other teams have taken advantage of some of the kryptonites that exist for him. We've gone over the cap hit and the problems it causes with the rest of the roster and all these things. There's a very long list of objections that you can raise when someone brings up his quarterback rating or touchdown to interception ratio or whatever else it might be. But what the bottom line really comes down to is I think that they just haven't won, which is always going to cause arguments within fan bases. If you win, everyone pretty much agrees that they're all smart. Everybody's good. And the

people who quote like hate Kirk, no, they don't. It's just like what you're saying. Like, no, they don't. They want them to win more than anything. The Vikings fans who have been skeptical of Kirk cousins from day one, want more than anything to be wrong and have the man take their team to the Superbowl. And he is absolutely free to do that. Right? Like that's, that's always the funky thing about the debates is every person would have been on board if they went somewhere over the last four years.

But when you have this big of a sample, you are naturally going to be like, is this really actually going to be like, is this really actually going to work? So natural skepticism rooted in wanting your team to succeed. And this has always been the ethos of the show here is we look at everything through the prism of, can you actually compete for a Superbowl? And if they do, then we'll say that it worked. But since they haven't, then it didn't. And a lot of that doesn't have to do with Kirk and whether he's blamed for everything

or so forth. No one does that. There's a lot of, there's a lot of straw man arguments. Oh, you hate Kirk. Oh, you, you, this or that. Like, no, it's really as simple as everybody roots for the team. They don't just root for one player. They root for the team.

Everyone in Minnesota wants the Minnesota Vikings to win football games. And until they do, there's going to be discussion of who the next quarterback should be. If there's a next level, is it going to work with the new coach? Can he really do something he's never done before? And I think that's, that's extremely fair until proven otherwise. And look, here's the thing too. It's not uncommon. There are a lot of people who will fight to the death over anything.

Absolutely anything. Cleveland Browns fans making signs, supporting Deshaun Watson at their games, because, I mean, that is like you called people. It's like you can't fight with people at your job like this, but you sure can online. You sure can act like a jerk at the football stadium when you bring the sign, which is just asking for people to get upset with you. Right. So I think that, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it, but it all kind of draws back to nobody would have any disagreements if they had won. And it really doesn't come down to, you know, did he play good in this game? Did he play good in that game? Uh, you know, every game that he, that he plays well is not owning of the people who are skeptical because he's got to do it more often.

It's really that simple. And if that happens, then, uh, then they will have succeeded in bringing him back and so forth. But when you have four years of not winning, there's plenty of reasons to go. I don't know, man. Right. And so far we're through one week and it looked great, but you know, I, I you know, I think that there's just a lot of people who like to fight and like to agitate and things like that and like to spin the stats in every way they can. And then there's a lot of people online, too, who have these little platforms and they try to like rile people up to get attention for themselves. There's also that factor. And when you're talking about politics that exists in politics as well, people who create YouTubes and stuff like that and give out wrong information to try to get people upset.

I mean, it's, it's not new. Every fan base has these people. Every fan base has people who act out and, and fight with each other over a player or something like that. So, yeah, it's not particularly unique. But I think as of this moment, it's kind of like this whole thing should be over at this point. Like the yelling at each other over whether Kirk is this or that. It's pretty decided what Cousins is. What it really comes down to is how does it go like this year? I think we all know how he plays.

We all know the shortcomings. We all know the strengths. There's really nothing more to debate. Is it going to work with O'Connell or not? Like that's the question. So great question, Gerald. I'm sorry that that's happened to your, to your friends. Uh, I, I know I see it online with a lot of people, um, you know, tossing insults around and stuff like that. You know, I saw some unfortunate person insulting my friend Sam Ekstrom the other day over something he said about Kirk Cousins. And it's like, man, get a life at this point. Right. So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It just it is just like everything else where it's like, get a hold of yourselves, people. We can all discuss the quarterback and how he plays without acting like this.

Okay, on to at Cam Causey on Twitter. Can you talk a little bit more about how the Vikings, in general terms, have to adjust their scheme for quarterbacks who scramble. What are the consequences of having a quarterback spy? Yeah. I mean, the, the consequences of having a quarterback spy are kind of, you know, straightforward. Like that's, there's no, um, nothing I can tell you. That's, uh, incredibly enlightening. It's like, look, if you have a guy focused entirely on the quarterback, that is one less person playing in a big zone, right? It's one less person who is dropping back and playing underneath of tight ends or over the top of running backs,

or that can play in man coverage and go chase somebody. Having a linebacker who of course it would usually be, the guy's just got to stand there. And that's very tough. I think that you want to mix that in, but I do not think you want to do that play after play after play, even as good as Jalen Hurts is because it just allows the defense to know where one of your best players is going to be more than anything. And we asked Ed Donatell about this today, about Jalen Hurts and the running quarterback. I think it's just about mixing it up.

So on this play, you're going to use five defensive linemen and, and they're going to rush from the far outsides, the wide nine, and they're going to try to make him step up in the pocket. And on the next play, you're going to have three down linemen and you're going to drop people back and you're going to try to make him step up in the pocket. And on the next play, you're going to have three down linemen. And you're going to drop people back.

And you're going to have that spy. So you're going to give an extra defender. And then you're going to blitz from one side. Maybe there's data on where he doesn't like to be blitzed or where he succeeds or fails when being blitzed. So you blitz the blind side or you try to make him hesitate to want to stick with a read, but then not be able to do so and hope that it's too late for him to run. There's no easy answer though. Go through history

and oftentimes in the playoffs, it does kind of your luck runs out eventually with running week after week after week. But most quarterbacks who are successful running quarterbacks, they keep doing it year after year until they get too old. But it's very, very hard to stop. And I think that's the case with Jalen Hurts. It's very, very hard to stop. What it's about is can you limit his throws that are easy to A.J. Brown? Can you cause some turnovers? Can you make him pay for the times legally that

he runs, right? Like give him some punishment, beat him down a little bit on these runs. Uh, you know, if he's going to do it, then it's going to wear him out throughout the game is what you kind of hope for with somebody like Jalen hurts. But yeah, I mean, a spy is one thing that you want to do, but I think that they need like 10 things that they want to do and change them throughout the game. Because if you're just doing that one thing, then the offense can adjust to that. And they're also going to be scheming for spies all season long. So they know that it's going to be there and they know where they can run their routes

to not run into that spy. So I think that's, that's a big part of it. And then they talk about rush lanes, which just means, you know, if you are supposed to kind of come straight up the field, and this is where sometimes sacks and pressures, like you have to take some risks for these. And it is a point about a Kirk weakness. Like the fact that Kirk doesn't really run or step

up in the pocket that often has given a pretty easy target for all defensive linemen where Jalen Hurts or Kyler Murray or Russell Wilson, maybe years ago, more so with Wilson. If you rush right at him and you come around the edge, he could step up and go, or he can swing back around you and go. Um, so they're going to design their rushes to try to keep him in the pocket. And then you just hope that you're able to do it. Uh, but it's a great question. It's a big factor, uh, when it comes to this game. Um, this goes from Anthony via email or comes from Anthony via email. A couple of weeks ago, Matthew, you gushed about the quarterback at Florida, uh, Anthony Richardson. Yeah. Uh, which got me

thinking about the view Vikings future at quarterback when the time comes for the Vikings to select their next quarterback, if they remain good, not great. Uh, I can't imagine that they'll have the draft capital necessary to move up and get him. So I'm wondering what could they do to get draft capital? Here are my questions. And please understand, I do not want this to happen, but could the Vikings, what could the Vikings get for trading Justin Jefferson? And is there a world where it's worth it to trade a generational talent in order to get what might be an amazing quarterback?

So a few things here. One, I really want, and I, and I'm not against big picture Vikings questions. So if you're sending fans only questions, this is okay. You're not breaking any rules, but I really want to focus on this year with our, with our conversation. Like, because even as somebody myself who simulates the Madden season, so I could do the draft and do the off season. And I put a punter at quarterback. So I make sure that I get the first overall draft pick.

I don't know what's going to happen to quarterback at this moment. I truly do not. I know that down the, down the road that this team will need a different quarterback because when you sign Jefferson, you really can't have cousins on a huge long deal with gigantic money where he's making 40 million or whatever. If he wins the freaking Superbowl, then you can find a way like you'll just pay him and you'll cut everybody else. And you have a super bowl ring and he can retire a Viking and he's a legend forever. Okay. So like, those are kind of your options. You're either eventually moving on, whether it's next year, the year after, or you are, um, you know, signing him to that extension because it's gone amazingly well. And those are the only two ways this can go. As far as Justin Jefferson goes, you just do not trade a player like that.

Like just plain and simple. No, you don't do it. Period. And, and unless that player forces his way out, you don't win championships in my mind by getting rid of the best players. And when you have a receiver like this, there's only so many receivers like this that ever come along in really in history. I mean, there's a lot of elite receivers in the league, but somebody who comes into the NFL sets all these records right away and wants it like like jefferson does and dominates the way he does it doesn't matter like there's no trade capital that's enough with three first round picks do no no let's talk about some of the other draft picks like garrett bradbury's a first round

pick lewis scenes a first round pick like and using it to trade up to number one. No to that too, because think about this. The first quarterback taken is not always the best quarterback taken. Baker Mayfield is a Carolina Panther and somehow so is Sam Darnold. Well, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are the best. And we have seen this Mac Jones had the best year last year. You know, we'll see on Trey Lance and Justin Fields, but Trevor Lawrence has not emerged as the best quarterback. Like when there are multiple quarterbacks in a draft class, I think that you just take one. I don't think. And the other thing too, is if you take a quarterback and you don't give them Justin Jefferson, you have defeated the purpose. You need that guy to take full advantage of what your quarterback on a rookie contract can

do. So that's the best I can do there. As far as trading people, drafting what they're going to do with Kirk. It's like, I just, they're playing the Eagles. It's a really big game. It's a really big game. I don't know, man. Um, I, I know Anthony is a huge supporter of the show and, uh, the newsletter. And I really appreciate you, Anthony, you're the best man. And I totally get where you're coming from. But with this one, it's like week two, I'm flying to Philadelphia. I'm not running draft Sims yet. So we'll see. We'll see. I don't know how they feel about Kirk.

It's a whole new regime, right? If, if Kirk Cousins is fantastic under Kevin O'Connell, it's just going to change. It's just going to change the math. So, you know, that's kind of a week to week thing. Like it's going to be a discussion as we go along. Like, is this worth it? Is this something they can maintain? And the other thing about Jefferson too, is like when he signs the extension, it's not going to kick in that moment, right? It's going to kick in a year or two down the road when he gets actually expensive. So they

do have some time in there, uh, in between that. But in my mind, there is no, or it's like, what would you trade Aaron Donald for? No, that's what I would trade to Aaron Donald for nothing outside of give, you know, Patrick Mahomes or something. When you have somebody of that level, you just keep them and you're going to win a lot of games because of them. And when you look at Superbow teams, look around. They usually have like five, six, seven elite players. You can't be giving those away for hopes with draft picks in my mind. All right, let's get to Jason. This came through the email. What is the win total that serves to prove Zimmer was the problem. I'm still predicting seven or eight wins as an aside. Yeah. I mean, after one week, everyone shouldn't change their initial opinions because week one is

very confusing and doesn't often predict what's going to happen in the league. And maybe I could go back and look at week one from last year and all the results and go through it and be like, well, yeah, there were a lot of things that weren't right. I mean, didn't Jacksonville get their one win? I could be wrong. Didn't Jacksonville get their one win when they tanked in the first week and they like won one game after that, uh, the rest of the way. So it's not a very telling first week. If you, that was your prediction before you shouldn't change it just based on how it looked against green Bay, as far as what needs to happen to prove Zimmer

was wrong. That one is tough because so much is different. Like when we say that they ran it all back, they kind of sort of did, but not exactly like they have Daniel Hunter and they have Zedarius Smith. And if they have those for 17 games, then that is a very different circumstance than before. And if Kirk Cousins plays a little bit better, but the schedule of defenses is very easy, like it was for them in 2019. that Zimmer had everything wrong and Kevin O'Connell has everything right. Or that his circumstance helped a little bit. Uh, Jefferson was a rookie in 2020, you know, and didn't play the first couple of games because he had gotten behind camp and COVID and all those things. Situation plays a lot into this. Um, as an, as anything that will be the narrative for sure that if they win 12 games that wow or 11 games wow Zimmer was the one that was really holding them back but on defense I think there are actually

a lot of differences um you know partly like Cam Bynum is playing safety instead of Xavier Woods who was very spotty uh Jordan Hicks as opposed to half of Anthony bar and then Nick vigil, uh, big deal, by the way, that Michael Pierce barely played last year. If you end up with Delvin Tomlinson and Harrison Phillips, two very good players, and they play the whole season, or if you end up with, you know, Cam Dantzler plays way better and Shannon Sullivan plays way better than what they got from Mackenzie Alexander and from Bashad Breeland. Well, that's quite a bit different, right? So I think that, you know, we'll write the narrative after, uh, of how much that it mattered. Um, but I think that the bottom

line is this Mike Zimmer could clearly coach football. He could clearly win with the right kind of team. And that was proven in several different seasons, but it was just, it was just time. Like this is what they needed. They ran to the end of that road and they said, this does not work. And Zimmer does not fit the situation that we have right now with a mega star wide receiver, a quarterback who probably needs someone to believe in him, an offensive line that's just made of first and second round draft picks. Like it just needs updating. It needs a refresh. Does it mean that your old computer was just complete trash? If you go buy a new one, like not necessarily it worked, it got you pretty far, but it was just time.

That's how I'm going to look at it. I'm not going to look at it as it was all Zimmer's fault because remember last year when part of the narrative was from a lot of people that, Oh, Zimmer just had bad luck. It was all bad luck. It was all bad luck. And now the Kevin O'Connell looks good. Oh, it was all Mike Zimmer's fault. No, the edges are small. The differences are very small between the two and how much the things that they're doing matter, but they needed those small things. And that's how I look at it is very few coaches make it as many years as Zimmer for a reason. People burn hot, they run out of gas quick, and that's where Zimmer was and they needed

a change. But I would say that you couldn't ask for much better from Kevin O'Connell than you've gotten so far. That's so far. But, you know, I mean, you have somebody who is commanding the ship and who has not made any big blunders so far, which is kind of what it's about. And he's adapting, but doesn't look like he's in over his head being the head coach. And the players seem to be responding to him well and have from day one.

It doesn't seem to be phony or an act. Um, you know, it seems like it was a long road to learn the offense, but they were buying into it and learning it and adjusting and adapting. And now they've seen it work. And that's a really good thing for everybody believing in Kevin O'Connell. So like so far they have hit the nail on the head with the person and the type of person they needed. And really from day one, when they hired O'Connell, he checked all the boxes that we had kind of laid out, right? Like you need an offensive mind. Who's going to

modernize things. You need someone who's going to listen to the players a little bit more. You just need an attitude change. You need someone at the podium. Who's not going to make pro football talk every time he opens his mouth because he's dunking on some player, right? Like all those things, Kevin O'Connell has been for them. We'll see how the game management goes. We'll see how the handling of adversity goes. Uh, but I don't think that I'm going to ever really look at it as, Oh, wow. They went 10 and seven and the Vikings last year went eight and nine. And so there's this, did I do the math right? Yeah. Like, so there's this huge golf between the two and clearly O'Connell, everything he did was right. And everything Zimmer? Yeah. Like, so there's this huge gulf between the two and clearly O'Connell, everything he did was right.

And everything Zimmer was wrong. Like, no, I mean, that's probably, that's not, that's not how I'm going to really look at it. We want to do that because those are the two guys, like it was the former and now it's the current, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that. Especially since last year, they had a tough schedule. And this year, I don't know that they do have a tough schedule. Uh, last question here. They had a tough schedule. And this year, I don't know that they do have a tough schedule.

Last question here. This is from at Rev J.A. Squires. Admittedly, it's not, I'm not great at math. Yet, how does Ed Ingram have an overall PFF grade of 79, earning the sixth highest grade at guard when he got a 31 on his pass blocking? Also, should fans be excited that he can get a high grade with so much room to improve or scared that he was abysmal at pass blocking and his run blocking will regress to the mean. I don't know if his run blocking will regress to the mean. He might just be a good run blocker. You should be concerned about the pass blocking grade for sure,

because that was a bit of an issue in preseason and in training camp. Uh, not that he was getting thrown like he did by Kenny Clark, but like, these are not guys who are going up against LSU. These are the best players in the league. And the Eagles defensive line is phenomenal. It's going to be a problem. And the adjustment curve is really difficult for guards how that ends up happening is the pff system every play is graded for minus two is the worst play and two is the best play like two is a hall of fame unbelievable play uh pancaking kenny clark you know picking him up and throwing him that would be a two getting run over by him as a minus two. And so if Ed Ingram had more of those really good plays than he had of the really bad plays, he would come out

with a good overall grade. So if he had five great plays in the run game and two bad plays in the pass game, well, he's going to come out ahead and look pretty good. But those two plays in the past game are huge hits to his overall score. And it kind of goes back to the single game PFF score thing. Like it's a small sample size. If you get beat three, four times in a game out of 60 plays for an offensive lineman, that's going to result in a pretty tough grade because the standard is very high. So I think that's how that happened. And I would be concerned about the pass blocking if that's not better and doesn't make quick progress. It's going to be a long season at

that position, just as it has been in the past. That is a major, major factor going into this game with the Vikings and Eagles. So great, great questions. Thanks everybody for asking them. And we have a massive game, uh, coming up on Monday. We'll do another fans only podcast before then to get you ready for the game and continue to preview it. Thank you all for listening as always. And we will catch you next time.