Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings signed a receiver???

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about the Vikings signing former Patriot and Bear N'Keal Harry, what's up with TJ Hockenson and whether his contract is coming soon and the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah concept of signing former first and second-round picks who didn't work out with their teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Pollard here. And the Vikings did not have media availability on Sunday. They had originally scheduled to have a normal practice on Sunday, but they, because of the weather, decided not to have fans out there or media out there. I don't know if they actually did anything. Maybe they went through some inside stuff. But so no practice to break down.

They did practice on Saturday, so we could talk about some of the stuff that came from that, including one player who's kind of intriguing getting back. We'll discuss that. Daniil Hunter did some one-on-ones, so he's on his way back to actually practicing. And one of the reasons that we talked about not being too concerned that there was some slow start for him because of the contract, because he would be able to get back into the mix quickly. But the big news of the day, the Vikings signed a wide receiver. Everybody get jacked up for Nikhil Harry. Am I right?

Maybe not. Okay. Well, so the first question that I got from someone earlier today, I saw a direct message from a subscriber to the Purple Insider newsletter named John, and he said, why? And well, part of the answer for why is that Tristan Jackson is down for now. It is not a super serious injury for Tristan Jackson, but he is not practicing, and it may take some time before Tristan Jackson actually returns to the field. Also, the Jalen Naylor injury is becoming a tad suspect, I suppose,

because after he was injured, I think it was on the first day or the second day, then Kevin O'Connell said he didn't expect him to be out very long, thought that he would be back in a week. He was not back for the entire week, and so they need some more receivers. They've got some room there to bring in somebody else. And so they signed Nikhil Harry, who last year was with the Chicago Bears. He caught seven passes for the Bears. And over his career, after being picked 32nd overall, he has 64 receptions. So about one season's worth of catches over an entire career so far. That is clearly not a success story as the 32nd overall pick of the New England Patriots.

And I see some of you are already saying he's just the camp body, and that may be true that he is. But there does seem to be a philosophy here from Kweisi Adafomensa that he's going to look at former high draft picks and bring them in and take swings at them. And I agree with you, Sarah, at least you didn't use draft picks on a right. They use nothing on Nikhil Harry, other than just a roster spot, which was created by James Lynch going on IR after he tore his ACL. But if you kind of look at some of the players that they've acquired, so you go back to Jalen Rager and Ross Blacklock, Jawan Williams, and now Nikhil Harry, you can find a pretty easy pattern. All of these guys were high draft picks that did not work out in

their original location, and now the Vikings are taking a shot at them. And while this usually does not work, I mean, 90% of the time it does not work, that you pick up somebody else's draft bust, that one out of 10 times that it does work can be pretty good for you. Unfortunately, the Vikings were on the wrong side of this when the Kansas City Chiefs picked up Mike Hughes for basically nothing, and then Hughes played pretty well for them that year. Now, of course, he was only a bust for the Vikings because of the injuries that he had, and that's not really the case with Nikhil Harry. It hasn't been a matter of injuries.

It's been much more of a Laquan Treadwellian type of situation where the guy is six foot four, 225 pounds, doesn't seem to be able to create separation. And that's been his main issue and why he hasn't been a main part of any team. And the odds of Nikhil Harry turning out to be anything but a camp body are pretty low, right? I mean, it would be a surprise if he came in and all of a sudden, and look, there have been many times that people have taken shots at Laquan Treadwell. I think he's still on a roster somewhere. If you're a first round pick, remember Taco Charlton, that guy bounced around. He was with a different team every year.

This happens a lot in the league where there's somebody who was scouted years ago by this person or that person and says, Hey, we've got a chance to pick them up. It's boom or bust. I mean, probably more likely than not, it won't be anything and it won't matter. But every so often you find somebody that surprises you, somebody who has the talent click in, somebody who has the right situation for the first time, a coach that believes in you, whatever it might be. And it ends up working out. Now, again, Nikhil Harry hasn't shown anything that would make you believe that. His best season was in 2020, where he had 33 receptions, still had a 57 PFF grade,

averaged nine yards per catch. But is it worth it to bring in somebody that could have something there in some world when you pay nothing for them, yes. I think it's a sound strategy for a team that is in a, quote, competitive rebuild because Nikhil Harry is not very old. Nikhil Harry was drafted in 2019. He is 25 years old. The Vikings have some rookies that are 24 or 25 years old. So he's 25 years old. And if he developed into anything, then it would be really something like a great find. And that's what you're thinking about here. But also, I mean, even in the worst case scenario, it just nothing happens. He gets cut at the end of the day. But he is somebody who has played in actual games and has some real NFL experience enough to be out there and making catches and making some plays. I mean, last year, a handful of catches for the Bears. He had a 49 yard catch last year.

He had a touchdown in a game for Chicago. There are so many players that are looking to break into the NFL with no experience at all, who you wouldn't think could even get out there, right? And so you can bring in another guy from wherever, the XFL or a UDFA or something, but you don't know if they could do anything on an NFL field. So there is something to having a guy who's at least played before that in the worst case scenario, if there's a couple of more injuries, you have a guy who knows how to play football. And that's the worst case scenario is that Nikhil Harry ever gets on the field for the Minnesota Vikings. But I just think it's intriguing from a greater philosophy to continue to take swings. And where I didn't love it was last year with Jalen Rager and Ross Blacklock, because that actually cost them stuff. It cost them draft capital to trade for those guys. And in that case, even if it's late round, I'm not sure that I like it. With Rager, it was fairly significant, not like a first or a second, but I think there was a fourth or a conditional fourth involved. And so I thought, OK, that might be a little much to pay for somebody who I think that team was probably going to cut.

But for Nikhil Harry, the fact that he is not on a team at all and you can bring him in and just see if there's anything there that fits with what you want to do. Why not? I see zero downside to a move like this. And worst case scenario, we talk about knowing how to play NFL football a little, you're going to play him in preseason games. And if you look at kind of like an Albert Wilson last year, Albert Wilson did not make the team. He had bounced around. He was an undersized player, didn't really, I mean, he had a couple of teams here or there where he had made some plays for but Albert Wilson was able to run decent enough routes to give you a look at your quarterback and let him have a chance to have a real preseason game if you have receivers out there that don't know what they're doing and you sign a guy who's never played in the NFL before

in these preseason games it makes it very hard to evaluate a Jaron Hall, for example, who I think they want to work with some experienced receivers in preseason games. So in the absolute worst case scenario of this, you gave up nothing, you brought in a guy that might have some upside, and he ran around in some preseason games and at least got Jaron Hall some reps. Okay, that's completely fine. In the best case scenario, Nikhil Harry finds some stuff and becomes some sort of role player for you. Even if it's a number four wide receiver, he is a little more of a proven wide receiver than Jalen Rager. Last year, Jalen Rager as a depth wide receiver was a complete disaster.

And Brandon Powell is here as well, but he hasn't gotten a lot of experience either as a receiver in the NFL. Handful of catches last year, but someone who's actually lined up on the outside, run the routes before, maybe as a complete depth wide receiver way down the depth chart, it would make sense if he shows something is there and starts making plays in camp and starts to, you know, hit some sort of ceiling that they thought he was going to reach when he was drafted 32nd overall. And yeah, of course, the tight end jokes are coming out. And I understand that he's a really big guy, six foot four, 225. And it speaks to how different I think that the league is from maybe years back when Calvin Johnson was dominating, coming off the Randy Moss era, Terrell Owens. Everybody wanted big physical wide receivers. And maybe that was still in Bill Belichick's mind when he drafted

him 32nd overall. But now, yards after catch catch separation like those things are kind of dominating in the NFL and those guys who are really really good at the very specifics of route running like that the Jordan Addison for example who is not physically imposing at all but you see him open in practice all the time because of his separation ability, quickness, agility, footwork, specifics of details, all those sorts of things. And those are where, you know, Nikhil Harry has never really latched on. So the expectations of Nikhil Harry are basically nothing, but sort of interesting when a team not only signs a wide receiver, but goes after one who has been a high draft pick before. And as a whole, I like this philosophy, as long as you're not giving up very

much in terms of draft capital. But I think it is a smart approach to bring in these guys who may have developed along the way. Nikhil Harry is not out of the league. He's at least someone who is continuing to play and fight to have a career and so forth. And you just never know is the way that I would put it. I mean, I'm sure a lot of us would say that he's not good. Why are they doing this? Who cares? And you're probably right.

Like you've got a much better chance of being right than being wrong if you say that. But the one guy who makes it is totally worth it if they find that person. And so I think that if you're the team that is constantly bringing in these former high draft picks, then I mean, then great, right? Like I think that's a good philosophy. You're not giving up much. And we also can't really equate this to the other situation with Rager because they didn't trade anything for him. So last year, that was probably a mistake. They were really looking for the punt returner, Jalen Rager, and thought giving up a late pick

for somebody who could help them out in a situation where they had nobody that could punt return. But then he ultimately did not turn out to be a really great punt returner either. And that move was not good, but as a overarching philosophy, when you are a young team, that's kind of shuffling players in and out to say, hey, this guy was a former first round draft pick. Let's take a look here and see if there's anything there. Go for it. Go for it. Because otherwise, you'd probably just bring in someone that no one's ever heard of, who is an undrafted free agent, has been playing in the arena football league or whatever, and that person

would have zero chance of having a higher ceiling. So anyway, that's where I stand on the Nikhil Harry move. Not a significant thing, not the breaking news that I thought might happen on a day off here for us. So we've gone a couple of days now where we haven't been out there for practice on Friday and now Sunday, and there hasn't been any huge news. And so still kind of waiting. Is there going to be something? Is there going to be another extension? And we can get into your questions. So start firing your questions in the chat. But I have one more thing to mention, which is Andre Carter, the second. He is now off of whatever it is, the pup list, whichever list it was, and ready to get back to practicing. And I'm very interested to see because he's going to have to jump right into the fold. And he's going to, you know,

I think stand out right away physically when we've seen him just working out on the side field. This is a very large and athletic player. You know, he's six foot six. He has this incredible wingspan. If he's standing next to Daniil Hunter, you're not saying, wow, Daniil Hunter is towering over him like they look face to face with each other. Doesn't mean he's going to be Daniil Hunter. interesting watch on a day-to-day basis players. And hey, Ivan Pace was another one of those guys. And now suddenly Ivan Pace has become a thing that when the Vikings won, finger quotes, the UDFA market by getting Carter and Pace, they looked at it as two players that might be something for them. Now my expectations are always lower than what Ivan Pace has done. I expect it to take a while for these guys to develop

when they get picked up in UDFA, undrafted free agent. But I'm intrigued, though. He's going to be somebody that I really want to watch in preseason games. I don't know if he's going to be ready physically to play in the first preseason game, which is this week, against the Seattle Seahawks. Probably not because he hasn't practiced at all in any capacity, but maybe the second, the third preseason game, those joint practices.

I'm very interested to watch Andre Carter II to see just, you know, does he work his way into the second team? This is a team that has very underwhelming outside linebacker depth. It's DJ Wanham, it's Patrick Jones, it's Luigi Villain. These guys have had shots at it in the NFL, and none of them have really turned out. But Carter is a different level of size, for one. I think a different caliber of athlete than those guys are. And maybe something is there for a rotational role in the, again, best case scenario, worst case scenario, he's on the practice squad. He develops for another year. And then we talk about it next year in training camp. So that's kind of where we stand. And we can talk about now,

whatever you guys want to talk about on the show and we'll start in a way that's the wrong one with this one from uh alexander what do you make of the hockinson situation is this a holden injury pending contract uh might just be getting banged up i i don't know um it's not like he's told us if tj hockinson is taking it easy by not fully participating for a couple days to make sure that all of his contract details get locked in it would not be the first time I've seen that I mean that was really the entire 2020 training camp for Delvin Cook who took like five reps a day in the backfield but mostly was off to the side after the individual drills and that's kind of what we saw from TJ Hawkinson it could

be a sign. I don't want to say for sure that I think that it is because it also could just be throughout training camp. People get dinged up. They run into each other. This has been a much more physical training camp, I think with Brian Flores involved and maybe, you know, Kevin O'Connell wanted that a little bit this year for training camp. So it's possible that he just got a little dinged up and he's fine, but doesn't want to push it. And one thing that I really learned about Kevin O'Connell over these last two years is that he is going to play it safe. He is not going to push it when it comes to veteran players in preseason, in training camp. They are going to be very smart and very cautious

with their key guys. I still, though, expect TJ Hawkinson to be a guy that they want to sign, and I think is the easier of the two between him and Justin Jefferson to sign to a contract extension because Hawkinson has a very clear list of comps. So when you go to overthecap.com, it's very easy to find. That's got all the contract information. Just sort by average annual value, how much they're just paid per year. And you'll see your Darren Waller, your Evan Ingram, your George Kittle, Travis Kelsey, and somewhere in there is where TJ Hawkinson goes. That's probably making it easier than it actually is to work out a long-term contract extension with a really good player. But everybody on each side, Hawkinson's side and the

Vikings, should have a pretty good sense of where the dollar figures need to be for him to sign. And I think that, you know, they could let this play out. They could let him, you know, go through the year and franchise tag him if he's doing great or if he falls off, which I don't expect at all because of what a great fit he's been. But if he falls off, they could just let him hit free agency. Maybe they love Josh Oliver and he becomes the tight end. Anything could happen. But I don't know that that's a smart idea because having to franchise tag him comes along with a huge cap hit. Even if it's only 13, 14 million, that's still the entire cap hit.

You can't mess with it. You can't push money down the road. You can't make it so later on you can change this money to that money to create emergency cap space. It's just that's the dollar figure. That's the cap figure. That's not that favorable for the team. And for Hockinson, it's OK. But it's also not as much guaranteed money as he would get if he was to sign right now. And a great way to kind of baseline it is teams can franchise tag a player twice. So if you were to franchise tag somebody twice, how much cash would they get?

So that'd be, let's say it's $30 million for Hawkinson. Well, that's what you shoot for with guaranteed money. Now, that's probably not going to be that much. Just in general, I mean, the team's going to want to come in below that for guaranteed. Although I'd have to look here. I can try to look this up as I'm talking, what the other tight ends got for guaranteed money. Let's take a look here because I feel like that's a pretty safe number to start with if you're talking about like a five-year contract. Let's see. Yeah. Mark Andrews got $30 million fully guaranteed and $37 million in total

guaranteed. Kittle got $40. So yeah, that's actually a very good number. There's Dawson Knox, Cole Komet, who just signed. Kyle Pitts, well, that's the rookie contract. But Dallas Goddard, Mark Andrews. I mean, I think TJ Hawkinson and Dallas Goddard and Mark Andrews are really good comps. So you look for 30 to 40 million dollars fully guaranteed, you know, 15 to 18 per year. It doesn't seem like a tremendously difficult number to land on for both sides. So I don't know if it's any sort of, hey, we're right on the cusp of signing this extension. Let's not have him practice and risk any sort of injury right before he does that. But I do think that that's something that should be on the way. Bob says they better extend TJ. They gave up picks for him. His second round pick. Now, I didn't have any problem. Look,

if that ends up being just an all-in move and he's here for two years. It's still worth the price. They paid a second. They got a ton out of him, a ton. He was great last year. He helped them big time down the stretch. It wasn't his fault Kirk checked to him on fourth and eight. He had a great game in that playoff game. He had 10 catches.

I mean, jeez. I mean, wow. So he was great. And then he's going to play this year. So if you gave up a second round pick for somebody who was great for two years, I mean, like that's, that's pretty good. But they could, yes, they could franchise tag him if they want to. So at very least, I think they're getting three years out of TJ Hawkinson. I just think considering his age, it's more favorable to extend him long term. Let's see from CJ Hamm is the man. Love that off topic. But if KOC was the coach in 2018, do you think Diggs would have demanded a trade? That is. Well, he didn't demand a trade until the end of 2009, or well, until early in 2019. And actually, I think that it wasn't the 2018 offense I think he had a problem with.

I think it was actually the 2019 offense. Because in the middle of 2018, that's when Mike Zimmer and John DeFilippo butted heads. And that was kind of the cause because Zimmer wanted it to be a run first offense and DeFilippo wasn't doing that. And so then they got in the, you know, their rift throughout the middle of the season about how much Delvin Cook was getting the ball,

but go back and look at those stats from Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen. They're throwing the ball all the time. Kirk's at the center of the offense, and they were putting up big passing numbers to start that season, but it was actually a game against the Jets where they won easily that Zimmer got frustrated with the lack of running, and it seemed to devolve from there as they had some struggles later in the season. And then when they hired Stefanski and really implemented this run, run, run, play action, pass offense, I think that's where he really got upset. And of course,

when he missed practice the one time, it was coming off of that horrible game against Chicago. And I think that that was frustration boiling over, which we saw a number of times from Stefan Diggs. But to your point, more likely than not, if Kevin O'Connell's the head coach, it's a pass-first offense. It is a more players coach. And what Stefan Diggs said, and I think we all knew this before he said it out loud, was that the lack of communication with the organization was a major issue for him. And I think that they resolved whatever issues he had in Buffalo because they were able to communicate with him. And that right there is probably enough to answer your question and say that, yeah, Diggs

probably still would have been here. Now, here's the other thing to think about. If Kevin O'Connell is the head coach, 2018, 2019, not only is Diggs still here, Justin Jefferson might also be here because they just drafted Jordan Addison when the previous regime was like, no, we have two good wide receivers. would ever suggest you need another one. But they decided to go out and get, you know, Jordan Addison to go with Justin Jefferson. So I think maybe they would have – now that would have been three deep. You know, I see they're wearing the shirts and stuff and talking about three deep. Look, Justin Jefferson is as good as the other two guys, Moss and Carter,

but there's no comparison. There's almost no comparison in NFL history to three deep. If Addison's good, you know, you're still going to be pretty good, but not like, that's, that's Jake Reed disrespect to call this current group three deep. But if they had had Thielen digs Jefferson, that is three deep. So that's something to think about. Not as if the Vikings organization didn't have enough what ifs to begin with. Let's see. Let me see a couple of questions, a couple of off topic questions here.

Matthew, who are some of the guys in the past or present you looked up to as a journalist? Do you mean like journalists or like football people? Because I mean, like, you know, growing up as a kid, I had my favorites like everybody else for football people. But I mean, there's a lot, I mean, tons and tons of writers and stuff that I read. You know, I grew up reading the newspaper every morning when it would show up. So there was like the Buffalo Bills beat reporters were there on my kitchen table every morning when I came down to eat breakfast. So, you know, those people who wrote for my local newspaper in a small town between Rochester and Buffalo, New York, well, you know, they were the ones that started off. I had a great college

professor who was a longtime columnist who helped me a ton. I would say that the people I looked up to the most were when I worked in Buffalo, the guys at the radio station that I worked with, the hosts, the morning and afternoon guys. They were so good at their jobs and also so great to me in being encouraging, getting me on the air, not making me feel like I was the kind of, you know, nobody producer or whatever, but really pumping me up. So I always look up to in any field, people who are in good positions, who help out others, who really want it to try to rise in the industry. We've seen that here with Purple Insider with Paul Hodowanek and Haley English, which has been really, really rewarding. So it's a lot of people. Writers-wise, though, I mean, there's just so many.

A lot of baseball writers early on. Like, I don't know if you're a baseball fan. Eno Saris is a guy who I try to kind of emulate. Zach Lowe, I listen to Zach Lowe's podcast all the time. So it's not just football. But, like, you know, Peter King and Vic Carucci, guys like that I was reading early on. So, I mean, there's a lot like an endless list of people that I tried to do things like my favorite writer actually is kind of cool. My favorite writer, Chris Jones, who's not necessarily a sports writer. He was on the podcast like a year ago and I sent him a copy, an early copy of my book, which is kind of cool. So always that way.

And another journalist job question, the worst part of my job. Well, first of all, let me say there are no worst parts of my job. I worked at McDonald's when I was a teenager and in college at a grocery store. There's no worst part of this job. This job is much better than that in all facets. The thing that people don't know about sports journalist jobs, beat reporters, that is a bit of a hassle is the waiting, the waiting around. The amount of time that we spend standing around waiting for something to happen is I'd love to add up the hours. Sometimes we stand outside of locker rooms. We stand on the sidelines of practice. We stand there in the, waiting for somebody to show up to interview. And that's probably the, I wouldn't say hardest part, but that's the part that people don't realize is how many hours of my life are spent hanging around.

Somebody asked me the other day about why all the Vikings beat reporters come on my show. Because you all become friends after standing around. It's like being on Lost or something. I don't actually, I've never seen the show, so maybe it goes horribly wrong, but like, it's like being on an island sometimes. And so you, instead of burning each other down, which does happen on some beats, we've become good friends. What is going on with Jalen Naylor? That I don't know. The update was that it was not serious. It was a leg injury and that he was expected to be back fairly soon. I think that the Nikhil Harry signing probably more likely connects to Tristan Jackson being out a while than it does Jalen Naylor. But it's something to watch

if he's out any longer. I would expect he's going to be back this week, play in the preseason game and go from there. Just based on the way that Kevin O'Connell characterized it. And the other thing is that, you know, O'Connell has usually been very forthright and accurate when he's talking about injuries, which was not the case with Mike Zimmer. And look, he's got the right to do it however he wants. Every coach does it differently. Belichick does the, I don't know, we'll see, you know, like whatever. But O'Connell, when he has given announcements about injuries, is not like throwing us off the scent or something.

He's been straightforward with those. So I would assume that the Naylor injury is not serious and he'll be back fairly soon. From Christian, will the quarterbacks ever get to rest their arms with all these competent receivers running around in practice? Yeah, I mean, they do a fair number of running plays and I don't expect Kirk to do anything more than like a series in the preseason. I remember last year he got COVID and he missed the preseason game, right, in Vegas. But I think he talked about that they were going to have him run like one series. So I would expect him to do one series. The guy whose arm is going to get worn out in the preseason is Jaron Hall.

But, you know, they mix it up at first team, second team and so forth. But, yeah, I mean, Kirk Cousins has been blessed by the receivers that they have. And I don't know if Nikhil Harry is going to be one of them, but at least so far, the group of wide receivers, even down to the depth guys, what Tristan Jackson was doing, even without Jalen Naylor there, Brandon Powell is making catches. Thayer Thomas is making catches. He's a guy that I really want to see in the preseason. And Tuesday night, by the way, and we're going to be going live Monday, Tuesday, and then, of course, after the game.

But Tuesday night is another night practice. We'll also sort of double that as a preseason preview, you know, so we can kind of go through all the things we're looking for in the preseason game. So make sure you join the live stream then. But, yeah, I mean, there is – especially their top three wide receivers, but it's even been the depth this year that's looked much better than last year. From Delton, Irv Smith talking that bleep in camp with the Bengals.

This is the best coaching staff I've been around. Still think we should have taken him over DK Metcalf. I don't know that I ever thought they should have taken him over DK Metcalf. Maybe that was an old take that I had that I don't remember. But I was the biggest banger of the third receiver drum when Stefan Diggs was still here. So DK Metcalf, AJ Brown, both guys taking over Irv Smith. You know, I will say though, that with Irv Smith Jr. and saying that about the Bengals, you could say it's talking that bleep, but the Bengals look where they've been recently.

I know that's because of Joe Burrow. You know, that's because of Joe Burrow. But if they're a team that's been to the Super Bowl and AFC Championship, you can say that. I mean, the Vikings have, you know, a first round out. They have one playoff win in five years. So you could say it. You could say you're joining one of the best coaching staffs in the league. I also think that that's true, that the Bengals really do have a great coaching staff. And Zach Taylor did a tremendous job sort of transitioning that team last year once they had a little bit better offensive line to being a more – or actually I should say that they still had a flawed offensive line

and transitioning to getting the ball out of Burrow's hands quicker and not taking all those sacks. So sort of making up for some of those deficiencies. And then they went into free agency. They got Orlando Brown. So they're a beast. They're a beast football team. And look, if it works out for Irv Smith there,

who can really be mad about that? I mean, he showed a lot of talent during his time, and he just had bad injury after bad injury. I thought Irv was a good teammate and was a good player at times for them, and it just didn't work out. So if it works out in Cincinnati, good for him. Any update on Reisner or Darby? No. We'll see if that happens tomorrow. Maybe when they get back on the practice field end of the weekend,, we'll see if that happens tomorrow. Maybe when they get back on the practice field end of the weekend, you know, maybe we'll just show up there and those guys will be on the field. I don't know. With Reisner, him leaving town, you know, I think sometimes that is a sign

that the guy's not going to sign. I don't know if that's the case with Darby, if it was just a workout. Reisner seemed a little more serious for them. It was weird because Kevin O'Connell, when he was talking about Reisner, it seemed like he was talking about Reisner as if he was already on the team. Like, well, we don't know where he's going to play, but he's not on the team, so I don't know where he's going to play. Oh, but he's not on the team. So I don't know. And yet, like I said, you know, he left town, he hasn't signed, but I haven't seen him and someone can tell me if I'm wrong. I haven't seen Dalton Reisner gets a bunch of other visits from everybody else, which does make you wonder what the heck is with that? Like, is there some reason? I don't know. He had that shoving match with the backup quarterback last year in Denver. Is there some personality reason?

Is there some injury reason? He's been healthy through his career. He just seems like a guy who has had a pretty good start to his career, was a fairly successful draft pick for them, yet they don't want him and nobody else seems to want him? Is it his price that is holding him out? Like, you do have to ask that question. Why is Dalton Reisner not signed yet? It does seem like a good idea to me and everybody else

to bring in competition for those guards, but there is a part in the back of my mind that's like, so what's the deal there? From Swervevin Mervin, great to see you. Regarding positional value in the draft, do you think drafting players at non-premium positions is less of a problem if they end up being great? Did Delvin end up being worth the first, well, Delvin was a second, but yeah. Yeah, no, I don't think so. Um, because the standard for great, it has is so high and so rare, right? Like how many safeties were taken in between Harrison Smith and Louis C like dozens

and dozens of safeties. How many of them became Harrison Smith? And what you can do is you can justify your pick at a non-premium position by saying, well, we think he can be the next Harrison Smith, but how many are there? How many guys have that resume to make that pick worth it? Now, Lewis Seen was a back of the first end pick. So this is always like a floating thing because is it, if you're picked 32nd as a safety, is that a bad idea? Probably not. But like think about Kyle Hamilton. He might be great. I mean, Kyle Hamilton, he was projected as a super high pick. He drops a little if they wanted a safety. Maybe that's the guy they should have picked.

But still, Hamilton has to be amazing to justify that positional value. If you draft a center, even like Quinton Nelson, like was Quinton Nelson a success in Indy? Kind of. I mean, he was a great player for a couple of years, but I mean, I don't know. Like, did they do anything with that? I mean, they had a good running game and that's great, but you're still doing the thing that's not helping you win the most. The same with Jonathan Taylor. He's great. You're not doing the thing that's not helping you win the most. The same with Jonathan Taylor. He's great. You're not doing the thing that's helping you win the most by taking those players. Was Delvin worth the draft pick?

Maybe. I mean, I don't know. Like, they had a lot of needs, but they drafted to fill an immediate need going from 16 to 17, and he was a great player for a couple seasons, but their best season was when he didn't play. I mean, you know, he had the ACL injury and they were able to fill the spot with Jarek McKinnon and Latavius Murray. So, I mean, it's different standards for each position, a game-changing linebacker like Eric Hendricks, a game-changing safety. Yes, that can justify the draft pick for sure. But a running back,

it's really hard to do when you can argue, hey, the times he was out, Madison was good. The times he was out, McKinnon was good. Murray was good. So there's just so many of them that it is hard to justify. It's a great question. And that's why I liked much more what Kweisi Adafo-Mensa did this year with the positional value. That doesn't mean you should only ever draft wide receivers, corners, edge rushers, tackles, and quarterbacks. Like you do need those other positions. But if you draft, say, like a linebacker in the first round, that guy really has to be great because he's not that hard to replace and he's not that expensive to replace in free agency. And that's a major factor to it as well. Safeties, for example, is it hard to

replace a partner for Harrison Smith? No, it is not. Now, I think they were thinking a couple years down the road that Louis seen would be Harrison Smith's ultimate replacement. That could still happen. But in the short term, it was Anderson Dayo. It was Anthony Harris. It's Cam Bynum that you can always kind of find the next guy at safety if you have somebody like that. So, you know, I mean, it's a varying thing. It's kind of a player to player type of situation. But I tend to think that there's a reason why we talk about it this way with the positional value in the draft. From Alexander, from a fantasy perspective, I think Madison is underrated. Do you see him

starting the season as a three down back? I do. Yes, I do. I have not seen, and this can change because remember how good Ty Chandler was last year. I mean, so this could change. I mean, Ty Chandler could play excellently in preseason. They could be very excited about him. Off we go. Right now, it looks like it's Alexander Madison, number one with a bullet, and then other guys will get in occasionally, if at all. I mean, it might just be that he's used the same way Delvin Cook is or was. And when he's done that in the past, he's been good. He's not a guy that I think just has short bursts. I think that he is a guy that is kind of a grinder and is a four-quarter, three-down type of player.

Bob, I'm going to have to probably disagree with this. JJ will be better than Randy Moss when it's all said and done. We have to remember when we evaluate these things by era. So when Randy Moss came in, he was the centerpiece right away of literally the greatest offense ever. I mean, Randy Moss changed the game, saved the franchise, is one of the, not one of the 20 best receivers, is one of the three best receivers, the five best receivers of all time. And as great, I mean, Justin Jefferson is sheer greatness, and he can certainly get his name up in that conversation, but what Randy Moss did is almost an unreachable bar, really.

And it's not something you can just look at statistics, which, of course, Randy Moss' statistics are some of the greatest ever. But Randy Moss was placed onto a good New England Patriots team and made them an undefeated Patriots team. He was on an undefeated regular season team and a 15-1 regular season team as the centerpiece of that offense for both teams. I mean, there's nobody who will impact the game ever like Randy Moss did, I don't think. Because here's the other thing too, that defenses and cornerbacks, when you consider

the gap between how great Randy Moss was and how great the defenses and corners were at the time, it was way bigger than it is now, even as great. And that is not a slight on Justin Jefferson. I think Jefferson would tell you that's the guy he's chasing. And that's a cool thing to have is him to chase Randy Moss. But I think that the bar is so, so high that even if he sets records and things like that, impacting the game like Moss I mean that's like saying you know that Delvin Cook would be like Adrian Peterson that's like greatness but not quite the transcendent top running back ever we'll see I mean we'll see if it changes I think

if he does this same thing year after year after year after year I look at him as like an AJ Green of this era which go back and look at A.J. Green before you go like, oh, I think he's better. Go back and look year after year after year of just sheer greatness. But Randy Moss is one of those. When you start talking about the greatest players in NFL history, his name comes up pretty fast. And that that is just a super high standard. Alexander says, I don't think the Vikings will get the value they hoped in selecting Seen. I do think that he takes over for Smith in a year. Oh, no.

Is that the case? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on. Now, were we having bad audio there, friends? I'm sorry if we were. Let me know if we were we having bad audio there, friends? I'm sorry if we were. Let me know if we were having some bad audio there and if I fixed it. I hope that's not the case. But Jonathan texted me. Jonathan Harrison said that it sounded like it was coming from the camera and not from the microphone.

Oh, I hope that's not the case. That's the worst when that happens. Anyway, so let's get back. Oh, no, it was. Oh, that's the that's the worst i'm sorry guys i hate when that happens jeez i'm sorry about that anyway uh you're right that he is already breaking records it's just not quite the same um let's see from uh ryan i may have missed this over the first few practices but who's leading the punt return drills it's's Rager and Powell are the guys out there. I think it's a clear competition between those two now. Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.

See, I've told you guys that the studio situation is still coming along. I felt like I finally found a good angle for the camera and then forgot to get the, uh, the microphone in there. So, well, I really, I really appreciate you guys. Uh, next time, let me know if it sounds weird. It doesn't sound like this. Definitely. Let me know. So anyway, uh, really, really appreciate that though. You guys let me know. Uh, but anyway, yeah, the part returns thing seems to be between Powell and Rager. And I guess we're going to find out soon, like who is the number one punt returner, because I would expect both of those guys to be playing in the

preseason games. So we'll see who goes back there first. And that will give us an indicator, a little bit of who's leading that race. I could go either way. I mean, I've been leaning toward Brandon Powell because it looks like that he's able to run routes a little bit better and maybe understand the offense a little bit better than Jalen Rager, but it could go either way. I think that they'll probably not really plan to use either one of those guys in the offense,

so the best punt returner of the two could win that job. And also it does have some cap implications to cut Jalen Rager and this could matter. So if they extend TJ Hawkinson and they extend Justin Jefferson and they move some of that money into this year and they can't afford to take a two and a half million dollar hit getting rid of Jalen Rager, he might make the team and just be the punt returner again, and then it's sort of a bad break for Brandon Powell. By the way, reminder, later this month, I am headed out to Las Vegas to go to Circa, the hotel out there in Vegas, which also I am going to be at when the Vikings play

against the Vegas Raiders later on this year. So that's going to be fun. They are hosting the biggest pro football contest in Las Vegas. It's back again for a fifth year, $14 million in guaranteed prizes only at Circa Sports. You have to enter in Vegas. You have to make your way out there at some point, which I know you guys love to do. Play from anywhere, though, with two ways to win and no rake. Play the Million Pro Football Contest with quarterly payouts, 100% payback.

Pick a winner with the Survivor Contest. Select one team each week with no point spread. Get your share of $14 million in guaranteed prizes. CircusSports.com, that is C-I-R-C-A Sports.com for details. I appreciate them as a sponsor on the show. Very cool to have them. And also to be the hope the official hotel of purple insiders travels out there.

When the Vikings play Vegas. Sloss says, you don't think we could find a taker for ragger for a conditional seventh. No, no, I don't. I i mean if he is going from his third team like yeah that would help them salary cap wise but every other team knows look you're probably just gonna have to get rid of them so like they're not gonna give you even anything i mean maybe somebody does him a favor that wants a punt returner. That is a possibility. I should mention that.

I shouldn't completely dismiss that, that it is true that they could get somebody to do that if they were getting rid of him. But it's also realistic that if the punt return battle isn't wildly Brandon Powell, then it's probably going to be a situation where they just keep Rager and don't have to take that cap hit. From Christian, Cook had a Hall of Fame ceiling, was able to prove he could have been for at least one season. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, that's the point about Randy Moss versus anybody really is put the Oakland years aside. I mean, the guy had a long career of year in and year out ungodly play, unstoppable, no matter what other teams tried to do to Randy Moss.

It just did not matter. There's a playoff game in 99 where they beat the Dallas Cowboys and the Cowboys are doing everything to stop Randy Moss the entire game. And yet still Jeff George finds him for a long touchdown at some point and they win that game. I mean, it's just the unstoppable nature of Randy Moss was so far ahead of everybody else at that time that it's a little bit different. Like now with Jefferson, and this is not to downplay it,

he's the best receiver in the league. He's on a hall of fame track, but there are like four guys, five guys who get lumped all in that conversation where if their fan base were to say, we've got the best receiver in the league, that most people would agree with that. And that was not the case with Moss. It was like him and Owens, but I think Moss was decidedly better. So, you know, it's just it's an interesting discussion of what Justin Jefferson, his long term career, like what his legacy can be. And it's very rare that you start to talk about that this early in somebody's career. Anthony says so far in camp, is there a position group that you are concerned about? Well, the corners are the conversation when it

comes to like concerns right off the bat, because even though I think that I've liked the way that Brian Flores is dealing with his cornerbacks, the fact that, you know, Brian Flores is sending a lot of blitzes and he's having these guys play to their strength, man-to-man coverage. With two starters right now who have virtually zero experience in Mekhi Blackman and Caleb Evans, every time they get beat, other than by Justin Jefferson, you still go like, oh, is that going to work? Is that going to work? And sometimes it's hard to say just based on training camp practices. And both of them look like they can move they could cover one-on-one still you're talking about guys with no experience

and that could be problematic as they face some good wide receivers throughout the year so that's like the biggest starter right there is we got to discuss the corners when you're talking about concerns defensive line overall you get daniel hunter back but you know james lynch is out for the year that's not a huge thing but all of a sudden the depth you start to go like okay well you know if marcus davenport doesn't work out who's the next man up all right that's dj wanham patrick jones luigi valaine like all right that's not great and And Harrison Phillips is a veteran. We know what he is. Dean Lowry, it's hard to say what he's looked like in camp

so far. He's a veteran. He should look fine. And then Kyrus Tonga, who's been a nice surprise, but that is not an imposing, terrifying defensive line. And what I think you're looking for, and we'll see if this happens, is for some guys to show up. Like, I've liked what I've seen from Jaqueline Roy. Haven't seen much from Asasia Tomowo yet. Again, preseason games might be a chance for him because he's working with the third team. So, you know, those things kind of matter. That we haven't seen anybody really getting up into that second team that is young and that we didn't

expect so defensive line is uh you know an issue there and uh digits and then a bunch of numbers love that name says i'm concerned with the o-line and d-line interiors uh big time is that fair of course that's fair yeah when they bring in reisner if you don't say to yourself oh do they not love what they're seeing and even if it's for Chris Reed even if they're concerned that Chris Reed's not going to be ready to start the season and that's the only way that they are the only reason that they decided to do that still you have to say it wait are they not seeing what they wanted to see from progression out of those two guards, particularly a right guard is what comes to mind for me first, because the offseason between year one and year two is normally enormous.

And so I think that if you're talking about the offensive line in the interior, that's what they need in order to be a good offensive line, is those guys to take a step forward. So when you're bringing in somebody who's a veteran that nobody signed already, it's not quite a Jake Long situation from a few years back, but it does make you raise an eyebrow like, oh, are they seeing what they wanted to see? And just in general, this was one of the worst, even with Garrett Bradbury being better interior offensive lines in the entire league last year, in terms of pressures sacks, if not the dead worst

last year, uh, that needs to improve. I don't know how to tell yet if it has just based on practice, Kirk cousins has been getting a lot of pressure. They've also been sending a lot of blitzes. That's not easy for them to pick up. So that's, it's something to continue to watch, but if they don't sign Reisner, it doesn't look like they're adding anybody. It doesn't look like they're adding anybody on the D line anytime soon.

I thought that they might, I thought they might go get Justin Houston. They decided not to do that. And Carolina got Justin Houston. Let's see here. Alexander says, which corner looks the stickiest in man coverage? Last year's corners cannot stay connected through the stem of the route. I think getting very football-y there, Alexander.

I think last year's corners biggest issue was they didn't understand where they were supposed to be a lot of times. And that was maybe problematic from a ed donatel standpoint there was a lot of i mean think of the jameson williams touchdown against detroit the quez watkins touchdown philadelphia it seemed to me like it takes a lot of iq to play in one of those fangio systems as a corner because there's lots of reading routes, passing people off, and of course not a lot of aggression. Maybe someone like Chandon Sullivan would have been better at being aggressive, like right up on the line of scrimmage,

just did not work out at all from them last year for anybody. But, I mean, Caleb Evans is number one for a reason. And I think that reason is because he is really good at the man coverage, tracking wide receivers. He's going to have to play the ball a little better, I think, but he is got footwork. He's got rare size, athleticism, length from a cornerback. I mean, you just don't see it that often. And he's been, I think, the best so far. But we also saw Juwan Williams out there for a while. We also saw Makai Blackman out there for a while. And we'll see where Blackman goes.

Looks like he's going to stay with the first team. But Brian Flores even indicated that they might move some people in and out. Andrew Booth Jr. does sound like he's going to return to practice, and we'll have to see where it goes from there, if he can stay on the field for multiple weeks. I mean, I don't know how many times, even two weeks in a row, Andrew Booth Jr. has been on the field during training camp over the last two years, but he's still on the team,

and we'll see if anybody else develops there. But I would say just they seem the happiest with the Caleb Evans so far. Thor asks, why aren't Derrissaw and O'Neal making the guards play better? I just don't know that it works that way. I mean, I'd have to ask an offensive line expert if they think that, and they might think that, but I haven't really seen that from the PFF grades and stuff, you know, looking at over the years, they have often had good tackle play and it just doesn't seem to translate

because what you end up seeing is just so many teams start to attack the middle. You know, they run those stunts, those twists, blitzes at the middle, and they will leave their defensive ends one-on-one with O'Neal and Derrissaw, and they're out on an island that's not easy to handle, but all the other pressure is coming up the middle at those guys who are considered the weaknesses, and then they know that they're going to melt when they pressure them like that. There's really nothing that Brian O'Neal can do to help his guard. There's nothing that Derrissaw can do other than the fact that they can be on islands, which does help. It definitely does help that,

you know, you could put Derrissaw out there and you don't need to help him with the best players. You don't need to give him an extra tight end or something, but there's really nothing you can do on the interior. You can't put in a tight end and have them help to pass block running backs a little bit up the middle. But a lot of times you want those guys going out on routes and stuff. And a lot of times they're picking up blitzes. So you're really on your own if you can't handle it. And if they're rushing two defensive tackles, you could double team one, but you can't double team both. And, you know ultimately, someone's going to get one-on-one and has to beat their man. From Joe, with a new receiver, decent offensive line play,

and a new aggressive defense, does any of it matter? You know, fourth and eight check down when it matters. It's always a question with this team during the Kirk Cousins era of, can you put together enough to make it matter? And they've had good defenses at times, 2018, 2019. They've had unbelievable receivers. They've had good coordinators for the most part, offensive coordinators. And that's great. And it's always been just sort of a day late, dollar short.

It's just hard to do. With him as a quarterback being limited in his mobility and his arm strength, not when he can set and throw, but on the move. When he has to escape or make a play out of structure like you see so often from so many good quarterbacks, that type of thing, it does limit you, I think, for your ceiling. Now, what I would say is where it matters is they can win the division. They can

be a very good team. You always have a chance if you're in the playoff, some chance, but where it matters is the future as well. If you have Brian Flores as your defensive coordinator long-term, which I think it's very possible that he is here for multiple years, if he doesn't get a head coaching job, I don't know if he will. The NFL is pretty good at blackballing people when they don't like them. And so if that ends up being the case that Flores is here for a while and they've been developing these young players. They will have to go get edge rushers, interior rushers at some point, but the young secondary is really key. Like Flores can make up some of the pressure, but you can't make up. Can somebody cover somebody? Right.

And so you've got a really good setup for the future. If you do bring a different quarterback who is a, is cheaper and is a better athlete, and it gives you a chance to set that player up for the future. That's kind of how I look at it. Like, does it matter? Of course it matters. I mean, this could be still a very good season for them. I think you do have a ceiling when you have cousins as your quarterback, but also if we're at the end of this year and saying, look, the secondary played much better than we thought, and Jordan Addison's a star, and Hawkinson is going to stay,

and the offensive line developed, and here we go. Now you are a team on the rise all of a sudden, after being kind of a middling team, and even if you win 10 games, all those things probably have to happen, and you're going to be on the upswing when you do decide to change quarterbacks. Let's see. Also from Joe, is Delvin Cook waiting because no one wants him at his price? That's absolutely it. Yeah. A hundred percent. I think Delvin Cook is waiting and hoping that someone gets hurt and has to bend to his price.

But the league, how it works inside front offices is these guys put a price on a player. Not do you like him? Do you not like him? But it's how much would you pay for him when they're a free agent? And if the answer for how much would you pay for him is not that much and he wants way more than every team's going to say, I just can't do it. I mean, everything is sort of an auction of sorts, right? It's like, how, at what price do you raise your thing and say, I, I would, you know, I'll pay this much for Delvin cook. And the league is at this moment saying, nah, I'm not raising my hand to pay that much for a running back that seems like he's not the same guy that he was before and probably wants too much guaranteed money. So I think he's going to be waiting maybe

a little bit of a while and eventually have to just take a job or not. I mean, he could just say, I'm going to sit out and somebody can sign me mid-season, but there's no chance he's getting the money that he thought he was going to get. Let's see. Crazy scenario for you. Jordan Addison is a star receiver at the end of the season. Do the Vikings consider trading Justin Jefferson for picks and giving Kirk a long-term deal? No.

No, they don't. Nope. Never. Not in a thousand years. Zero percent chance. No. If Justin Jefferson is, or if jordan addison is great they will still try to sign justin jefferson to the biggest contract ever given out to a wide receiver and

they will be extremely happy and they will also probably be pretty confident that they could bring in another quarterback and throw to those two guys for the rest of his life and have a wonderful time and they'll all be happy. The value of having multiple wide receivers who are great cannot be overstated in NFL history. Not just from today, but NFL history. Go back to 1991 Washington. Look at their offense. Three great wide receivers.

Dominated. Had one of the best seasons in NFL history with Mark Rippon as their quarterback. The Vikings, Randall Cunningham comes out of retirement, have one of the best seasons ever with three deep. This is something that's been going on forever. You can't guard everybody, but you can guard one guy. And I think that the Packers made a huge mistake putting so much on Devontae Adams and not ever going out and getting that other person. Also think about it from this way as well. If Justin Jefferson is super, super expensive, but Jordan Addison is on his rookie deal for three more years, that means that you are getting very expensive performance very inexpensively from Jordan

Addison and it balances it out so between your two superstar receivers you'd be paying like 15 mil a year average between them if you know and that's kind of the advantage that you can get by drafting a great wide receiver whereas think about this when they were paying Thielen and Diggs they're paying like 30 million between the two combined uh but you know when you get a player like justin jefferson and and i know that this is it gets discussed every so often because of the contract you just do not let him go ever justin jefferson is in a an echelon of don't let him go ever like aaron donald if the rams got rid of aaron donald for draft picks you'd be like you're insane you're lunatics and you'd be right so they didn't and they kept them and they won the super bowl like that's that's how you do it uh you just don't

ever move on from those players you keep them for life if they'll stay. From Anthony, I agree on the O-line and D-line being a concern. If your pass rush is good, you can manage with average corners. I don't know that I fully agree. I mean, average corners, yes. Actually, I agree with average corners. And I think San Francisco has shown this where they have these beast defensive linemen and Philadelphia as well. And they'll kind of piece together their corners with some veterans. Average corners is the key. Bad corners, no. If you have bad corners, you are in a bad place.

In my mind, there's like nothing that helps you if you have bad corners. If you have bad corners, the teams are just going to take advantage of you. Even if you can pressure them, there's literally nothing you can do. Christian Tonga, 338 pounds, excluding Kelvin Avery. Phillips is the next biggest DT at 307. I feel like we need another big body for goal line stands and third and shorts. Yeah, I think they view Jonathan Bullard as that guy. He does get first team reps. for goal line stands and third and shorts. Yeah, I think they view Jonathan Bullard as that guy.

He does get first team reps. They clearly liked him enough to bring him back. But I mean, I agree that they kind of have one guy that holds down that nose tackle position and nobody else. And it's a very flimsy spot. Calvin Avery doesn't look to me like someone who's ready to play. He's not really getting, I think he's just all 13 reps at this point. So it doesn't look like a guy who is going to press for a spot there. So it is pretty much on Kairos Tonga to be the run stuffer in the middle. And if I still look at this D line and go, I'm not sure they're going to be great against the run

anyway. Like Tonga is played well in training camp, but overall, and Phillips does have a good career overall. Sometimes these hyper-aggressive defenses, the ones that put their DNs way out outside the tackles. And then you have, you know, Jordan Hicks, who's good, but you know, inexperienced linebacker and inexperienced corners tackling. So if it gets past the first level, um, it could be a little bit of an issue. Um, from Alexander, I would be excited if Delvin signs with Miami, if he signs with the jets, it just hurts Brees hall and cook ceiling is also limited. Yeah. I mean, um, I, those teams seem like they're just kind of going to wait him out. Like neither one of them really needs Delvin seem like they're just kind of going to wait him out.

Like neither one of them really needs Delvin Cook, and they're just going to kind of wait. That's how it looks, and they should. They shouldn't pay him like $10 million or whatever he wants. From Josh, I tend to agree. That's why I called it a crazy scenario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that, but Kirk has actually been getting better.

He will be hard to replace. See, that's a funny concept to me because Cousins last year had one of his worst statistical years, but he won at the end of games. So we called him better. But had they only won half of their one score games last year or half of the fourth quarter comebacks, we'd be saying he was exactly the same, if not worse. It's funny how that shifts our perspective with the fact that they won games. But last year, by every metric, by PFF grade, QBR, yards per attempt, EPA, like all the things that we use. And also, is he getting better? Is he getting better like after age 35? Probably not, right? Unless he's Rich Gannon, age 35 like probably not right unless he's rich gannon the answer is probably not so i i look at it and hard to replace is also a funny concept too like

is one playoff win in five years hard to replace so i mean yes like to draft one of the top 12 quarterbacks it is not always that easy and there are busts. And when someone busts, it's horrible. But if you look at it only through the lens of team success, is it hard to be over five years as mediocre as they have been for the most part? And then last year, it kind of, you know, a lot of things broke their way, but still ended up being the same team at the end of the day. I don't think that being a middling team is hard to replace. And if you look at their Vegas over unders at the start of seasons, I had a listener send this to me where it was a chart of all the teams over unders at the start of every season. And in the last 10 years, the Vikings have only

been projected to win more than 10 games by Vegas Gamblers once. And for a team like Kansas City, it's going to be every year. For a team like Cincinnati, every year. For a team like Green Bay with Rodgers, it was every year. So that's the team you're trying to be, not the team that just says, well, you know, it's hard to get a top 15 quarterback. That is very true. There are very few people in society that can actually play

quarterback. And you saw that from the Netflix documentary. But the overall team situation is something that they're trying to aim to be better than they were. From Digits, 12 personnel helps the run, right? But how about pass protection? It seems like JJ and Addison with Oliver and Hawkinson in there, or also could be Osborne. Things might get exciting. I like it a lot. I've always been a big advocate of the big personnel. I was always a big fan. I'm sure you guys know of Gary Kubiak's offensive scheme and with Stefanski here as well. Play actions off of the bootlegs. I mean, those just, they just work. And I think having two tight ends in there really frustrates the heck out of opposing defenses because they don't have a bunch of linebackers to run out there. They don't have big guys who can match up

very well at all with someone like Josh Oliver, who's a great blocker. So I do think that it helps in multiple ways. I liked that signing. I know there was a lot of, why did they give this man so much money? But his cap hits are not bad at all for the first two years. And what I've seen so far is somebody that can catch the ball and has dexterity and has coordination. So I think he could be, I mean, I don't want to say a huge part of the offense, but a part of the offense that they use as a nice little change-up,

a little switch where it's like, okay, we've been running 11 personnel, and now for this entire drive, we're going to run 12. And this is something that Stefanski used to do, and it was pretty good, where they would kind of just go to this big personnel all of a sudden and pound the other team into the ground. That's like a nice tool to have in your bag that they truly did not have at all really last year. And I mean, last year you think about what was the reason they had to make eight fourth quarter comebacks last year? Cause they couldn't put teams away. They kept keeping teams in the game.

And this year I think they really want to be able to put teams away with, with the run. It's hard to build your team with these short-term fully guaranteed deals at quarterback. It is. I don't think having one super expensive wide receiver is going to be all that difficult to work around. You know, Darisaw is going to sign a big contract as well,

but teams who win games pay people like it. I know that we get like super money ball and we just don't want to pay anyone. And we want to trade everybody for draft picks, but you could draft a hundred receivers in a row and never get another Justin Jefferson. Like that's a guy who can help you win an actual super bowl. So that's not somebody I would ever trade in a million years.

And I would be happy to pay him because the salary cap is actually quite big. Like there's a lot of money to spend there. It's just that when you spend so much of it on Kirk cousins over the years, that's where there's some of the other limitations. So you do have to balance it out with a rookie quarterback contract, at least, but they had other rookies who had recently hit. So there's not always just a, this route is the only way that ever works from Josh. What do you see as the highest realistic rank of our scoring defense? I think probably 16th. Could they be league average overall?

One thing I looked back at and found to be interesting was in 2020, Brian Flores' defense was number one on third downs, and that's awesome. And I think it's part because of scheme, and I'm doing an article about one of his schemes that's really creative and frustrating for offenses. And I think that's where you see the coordinator. And it was this way for Zimmer, even when they had bad defenses, they would still be good on third downs a lot because the coordinator can make a big difference.

So if they can improve on some of those key downs and key situations and just get off the field, sometimes that can make a big difference. But, you know, it's got a ceiling of 16. There are a few injuries away of there's nothing brian flores can do about this thing and then you know could be 30th because of the personnel that they have if you have just a couple of injuries a couple corners go down or something and then you're just playing who knows who that's what happened in 2020 they lost a bunch of corners and you're playing who knows who and uh it was not a good situation and so that that's what happened in 2020. They lost a bunch of corners and you're playing who knows who, and, uh, it was not a good situation. And so that that's health is going to determine this a lot because they truly don't have a whole lot of depth on this team. Uh, Anthony need quasi to

find draft capital for next year's draft to move up for a quarterback. Well, you know, in the past, and then let's just say that, you know, it's not Drake May and it's not Caleb Williams, but let's just assume that some other guys do rise up and are considered first-round draft picks, like an Anthony Richardson this year. So I don't know who it is, Bo Nix or Michael Penix or Spencer Rattler. These are some guys that are bandied about, but let's just assume that there's a guy that they like. I think you can go from whatever they are 20th. I was just trying to think of like, where do I expect them to draft 20th to 10th and spend two first round draft picks and get your quarterback. And they might be having a fairly young team at the moment in a position to do something like that. And even though it is giving away some of the future, you've still been building for the future for several years, and you're still going to get

a massive cap advantage by trading up and getting that quarterback. They can do it. Now, I still think that maybe there are some moves that they could make to try to boost that capital, and trading Daniil Hunter was one of them. In fact, if they were going to really focus on next year, trading Daniil Hunter would have actually quite helped a lot. Sarah says, the 2022 draft class was terrible. Well, the 2022 draft class was really good. It's just that they all went in the top four. We, we could afford to move up without giving too much. Oh, do you mean wasn't terrible? Maybe that's what you mean is that it's too bad they weren't. And then they could have, you know, moved up a little, they had no draft capital to work with.

That's the thing. And that's where it's really unfortunate because um you know could we we kind of have this other conversation that we could talk about that's more of an off-season type of discussion but you know i guess we're not quite there yet of just like this alternate universe where they were the panthers instead of they were the vikings last year like if they were the panthers and they played Sam Darnall, the quarterback instead of Kirk or something, and they drafted ninth and they traded up to first, like how would we feel right now?

But, you know, we thought that about Jamison Williams last year, like they didn't draft them and then they get Jordan Addison this year. So Purple Haze says we're making the playoffs where we will have to keep Kirk one more time. I don't know if Kirk wants to stay one more time, right? If he makes the playoffs and they didn't sign him to that deal and he's a free agent, does he say, hey, that's on you guys. I'm going to go play for somebody else. I mean, it's kind of like Derek Carr at the end of last year.

I was kind of like, well, if you guys are done with me. Oh, you mean the oh, the OK,, you mean, oh, okay, 2022. Yeah, I'm sorry, Sarah. That's my mistake. I read that as 2023, 2022. Great point. Great point. That would have been the year, right?

That's a great point. You're right. I totally read your note wrong, but you're completely right. If they were able to draft a quarterback that year, although Kenny Pickett was a first round pick, but I don't know if they liked the ceiling of Kenny Pickett, but if that they were ever going to be in a position, it just happened to be in the year where there were no quarterbacks. And I truly think that if there had been,

they would have picked one if there had been that quarterback who was there. So anyway, well, we've been doing this quite a bit into the night here. Sorry about the audio issue earlier in the night. That is my bad. I forgot to change the settings over. Sorry about that, but glad we got that fixed and rolled on with the show. So thanks so much, everybody. Tomorrow, though, we will be back and have a practice to talk about and maybe some new news.

I mean, you guys brought up that TJ Hawkinson thing. We'll see if Nikhil Harry gets back on or gets on the field for the first time after they just signed them and so forth. So, you know, we'll, we'll kind of see how that goes,

but we'll have some updates to give. We'll see if Andre Carter, the second is actually practicing and all sorts of stuff and whatever topics may emerge as they so often do. So thanks, everybody, for listening as always. And we will talk to you again tomorrow night. Thanks, everybody.