Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings trade for Jalen Reagor and the 2021 draft class purge continues

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Matthew Coller talks about the Vikings trading for receiver Jalen Reagor. What are the realistic expectations of where he fits in? Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell are making the roster their own with the last few days, including cutting Armon Watts and acquiring Ross Blacklock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, the extra special, the Vikings traded for Jalen Rager episode of Purple Insider. Isn't everybody excited? Well, you should be, I guess, because the trades are exciting. But this one is, I have to say, a little bit on the unexpected side that Jalen Rager, who was drafted ahead of Justin Jefferson, would end up becoming a Minnesota Viking. But it does make sense on a couple of levels, and let's go through those. And also, Amir Smith-Marset, no longer a Viking.

Armand Watts, now a Bear. Kellen Mond and Sean Mannion got other jobs. So we'll just get into all these things at once. But starting with Jalen Rager, his last two seasons, he has a total of 64 catches for 695 yards, 10.9 yards per catch, three touchdowns. So there's his basic stat line. All right. When you go into the analytics numbers for PFF, what you are going to find is that they are not all that exciting, that they are not going to change your life. You're not going to say, oh my gosh, the Minnesota Vikings for a conditional fourth, they could become a fifth, just robbed Philly blind and got the next great wide receiver that you're not going to say that. However, is it worth getting somebody who has played the football before in actual games

and made real catches for real yards and showed they can kind of do stuff. The answer is yes, considering where they're at. So that's what they felt they had in BC Johnson. That if you look at BC Johnson's analytic numbers, his PFF grades, which Rager's, you know, were not great, but neither were BC Johnson's. If you looked at the yards per reception, yards per route run, all those things about BC Johnson, none of it said this guy's going to be the next Randy Moss, but what they knew they had in BC Johnson is somebody that

they could trust who had been in games before, who had made plays before and who Kirk Cousins could get on the same page with and knew the offense and those things at the number four receiver, unless you are talking about the greatest receiving core of all time, the number four wide receiver is usually somebody who catches like 30 passes. That's been Jalen Rager. He has not been much of a downfield threat. His yards per catch is pretty low. I'm trying to take a look if there's been too many explosive catches, probably not. Quarterbacks for Philadelphia don't have a particularly high quarterback rating when throwing to him. He's only caught six of 22 contested catches. These things are not great. This is not the next great superstar but they do know that Jalen Rager can play in NFL

games and to trade away a late round draft pick that more likely than not I mean I don't know the terms of the conditions for it to be a fourth but I would guess he has to be pretty good statistically for it to be a fourth so more likely than not it's going to be a fifth. If that ends up being the case and it's insurance for a number three wide receiver, should KJ Osborne or Adam Thielen or Justin Jefferson get hurt? If that's what this is, which it appears that it is, that's fine. Like look around the league, look at the players who were cut, Tyler Johnson, like had some drop issues, so forth. You know, other guys that are being let go at this time, you're not finding too many diamonds in the rough. So they've got somebody that might have, and I'm not going to sell too hard on this because

teams don't let go first round picks that have major upside, but might have a little more in the tank than he's shown so far. And one of the things about Rager is that he has an incredible vertical jump. He's got good speed, a 4-4-7, like he's explosive athlete. Like at least there's something there athletically that could suggest that maybe someday, and I'm couching this in every way possible, he could improve a bit. He's almost 24 years old. So how much improvement is going to be there? I don't know. But if he is just reasonable depth and improvement depth wise from Amir Smith Mar set, then it's a plus move and they didn't give up much.

That's the many ways that I can say it's not that exciting, but you have somebody who might be able to do something if they're called upon, which I can't say that I had the same confidence for anybody else in the receiver room. So the Vikings cut Amir Smith-Met, and I get a couple of notes are like, what are they doing? Why? And I'm a little surprised by it. Uh, I actually thought that they would cut Jalen Naylor and then try to, you know, get him on the practice squad because he was a sixth rounder got hurt in the last game. Um, you know, it didn't really flash anything in preseason. So I didn't think that they would be afraid of him, you know, being picked up by somebody else. Maybe there were other teams that liked the Jalen Naylor coming out. I don't know. But with Smith-Marset, he was

never wide receiver four. That was always BC Johnson because of the difference in their ability to grasp the details of playing wide receiver. That when you asked anybody about BC Johnson, they would say, look, this guy is just very smart and works real hard and knows the offense and those things. But with Smith-Mars said it was, hey, he's, he's physically gifted. You know, he's physically gifted and that is true i saw him in practice make an incredible catch on a throw from sean manion one day he made a very nice catch in the preseason game the third preseason game on a throw from manion that was a little high but he also fumbled a punt he had another one that was kind of adventurous he you know just

had things kind of go wrong too often, bobbled the throat over the middle. And there were times in practice where, you know, Kirk Cousins would kind of look at him or a coach would look at him and kind of go, what happened there? Why weren't you lined up in the right spot? Or why weren't you running the right route? That's how it appeared from the sideline. And with them moving on from Smith-Marset, I think when you have the same sort of issues two years in a row, that a lot of times teams will stick with you, but not a new regime, right? So last year, this was Smith-Marset's problem. And then he has that problem again.

And as always, Week 18 meaningless games. Don't judge a thing from them because Smith-Marset had some big catches in week 18, just as Alexander Hollins did before. I don't think that it's much to stress over. And he's got some potential, but he was also a fifth rounder for a reason. It's kind of like the same way we talk about almost all of the guys from the 2021 class. Like Kellen Mond. It's not that shocking that a third round draft pick quarterback didn't succeed because they mostly don't.

Like the Wyatt Davis one is pretty surprising that someone who was a third rounder didn't even get a second team rep basically for his entire time in Minnesota. Now that is unusual, but the other guys, you know, you would have been getting some exaggeration on that. Like, I don't think that that's, that that was ever really the case. It was more of, can he master the small things enough to be a depth receiver for the guys who are actually very good. Uh, and the answer was no, according to the Vikings. And they went out and got Jalen Rager. Now, uh, Armand Watts going to Chicago, you know what that means? Strip sack in the biggest moment of the season. There's no question about it. Uh,

at soldier field naturally, of course. I mean, you know, it is playing with fire a little bit, uh, to cut someone who had, you know, some good games. I don't think that Armond Watts was going to be the guy who changes their entire outcome of the 2022 season. There's no reason to lose your minds over that. But what's a little strange to me, just a little, is you could still acquire Ross Blacklock and keep Armand Watts. So I'm not sure I understand why there was the need to just completely let him go. I mean, maybe there was a conflict or there was schematic things when it came to how he plays versus how Ed Donatel wants him to play. You never know those types of things that go on behind the scenes.

He was not a run stuffer. There's no question about that. So maybe they felt like he's very one-dimensional and we want to try to get somebody else. But that's Russ Blacklock too. Very one-dimensional player. I'm not really sure. And it's not going to be until tomorrow. I'll have the breakdown, of course, on the show. But it's not going to be until tomorrow that we hear from K breakdown, of course, on the show, but it's not going to be until tomorrow

that we hear from Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell. So maybe, and I do mean maybe, we'll get some answers then to why they felt like they needed to move on from Smith-Marset and move on from Armand Watts. Kellen Mann, you know, I mean, this is how it goes, right? I saw like Nate Sudfeld was picked up by somebody like, yeah, that sounds about right. Like quarterbacks who are guys that have some physical skill, strong arm, you know, fast, who end up, you know, not making it with their team. They end up bouncing around because other teams say, you know, why don't we take a little look at that guy? And then they see most of the same things and

then somebody else and then somebody else. And then eventually, you know, that's kind of it. So, uh, we'll see, uh, with Kellen Mond, if he ever pops up as somebody's backup in a couple of years or whatever else. But, you know, I think that this whole last couple of days was basically that meme or the the scene from uh the tom hanks movie is like i'm the captain now sort of like kevin o'connell i'm the captain now this coaching staff this front office like all right this is our roster now all those guys that were drafted in 2021 that we don't see potential. We're not going to wait around and try to justify those draft picks that were by Rick Spielman. We're going to try to get the best players on board.

And you know, the, the whole thing about like you're trying to win this year and they could say competitive rebuild all they want, but realistically there has been no rebuild part of it. There's really no rebuild part of these things. Maybe Ross Blacklock has, you know, he's under contract and the same with Rager. Like maybe there's some upside or they feel like there's some upside to these guys who

are under contract for another year, whereas Armand Watts wasn't. But it's really to be more competitive so far as I can tell. It's not to sit around and see if your recent draft picks are going to develop. It's going out and getting a guy who had 30 catches the last two years, each of the last two years, 30 something catches and plugging them into a receiver room that needs depth. And that's like to help you win right now, upgrading your situational pass rusher is to help win right now. And they should be judged that way. Um, giving away draft picks for Jalen Rager, like that's more of a win now type of move. Right. Uh, so

you know, if the expectation is returned to the playoffs and be very, very competitive, then like they made moves more toward that. And they took essentially command of all other parts of the roster that were not Kirk, Thielen, Harrison Smith, Daniil Hunter, like the key parts from the previous regime. So they didn't do a full rebuild, but they certainly shuffled around a lot of different pieces around those key players. And that's sort of the takeaway for me is how much of this roster is now different from just a year ago. 22 players I counted up are different from last year or guys that were not on the team last year that are now on the team here. I think, yeah, Jalen Rager, I think makes number 22. There might be maybe one more that I'm missing, but yeah, it's, it's kind of interesting that

they have taken all the other pieces all the way down to the punter and said, this is our ship now. And whether that works, I guess we'll find out. They, they really don't want to find out too much about Jalen Rager because they want to be playing the three guys that they have as starters. But the BZ Johnson thing, it really kind of put a little, I don't know, what do you call it? Like a stick in the spokes of their bicycle. The other interesting thing, and this goes like too deep in the weeds, but they announced the practice squad today,

and it's mostly all the guys you expect to be in the practice squad. But one guy that noticeably wasn't, and sometimes you wonder if there's even, if it's, if it's, they don't see upside or they just got like super frustrated. So Tristan Jackson is on, on the practice squad. He was a guy that we talked about a lot throughout, you know, throughout training camp as someone who was sort of standing out but probably wouldn't be a difference maker but might have some potential so tristan jackson makes it nick muse their seventh round pick of course perry nickerson is their backup nickel uh they needed one of those miles dorn is still here jaylen twyman no surprise

twyman's a guy that might have some upside. Janarius Robinson, same thing. Like the physical upside, they bring him back just in case. But as I'm reading these names, are you noticing that Zach Davidson did not make it? So Zach Davidson had this opportunity in front of him to potentially like show that he was this big freak athlete who could be the next developmental tight end. And he just did not take advantage of that opportunity. So that was one of those, Hey, remember that time we talked about Zach Davidson, that's your update for what the practice squad looks like. And I'm not spending

any more time on the practice squad. Uh, but that's kind of the general outline of it. So, uh, that is it for your news update. This is not really an emergency podcast. I don't think that Jalen Rager quite qualifies as emergency podcast level. Now, interestingly, and again, these things could change by tomorrow. We didn't see Cam Dantzler or Alexander Madison at practice. And I raised an eyebrow a little bit. Like, are they holding these guys out of practice because there's offers and discussions? I don't know. I don't know that.

And again, when Kevin O'Connell didn't talk today, I can't give you answers on, oh, it was this or that. That will be tomorrow when we have our daily conversation. So until then, why don't we answer some fan questions? Because that's what we do here. So let me pull up the fans only file and we can dive into some of these questions. All right, let's begin with CJ. He asked this on Twitter. I saw it on Twitter and then I lost the tweet, but I remembered it. So this comes from CJ about, he asked about whether the, the mass cutting of the 2021 draft class justifies Mike Zimmer and his evaluations and how he acted toward a lot of the players in the 2021 draft class. And what I would say is that if you

questioned Mike Zimmer and this goes for most of the league, most coaches, when they get that big of a sample size day after day, after day of practice of watching somebody, I mean, you, you guys know this, like anybody who has ever coached a little league by the end of even just the first couple of practices, you've got a pretty good idea of like, like little Billy needs to be the shortstop. Cause he's better than other people. Like you can see these things and you have a whole squad of coaches and every once in a while, someone slips through the cracks for sure, but they're all doing their jobs, evaluating these players. And you can tell if somebody doesn't really have it. I mean, I remember reading a story about a draft pick, a first round draft pick. They were all excited on

draft night. And then the guy got there and it was like two practices into mini camp. The head coach basically said, Oh bleep. Like we just drafted somebody who couldn't play. I mean, it happens. College football is so much different than the NFL that you're just evaluating a lot of different things, but there were Mike Zimmer never hated young players. He played a lot of young players throughout the time when he was there. He didn't start Jefferson because Jefferson got behind in a very, very short training camp with no preseason games and Jefferson had COVID to start the 2020 training camp. So he had this really, really short amount of time to get ready to be a starter. But as soon as it was time to play him, he played him. Pat Elfline started

as a rookie. Garrett Bradbury started as a rookie. Like there's, I mean, Jeff Gladney, Cam Dantzler, like these guys got a ton of playing time as rookies. We have to just, it's always to me about like, let's try to remember it the right way and not in a way that makes the new coach look better. Right. So now the new coaching staff, no surprise, saw the same things. Yeah. These guys, they all know football. Like Kevin O'Connell doesn't know football in a massively different way than Mike Zimmer does when it comes to looking at Wyatt Davis or the new offensive line coach is looking at the same things as the last offensive line coach was.

I'm sure some coaches, I know, some coaches are better than others. But if somebody really can't cut it at this level, almost every single coach is going to know that. And the only reason that they hang on to guys usually is just out of sheer hope. Maybe there's something there. Maybe he develops himself in the off season. So it's, it's not even remotely shocking that these players who Mike Zimmer didn't want to play, uh, weren't being played by the next coaching staff. Zimmer was trying to save his job. He wasn't going to be like, I don't know, man, you're young. I hate you. If you could play, you could play. I mean, uh, so no, I, yeah,

I guess it does only, I mean, in some people's eyes, but I also think this is why you guys listen to the show. I hope is for stuff like this. Like, this is what we've been talking about this whole times. Like it wasn't, it wasn't the evaluations. It was the culture. It was not fitting with the players anymore. And really it was the W's and L's. There were just too many L's and they piled up and the tension piled up and the frustration piled up all that stuff. And at some point Zimmer's bluntness became embarrassing when he was going out there and slamming Kellen Mond for no reason in green Bay. Like that's, that's why Mike Zimmer wasn't the coach, not because he, he despised young players or couldn't figure out which guys to play. Um, so in a way, yeah, I guess you could

say it justifies him, but only if you were trying super hard to believe that Zimmer had some beef that was going to be like corrected by Kevin O'Connell being a nicer guy. Um, so yeah, for me, it, it didn't change anything. I thought, because all along I thought, well, Wyatt Davis probably isn't all that good. If Mike Zimmer isn't playing him, um, because they could always use a right guard. I mean, they, they drafted the guy in the third round. They wanted him to be good. He just wasn't. And not even on the practice squad. My gosh.

I mean, they just wanted nothing to do with Wyatt Davis. On to the next question. This comes from Mike via the email. Two questions for the pod. How many more seasons do you think C think cousins can be a top 15 quarterback? I've heard you comment a few times about non hall of famers falling off in their upper thirties related to that. How much longer do you think Rogers plays and be in my line of work?

And I suspect most people's professions. There are some tells when people don't know as much as they think they do. Is there anything that instantly makes you say, Oh, this guy's ego is bigger than his expertise? That would be a whole podcast in itself. Well, let me answer the first question first. How much longer do I think the Cousins can be a top 15 quarterback? I think is a really difficult thing to pin down because when you look at quarterbacks in their older age, and it is true,

I looked closely at this for an article earlier this off season, that it was only really the elite of the elite that hung around and found a way to still be great into their later thirties. I mean, even like compare, think about, think about someone like Eli Manning and his physical ability is the number one overall pick. He was rarely injured. He was gigantic, six foot five, 220 pounds. By age 34, he's six and 10 and he's starting to fall off. By age 35, he made the playoffs, but played very poorly. Was not the same player at all. 86 quarterback rating. His QBR was below average that year. You know, so age 34 was really Eli Manning's last season as a very good quarterback

in the NFL. But, you know, there are other guys like Phillip Rivers who, well, do we put Phillip Rivers in the category of being all time great though? I guess maybe. But, you know, Phillip Rivers even kind of had a fall off, but it wasn't until a little bit later. It wasn't until maybe 35, 36, 37. And still he had, man, he had a 12-win season at age 37. So maybe Phillip Rivers is a bad comparison there. Another high draft pick. But what I'm saying is that even good quarterbacks

have started to drift in their late 30s. Cousins does not have any injury history, almost at all. And you can knock on wood if you like, wherever you are, because Nick Mullins is the backup quarterback still. And there's no practice squad quarterback at the moment. So nobody else to bail you out. But no real injury history. And the thing about cousins that gives him a chance to continue to play at a similar level is that he's never really relied on his physical gifts.

So someone like Eli Manning had this big booming arm, right? And would just throw it into double coverage and have a receiver go up and make a play. And I mean, he could, you know, he could just paint down the field and was super aggressive and all that stuff. But as his arm strength faded, that's where it, you know, it was more difficult to do those things. And I see that the Indianapolis media is talking up how Matt Ryan looks. And I, and I don't doubt that Ryan still got a little bit of juice on a very good Indianapolis roster, but it was age 34 when Matt Ryan went from 108 quarterback rating to 92 the following season and leading the entire league in sacks. started to slip. And then by the next year, he's four and 12 and, and struggling and roster had something to do with that. But that's another guy whose physical skill would have played into it where cousins has always had to throw with anticipation, throw on time, be super accurate

and get his entire body into a throw. Like he doesn't throw necessarily with his arm. He has a lot of his body involved. It's not like he's off balance, just whipping the ball with sheer arm, like a shortstop. Uh, he's always had this extremely good ability to create like that torque with his body. Um, you know, almost like a pitcher that doesn't look like they're throwing hard, but it's hitting 95. Like that's kind of how it is with cousins where he can get his whole body into it and still create that velocity. And a lot of it is just knowing the offense, throwing to the right receivers, putting it on time. Like those things that he's good at, that makes me think

that he could play a few more years, but you just really don't know. Like Aaron Rodgers, go back just a couple seasons. We thought he was fading. That he was still good, but he was fading. And then he won MVP twice. It's really hard to figure out. Like Rich Gannon, man. Rich Gannon has one of the crazier careers in NFL history.

And I'm not going to pull this up right now. But Rich Gannon all of a sudden lands in the exact perfect situation in Oakland. And at age 34, the guy's a 500 quarterback for Oakland. And three years later, he's winning MVP and leading the league in passing. I mean, it's just like it's so hard to predict. Three years in Oakland at his best, Rich Gannon won 33 out of 48 games, including an MVP, including another all pro and another pro bowl season.

Who knows? Who knows? It's always so hard to tell. There can be things behind the scenes. There could be injuries you don't know about, or, you know, it could be an offense that doesn't fit. And then everyone thinks you physically fell off.

There is so many factors that can go into it. There could be motivation factors for different players. So it's hard to historically just look and say, well, he's going to fall off. I think that just 34 is one of those lines of demarcation where you go, you know what? Your quarterback's officially old. Kirk Cousins is the oldest person on this roster who is not the long snapper. Your quarterback is old. Kirk Cousins is the oldest person on this roster who is not the long snapper. Your quarterback is old. So when you talk about the potential long-term of Kirk Cousins, you can't talk about really anything more than year to year when a guy is past 34.

How much longer does Rogers play? I don't know. Two more years, I think. If I had to guess, Rogers will probably be really good again this year. And then maybe it's next year after that, that it just comes apart. They've really set up their cap space and everything else to not necessarily be in a good shape for a long time, but it's just basically all based around Aaron Rogers. If he goes much past that, it would be really something else. But the way quarterbacks are protected, I don't know. Like it opens the door for anybody else sticking around longer. And to the second part of your question, that's a hard one to answer.

You know, I think that when you talk, when I instantly know that someone doesn't know as much as they think they do, I think it has to, it goes along with stuff that you can't really know. It's like, I read this once, the smartest people know what you don't know. And I would ask Mike Zimmer things through the years. And he would sometimes say, you know, you can't really know that. I asked him one time, like, how do you know if someone is going to be prepared for the grind that is training camp when you draft them? And he said, you don't. He said, we try, we do everything we can. We try to do personality testing or whatever other metrics that they use for how motivated someone is. They have them in for meetings,

but there's nothing that can simulate practicing against Everson Griffin. So you don't know. You don't know if a fifth round receiver turns out to be Stefan Diggs or Amir Smith-Marset. You just don't. When you draft them, maybe in hindsight there were signs, but you just don't know. So when you see people who are overconfident about things that can't really be known, that's probably when you, when you question, okay, are you, are you trying to like make up for the fact that you don't really know and trying to sell yourself as a fake expert?

That's probably what I would say. And that's why, I mean, everybody who listens to the show knows about what I go through every year during the draft mean, everybody who listens to the show knows about what I go through every year during the draft with, with the expertise and the, I know this guy's going to be a success or whatever. Great draft pick, nailed it, all that sort of stuff. You don't know. You don't know. I mean, we have a lot of fun with it and we talk about all the angles, but at the end

of the day, um, you know, the draft is really interesting and entertaining and I'm fascinated by it. But when people act like they know for sure, well, you know, that, then, then I start to go, maybe that's, maybe there's a little overconfidence there and you're kind of overcompensating. So Mike, uh, who qualifies himself as a friendly acquaintance of the pod. I appreciate you, sir. Great questions. Thanks so much for that. Folks want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. SodaStick.com has all of your great Minnesota sports designs, whatever sports you're looking for, but specifically for this show, football, they have John Randall, Randy Moss, Adam Thielen, lots of great designs there and everything with the word skull written on it.

So make sure you go to sodastick.com. Great hats, t-shirts, hoodies. I've got a bunch of them in my closet. So make sure you check that out. S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C- K.com. All right. Okay. So, uh, this comes from at rat trapping on Twitter. Let's see. Um, let's see. Kellen Mond is waived. And I noticed in the article, a source spoke on the condition of anonymity. There must be, you mean the article, uh, writing about him being waived. Um, I'm wondering, do some GMs sometimes put news like this out there to specific people in the organization to see where leaks come from? So they know who they can trust. Maybe not so much on the cutting of backups, but in general, I have heard of that before, but I think mostly with NFL people, they usually, this is not the case, like nothing is always ever the case.

Usually people in the NFL who are not the GM or somebody pretty high up will not say a whole lot when it comes to that will not be leaking out. Hey, we're doing this because if you are caught as the leaker, you get fired. If you're not like one of the most important people. Yeah. It's hard to say. I mean, I think that that's possible that if there's a major concern, this person is leaking information to that person. But if you see NFL network or ESPN, like those guys, those major reporters, they often have relationships with agents. They often have relationships going back with GMs. There's also an attempt from the teams with somebody like Adam Schefter to trade off for favorable coverage. If they have any sort of issues in the future, like, Hey, we gave you all those scoops that you got to report. Um, but also, you know,

when somebody works as the leagues reporter, like, are you, this is even a journalism question. Like, are you even, is it, isn't it just a press release when it's coming from a league reporter, someone who's on NFL network? Um, I, you know, you could kind of think of it that way, I guess. So that's more of the like, Hey, we're giving it to our own people as opposed to somebody else that's from the outside. I think there's some of that. So there's, there's a lot of different things that go into these sourced reports and stuff like that. I kind of look at it as press releases from an agent or the team when Schefter or somebody else puts it out there. And then we all take it as fact and move on. Uh, you know, when it comes to the transaction stuff, if there's stuff coming out that is more serious than just transaction things like, Hey, this is the real

deal of what's going on with this guy and this thing. And, and you need to put that out there or whatever. And they're getting embarrassed for different reasons like that. I could see for sure. If you were specifically worried about one person in the organization, telling him something that wasn't true to see if it showed up out in the media. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. I don't know of a specific instance but i could certainly see that i doubt that's the case with uh the kellen mond but yeah possible yeah for sure uh all right this from uh at mckinney mn before the start of the season each team is given a magic wand and must choose one position group on their team that will perform at a replacement level according to pff uh zero to 59 replaceable so

let's say flat 60 um let's see uh this means that every player in the chosen position group will grade a flat 60 by pff so that's your average so yeah average replacement level every game according to pff regardless of the pedigree and the past performances of the players with this in mind which position group would you choose my initial reaction is to say running back or linebacker even though i don't like the idea of neutralizing cook and kendrick's outside of those two groups i'm having a hard time thinking of a group to choose due to wanting them to have an opportunity to outperform the PFF 60 rating. That's a really interesting question. What could you survive being mediocre is what you're asking. Offensive line comes to mind first, but if I go and look and I'll check this out for you,

what is a 60 graded offensive lineman? Like what's a replacement level tackle look like? My guess is that's pretty bad, but I'm going to check just in case, because the thing about, if you had all 60 graded tackles, let's just say in pass blocking, like what matters the most, um, or 60 grade offensive lineman, like how bad would that be if everyone was pretty mediocre, but no one was absolutely horrendous. So if you grade a 60, that would be, uh, Bobby Massey is a 60 grade pass blocker. He played for Denver last year. He ranked 45th out of 57 being replacement level by their grading system, allowed five sacks, 36 pressures. So that's not very good.

If you had all offensive linemen like that, you'd pretty much be getting smacked around. So that can't be the answer. Linebacker is a tough one because you think by positional value, linebacker is not the highest, but that's also the part of the defense that gets attacked a lot these days with the way that the offenses are set up, right? So they're attacking the middle. They're attacking the linebackers. If you're a replacement level, we saw that in 2020 when Anthony Barr and Eric Hendricks went out. It was a nightmare for the Vikings with the linebackers. I don't really want to say that. If it's secondary, you're pretty much getting smoked.

Defensive line, you're not creating a whole lot. I mean, it really depends on how much can you make up for the issue. And running back is really the one that comes to mind. That with Kirk Cousins as your quarterback, it's probably hard to survive having a bad running back, but of all the positions that you need to try to survive having be mediocre or bad, that's the one that you might be able to do it because usually the offensive line has such a huge role in whether you're successful in running the ball or not. So a replacement level running back from last year. Let's take a look.

It's actually running backs grade pretty well a lot by PFF. And you can understand why because there's a lot of good ones. So let's go to a replacement level. All right. So Jeff Wilson from francisco is replacement level average 3.7 yards per carry deandre swift replacement level from detroit 4.1 yards per carry so if you were to have to average uh ronald jones the tampa bay running back if you were to have to average somewhere between four and 4.2 yards

per carry and were mediocre, you can survive that. Yep. If your offensive line blocks well in the run, you can get past that. I think almost every other position, you're in a lot of trouble. Safety might be one that you could get away with, but the other ones, if you, if you have, you know, a center tackles that are going up against great, great players and your replacement level, we saw this last year. So I, when I was scrolling down the offensive lineman, storm Norton, old friend, he was listed there. Remember the game that he played against max Crosby, where he just got beat and beat and beat. Like it's a long day day if you're a replacement level and you

have to play a great defensive end or you have to play against a great receiver. I also don't think they could survive average receiver play because even at the times that they've lost anybody for an extended period, it's been pretty tough for Kirk Cousins. Yeah, I think running back is the answer and that's why you usually don't pay them because even if your guy isn't that great it doesn't crush your offense when a lot of other things do uh for this also i would say tight end cannot be replacement level but maybe a little more so than before uh when the vikings were running two tight ends a lot in this offense it's possible that they could survive if johnny munt had to play the whole season because they would just throw the ball to the three receivers and the running backs more. Maybe that's another one. That's a fun question. Um, let's move on to

the next one. This comes from at Pat the Pingu on Twitter as a firm believer in offense wins games. I was glad to hear Sarah's fans only question. This must have been from a couple of episodes ago regarding the viability of the prevent defense. Oh, yes. Yes. I remember that. It's a good question.

That's a topic I'm very passionate about. There are far too many talented quarterbacks in the league that can easily march their way down the field in a short amount of time. Conversely, on offense, do you believe the age of run out the clock should be coming to an end as well? The Vikings under Zimmer were firm believers in this offensive philosophy, which we all saw led to many, many upset drives, 2021 versus the Lions being one of them. In short, do you think that prevent and running out the clock will be phased out or is their efficiency more of the result of poor clock management?

I think it, I mean, one, it all depends on who you're playing. Uh, you know, if, if you're playing Patrick Mahomes,

you really can't play prevent defense. If you're playing against somebody who's far less talented, maybe you can to some extent, but we've seen the vikings they they have struggled at times on last second drives but they've also taken advantage of other teams playing way back and playing prevent type defenses where last year kirk cousins had a lot of games where it was like oh you're down in the game? Here I come roaring back because how about even the Rams game? Remember when they took Jalen Ramsey off of shadowing Justin Jefferson to play a prevent

and then he immediately smoked them? It's a great point. I think that this is a small space where the NFL is indeed changing. There will always be something to you're up by two scores. You're succeeding on the ground and you've beaten the other team's face in successfully and you run out the clock on the ground. But when we're looking at 70% completion percentages in the NFL, you have to be considering still running three pass plays. If you're up by seven points with four minutes left to go, like they have the four minute

offense that is designed to do this designed to slowly methodically gain first downs, run the clock out. And I, and I think it will just shift a little more over to passing, but passing short passing quick, staying in bounds with the throws, throws a little more over to passing, but passing short, passing quick, staying in bounds with the throws, throws a little more toward the middle. Those will be the adaptations for offenses when it comes to running out the clock more so than just handoff, handoff, handoff, punt, play defense. You're right to say that the Vikings under Zimmer believed a little too much in. All right.

Now we're going to have Delvin run for first downs. Yep. I agree with you there. Uh, this one comes from at, this is a fantasy. Join me. Uh, sorry about that. Join me in a hypothetical future question. It's the AFC championship.

Josh Allen goes down. Case Keenum comes in on the final drive, pulls off a Minneapolis miracle type play to Stefan Diggs for the win. What's the main storyline going into Superbowl week? So wait a minute here. AFC championship game case Keenum comes in and pulls off a Minneapolis miracle to Diggs for the bills to send them to the Superbowl. Well, you know, to me, that's very easy. Uh, it's that, well, it's crazy that they did that. The bills going to the Superbowl for the first time since the nineties is the far and away biggest storyline. And here, of course, you'd be talking about it in Minnesota, like, wow, they did it

again. This is impossible. But it's really that, you know, Kansas city was a team that went forever without a Superbowl forever. I know they won one way back in the day against the Vikings, but they went forever without winning one. And then when they did, it was like, finally, the saints had been so horrendous for so long. Finally for them. And I think that if Buffalo were to win the Super Bowl or go into the Super Bowl, it would be 99% of people saying we, you have to root for this team that, you know, like they were being threatened with losing their team with their stadium situation.

It's one of the smallest markets, if not the smallest market in the league. They've been through so much as a franchise. Hey, like good for them. They finally got that break because they have had so many bad breaks throughout the years that, you know, now they get a good one and finally get to go to the Super Bowl.

I don't know what other storyline would be there other than Vikings fans bemoaning the fact that it was those two former Vikings combining for something unbelievable. Okay, let's see here. One more, one more. This is from Clandstrom on Twitter. Matthew, thanks for responding to my first two fans only questions. You're welcome. This is one focused on Achilles injuries.

Okay, I'll do my best here. fans only questions. You're welcome. This is one focused on Achilles injuries. Uh, okay. I'll do my best here. It seems that the number of torn Achilles is more of a recent phenomena. I've been watching and following the NFL and football since I was a kid. I'm now 55. I don't recall this being a common injury like it is today. Is there an overall increase in the injury? If there is what might explain it? So I don't know for sure if there is an overall increase in the injury. I can say what might explain it is just that when it comes to like tendons, you know, when you add more and more and more muscle mass and everything else, the tendons don't change. And, and doctors, if I'm wrong on this, feel free to correct me and I'll

correct myself in a future pod, but they're the same tendons. It's not like you can just make those into super muscles. So you put the extra weight on it and they're packing on weight. If you have like, say a tight end, who's 220 and they tell them, Hey buddy, you got to be 250. So you put all that weight on. Well, it's putting more weight than you're supposed to have on your body, on your tendons. The other part of it, too, I think is the 24-7, 365 nature of playing sports and trying to be pro athletes that when, I mean, you know, when you are talking about young kids from their very, very youngest age,

putting so much stress on their bodies all year round, playing the same sport, and maybe that has something to do with it. That is just the same motions, the same pounding at the same muscles. And for, you know, football and basketball, that could be a lot of the Achilles. I agree with you that it feels like it's happening more often. Um, maybe, maybe before though, when someone had, uh, you know, that injury maybe before that was just their career was over and then you never really heard about it. It's like, well, they just had a career ending injury and that was that. So, uh, I think maybe you might be onto something, but it could just be kind of a product of how athletes are raised at this point. So, all right.

More fans only questions throughout the week. We will have the reaction to everything that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell say in tomorrow's press conferences. Appreciate all of you listening to this Jalen Rager reaction slash fans only questions podcast. And we will talk to you all again soon.