Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings traded Mike Hughes and fun questions about the Vikings' schedule

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom open the show with a discussion about the Vikings trading away 2018 first-round pick Mike Hughes for nothing and then Will Ragatz from Sports Illustrated joins for the Friday Roundtable to break down the 2021 Vikings schedule. Best road trips, pivitol games, whether the schedule is hard or not and an 0.5 over/under on whether we see Kellen Mond at any point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hello, welcome into another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar, Sam Ekstrom here. Coming up in just a second will be our conversation with Will Raggett of Sports Illustrated, where we break down the schedule in many fun and unique ways. But first, we've got some news to talk about that came out

after we recorded with Will, which is that Mike Hughes has been traded to the Kansas City Chiefs for essentially nothing. Sam Ekstrom, give me your reaction to Mike Hughes no longer being a Minnesota Viking. Yeah, that's rough. When a first-round pick only lasts three years, only plays about a third of the games, you know, got off to a very rough start. And it's sad because when you have a pick six in your first game, I think there's a lot of excitement about the player.

And his talent in college was undeniable. And his speed was undeniable. Like the physical gifts were there, but his body kind of broke down. The neck thing would seem to be a very serious problem based on the price. Sixth round pick for a seventh round pick, it's basically they're giving him away. And I assume they save a little bit of cash in the process. But when you have another cornerback who's got, you know, serious off the field issues right now, and yet you're still willing to make this deal, that tells me that, you know, either they've got

something in the works with the cornerback, maybe that's the case, or Mike Hughes just doesn't really have much of a future. So the amount of money is not insignificant. It's $1.8 million that they earn in cap space, which when you tack on to what they already had, plus what they're going to get on June 1st from Kyle Rudolph's release, there's going to be some pretty decent space there even after they sign the rookie class. And I don't know if that necessarily means that they have something ready to go right now that they needed this extra $1.8 million and said,

let's get rid of Mike Hughes. But they saved just a tiny bit more by trading him than they did or than they would have by cutting him so trying to get every extra dime out of this and then being able to move up from a seventh to sixth I mean uh the way Eric Eager put this on on the show one time was those sixth and seventh rounders are like balancing out the change um so I think that's exactly what they did here like what is Mike Hughes worth well it's worth the difference between the seventh and the sixth. Now, when we look back at his career, though, I guess I wonder, are we calling this like a, oh, what if he had been healthy? Or even if he had been healthy, he never really showed signs that he could be a true starting corner? Or was it just so much of a failure to launch that we'll never really know?

I mean, it's clearly a huge miss and a huge bust first-round pick, and not necessarily his fault because of the injuries. I just wonder, like, with some players, with Dante Culpepper, you could say, man, that was a really special career that was cut short from injury. With Teddy Bridgewater, there were signs that he was going to be the long-term franchise quarterback. With Mike Hughes, I think, I'm not sure that he showed signs that it was ever really there, that there was much more than an average corner.

And I also think that if he had, they would have hung on to him here and not just said, we know what we have even when he's healthy and we're just going to move on. Yeah, I don't think that Mike Hughes ever had a stretch as good as Cameron Dantzler last year, for instance, where he had like five, six games where he was outstanding. Mike Hughes never had that. I believe he played five, six games before getting hurt in his first year, and a couple of those were fine, but really he was only playing because of injuries. It wasn't because he kind of earned that spot. It was a little bit by default, and then just never gained traction after that. I think it was always sort of the dangling carrot at the end of the stick.

I never got the sense that he really got a stranglehold. And I think injuries had a big reason to do with that. Like, I think he might have been a great player with better health. But when your second year is coming off a knee injury, you're not quite up to speed. And then, you know, that gets derailed before the most important games where you can really prove yourself down the stretch and in the playoffs. And then, you know, that gets derailed before the most important games where you can really prove yourself down the stretch and in the playoffs. And then, you know, the same thing the following year. That it's just it's hard. It's hard in the NFL to stay up to speed when you are constantly on the sideline, you know,

and especially the type of injuries that he suffered were pretty serious. We still don't know really what's going on with his current injury, which seems to be a recurring matter. So he is the 30th overall pick, though. Let's keep that in perspective. Not every first round pick is going to succeed. And especially when you're picking at the back end of the first round, number 30 is far from a guarantee. You look at that draft, and there are some other names that I think you would have rather had around that time. Nick Chubb, for instance, was like five picks later. Braden Smith, an offensive guard, was seven picks later. Would

have loved to have someone like that. Cortland Sutton was 10 picks later. So I think if you compare it to the other draft picks in that phase of the draft, then you can have a little more regret. But if you whiff on a 30th pick, that's going to happen. This is not a Matt Khalil whiff. It's not even a Laquan Treadwell whiff. It's a little more forgivable. And it's not that he was a bad player.

I just think injuries probably kind of derailed him. Well, you're also leaving out who went two picks later. Well, I know Lamar, not fair to the Vikings who had just signed to Kirk Cousins, but yes, you're right, Lamar Jackson. Is it not fair? Is it not fair? Well, okay, so being the person who at the time argued they should have just taken Lamar Jackson there anyway because Cousins had a short-term contract. I guess I'm not going to say told you so or anything, but I might. No, I mean, this really tells you, though, about

quarterbacks and drafting quarterbacks, that you should just do it when you have the opportunity to do it. But I won't make that into a whole rant. I understand why they didn't, but what was it worth for you to get a corner who basically never played? I remember the debates were more so over an offensive lineman at the time, and when you look at the offensive lineman between Mike Hughes and when Brian O'Neal was picked, they're not as good as Brian O'Neal. Maybe Braden Smith is, but there are not many who are as good as Brian O'Neal, so you wonder if they had gone a different direction there anyway and taken Will Hernandez, which I think was the

guy that everyone wanted to take. If they don't take Brian O'Neill and then you've still got the same problems. Although I think you could have sold two offensive linemen in a row maybe for at any point in recent Vikings history. So that's kind of another conversation is, you know, this, is this like a good reason to take Kellen Mond, even if Kellen Mond doesn't work out, that uncertainty at the quarterback position long term means you should use a draft pick on a quarterback because if you did it then, you would have been in an incredible position down the road. That's part of it.

Before we move on and go to our fun conversation with Will Raggetts, is this good with you, like what they've done here with Mike Hughes? Because I did see some people on Twitter who were saying, well, I can't really make sense of it because why not just let him compete for a depth job and see what happens? It's good with me because I think the ceiling on Mike Hughes isn't that high with his injury history. And I'm not convinced that with all these injuries,

you can just snap back to being the prospect you once were when he came into the league. Like best case scenario is the guy just plays in games and is somewhat serviceable for Kansas City. So I'm good with that. I'm good with seeing Harrison Hand as a depth player and seeing kind of where that can go. And I'm good with them spending this money elsewhere, whether that's bringing in a free agent. Like we keep we brought up Drake Kirkpatrick like 40 times, you know, any former Cincinnati Bengal. But but, you know, Drake Kirkpatrick, Brian Poole, like these veteran guys who are sort of around Rashad Breland. There's a lot of them. Maybe they bring in one of those guys, or maybe it just gives you a little extra space to do the contract extension

for Brian O'Neill or to bring in Ryan Kerrigan or something else like that. So I am good with this. I think this is fine. You've decided you kind of know what you have there, and you're just going to give him a chance to play somewhere else, maybe where he can fight for a spot. But is there any argument against bailing now on Mike Hughes? No, it's good with me.

I mean, the Vikings have done this before, too, with other high picks. Like Pat Elfline didn't see the end of his final year. Laquan Treadwell was cut before his final year and then re-signed. So this is not unprecedented. Like if they have plans for that money the plans i'm sure are more meaningful than the fifth injury prone corner and the vikings are not doing this haphazardly they know far more about the situation than we do especially the medicals like that's key to this and they probably have a pretty good read on it and the price reflects that so i'm willing to

give them the benefit of the doubt that it's not like Mike Hughes had an all-pro season before the injury. We don't know if he can be like a long-term successful pro and best of luck to him in Kansas City. I liked Mike Hughes. I enjoyed the interactions with him that I had and I felt like he was a fun player to have around in the locker room, but this happens a lot around the league. Sometimes your first round picks don't work out, injuries get in the way, and I feel like the Vikings do have something up their sleeve here, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. It does sort of continue a rough patch where, you know, 2016, first round pick was a bust. bust 2017 you didn't have one because he

traded it away and now 2018 a bust I'm not calling Garrett Bradbury a bust by any means I think Garrett Bradbury is still like kind of ascending and kind of a medium draft pick at this point but uh yeah that's kind of a black hole there for about three years. Right. And at the same time, even if Bradbury gets much better, you're still talking about a center. And, you know, centers are valuable when you have a great one. But if you don't have a great one, he's just good. It's kind of like a linebacker. If you have Eric Hendricks, it's great.

And if it's a little below Eric Hendricks, it's just probably replaceable. So it's a good point. There are things that I trust, Sam. I trust that vegas knows how to set lines i trust that nfl scouting departments are good at picking out talent and i trust that the minnesota vikings don't let players go if they're not pretty sure they're not great like i can't think of anybody maybe you could correct me here i can't think of anybody. Maybe you could correct me here. I can't think of anybody who was sort of unproven or younger that they let go and then just proved them wrong.

And I mean, anybody like even camp cuts who sometimes surprise you somewhere else. But at least since I've been covering the team, I think usually when they know, they know that they're moving on from somebody. They in fact, usually have too much loyalty to guys and they hang on for too long. But usually if they're moving on from somebody they in fact usually have too much loyalty to guys and they hang on for too long but usually if they're moving on that means the guy's probably not going to shock you somewhere else and prove you wrong yeah moving on from veterans the record

is pretty impeccable um couple you know camp cuts kurt coleman became a very good safety. Mike Remmers became a starter with Carolina, I believe, before he came back to Minnesota and got overpaid there. But you're right. Very, very high success rate. Rarely does this team get kind of bamboozled. So I think that's wise to trust their judgment on this one. All right. Let's go to our very fun schedule related conversation in the Friday roundtable with Will Raggetts and thanks

Vikings for a little bit of a throwback here breaking some news after we record the show thanks Vikings Thursday News Dump folks if you are pumped up about how the Vikings did in the draft and now the schedule's out, it is a great time to get yourself a Skull Flag or Bud Grant shirt. And of course, there's much, much more. If you go to Sotastick.com

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What is up, Will? Not a whole lot. Excited to be joining you guys. Well, let me start out with this, because I want to go through the schedule. I've got a bunch of different questions for both of you schedule-related, like which game is blank, which game is this and that. So we've got lots of fun things to do. But you and I during the college football season, Will, we started skull searching, which was our hashtag to look at quarterbacks. And we did all of our

research. And then as the Vikings got themselves back in the playoff race, we kind of dropped off in our skull searching. And then they drafted a quarterback. So I haven't talked to you on the show since this happened. So give me the Will Raggett, Kellen Mond reaction to them deciding to actually draft a quarterback who could eventually develop into a starter here. Yeah, at first I was pretty surprised by when that pick initially rolled around and I was thinking they were going that pick initially rolled around and I was thinking they were gonna do something offensive line or get a pass rusher or something then

it's like okay they're taking a quarterback like early in the third round a guy who I think most people thought was the consensus sixth guy even though Kyle Trask had just been taken before him and and I as the more I thought about it the more more I started to kind of like the process of it at least, the idea behind it. I mean, you can certainly make the argument I know that you have on this show in the past that they should have maybe just gone all in on trying to get Justin Fields or take Mac Jones. But short of that, I think they kind of did it – they played the best of both worlds a little bit

where they added the left tackle, Derrissaw, that's going to help you right away. But they also took a guy, Kellen Mahn, with some legitimate upside based on the fact that he's improved every year at Texas A&M. He has the tools just physically. He gives them something a little bit different in terms of his mobility, his ability to make plays outside of the pocket, and maybe fit throws into some tight windows, things like that. There's a lot of work that has to be done with him.

But it's kind of a good situation where you know Kirk Cousins is going to be the quarterback for the next at least year, probably the next two years. So if you can get Andrew Janocko and Clint Kubiak and everyone else involved to coach up Kellen Mond and kind of reteach him some things in a lot of respects, his progressions and certain decisions that he makes, I think there's some serious upside there. Probably an 85% chance he never realizes that upside, maybe higher. But it was worth taking a shot because of this precarious kind of crossroads

Kirk Cousins situation that they're in. So I like the pick. I ended up – I was grading all the picks. I gave it an A-. I think it's just – it was worth a shot at that point in the draft, especially given the fact that you had traded down. You had four third-round picks. If that was your only third-round pick, they probably don't do that.

But I like taking the swing for the fences there, and we'll see what it looks like. And as we were just talking about before the show, it makes things a lot more fun this year and beyond because every time Kirk throws a bad pick or starts out one and three or whatever it is, there's going to be a vocal section of the fan base that's like, hey, Kellen Ma? Kellen Ma? So I don't know.

I'm on board for it. Let's see where it goes. Yeah, preseason games against Denver, Indy, and Kansas City just got a lot more interesting. And two of those are at home too, and I'll be interested to see how the fans kind of receive Kellen Ma. Because, you know, we get in our own echo chamber, kind of in this, you know, the Twitter people, a lot of people have pointed out

pretty readily that Kirk is flawed. But I don't always know how, like, the Vikings fan base at large feels because not everybody's on Twitter. Not everybody, believe it or not, listens to this show and comments in our mentions. So, like, out of a 67,000-person stadium, I'd be curious to see, like, what kind of support there is for Kellen Maughan relative to, like, you know, if Kirk Cousins is struggling in the season, for instance, is there going to be sort of an uprising, like, you know,

boo, bring on Kellen. But I think the messaging is important here because not only did the Vikings take a quarterback, but they made sure to like send the message out that they tried to get Justin Fields. And Courtney had that report just days after the draft. Like they made sure that people knew, hey, we got this guy in the third round. We wanted this other guy in the upper first round. And I think that's interesting that that like that was allowed to leak. And I assume it was from the Vikings, that they were interested in somebody even higher. So Kellen Mond and Matthew, you pointed this out,

it's sort of a message sent to the fan base, to Kirk Cousins, to whoever, that the transition is beginning. Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be interesting, like you said, to see how the fan base responds, to see what Kellen Mond looks like in these preseason games. And I think there might be a tendency to judge what he looks like in those preseason games that I would caution people to maybe shy away from because I don't have super high expectations for him just right away based on what he looked like in college and the adjustment that there's going to be to the NFL level.

I would be surprised if he comes out and tears it up in the preseason. If he does, that makes things a lot more interesting. If he comes out and pulls a Kyle Slaughter, and given that I just threw Kyle Slaughter out there, we know how much preseason games actually mean. But it'll be fascinating to see how he looks, to see how some of these other rookies look early on in these preseason games. We all rip on preseason games, but it'll be kind of nice to have him back, especially with only three, four stretches along,

especially when you have him every year. But with a year off and only three games, two of them at home, I think there's going to be some interesting storylines there for us. Do you think the dress rehearsal becomes the second preseason game, or do you think the third preseason game now, Matthew, is the big one still? Or is that the new fourth preseason game? I think it's still the third one, probably, is like we're actually going to play the starters. But, you know, since we've been covering the team, really, Sam,

there hasn't been a whole lot of preseason intrigue to talk about. I mean, the rosters have mostly been set every single year, so it's just sort of playing out like, will Lafadia Denebo look good at three technique or something? Which, hey, you and I get excited about, but there's only so much of that we can do for three straight games. So now every game is interesting because we're going to see probably a lot of Kellen Mond and we're going to look at every single throw and be able to break down

exactly where we feel like he's at. I agree with you, Will, that preseason games are certainly not telling in the fourth quarter, especially with the quarterback play and so forth, but it will be interesting to see just him against another team when we finally so forth. But it will be interesting to see just him against another team when we finally get there. And it will be most interesting to watch during training camp on a daily basis how the receivers are reacting to him, how his body language is, how he's throwing the football, like all these things. By the end of training camp, you get a really good sample size.

And I'll give you an example here. Jordan Love last year, the reporters at training camp were saying, uh, no, this is not good at all of camp from us are that he's looking the part and he's playing well in preseason games, I think that does turn up the dial. If the Vikings come back to U.S. Bank Stadium, now we can sort of get into the schedule. If they come back to the U.S. Bank Stadium at 1-1 or 0-2, I mean, I think that that sort of thing starts early because it's going to be a full stadium. And all these people, Sam, you mentioned the fan base. All these people have seen the good and bad Kirk. I think that Vikings fans at large, this would be my guess, they would love to see him

succeed. They wanted to see him succeed so badly from the very beginning, which is, I think, why it drives some people nuts when we criticize him but everybody who lives in reality knows that there's good Kirk and bad Kirk stretches and the bad Kirk stretch is where things will get very interesting especially if it's at home well yeah he's he's gonna hear it I mean that Falcons game last year was at home if that was a full stadium like we had us reporters were tweeting, like, are you sure we're not going to bench this guy? Like, do you have any other option? If they had any other option but Sean Mania,

I mean, you'd think it's something they might have to consider. He was so bad in that first half, just staring down Deion Jones on one of those interceptions, and just terrible pocket awareness, and just things like that. If he has a game like that, he is going to hear it, and fans are fans. If he, when he lights it up a game like that, he is going to hear it. And fans are fans.

When he lights it up for a certain game, they're going to love him. But we know that this is Kirk Cousins. We've had three years of this. Like, there are going to be bad stretches. So I'll be very curious, like you said, to hear how the fans react, how that building reacts. I'm just excited to have full stadiums again this year and the atmosphere that that's going to bring and we'll talk about that with the schedule but there should be some some fun moments uh ahead yeah and the and the speaking of full stadiums

the twins it's kind of setting the precedent now with clearance from governor walls to go full capacity in july and that's probably the indicator that the Vikings are going to get similar clearance because obviously, you know, twins are 40,000 capacity, 38,000, whatever it might be. And presumably the Vikings would be permitted as well. So, yeah, go ahead, Matthew, with your schedule question. Okay, well, I've got a bunch of them. So let me just kick off with this one because we'll get the unfortunate one out of the way first, which is every year that any of us has covered this team, there has been the Falcons game, the Bills game back in 2018, almost every single year, there is the one that every single one of us wrote a W next to that ends up being an L. I want you guys to tell me which game that is on this schedule.

Does it have to be a home game or can we do anything? It can be either way. I mean, I even think of 2019 losing to Chase Daniel in Chicago. That wouldn't have necessarily been one we wrote down as a win because it was in Chicago. But if you told me that Chase Daniel was starting or they lost to Matt Moore too so like what was the one that you would have gone into that game and said oh okay well Chase Daniel ended up playing they should win that and then they had a pretty big disappointment so which one would that be my pick for that just looking at the schedule I mean there's several options you could go from I don't think they'll

lose to the Lions with Jared Gott they just always beat the Lions, I mean, there's several options you could go from. I don't think they'll lose to the Lions with Jared Gott. They just always beat the Lions. So I'm not going that direction. I'm going to say week six, right before the bye week. Maybe they're four and one, maybe they're three and two, but they head to Carolina. Could be a trap game just before the bye. You're looking ahead to getting some rest, to coming out of the bye and having a tough stretch starting with Sunday night football against the Cowboys. I don't know if it'll be Sam Darnold or whoever it'll be for Carolina, but I can see them going in there and overlooking that one a little bit and giving up

270 all-purpose yards to Christian McCaffrey and finding a way to lose that game. The Stephen Weatherly revenge game. The Stephen Weatherly revenge game. Don't worry, Ily revenge game oh the steven weatherly revenge game don't worry i have revenge games on the list um sam you're muted so if you're trying to talk then that's a problem um yeah crying child wanted to be a part of the podcast oh okay now um yeah do we have a crying child rules like puns rule not yet but maybe now we need one since you have two of them yeah i didn't hear what you said there what what kind of rule oh the uh crying child puns like we have the dog puns your dog barks in the background then you have to make a dog pun well the crying child is is crying

preemptively at the possibility of the vikings losing one of those first two road games i think i mean i i feel like those are sort of two of the ones that you earmark going into the season. Like, I could very well see Cincinnati, you know, with the adrenaline of the opener, Joe Burrow's return. There's a lot of excitement and optimism going into week one. It's harder to kind of game plan for a team because you don't know their tendencies yet. Cincinnati could win that game and then lose like seven in a row. Like a couple years ago when the Vikings had that clunker at San Francisco who was supposed to be bad in the opener, I'm pretty sure San Francisco went on a lengthy losing streak thereafter.

And that would be one that I'd be afraid of losing. Although when you go in, I guess you don't know how bad or good Cincinnati is. I think the game where you kind of go in eyes wide open saying, okay, this is a bad team. We can't lose this game. Might be Carolina. And I think Will mentioned it. Before the bye, you're probably looking ahead a little bit to your vacations.

You know you've got the Cowboys on the other side. The Carolina game game I think like looking at the rosters now would be the most inexcusable loss on the schedule for sure probably right there with Detroit at home I I think that's a yeah I think that's a great pick Will to go with Carolina here because especially on this show I've been laughing at Carolina all offseason and Teddy Bridgewater just said that they didn't know how to set up their practices right. Like, they made one of the most, to me, preposterous trades, sending a quarterback who's pretty average in Teddy for one who's horrible in Sam Darnold.

So that's kind of weird. And then passing on a quarterback to draft a corner at eight. Right, right. They passed on Justin Fields to draft a corner who could be great, but is not a Jalen Ramsey-level prospect, I don't think. Right, exactly. And so I don't think that they know what they're doing. Ryan Harris was on the show the other day.

He said they don't know what they're doing. So I'm going to go with that. But I will tell you that in 2018, before the Buffalo game, someone asked me, like, what are the chances that the Vikings before the Buffalo game someone asked me like what are the chances that the Vikings blow this to Buffalo I was like I don't know one percent which was which is wrong because it's two NFL teams and really when a game is heavily weighted it's still like a 60 40 type of proposition or something like that but I thought no way I mean the Bills had given up like 40 points two weeks in a row and then all of a sudden just a complete no-show so Carolina is the right pick because I

think they're the worst team on the entire schedule I'll give you my sort of low-key one which is Pittsburgh in week 14 because I think at that point Pittsburgh will be last or second to last in their division and we'll be talking about how the fall of Ben Roethlisberger. It's over for him in Pittsburgh. Maybe they're going to have wholesale changes. And that seems like one where you could have that kind of – that burst of greatness or something from Roethlisberger. That's Thursday night, too, so that's a short turnaround. And Thursday nights are always weird.

And that could be just a low-scoring mess of a game. Because that defense is still really good. TJ Watt's still there. The offense is pretty terrible. But they were 11-0 last year. It wasn't that long ago. We forget about that because they lost five of their last six and fell on their face. But I like that pick.

And I think they just also have a really tough division, which could result in them struggling. Here's the next question for you guys if you are a vikings fan looking for the best road trip on this and then you can give me whatever you one you want if you're traveling uh we haven't figured out what the press situation is going to be but say we're in locker rooms and everything is normal uh what trip do you guys most want to make sam why don't you start with this one? Yeah, this is a miserable schedule for those looking to escape December, January heat because you get all the divisional games late. You get Detroit, Chicago, Green Bay.

San Francisco will be a good game. I don't know if that's like a place to go to escape the weather you know, escape the weather. So I guess your best bet for warmth is LA week 10. Matthew, you'll probably be there visiting family like usual. Jealous, jealous. That'll be a good one for you. I think in terms of just like novelty, the Baltimore game would be fun because the Vikings only play there every eight years. And you're only going to catch, you know, Lamar Jackson in his prime in person so many times. They may as well be playing the Vikings in the game. I think that would be a super fun trip. You know, the Northeast is cool.

Baltimore is, I think, kind of a hidden gem. And that's probably just a really good game to go to. I'm looking forward to the Cardinals week, too, just mainly because of the golf scene in Scottsdale. I'm hoping that Purple Insider, you know, funds that trip. But it's not like an awesome road schedule, you know, for tourist destinations, in my opinion. Yeah, the one that stands out is the one you mentioned, the Chargers, just because, A, it's Los Angeles.

But also, I don't know how different it'll be at the new stadium, but last time the Vikings were there, it was all purple. So that's got to be, if you're a Vikings fan, that's got to be kind of appealing to know that that might be sort of the ninth home game in some respects. I don't know if they're going to be able to fill that new stadium any more than they did

the last one, but that would be one that stands out. I definitely want to go to Baltimore, which you mentioned. I have family in the D.C. area, so that will be fun. And if you want to just flex your true NFC North, hardened, tough guy colors, you can go to the Bears game on the 20th or December 20th or the Packers game on January 2nd, which are both going to be 30 degrees at best, more likely in the single-digit teens, potentially negative wind chills.

But the stakes could be really high if there's a tight division race, which I expect that there might be. So those would be the gritty, hard-nosed, show-your-colors NFC North games to go to. Players' worst nightmare because you know the coaches are going to put them outside for practice one or two days that week. We're probably going to have to stand out there too, so poor us. But you know they hate that. Like it's 10 degrees, they've got to bundle up and go outside in the wind

and just the hard ground i i would be miserable i would those are both night games too which adds a little bit like that changes things temperature wise that the bears is monday night packers sunday night so that tells you it could be gonna be cold okay i i mean i love every part of that because we'll be inside in the press box watching those games anyway. But you guys, I didn't think that you guys were going to bring those up. So that was going to be my answer is go to Lambeau at night on Sunday Night Football in week 17. I mean, how many opportunities do you get to go do that in games that might matter? Or at least if you're a Vikings fan, you hope that those matter toward your playoff position. So I just think from the element of being insanely football-y, like that is your choice. D.C. area underrated?

Can you call it D.C. underrated? But, I mean, in terms of a travel destination, I don't think we look at it like Arizona or something like that, where you're trying to necessarily get away from the cold. But it'll be warm to you probably at that point, still like late summer, maybe in DC. And if you bring a GPS to help you get around DC,

cause it's the most confusing city in the history of the universe. It was invented by, I don't know, horses walking paths or something. I've never been so lost in my life as in DC, but I, but I enjoy it. So that's a good one for sure. One last thing I'll say about that Packers game is how many chances are you going to get to see Blake Bortles in person? You got to take those while you can

get them. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm glad that you fit that in there. So yeah, I think that, but I think you guys nailed it. San Francisco in the fall, if you bring your parka is always, you know, pretty nice. But the fact that it's in Santa Clara is like, have you ever visited San Jose everyone? Cause it's not really San Francisco where they play. So here, here's my, here's my next question. Give me the pivot point of the season on this schedule. And what I mean is, which is the game that you could see

swinging it one way or another? And you can take me anywhere you want. You can go early, you can go middle, you can go late. But if I told you they won this game, then you would think, okay, that probably means things went pretty well. They lost this game. Ooh, that means things did not go so well. Will, you can start with this one. Ooh, that's an interesting question. I mean, you can make a case for a lot of these. I'm going to go with the easy answer, but Week 11 at home against the Packers. I think regardless of the quarterback situation there,

I'm still for now assuming that it's going to be Aaron Rodgers. That's your fourth game after the bye. By that point, I think we're going to know, I mean, we'll definitely know what this team, this Vikings team is about. If you win that first Packers game at home, that sets you up well to go down the stretch, go to San Francisco, go to Detroit, come back for the Steelers on Thursday night. If they lose that game, then you're probably behind the eight ball in the division knowing you have to go to Lambeau in the frozen tundra late in the season, knowing you have to go to Chicago and play Chicago twice in the last four games. There's a lot of ways you could go.

Every game, I think, is going to be pretty pivotal for a team that I expect to be in the nine and eight, 10 and seven range fighting for their playoff lives, but I'll go with the Packers week 11. Hey everyone, I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics, and I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics, and since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do. Scout Logistics is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads. And if you're wondering what that means exactly, well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America. and we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So, if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping

needs, check out ScoutLogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. My eye goes to a similar part of the schedule. I was actually thinking week 10 because there's a good chance you're coming off a loss at Baltimore. And you're at that part of the season where, you know, you start talking about playoff seeding. The contenders are getting separated from the pretenders. And I think when they go to L.A., they could be favored in that game, but it's still on the road.

And you know you've got tough games coming up. You've got Green Bay and San Francisco coming up. You've got to bank up wins where you can get them. Because after the Chargers, you know, You've got Green Bay and San Francisco coming up. You've got to bank up wins where you can get them. Because after the Chargers, you know, the only game that I can kind of pencil in for the Vikings is Detroit. Other than that, it's going to be a gauntlet because this schedule intensifies as the season goes along. So I think if you can escape L.A. with a win there, then you can go one and one in that stretch of two road games, momentum into the Green Bay game at home, which is going to be obviously another big game, as you said. Other point that I look at are week three, week four. Depending on what you are coming into those two

home games, I think they're going to be one and one. I think they'll find a way to drop one of those road games in silly fashion. You know, obviously the difference between one and one, I think they'll find a way to drop one of those road games in silly fashion. You know, obviously the difference between one and two and two and one is a pretty big mental boost if you can go two and one. And those are two tough games. Matthew thinks the Browns are going to like steamroll to the Super Bowl. And Seattle's obviously, you know, has the Vikings numbers. So if you can find a way to win one of those two games too, and just not like kill yourself before the bye,

go four and two, five and one into the bye, that's going to give you a lot of confidence, I think going into the tough part of your season. So I'm going to pick week two to start. I have two of them. Week two is my first nomination because I think even if you win, you come back at one and one, and then there's so much pressure to beat Seattle and Russell Wilson, who owns your organization. I mean, I think someone changed the Wikipedia to like, you know,

Russell Wilson, owner of the Minnesota Vikings, although A-Rod owns the Wolves now. So I guess you can never count anything out, but you have so much pressure on everyone at the beginning of this season. There's going to be so much hype, so much conversation about this team and their future at the quarterback position, how much pressure is on Mike Zimmer, Rick Spielman to win this year, to kind of be the people in charge going forward, that they need to have a really good season. They pushed a lot of chips to the middle of the table with signings this year to win, to rebuild the defense.

And if you go to Arizona and they run you out of their building and J.J. Watt gets five sacks and Kyler Murray throws for 400 yards, it's going to feel like this thing is on the brink very early. And it kind of felt like that last year, going to Indy. And when they got killed by Indy, it really felt like, I don't know how they're going to dig themselves out of this hole. So it's shocking how quick that can happen in the NFL. The other one I've got is Dallas in Sunday night football week eight, because of the next three

games after that. If you lose to Dallas, then you've got to go to Baltimore, cross the country to Los Angeles, and then come back home and face the Packers and then go to San Francisco, if you win that game against Dallas, you're kind of like, okay, we can split this next stretch a little bit. But if you lose that game to Dallas, you're going to feel like, wow, this is some kind of uphill climb. All right, next question for you guys. Best uniform matchup, Vikings versus whom has the best unis? And obviously we don't know the combinations yet, so you can pick the combinations. Ooh, okay.

I like the Rams jerseys. I might be in the minority there, but I like the Rams. If they come to U.S. Bank Stadium and they've got the – actually, now I'm second-guessing that pick because I like their home jerseys more than their road jerseys. But I don't know. The Ravens will be interesting too because that's two purple teams. I need to have the uniforms up in front of me when I'm making this pick.

Sam, do you have one? I was going to go purple versus purple. I think Ravens are pretty cool. I think the Browns have gotten kind of sleek as well. And I know we'll be looking at the road Browns jerseys, so probably the solid whites against the Vikings purple at home. There's got to be kind of a throwback game in here somewhere, and I know that people have been begging the Vikings to go back to the late

90s style for a while. Maybe it'll be a Thursday night gimmick again against the classic Steelers with the three diamond, the three icon logo on the helmet. That's pretty timeless to me. Okay, actually, another one I just thought of is the Cowboys game, because that'll probably be when – that's the first primetime game of the year, so they'll break out the hashtag primetime purple with the all purple and the yellow ones.

And then the Cowboys – like, we saw this exact game in 2016 when the Cowboys came to US Bank Stadium, and they had, like, their kind of alternate, the white with the – it wasn't their throwbacks. It was it was like their alternates that i think are kind of cool so i'll pick that one with the vikings in the purple head to toe i like the color rush and i i think that if the vikings do go with that all purple against dallas that's a really good matchup but i'm going to go with all whites on the road against san francisco so So San Francisco wears their red and their gold and their classic with the trim around the arms that they had from back in the day. They sort of brought that back.

I think that that would be a great matchup. Sort of reminds you of Anthony Carter against the San Francisco 49ers or something, right? From way back in the day. Didn't the Vikings go all white in the playoff game, though? Didn't they? Weren't they trying to channel Anthony Carter and it failed? Could be.

I think their offensive line failed also. So you're talking about the Stormtrooper all white that they wore against Chicago last year? Okay. Yeah, those are good. I like that. I mean, I don't know. It feels weird to me to have purple pants.

I don't know. It's like wearing a white jersey with purple pants seems kind of strange. Um, I don't know, like seeing 300 pound men in purple pants is just a little bit odd to me. Uh, here's what I want from you guys. Last schedule question. Just give me a one to 10 and I want your feeling here. I don't want data. I don't want analytics. This is an analytics show, but I don't want analytics here. I want feelings. I want emotions. One to ten, how tough is this schedule? Oh, can I use decimal points or does it have to be a round? Give it a professional score. No round numbers. Okay. To me, it feels like kind of a 7-4 in that range. No A, no rookie scores.

It's a tough schedule in some respects, but you can also talk yourself into a lot of the games being winnable. If you start out at the Bengals, at the Cardinals, I can see them going to another. I mean, I think those being on the road make it a little more difficult, but I think they'll be the better team in both of those. Then you come home, split the Seahawks and Browns at home, beat the Lions.

Like, they could be five and one going into the bye, and from that point it gets harder, which is why it's in the sevens. But I don't see enough here with some of the quarterback uncertainty in Green Bay. We don't know if Trey Lance will be starting in Week 12. We don't know what's up with Justin Fields. You get to play the Lions twice. I can't put it into the 8-plus range personally. I think it's kind of a middle-of-the-pack schedule.

Yeah, and for the reasons you laid out, I'm going like 6-1. I see a path to 5-1 at the bye, which is great. You get a stretch of three home games in a row, which is nice. You can feel settled for a month. I mean, these guys, sometimes travel can be taxing, especially when it's to the West Coast. They you can feel settled for a month. I mean, these guys, you know, sometimes travel can be taxing, especially when it's to the West Coast. They don't have that for a month. So if you can hit the buy, it's a pretty good buy as well.

You're not like super late or super early. It's kind of toward the middle of the season. And you get a home game to end the season. I think that's a plus. I think you get decent matchups where your quarterback might be the most experienced in a given matchup late in the season against like a Herbert, maybe a Lance, Field certainly, and I think that's good too. So I don't think it's that taxing of a schedule, my gut feeling. My gut feeling is a 6-1.

I think we should also put out a disclaimer that just because we can see a path to 5-1 before the bye, I can also see a path to, like, 2-4 before the bye. So don't go booking your Super Bowl tickets just yet. Well, we probably had the same talk last year because it was also a week 7 bye. We also penciled in atlanta as an easy win we gave them uh indianapolis everyone gave them indianapolis and and probably a lot of people gave them green bay too like i think four and two is probably a realistic number last year when i go through it and i play the better or worse game which maybe at some point we'll play.

I kind of end up with a lot of, I don't know, like better or worse than the Rams. Are the Vikings better or worse than the Rams? Like, I don't know. Are they better or worse than the Cardinals? I don't know. So there's a lot of those on the schedule, which I'm just going to go with a regular number, guys. I'm just going to go with a six. I think it's a six out of 10 difficulty because there are enough teams that do not scare you that you should be able to beat.

But really what's going to swing this is a A-Rod. I mean, if Aaron Rodgers is not playing for the Green Bay Packers, the schedule is not a six or a seven. It's more like a five. It's more like a four. I mean, if it's Blake Bortles, of course, then it's really bad. But even if it's Jordan Love, I just don't have a whole lot of confidence that he's going to be really good. Now, if they traded for Derek Carr, then I wouldn't change it because I think Derek Carr would be great with them still, and they'd be a formidable foe. It'd be kind of like Kirk Cousins against other Kirk Cousins. But that's kind of where I'm going to leave it is like above average.

Here's what I like about it. And this is where it's probably, okay, no, I've got one more thing, and then we can end. But this is where I really like is just that everything is kind of on the line with this season, with 2021, and things will change after depending on the results. And you have a schedule that both gives you a lot of challenges, but then also doesn't leave a bunch of excuses either. It isn't like, oh, well, you know, they had this terrible bye

situation and seven road games in a row. And what, you know, like you have a mid-pack schedule. And if you're a playoff team, you should make the playoffs. Now, here's the fun question I want to end with. Would either one of you bet the over on.5 games started by Kellen Mond in the 2021 season? Ooh. I don't think I would. Although.5,

I mean, because then there's a lot of possibilities for him to get into one. I know Kirk Cousins has never missed a game due to injury, but it feels like that has to maybe happen at some point, like a minor. I'm not wishing that into existence by any means, but I hope he stays healthy. But one game like that, or heck, if they've clinched or not clinched week 18, like against the Bears, like a Sean Mannion comes in and plays a game. This is me trying to talk myself

into the over but i'm still not going to do it i'm gonna i'm gonna take the the under 0.5 kellen mon starts i guess i'd also want to know what the covid testing cadence is what the contact tracing situation is like are are they going to be susceptible to missing games either because of the virus or being in close contact with the virus? That could play into it. I don't know what it's going to be or look like at that time. Probably a lot of vaccinations, so not as likely.

A. Collar, you set the line at a half. Does that mean started or can he play half a game? I mean started. He has to have started the game. Yeah, I mean I think there's more paths to him starting, honestly, than not starting. Like, 17 games, like more wear and tear, better chance that you are clinched earlier or out of it earlier. Yeah, I think that he will play one. I have no idea.

I don't know. I don't know. Both arguments are very compelling because there are a lot of paths to it, including if, let's say, last year's Detroit game where they were out of it happens this year. Kellen Mons starts that game, right? Not Kirk Cousins because they would be concerned about him getting hurt and not being able to trade him in the offseason if they wanted to. But also, for the argument for him staying on the bench is the most likely outcome of this season is, what, 10-7? And so that puts you right in the thick of the playoff

race and you're trying to get playoff position. You might be fighting for a final wildcard spot or home field advantage in the first game. And in that case, like with more playoff teams, there are, I think, less chances for this team to be playing a backup quarterback in week 17. Also, you know, Cousins doesn't get hurt very often. I would suspect that, you know, his health record continues just by the way he plays football. Like he plays in a way where he doesn't get hit a whole heck of a lot. He doesn't get hurt a whole lot.

So yeah, yeah, I don't know. I think I would go with the under still. Yeah, that's the reason I took the under because it's kind of like asking, do you think Kellen Mond starts week 18 against the Bears? Because I don't see a situation in which they put him in for performance-based reasons from Cousins unless he like truly has the worst season he's ever had in the NFL which I think is unlikely given the talent on offense and the upgraded offensive line but like you said I think if the fact that there's seven playoff teams

that there will be even if they're like, like, maybe comfortably in, which, like, who knows, then there's still seating on the line or whatever, or potentially you've got to win that game to get in. So that's why I would take the under there, because I don't see Cousins getting hurt. It's like Justin Jefferson said earlier this week, Joe Burrow is not afraid to take hits. No shade at Kirk Cousins, maybe. But, yeah, he doesn't he doesn't

get hurt and and he plays fine even he has two bad games in a row he'll have a good game the next one so unless he unless Mon plays week 18 I don't see him playing yeah I think you you have to get into really apocalyptic stuff to get him in the game any other time. So, like, they're 0-6. Zimmer's been fired. Like, you know, Kirk has demanded a trade. I mean, you know, we're talking about, you know, locusts basically is the only way that he gets in before that. So, Will Reag, it's always great to connect with you. People should check out your work at Sports Illustrated

to cover the Vikings there. Sam, you are Sam as always. And we will talk to you very soon again, Will. And actually, by the time people are listening to this, we'll have seen each other in person at a football practice. That'll be fun. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Rookie minicamp season.