Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Will Ragatz Show: Arif Hasan of The Athletic joins to talk Dalvin Cook's receiver reps and other OTA storylines

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

Sports Illustrated Vikings reporter Will Ragatz is joined by Arif Hasan for his weekly show. They talk about Dalvin Cook posting a video of himself catching a pass out of the backfield and a report from The Athletic about Cook lining up in the slot that made the rounds. They also discuss the secondary and other Vikings OTA thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, welcome back to another episode of the Will Raggetts show on Purple Insider. I'm Will Raggetts, cover of the Vikings for SI.com. And joining me today, I have the honor of being joined by Arif Hasan, another member of the beat, covers the Vikings for The Athletic. Arif, how's it going, man? It's going pretty well, man. I just got back from Vegas for a friend's bachelor party. So continuing to ride that high, bringing that energy in here.

Maybe I'll throw out some hot takes. Probably more successful than my gambling, if I'm going to be completely honest. I can imagine. I appreciate you coming on. And it's starting to feel like football season a little bit. We're kind of in that stage of the offseason where you can start to sense the season coming a little bit around the corner. There's OTAs happening right now. The schedule came out.

It's not really real football yet. Nobody's hitting anybody. They're not wearing pads. We've still got a ways to go, some long summer months. But you're starting to taste it a little bit. And I want to talk about some of kind of the early storylines that are coming out of OTAs and how much we should maybe buy into them or whether they're not really that useful or interesting at all. And one that kind of popped up in this first OTA practice that was open to reporters was Galvin Cook being used more as a receiver and even lining up in the slot in some bunch of wide receiver sets. And just in general, what are your thoughts on if the Vikings

might actually use Dalvin Cook in more of a hybrid role or just maybe increase his pass game and kind of the variety of it in this Kevin O'Connell offense? Yeah, I mean, I feel like this is like a classic OTA storyline, right? And it's not so easily recognizable that people don't dismiss it out of hand. It's no longer like I'm in the best shape of my life and people just kind of laugh it off. This is the kind of story that always makes the rounds, right?

Especially in fantasy Twitter. I was just on a fantasy radio hit today, right? They wanted to talk about that more than anything else. So, and this happens a lot, like, you know, all over the league, right? Where, you know, wide receivers lining up in this slot and, you know, maybe that's, or a running back sliding up in the slot

and we're going to see maybe a lot of snaps for them or a wide receivers running back and we're going to see, you know, some carries for them. They could be interesting. But, you know, like Leviska Chenault really didn't do much, right? There's only so many Danny Woodheads in the league where you can rely on them to actually literally line up in the slot and catch passes. But I do think that the Vikings are correct to try and experiment

with this sort of thing. I think that Dalvin Cook, a lot of people perceive him to be, you know, a running back with a lot of receiving capability. And I think that that perception is a little bit overrated based off of what he has done as a receiver. But, you know, I think that it's worth trying for sure, because I think that any way that you can get a player to add value to the team is a way that, you know, is going to help the team maximize, you know, their odds of winning. And so I think that this is smart. And I think that generally speaking, even without this news,

we would see more targets for Dalvin cook just because of the nature of the offense that they're going to run. And they trust Dalvin cook to run good routes and have good hands. And we've seen some, you know, clips of him doing pretty well, you know, during the regular season, you know, lined up, I think that there's a pretty good third or fourth down clip where he was able to convert down the seam. And so as a receiver, you know, during the regular season, you know, lined up, I think that there's a pretty good third or fourth down clip where he was able to convert down the seam. And so as a receiver, you know, I'm excited about what he has the capability of doing. And I think that kind of

one of the ideal scenarios is the Vikings line up and like 12 personnel, right. They've got, you know, two running backs out there. They've got one tight end out there and then they quickly motion. And then CJ Hamm is lining up at halfback and Dalvin Cook is lining up in the slot. And we know CJ Hamm can run the ball. We know that Dalvin Cook, you know, has been lining up in the slot and maybe he can run some routes. And then you've got a defense out there that is incapable of dealing with four eligible receivers that are lined up along the line of scrimmage.

So there are some opportunities there. I think that is a good idea. I just don't want to buy into it too heavily. I don't know that his target total would increase substantially more enough to call him a receiving back. It just probably will increase. Yeah. And I don't think it's a storyline that we should just completely run with and say he's going to be Christian McCaffrey, but I think, I think there's a few elements to it that, that lead me to believe that it might be a somewhat serious thing that they're going to incorporate more, whether that's actually having him line up outside of the backfield or just kind of increasing his passing game usage.

And one one aspect of that is just that they didn't bring in a ton of talent at the skill positions at receiver or at tight end. They're a little bit top heavy there. We don't necessarily know what you're going to get from like a Jalen Naylor or Ty Chandler or some of the later round rookies that they added. So with, with just a few kind of four, maybe five receivers, depending how you feel about BC Johnson and Amir Smith-Marset. And I mean, they really only have like one tight end right now in Irv Smith Jr. They didn't kind of replace Tyler Conklin. They brought in Johnny Munt, who's, who's a blocking tight end from the Rams. So that kind of just layout of the roster and the depth chart makes me think that

using Dalvin Cook more in the passing game might make some sense. And then it was funny that Dalvin Cook actually kind of leaned into the buzz a little bit. He tweeted out that clip today of him, I believe it was a third nine against the Steelers late in that game where he beats a linebacker up the seam and makes a nice play but so i want to know if he had that clip handy or if someone sent it to him when he's like yeah i'll keep this out yeah i'll feed into it a

little bit but um yeah i think just the versatility that that gives you something you touched on where if you motion him out then defenses they're kind of scrambling and having to adjust to different looks and things like that. So we'll say it's something to maybe keep an eye on, but not to completely run with just yet. Another storyline coming out OTAs and everybody wants to ask about the quarterbacks and specifically the backup quarterback. And we just, we didn't get hear a lot from Kellen Mond last year. There was the big viral Zimmer quote late in the year about like he's watched him all year.

But Kevin O'Connell has had some praise for him. I don't know how much that is Kellen Mond actually taking strides and becoming a guy who could be the backup quarterback this year. Or if that's just, you're asking the coach about a player and he's unlike Mike Zimmer, not going to put him down publicly and he's going to kind of talk him up. Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond, I believe we're splitting reps behind Kirk Cousins with the twos.

How much do you buy into Kellen Mond's kind of chances and, and ability to, to be that backup this year that maybe makes Sean Mannion finally disposable? Finally, yeah. Disposable, expendable, I think is a better word. Yeah, right. Not throwing him away, but off the roster. I would say that, you know, obviously it's good news that they're, they're putting them there to split those backup snaps. But I would say it's also just kind of like, you know, there's, there's almost zero information that this coaching staff has about Kellen Mond, right? Like they, they could, they can ask the receivers coach,

you know, all they want, but there's only so much information that they'll have on Kellen Mond because he saw three snaps in the regular season and there's not a ton to go over. I'm sure that they would love to go over some practice film, but if you'll remember, even Vikings practices do not feature Kellen Mond all that much over the course of the season, not necessarily because Zimmer hates Kellen Mond, but just because you just don't give your third quarterback that many reps. It just doesn't happen. You barely give the second quarterback that many reps. And so there's just

very little for them to go off of. And so they need to put them on the field. We have seen, you know, the Vikings split snaps for the number two and for the number three job in the past. And the player that we thought was going to win the number two and number three job ended up winning it. Right. And so, again, I don't want to buy into this too much, but it is nice to see that there's that opportunity available for Mond and that if he has genuinely progressed you that he'll be able to take it. You know, one of the things that, you know, a lot of people asked me at the end of last year was whether or not, you know, people should be out on Kellen Mond based off of kind of all that happened and what Zimmer said and, you know, how few opportunities that he had. And I told them, you know, Hey, Kellen Mond didn't do anything to make his case for him. He didn't demonstrate that he deserved to be the number two. That's not a negative. It's just lacking a positive. He's a rookie quarterback that didn't get that many reps.

And so, um, a lot of quarterbacks, especially, you know, quarterbacks and kind of the middle rounds will make their biggest jump between year one and year two. And so this is kind of where we're going to see if Kellen Mond has adapted the speed of the game, if Kellen Mond has figured out what he needs to from a protection standpoint, from a progression standpoint, and so on. If he's figured all that out, this is where we're going to see it. I think the real storyline is going to be the first day of training camp. If he is splitting snaps at the twos after all the OTAs are over,

that's, I think, a little bit spicier. I think that's a little bit more interesting. But here, we've got a coaching staff that knows nothing about Kellen Mond, aside from what they scouted way back two years ago. And so they don't know about him as a professional aside from some zoom calls. And so I think they're just trying to learn as much as they can. And if he's good enough to be a backup quarterback, that's phenomenal news, both for the coaching staff, just in terms of having a young player with upside to work with and the

front office staff, because now you can save a little bit of money. It's a third round rookie contract. Yeah. I think like you said, this is a big year for Kellen Mond. It's been a long time since we saw him play in the preseason last year. It's some decent moments in that, that final chiefs game, I remember, but looked really raw. So I agree that, yeah, just get them on the field, see what you have in him.

And that'll be something to continue to watch into training camp as well. And then something that we always talk about around the Vikings kind of endlessly is the offensive line. And there was a lot of people reacting to. And this wasn't new just from OTAs. This has been kind of consistent with what Kevin O'Connell has said throughout the offseason with Garrett Bradbury specifically that he's their center and, and they didn't pick up the fifth round, the fifth year option on him, but he still kind of seems unchallenged at that center job so far, which I think some fans kind of don't really understand when you look at the PFF pass blocking grades and he's dead last and dead last,

maybe second to dead last with only Pat Elfline behind him in one, in another year so um so at OTAs he kind of was running unopposed with the ones um Austin Schlottman's maybe was maybe the backup but um what what do you think about the approach with Bradbury and kind of the the dichotomy I guess or the juxtaposition like. Like we don't believe in you enough to pick up your fifth year option, but you're probably still the best center on the roster right now. So you got to be, you're entering this off season portion of the year as the favorite to keep

that job for at least one more year. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of thoughts. The first is that the Vikings didn't bring in a center, right? So like who, who was going to take his snaps anyway? Right. I think. I don't know if anything, you're going to convert a guard there maybe, but right. And that's, and that's really tough, right?

Because you're asking a guard to I mean, probably all of these guys have snapped at some point in their careers, but there's a big difference between snapping as a part of practice and snapping in games and to get your arm out and your elbow tucked in and to get all of that, to have that kind of hand speed and the awareness to call protection. I mean, center is just a tough job. As Garrett Bradbury can tell you center is an extremely tough job in the NFL.

And it is also not a super well-paying job at the same time. And so I can't imagine that there are too many guards that are clamoring to play center either. And so there's just all of this kind of putting Bradbury in a spot to, you know, sink or swim that has made it basically impossible for the Vikings to say, yeah, we've got a new center. It's this guy. We love this guy. This new guy here is our center. There's no, there's none of that. Right.

And so they have to commit to Garrett Bradbury. It's not about building up his confidence. It's about stating kind of the reality is that, hey, this is a guy who's our center. And then there's an opportunity here, too, because, you know, Brad ramp center, right? It's very similar, right? Really great short shuttle scores, really great athleticism, great movement in zone. It is a slightly different run blocking scheme. As I'm sure Kevin O'Connell has like pointed out a couple of times, both to kind of his excitement and also I imagine frustration at points about how there are slight, you know, subtle differences in technical, you know, execution in terms of how you run this version of the wide zone, which he calls the mid zone. And that plus a new offensive line coaching staff could give somebody with Bradbury's profile, you know,

an opportunity to kind of revive his career in a system that is built for him. Now, obviously the last system was built for him. That's why they drafted him. But you know, with the coaching staff that has built for him. Now, obviously, the last system was built for him. That's why they drafted him. But, you know, with the coaching staff that has had success, you know, turning some of these undersized centers into really effective players, you know, there's an opportunity for him to actually earn an extension or something along those lines. So there is that on top of that.

Now, I don't think that this is likely, right? But I do think that it is not just doom and gloom i don't think that it is the most likely thing in the world either that bradbury continues um his pace is like the worst center in the nfl only to be succeeded by his predecessor pat elfline also former viking center so um there are some problems here and it's just there's only so many holes you can fill into one off season. And I think that's where the Vikings are, right? The Vikings saw they don't have a starting guard. So they brought in some help to, to compete at starting guard.

They don't have very much offensive line depth. So they brought an offensive line depth. They didn't have, you know, starting corners. So they brought in starting corners. They didn't have backup corners. They brought in some backup corners. You know, there was only so many places. They needed an edge rusher. They brought in an edge rusher. Only so many places you can address in one offseason.

And it turns out center was just not the area where they were going to do that. Does he have upside a little bit? Do I bank on it? No. Maybe that's just a next year problem. Yeah. And the offseason is not like completely and utterly over. There are still free agents out there, but I will say as kind of a general PSA, um, there are a lot of

Vikings fans. I know that want to, uh, want to see the Vikings sign JC Treader, who is still out there. And I would just caution people that a, the Vikings do not have very much cap space, uh, functionally and be like, maybe there's a reason why JC Treader is still out there and isn't like just a guaranteed all pro shoe. And if you sign him. So I would just say that it'll be interesting to see how Bradbury does. And I, this coaching staff, isn't just going to like hand him that job. If he's getting blown back by big defensive linemen all throughout practice and in training camp, like they'll probably explore other options, but with what he can do as a run blocker

with the command he has of, of kind of the protection and kind of IDing things and sliding protections, all the, all the stuff that centers have to do. There are a lot of those things he's good at. It's just the kind of inability to anchor that has really hurt him. But that'll be interesting to see going forward. And then at guard, the Vikings brought in a couple of guys. They had Chris Reed and Jesse Davis, the two veterans rotating with the ones at Ingram, the rookie behind. Wyatt Davis seems to be kind of buried there. And we touched on Kellen Mann, but this is an interesting year for all of the third round picks that the

Vikings made last year. There was four of them and only one of them, Patrick Jones actually really saw the field at all and wasn't particularly effective, but he was a rookie and he didn't play a whole lot. But with Wyatt Davis, I mean, Chaz Surratt is the linebacker who there's now seemingly a lot of competition at linebacker with Brian Asimov coming in. This started out as kind of I was going to ask you about Wyatt Davis, but are there any of those other three third round picks other than Mond that you see maybe having the best or the worst chance to kind of emerge in their second season? I think that Wyatt Davis is the most, maybe not interesting, but it's the most, we have more information about him than we do any of these, including Patrick Jones, who actually saw the

field. And the reason for that is there's an open competition for right guard and Wyatt Davis could not rotate it. Right. And so for whatever reason, the coaching staff would rather have had Chris Reed and Jesse Davis in who admittedly they have a little bit more information about. Right. But Wyatt Davis is not Ed Ingram. Right.

Ed Ingram is a rookie. He's got a lot to learn before they can trust him to put him up there and not screw up the few reps that they have out there in OTAs by not knowing what's happening. Wyatt Davis should know what's happening, right? He knows just as much about the system as Jesse Davis does, right? Now, maybe Jesse Davis is a veteran and he's played a bunch of positions and he has experience in the NFL and that helps, but Wyatt Davis as a second year player should immediately be able to slot in and compete as a starting guard. And the fact that he's not doing that, I think tells us a lot. And Ingram, I think that that doesn't tell us very much. He's a rookie. Now those other guys, you know, we talk about Calamon, he's already competing for a spot,

right? So that tells us something right there that he's not so far, but he's not Wyatt Davis levels of behind right now, the problem with, uh, you know, Chas Surratt, the problem with Patrick Jones is that there's already a starter, right? You don't want Jordan Hicks to be out there and then Chassarat to slot in. You sign Jordan Hicks to be a starter, right? You sign to Darius Smith to be a starter. You're not asking Patrick Jones to come in and out-compete to Darius Smith. Give Smith as many reps out there as possible.

So we're learning less about those players. Now, unless, you know, we hear about Chas Surratt, the outside linebacker, which we saw a little bit of discussion about, I'll say on Vikings Twitter, which, you know, I think is pretty unlikely. I think that Surratt is going to be buried under the depth chart as a competitor for a special team spot and a backup spot alongside, you know, Brian Osmo, the rookie that they brought in, as well as Troy Dye and Blake Lynch. Blake Lynch ended up, I think, being ahead of whatever constitutes last year's depth chart for all of those

linebackers, as well as Ryan Connolly, who's a well-known, you know, good special teamer and a run thumper and should be able to succeed at least in a 3-4 system in some respects, even if he's not a huge coverage guy. You know, there's a ton of backup linebackers, like you said. So there's just not going to be a ton of space available for Chaz Surratt to flex his muscles, especially if you didn't get that many special teams or I think any special team snaps last year, Patrick Jones, I think is kind of in between,

you know, where Kellen Mond and Chaz Surratt are in terms of his ability to compete. And I think that he is probably, you know where kellen mond and chas surratt are in terms of his ability to compete and i think that he is probably you know a favorite alongside dj want him to be you know the backup edge rusher but i'm certain that there's going to be you know some some interesting and healthy competition there as well yeah kevin o'connell was asked um about kind of having a lot of players who were drafted last year who didn't play a lot and how that um how what the evaluation process is like with that because it's almost like they have this rookie

class that they drafted and then uh they have another rookie class from last year basically that they know basically the same amount about um and especially with players like jalen twyman who yeah couldn't even practice right yeah generis rob Robinson didn't play at all last year. So there's a lot of guys that, I mean, they didn't like scout necessarily super hard in the pre-draft process because they weren't the ones who selected them. But I imagine that's been an interesting part of the early period here of them learning the roster and just studying when they were preparing for the draft, not only doing that,

but also studying who are some of the guys in the back end of this roster who might have something projectable to where they could become a factor here. And it kind of leads into another thing that I wanted to ask you about and discuss. And one of the most interesting things for me to watch this off season, whether it's OTAs heading into training camp is kind of how the new coaching staff and these new schemes will impact various players and how players will fit and how maybe roles could change. And we touched on like a Dalvin Cook and if he could be used in different ways.

You mentioned that the offensive line, the running game is going to be a little bit different. It's not pure wide zone. It's the mid zone where there might be that, that might ask different things of, of offensive linemen. But what I want to get to is, is the, on the defensive side. And I think this is a really fascinating thing where the Vikings have run this four, three defense under Mike Zimmer for such a long time. And even before Mike Zimmer, there's been a four, three team forever. They're going to a three, four with, with Ed Donatello, who's run this, this Vic Fangio, Brandon Staley defense for a long time as well.

And I'm curious how like the different pieces that the Vikings have on the roster, interior defensive linemen, edge rushers, outside linebackers, inside line, like how all those pieces fit and how different it really will be when you consider that this is something they've touched on that nickel is basically the base defense so you're not going to have a true three four with three interior defensive linemen on the field all that often I guess that's a broad question but is there something that kind of stands out to you when you think about like the edge rushers and whether they're defensive ends or outside linebackers and just all the, all the

ways that the different pieces are going to fit together on the defensive line in the front seven is still the traditional term people use and how it's different now with this new scheme. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of things to kind of touch or or to note um the one is that you know in either scenario that there's going to be basically two linebackers unless there's a unique sub package so um in the 4-3 defense those primarily nickels who only saw two linebackers on the field most of the time there was still a sub package linebacker that get in for about 200 snaps right uh and you know sometimes that was somebody like, you know, Gideon, right? Eric Wilson.

Or Eric Wilson, right? Ben Gideon was probably one of the best examples in terms of what he was asked to do and how he succeeded. Unfortunately, concussions held back his career. Eric Wilson was more on the coverage side of it, which is not really the best fit for that particular role. And so that thing, that made things a little bit more difficult on his end. But you know, for the most part, that's not really going to be what we see, right? It's going to be kind of a 224, essentially, right to outside linebackers to interior defenders and two linebackers in the nickel, or you're going to have a base defense of a three, four, where, you know, you've got those three interior defenders, and then two edge rushers. One of those edge rushers might drop back into

coverage every so often, which I I'm confident will make Vikings fans mad, but it's going to be an important part of how that defense operates is just going to have to happen. I'm sorry. Um, and, and so, you know, when that happens or when those things happen, um, that means that, you know, you're probably going to need a little bit more in terms of your depth along the interior offensive line and just a tad bit more with your depth along, you know, the edge rushers and a little bit less potentially depth along those linebackers and kind of, you know, what's asked of them. And then from a technical perspective, this does change things for what's asked of the interior defensive lineman,

right? In terms of your ability to hold a gap you might actually only be asked to um control a person instead of instead of a gap and instead of shooting gaps uh to control where you are on the line of scrimmage on some place and that requires a different skill set and different type of athletic set of skills right um it does change what's being asked of edge rushers you're gonna have to be able to drop backwards a little bit you know it's not gonna be your primary job It changes what's going to be asked of interior or inside linebackers, right? Because you are going to have probably a little bit more cleaned up in front of you. And so your athleticism is going to be a little bit more important than your ability to come off

of blocks and your ability to diagnose is going to be a little bit more important instead of being able to kind of follow. And so those are going to change what's required of those players. And it's going to be a little bit of a learning curve for some of them rather than others. But I think kind of the biggest changes will come on the back end in terms of what's being asked of those cornerbacks, because they're still going to be playing, you know, a match zone style scheme where their zone assignments will change depending on how those routes play up mid play, but what those rules are, how those rules operate, what the defaults of those rules are, the amount of space they'll be asked to cover, how those pair with the blitzes, all of those

will be very different. And sometimes that's going to require a little bit more in terms of speed and length, and sometimes it's going to require a little bit less. But I imagine having quickness at outside corner is not going to matter a lot more than it used to matter because those corners might be following people a little bit more than they used to in this scheme. Right. And sometimes, you know, with the way that, you know, cover six and cover four work on the back end, you're going to need to have corners that have a little bit more range. Right. And so from that perspective, things are going to change even outside of the front seven. But it's the coverage, I think, that's going to change the defense a little bit more, even though the front is going to look radically different to Vikings fans.

I think what's going to change functionally and is going to matter more in his changes is what the back, which is going to look the same, but operate a little bit differently. Well, yeah, I want to ask you about that a little bit more because you had a couple of great breakdowns on the athletic of the, of the Vikings, top two picks Lewis scene and Andrew booth. And I know you touched on this in those pieces, but I'm wondering if you can just explain a little bit about like when you're studying the film of those players and looking into who they are as,

as on the field and their skillsets, how does, how does that kind of fit and what does that tell you about this defense and what the Vikings are prioritizing, given that they went after a specific type of safety in Louisine and they targeted a specific type of corner in Andrew Booth and to a lesser extent, a Caleb Evans in the fourth round? Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that they, A, prioritize safety as highly as they did, and B, chose a safety that is, at least on film, extraordinarily versatile, tells us that those safeties are going to have to do a lot in that defense. And that's not necessarily always the case, right?

Like Jamal Adams and Landon Collins, for example, are both highly invested safeties that teams both in New York spent a lot in terms of draft capital on. And it told us they really like those box safeties that hit hard. They don't line up too far away from the line of scrimmage that have the ability to blitz. Now, Lenny Collins ended up being able to do quite a bit more than that. But in terms of what his draft profile was, you know, it tells us that they like having a strong safety that might play something kind of similar to the camp chancellor role. Right. Or if a team is kind of waiting on safeties in the draft and they,

and they wait to grab one of those styles of safeties, it tells us that safety is less important for them. It's not going to be a big part of how they run the coverage of the front. And, and safeties have to, you know, fill and spill more than they have to be an active component of the run game or the coverage game. They're going to, you know, not define how that defense operates, but they're going to supplement how that defense operates. Right.

And, and the Vikings decided instead, we're going to get a guy that's that's really good at defending the run. We're going to get a guy that's really good in coverage, which means we have to spend up. We have to make sure because those guys are rare, we have to spend a first or second round pick on that guy. And we have to notice on the film, kind of all of these things that he's asked to do.

So when I was watching what was seen, these kind of jumped out at me, right? So the Vikings, for example, that are going to look like they're in cover two at the beginning of every step. It's one thing that, you know, you can tell from the Staley defenses and the, and the Denver defenses, you know, what they've done, right. Is they've started out a lot of these snaps in cover two, and then the safeties rotate. And that requires a baseline level of athleticism from every safety that the Vikings are going to field because if you don't get to rotate until the snap happens you need to get to your landmark really quickly right in order for the disguise to work a good kind of rule of thumb is basically that the more you disguise the more the players

are going to have to make up for the fact that they're not where they're supposed to be by the time the snap starts, which means you need more athleticism. So the Vikings need to prioritize that athleticism at safety. And what's really remarkable for, for like, let's say, Louisiana Georgia is that you need to play a lot of snaps where they started out at cover two and they ended up playing cover three or cover one, right. Where he had to drop into the box as a box guy or he had to get out into the post.

What's really cool about him watching him play is you could really tell that he had a really good understanding of what the offense wanted to do. And it wasn't just because he was good at film study. It's very clear that he's good at film study, but it wasn't just because of that. He had a remarkable instinct for figuring out what they were going to do for a play that they hadn't even put on film yet. Right. And so we saw this in the Michigan playoff game, where he was able to take away a post route on a route where on a play where Michigan ran all the same routes that they usually do, but they only ever threw the screen, the smoke screen to the underneath receiver that was bubbling over, right. And has a free blocker and wants to go over the middle. And if they throw that and a safety is bailing out to go deep in the center, there's tons of room available for this guy. It's going to be a great, you know, 15 yard gain on second and 18.

That's what a huge mistake from the free safety. What are you doing? And instead, Louisine takes away the post route. And now, um, you know, the quarterback looks, he doesn't see anything. I almost called him shape Patterson looks. He doesn't see anything. Um, and he has to scramble and and it ends up becoming like a one- or two-yard gain on a scramble. You know, and that kind of example showed up on film again and again. Both Alabama games, for example, we saw that. We saw that against LSU.

We saw that in a bunch of places we're seeing. Knows that something is coming from a play that that team had not run before, but he knew kind of the natural response to the evolution of what that was going to be and what that was going to look like and took that away. So clearly diagnosis is really important to the Vikings. And that might be why the Cowboys had him, you know, as their 13th best player overall, right. Um, it's a little bit different than the public works that we had. And then for booth, it was just somebody, I think booth is a guy that might need a little bit different than the public works that we had and then for booth it was just somebody i think booth is a guy that might need a little bit more work than a lot of the scouting reports would kind of indicate but he is extraordinarily technically skilled so i can see why people say

he's ready to play on day one because as a technician he's remarkably well developed and he's super athletic yeah if he's healthy right that's the other part um but he's a super athlete he's super technically refined and like 90% of the time, um, when you're not a quarterback, that's wow, we're good. Play him right away. But he does have some awareness of recognition issues. Now from a, from a ball awareness perspective, once the ball is in the air, he's phenomenal. He's got great awareness, but sometimes he can break down a little bit in terms of the way the routes are going. And so he just needs to learn a little bit more there. Someone told me that, you know, there's some concern about his ability to kind of see all the way into what

the quarterback is doing and, and, and have an understanding of kind of what, how those routes are developing based off of where the quarterback's progression is. And that's just going to have to be cleaned up. I don't know, but yeah, I mean, he's remarkable. But obviously the issue for him is, is. But yeah, I mean, he's remarkable. But obviously, the issue for him is his health, because I watch, you know, you know, these games that he plays, you know, against, you know, first round quarterbacks in the ACC, right? I guess not

actually first round quarterbacks for purported first round quarterbacks in the ACC. And I see him playing them like a fiddle, right? It's even doing really well. And you see a first round pick. And I think it is unquestionable that he would have been a first round pick were not for the live new injuries. So for me, a lot of my time writing that scouting report was, was, was putting on a doctor's coat and, and learning on the internet how to do medicine, which I'm now fully qualified to do. And I'm happy to perform surgery for anybody who does not care that much about how clean the clean room is.

This is good to know if I need some medical advice or even a procedure. Yeah, I'll charge you way less than I would. I would hope so with your with your your lack of experience that it wouldn't be quite as expensive. I'll build up to it. I'll build up to it. No, but that that's interesting. And it's going to be kind of cool to see how, like how Kevin O'Connell as a head coach is able to not only coach on the offensive side of the ball, but is able to coach up defensive players. It's something that Eric Hendricks talked about today that he's just kind of from being around Kevin O'Connell a little bit he's he's found that perspective that he has of being the offensive guy and telling them different keys that they

see from the offensive perspective and like things like when you're dropping into coverage like don't just look at the the player you're covering or the pieces like that like look at the quarterback look at his drop and and um just things like that and i mentioned that because um i i wonder how much like that perspective will be able to help people like andrew booth uh and and lewis scene and just um obviously the vikings have a lot of great defensive coaches as well but um that was something that kind of stood out to me from hearing Eric Kendrick's talk today as well. And I want to go back a little bit to the kind of front seven personnel that you mentioned that a lot of the different responsibilities are going to come on the back end, but things are going to be different up front. They're going to look different. And I'm just curious, like how we feel about the Vikings personnel

up front, because they have Dalvin Tomlins and still they replaced Michael Pierce, Michael Pierce with Harrison Phillips. They have Armand Watts as the guy who can kind of slide in when you're just playing a base with three interior defensive linemen. He's kind of just a serviceable guy. They didn't bring back Sheldon Richardson. But then at the edge, you've got potentially if, if healthy, what I think could be one of the best as you actually do. I was in the NFL. I mean, 2019 on the one hand is not that long ago. On the other hand kind of is that feels like that was like pre pandemic. That feels like forever ago. Right.

They were one, two in thefl and pressures uh smith and hunter um so like the star power is there um the depth at edge is interesting to me uh dj want them like had eight sacks last year but don't really i know i'm not doing i'm just saying like if you were strictly looking at the numbers, you're like, oh, DJ Wanham had eight sacks. Like, he needs to play a lot. Those are all basically more or less, like, coverage sacks or unblocked sacks. Yeah, I think he produced maybe one of them, but yeah.

Yeah. They've got Patrick Jones, who played, like, 100 snaps last year. Janaris Robinson was a fourth round pick. Who's coming back. Even Kenny Willikas, like had some, some flashes. Everybody loves Kenny Willikas.

Oh yeah. I tweeted out a, like clip of his best plays from the Ravens game last year. And people were all in on, on Kenny Willikas, but like, he's like a serviceable depth guy at the edge. And linebacker wise, there's,

you've got Hicks and Kendricks who are going to be your every down player, your every down players. I think there's an argument to be made that Hicks maybe could be an upgrade from like Anthony Barr, the 2021 Anthony Barr, whose knees maybe aren't fully all the way there. Probably not an upgrade from like 2017 anthony bar but um then you bring in brian asamoah the the rookie that they took early in the third round which to me kind of is it was notable because of the the shift that it signals like i was out we were i was out at

rookie mini camp and um brian asamoah standing next to lewis scene he's like smaller than him like he doesn't he doesn't look like a line but he's not your grandfather's linebacker he's not even he's not even a Ben Gideon linebacker where he's like this big downhill run fitting guy and and I mean he's able to play against the run because he's really fast and um has that acceleration that the Vikings prioritize so much with every single player they drafted seemingly having like a 99th percentile 10-yard split in the 40. But also at linebacker, I mean, Chaz Surratt, Troy Dye, Blake Lynch, like how do you feel kind of about the personnel that

they have at those various spots up front and how it might look this year in this scheme? I'm a little bit concerned about interior pass rushing. You know, I mean, I like Harrison Phillips. I think that he and Dalvin Tomlinson are maybe a little bit redundant just in terms of their skill sets and the fact that you're probably not going to have, you know, every snap in the world is not going to have three defensive linemen out there. Right. And those two guys are probably going to rotate it a little bit more often than otherwise. Like you said, Armand Watts is probably your pass rushing guy is probably going to be out there on third downs. But the Vikings kind of have developed him in a way where maybe that's no longer going to be an enormous skill set of his because he's been such a hybrid nose tackle three technique, which is pretty good training for a three, four,

but it doesn't really give you the most confidence in the world that he's got some of the pass rushing ability that he shouldn't in his final year in Arkansas. Right. And so I'm a little bit worried. It would be nice to see, you know, a little bit of interior pass rushing, not, you know, they don't necessarily have to find a way to replicate Aaron Donald, although they do have somebody who fashions himself as Aaron Donald on the roster. Jalen Twyman, right? Yeah. Who yeah who knows right that's his uh that's his mentor at yeah

it's his hero man that's who you model also wasn't drafted in the uh sixth or seventh round but it's a little bit different it's a little bit different uh i i will admit that they are not one to one well that's an interesting thing just to interrupt you real quick. Like you can't draft every position of need or like every luxury position that you could use on your roster with however many picks you have. But I thought that that was when we're heading into the draft, like that was something that made a lot of sense. I thought to add some interior pass rush juice, like Logan Hall from Houston.

I was, I thought it would have been an interesting fit and then he goes with the uh one pick before they were outside you know yeah pass pascal or pass however you pronounce that yeah there were a lot of um interesting players like that with different skill sets i mean jordan davis and devante wyatt are like the first round kind of caliber guys there and there are a few others, but that was something they didn't really address at all. So that leaves it being kind of a question mark still, as you've alluded to. So, yeah, so I've got a concern there. Maybe Jalen Twyman can kind of demonstrate what made

him such an interesting prospect two years ago before he took the season off and probably built his body in a way that was really unfortunate for his long-term prospects, you know, focusing on strength more than quickness. But, you know, I mean, which is nice. There's a little bit upside. And I think everywhere else that linebacker and edge rusher, as you alluded to, there is a lot of untapped potential that for any individual player, you would argue the odds are not high that they'll turn into a very good player or even maybe even reasonable depth, right? Like I don't think, for example, that your team is in a good shape. If DJ Wanam is your third edge rusher is as nice as those sack numbers are.

I think that the Vikings could do better. Right. And I think most teams do do better. Right. And so that's kind of the area they they're at individually none of these players seem like that'll be good but i think in the aggregate you could argue they've given themselves a chance for one of these unlikely long shots to turn into somebody that number is reasonable right exactly you throw enough darts at the dartboard uh maybe you don't hit a bullseye but you're gonna hit some high value points um which you know the bullseye is not as important to darts as, as everyone makes it out to be. So let's, let's calm down on that.

But also, you know, if, if, Hey, if, if this coaching staff can actually develop Troy die into somebody that looked a little bit like what he was in Oregon, fantastic. That's going to be such a great, you know, piece of depth to have available and somebody that can, you know, be really effective on special teams. If the coaching staff can say, Hey, you know, Junarius Robinson you know, you, you didn't get to play last year. You were injured. That's really unfortunate. But, you know,

we really trust our defensive line coach. We think that he can help you in these ways, just do this, this, and this. And, you know, he could be, you know, somebody that is, you know, maybe a little bit better than a Fadi Adenabo was a couple of years ago for the Vikings when he was an edge runner instead of a defensive tackle. You know, I thought that that was reasonable depth for the Vikings to have. And so you could turn one of these guys into a pretty reasonable player. They have a lot of athletic upside. I mean, Vikings have that basically everywhere. They have a really quick trigger, like you said,

like Brian Osmo's 10 split. I believe believe you know uh you know troy die and blake lynch have better 10 splits than the 40s and troy die um yeah i don't think troy died ran a 40 but i think from like the spring numbers his junior year or something like that we're not bad um you know these are guys that are known to be pretty good athletes that can turn some of that into getting to where they need to be really really quickly and so they've got a roster that's built to maybe take advantage of upside if one of these players blossoms and they've, they've put so many players out there, they've gathered so many of such of those players that one of them could blossom. And so I think you're in an intriguing spot, but I would still be worried, right? I mean, last year Zimmer set

out, right. The team is top heavy, right? It's just, we don't have very much depth anywhere. And and then, you know, the team, like any other it's just we don't have very much depth anywhere and and then you know the team like any other team in the nfl took some injuries and especially on the defense and uh it didn't it didn't turn out well the vikings have more depth this year than i think they did last year but it's still a top heavy team to me and so unless one of these players really blows it up really you know turns in know, their development is the second, third, or in the case of somebody, I think like Troy died, this is his fourth year. You know, somebody turns in a big leap forward in development as a result of being in a

new system and a new coaching staff. You're in a spot where the prospects are not too bright for one of these players to, to, to be great, but they, they do have a lot of, a lot of tickets that they've bought. So maybe they'll hit the lottery in one of them. Yeah. And that's kind of the fun part of the off season and training camp. And it's just like tracking those, those tickets and who's going to step up and maybe push somebody that they brought in and projected as a starter for their job. Just seeing kind of which players from that group of the last several draft classes, not only the rookies this year, but players who

didn't see the field much last year, even like the 2020 guys, James Lynch and Troy Dye and all of the players that have had some potential and maybe haven't realized it yet. Can they unlock that with a new coaching staff and new, new position coaches, new coordinators, new scheme and new responsibilities. It's that's kind of just the fun part of this off season where it's not, we're not doing the same thing that we had been doing every year and coming into another Rick Spielman, Mike Zimmer season. And like talking about just, Oh, maybe this is the year that these things happen.

Like there's, there's different like tangible schematic things that, that are going to be a big part of this off season and the season that it's just going to be really fun for, for us covering this team and for the fans watching this team and trying to get some optimism to, to track it. And yeah, this is, this has been great. I love diving into kind of the depth of this stuff and really appreciate you, you coming on the show. Anything, anything you want to get off your chest before we wrap up here?

Nothing that I've, I've held close to the chest. This, this early in the off season, maybe later on, I'll, I'll have something to rant about and have a final parting shot. But instead, I'll just ask people to follow me on Twitter, at Arif Hassan NFL, or follow my and Chad's work over at theathletic.com slash author slash Arif-Hassan, or Chad Graff.

Just fill in the author page. It's pretty intuitive. Or just go to the Athletic and then the NFL, and then all the teams pop up. Yeah, yeah you got every team you got every team yeah you guys do great work and um i'd love to have you on the show again sometime this summer let's do it thanks for coming on