Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Will Ragatz Show: PFF's Jackson McIntire breaks down Vikings over-unders

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Sports Illustrated Vikings reporter Will Ragatz talks with PFF grader Jackson McIntire (@PFF_Jackson) about his background and how he became a Vikings fan, then got into a discussion about the PFF grading process, which I was curious to hear more about. Then he discussed Vikings over/unders, like "is Kirk Cousins over or under the 13.5th best QB in the NFL?" Plus Dalvin Cook O/U 4.5 in the RB rankings, Justin Jefferson 3.5 at WR, the Vikings' defense 16.0 as a unit, and picking the Vikings' Vegas win total of 8.5. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, welcome back to another episode of the Will Raggett Show on Purple Insider. Will Raggett to cover the Vikings for SI.com. And joining me today is Jackson McIntyre. He is an analyst and grader for Pro Football Focus, a University of Minnesota grad as well, and a Vikings fan who is now living in Los Angeles. Jackson, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. So I want to start before we get into some stuff about about your journey with PFF and what you do there and some Vikings talk as well. I want to start kind of with your background a little bit. So how did you like get into the Vikings in the first place?

Because you're not from Minnesota. We were just talking before this. And then how did you end up like coming to the University of Minnesota and just kind of what's your whole relationship with Minnesota and with the Vikings? Yeah, so back in like 06, 07 or so, my grandpa was a big Oklahoma fan. I used to watch all those games with him and being born in L.A. and raised in L.A., we didn't have a team back then. So I was kind of like a free agent with the whole fandom thing. And so when Adrian Peterson came out to be drafted, as I was a big fan of him in college, I was just kind of as a 10 year old, 11 year old saying like, wherever he goes, I'm going to be a fan of that team and Vikings drafted him. And I became a Viking fan. And then moving forward, um, I ended up going to the university of Minnesota in 2017 to 19. Um,

that was, uh, mainly because I had a job offer for the super bowl that I thought would be really good for my career and stuff. So took that, um, that was a really good time out there. Uh, love Minnesota, love Minneapolis. Um, I lived in dinkytown so that was that was an experience in itself but yeah yeah no it's i've i've been kind of connected with uh minneapolis and the state of minnesota for like most of my life um even before i went to college there i was out in 2015 when i was writing for the daily norseman um in mankato covering covering training camp for back when Zimmer Bridgewater, I think, his second or second year, I believe. All those all those guys. I think that was the year right before we went to the playoffs when Blair Wall shanked that field goal. Yeah, absolutely. So

yeah, there would probably be some some Vikings fans who would question that decision that you made to kind of opt into Vikings fandom when a lot of people are kind of forced into it or born into it. But despite the lack of Super Bowls and playoff success, always an interesting team to watch and follow for sure. Talented players, things like that. Were you able to get to some games ever when you were out here in college yeah i actually went to that season opener game against the saints with uh sam bradford when he was dropping dimes all over the field and then i think that was the only game he played maybe he played a couple more but i think he played a little bit the following week against the bears i believe but was just already kind of falling apart. And that's when Case Keenum took over and led that magical season. Um, and you also, you,

you, I was looking into you and you said you did some, um, stuff with the Superbowl, uh, when that was here in that 2017 year, what were you doing with that? Yeah. So that was kind of a departure from what the rest of my football work has been. That was more like management stuff. I worked for the Super Bowl experience and managed like a big group of part timers and helped run like some of those event machines and stuff. Honestly, probably wasn't worth the out of state tuition for that, but still a good experience. Yeah. And and then how did you end up getting started with with PFF? Yeah. So I got started part time in 2016.

I tell everybody PFF is they've always been really good at providing opportunities to prove yourself. And if you put that work in, you'll you'll get noticed even with today. Obviously, there's much more competition than way back when, but yeah, so I started part-time 2016. I was working weekends only. I was part-time until 2019. So all throughout most of my college experience, I was staying in on weekends, grinding football, Saturday, late Saturday nights, late Sunday nights. Definitely worth it though. And I became

full-time about a month or two right after I graduated college. So that was in 2019. Started grading in 2018 as a part-timer. That was my last year as a part-timer and uh yeah mainly just do grading and uh coverage stuff route stuff is kind of what i focus on mostly yeah that's that's really cool and it's really interesting to me um because i use pff a. It's a kind of an invaluable resource. Um, and not just the, the grades strictly, but the kind of the advanced stats, um, that are available on that website with the like yards per route run and, um, yards allowed per coverage. Now just all kinds of things like that, that I find really interesting. But at the end of the day, the thing that I think PFF has kind of been known for, and a lot of people look at are those grades and I wanted to talk about that a little bit like as much as you are

you're able to share about like kind of the process that goes into that because I think I think a lot of people would probably find that interesting that don't know much about how those grades come to be so just like with what you're doing now what do you what do your responsibilities look like like what does a typical week, what do you what are your responsibilities look like? What does a typical week look like for you during the football season? Yeah, so football season is obviously pretty busy. That's definitely the busy season. A lot of tape grinding for me. I'm mostly doing grading, coverage, charting, ball placement, charting, different kinds of routes, stuff that we do with

charting different routes and piecing everything together throughout the week. And typically weekends are grading, work week is doing all 22 work. So that's kind of the breakdown and just kind of talking about the grades. One thing that I noticed that comes up a lot when I'm talking to people about the grades that aren't really too fluent with what we do is that people kind of say you can't, or like it's a bad stat. You can't make a stat of a player's grade, whatever.

But I think that it's it's important to note that we're basically using a qualitative observation and putting that into a quantitative form. So the the grade itself is not a quantitative type stat the grade itself is based on observation and meshing football knowledge and what's really happening on happening on the play and then that's being turned into a number but the how we're getting there is through perspective and through actually knowing the game and piecing together who messed up on this assignment, who was good here, who was bad here, who blew this, who blew that. So it's unique in that sense because obviously we are an analytics company, but I think that there's a really important balance when talking football of

balancing the quote unquote, I test with the analytics. And I think that that's what we really strive to do. Yeah. And so just of a basic explanation for people who may not even know what PFF is, you are, you're grading every play, every player on every play in both thefl and you do some college stuff as well right yep um and then it's if i'm not mistaken each play is kind of scaled from it starts at zero and can go up to two or negative two in increments of 0.5 is that right? Yep, correct. So I think one kind of like thing that I hear just from is it's it's a subjective qualitative thing to some degree. But like how much preparation goes into like learning the X's and O's and learning various schemes so that you,

to the best of your ability, can can know what a player is supposed to be doing on any given play and therefore whether they did that well or not? Yeah, so there's a whole lot of development with just football-based training. All of our graders, we go through rigorous training and just learning the responsibilities and everything going on on the play, what should be happening here and there. But one thing that's important too with that is that multiple eyes are looking over all of these plays. It's not just one person's opinion watching it. And when we're watching that tape from an all 22 perspective, we have high, highly knowledged football minds running their eyes through those plays and you know it's just it's almost like building like a tower of informed opinions and it comes to a conclusion where multiple eyes have looked over this and this is how we feel

about this now there will sometimes be times where and we've said this many times on other in other places that we're not going to be able to tell who was responsible and coverage or whatever on every single play. There will be some plays that that's just something that we don't know. And so when we don't know that, we won't go and take a guess on that. That's something that we will basically just write off that. But that is a drop in a big bucket. It's when you're talking about a player's season grade, a few plays play here and there.

It's really not going to have much of an impact on the overall grade. Yeah. So that'll be the situation like that. You'll just kind of like market as a zero and move on. Yeah. Yeah. And that's interesting. And just I'm'm curious like from your perspective doing this for a few years now are there certain positions that are like the toughest to grade um just when in terms of like all that goes into playing certain positions um

i don't know if there's one position that would necessarily be the toughest. I would say it's more so there can be some pretty complicated coverages. There can be some pretty complicated run fits, all kinds of different stunts, looping, looping stuff going on that can throw off how we're, um, or just make things complicated and, and understanding it. But definitely, uh, uh something that you know the more you study the more you you look into it and work on it it starts to make more sense yeah for sure no i that's that's really interesting honestly so this like right now

um during the off season what is what is the like week look like for you? Yeah, so offseason is kind of the slower season, obviously. So lots of training, lots of just football development, watching tape, training other people, training part timers, working on developing our product further and touching up our data from the previous season, looking forward to the next season and new things we want to focus on, new things we're implementing into our system and really just overhauling the process and trying to improve it as much as we can every off season. Yeah, it makes sense.

And are you back to like during the season? Are you, will you do like one nfl game a week are you doing a bunch of games uh depends on the week but for i mean sundays obviously are going to be the big nfl days but um usually more than one depending on the week yeah uh no it's cool and i for me and i think there's a lot of vikings fans out there like look forward to uh when those grades drop and just kind of pouring pouring through all that information not not just the grades but um the coverage versus receiving and um quarterback stuff and and all the various information that is on there so

that's cool to hear a little bit of the insight behind that um i want to talk about some viking stuff with you since you are a vikings fan uh thanks to adrian peterson and i wanted to kind of do this in the format of of giving you some over-unders and getting your opinion on on whether they you think this stat or this ranking will go over or under um or not not necessarily even a number for this year like not like a player prop but um for example i was looking at your your website pff and you've been doing the um on the content side a lot of like positional rankings um and i'm curious just what you think about some of the big name Vikings and not necessarily where they are exactly on those lists, but just in general. So to start, Kirk Cousins, who is kind of a polarizing topic within the Vikings. I have written down, this is just kind of arbitrary, 13.5 Kirk Cousins placement in the NFL quarterback rankings.

And we're going to work through this together. I'm not just going to ask you to answer that right away. But if I put Kirk Cousins at 13.5, some of the names that I think can be like very safely ranked ahead of him Brady Rogers Wilson I think Matt Stafford after winning a Super Bowl obviously Mahomes Allen Herbert Burrow Jackson Kyler Murray that's 10 that gets a little Kyler Murray depending on how you feel about him but then then you start talking about Dak Prescott Derek Carr Ryan Tannehill Matt Ryan Kirk C Ryan Tannehill, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins. Do you have Kirk Cousins in the top 13 or outside of the top 13? I think he's top 13. I think I'd agree with all of those names that you were listing as pretty clearly ahead of him.

I don't think that Stafford is ultimately that much better. I do think that that Super Bowl does put him ahead in any kind of ranking discussion. But I think that they could have gotten very similar results with Kirk on that team. And I think that Kirk is probably at the top of that next tier that you started listing, the Dak Prescott's, the Ryan Tannehill's, Derek Carr. I think that he's about on par with a Dak Prescott type quarterback. Good, not great. But I think that if you put the right team around him, he can win and he makes big time throws and he throws guys open. He's got a pretty

solid arm. And yeah, I, I'm not like a big Kirk Cousins homer, but I think that he's good enough. Yeah, I think like just strictly from a rankings perspective, I have him right kind of on the borderline of that top 13. The big the big thing, of course, is that his contract is not paying him like he's borderline top 13. But just from a pure talent perspective, I think he's right in the mix with the Derek Carrs and Matt Ryans and people like that. The Stafford comparison is an interesting one because, yeah, like heading into last season and the last couple of seasons, they've been pretty similar throughout their careers in a lot of statistical categories. Stafford, he just has a little bit something, like a certain thing to him

that's just not necessarily even that quantifiable, which we saw in the Super Bowl. Big arm. Big arm, but also just kind of a willingness to throw the ball into tight spots and be a little bit more aggressive than we've sometimes seen from Kirk. I think Kirk is extremely accurate. There's just the occasional moments where he can be a little bit too conservative or make some, some poor decisions.

But that's why I think this, this season is going to be so fascinating because Kirk now has Kevin O'Connell, the, the coach who worked with Stafford last year, and we'll see if he can kind of elevate him to another level um let's go to the running backs Dalvin Cook I have the his over-under in in NFL running back rankings at four and a half and so you're talking about like the best run some of the best running backs in the league the Jonathan Taylors, Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb, McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara, Aaron Jones, people like that. Do you do you view Dalvin Cook as a top four running back?

I do. I think that McCaffrey, after two back to back major injury this game seasons, I think that he's got a lot to prove there um Camara I I think Dalvin's a bit over Camara um who was that other back that you just mentioned uh Nick Chubb and Taylor is another one yeah Jonathan Taylor came in last year he's better um Nick Chubb's better I think but it's close it's really close um honestly he's part of me wants to say Dalvin there but I'll stick with Chubb just because of that the the way that he breaks tackles and can just accelerate after that and I think he's running through tackles a bit better than Dalvin is at this point right now, but Dalvin's got a bit more burst, obviously. Yeah. And health, I mean, always is going to be a question mark with, with Dalvin cook.

He's been able to stay pretty healthy the last few years. He hasn't played a full 16 or 17 game season, but when he's getting the big workloads, like he is, that's just kind of going to happen with playing the running back position uh i think yeah that it's another one that like is is he's right there in that top four top five conversation just because he has a little bit of everything you want out of a running back in terms of vision um acceleration top end speed he can catch the ball yeah so another guy who i'm just very curious to see, like, how his role changes, if anything, if it does.

He's going to fit this real nicely, this new offense real nicely. Just that outside zone running that this scheme is so focused on is just his bread and butter. And I think it's going to be pretty special to see. They were just – I mean, Cam Cam Akers another Florida State guy was running this six months six months after Achilles tear looking really nice you put a healthy Dalvin back there and that's with an improved O-line too it's going to be a big year if he can stay healthy yeah and Justin Jefferson is um I think has two years into his career I think he's already entered himself into

the conversation among the best receivers in the league I have his uh over under here at three and a half so it's it's do you view Justin Jefferson as a top three wide receiver in the league, which like he is produced like some you could argue over the last couple of years. But still, two years into his career, that is that that would be very high praise considering how many talented receivers there are. You look at like Devante Adams and Tyreek Hill and just so many other. Jamar Chase had a huge rookie year. Stephon Diggs, a former Viking. Cooper Cupp, who I really neglected to mention somehow after his huge year. DeAndre Hopkins.

Do you think Justin Jefferson should be in that top three at this point after two seasons? I, man, I, I think that personally, I prefer Jamar Chase's extra juice after the catch a bit to Justin Jefferson. I mean, I think they're very similar route runners. I think that they're very close to each other and that one could definitely separate themselves this coming year but just my gut is with that that extra juice that you get from jamar chase that he's a little bit faster he's a little bit more explosive he's a little bit better at breaking that tackle um a little bit more explosive uh i would probably say that adams you got to go with cup right now because of the year he just had um chase you probably have justin jefferson at four unless i'm forgetting somebody hill and diggs i think are up there oh yeah yeah i think hill's up

there i mean digs and jj are pretty interchangeable to me right now yeah which is kind of crazy that the vikings acquired acquired one of them in a trade with the other um yeah i think well hey that gives you a little extra credibility there so people aren't just going to say you're a Vikings homer and you're taking all of these all of these overs. I think Jefferson's right there. I mean, he's been unbelievably good through two seasons. He's kind of done a little bit of everything. But I don't I don't think saying Jamar Chase. I don't think ranking Jamar Chase ahead of him is blasphemous by any means. After you look at the rookie year that Chase had and just some of the kind of special qualities he qualities he had the two played together uh on the 2019 lsu offense and and chase was the was the number one guy in that offense and and

some of that was just jefferson was put into a different role and he was playing in the slot a lot but um yeah chase had a quote the other day too about um about he was just balling last year just playing last year and now he's been really focusing on the finer details and that's a scary thing to hear yeah he is just his ability after the catch some of the plays he made last year just really absurd um so i think i would probably take the under there ever so slightly um but it's it's close and jefferson another guy like everybody in this vikings offense is just i'm curious to see uh what what they look like this year in a new scheme with a new coach um will o'connell use him in in some ways similar to the ramp, the ways the Rams use Cooper cup. Like you don't, you don't,

you can't ask for much more out of Justin Jefferson than what you've gotten over the past two years, but it'll be interesting to see if they, if they change up his, his like route tree a little bit at all. So the next one I want to go to is the Vikings defense, not going to like single out any specific players, but I wrote down 16.0. Like, do you think the Vikings can have a top half defense in the NFL this season? And I'll read a couple of stats before you make your decision. The Vikings last year were 30th in total defense, 24th in scoring defense,

but the advanced metrics were a lot more favorable. They were 20th in PFF defense grade, 16th in DVOA, 12th in EPA per play, and 21st in success rate. So still not very good overall, but that's why they fired Mike Zimmer. They brought in Ed Donatel, veteran who's coached with Vic Fangio for a long time to lead their defense. They're changing to a new scheme. They add Zedarius Smith. They're getting Daniil Hunter back. So just those two alone could have a huge impact coming off the edge.

They draft Louis Scene, Andrew Booth, with their first couple of picks to kind of revamp the secondary. And then they also swapped a couple veterans up front with with Harrison Phillips replacing Michael Pierce and Jordan Hicks replacing Anthony Barr do you think the Vikings will have a top 16 a top half offense in sorry defense in the NFL this season I think that to start the year it might be a little bit rough but I think that to start the year, it might be a little bit rough, but I think that in the second half of the year, I think they'll be top 16. I think if you look around the league right now, as you mentioned, Donatello's going to run a Fangio-type defense, which is basically those pre-snap, too-high looks that are so tough to read as an offense.

The best defenses in the league right now are those type of defenses a lot of guys from the Fangio tree are running those now there's I was reading recently that's even Seattle like who popularized the whole cover three thing even they are probably going to be running a lot more of that pre-snap too high, roll it into a three or play quarter, quarter, half, or just whatever. Lots of times they roll that into one, two, but just, it gives you a big, a lot of versatility that you can do with your defense. It, it just makes it tough on the offense to know what you're doing much. If you have a single high safety, it's just, it's middle field close, much easier to read.

And I think that there's a clear trajectory that the NFL is going towards defensively and that the Vikings making this higher was showing some foresight to that and trying to modernize at least along with the offensive hires of Kevin O'Connell, who's obviously going to be running a McVay type offense. But I think that schematically it's, it's obviously with after years and years and years of Zimmer, it is going to be a big change. Um, his defense was so intricate and had so many nuances to it that so many of these defenders have been basically in their whole career especially the top ones i mean eric kendricks harrison smith but um i guess bar's gone now but yeah so it's i i think that that by

the second half of the year they'll be playing much better than they were to start the year because anytime you switch to a new defense it's usually pretty rough at first as you learn more of the terminology and then that second half of the year you can open up the playbook a little bit more you can start trusting your back end of your defense a little bit more you can start doing a little more creative Blitzes creative manufactured pressure looks and just stuff that can take that defense from new and learning to actually performing like an NFL defense and I I'm looking forward to watching that yeah i'm with you i think the the schematic change that they made like with with all due respect to mike zimmer who was a brilliant defensive tactician like it seems like they've

kind of understood um that this is the way the league is going and uh there's been a lot of talk this week at vikings minicamp about this defense and specifically the disguise where it starts with the two high safeties. So you don't know what's coming. And then they're just trying to I think Patrick Peterson said they're just trying to steal a second from the quarterback by by kind of disguising what they're going to do, hiding what they're going to do. And so then the quarterback has a lot of work to do post-snap to diagnose and figure things out. And in a game where things happen so fast, if you can steal that second, that's a really big deal, and that's going to help you a lot. And just personnel-wise, too, I mean, I think the talent is there

for this to be a top 16 16 top 15 defense potentially even better if if zadaria smith and daniel hunter stay healthy that's a really good edge duo um you've got some interior guys dalvin tomlinson um who should help the run defense be a little better than it was last year because it was pretty it was pretty ugly last year um still have eric kendrick's in the middle who's one of the best linebackers in the league those big d tackles in the middle are very important in this defense because the defense is more scaled to defending the pass those guys up front have to be good at playing their gaps there's a whole terminology with in that defensive coaching tree of gap and a half gap and a half where these players they're not just playing one gap they're playing a gap and a half gap and a half where these players they're not just playing one gap they're playing a gap and a half they have to be able to play their gap and then fall back into another gap

um should they need to given whatever happens on the play and having guys like harrison phillips and uh snacks harrison or dalvin thomas in my bed. Are you guys up there to, um, to basically execute that? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, no, I'm with you. I think the backend is going to be, um, a big question mark. How fast can Louis seen as a rookie safety become like a real impact player. They also have Cam Biden who could, who could play. Yeah. I think it's's gonna be really good yeah uh ed cornerback there's it is a little shaky they brought back patrick peterson

um you got cam dansler the andrew booth the rookie i think has a chance to be really good but rookie corners sometimes take a while and he's he's got some injury concerns as well. But I think we're in agreement, like, scheme-wise, personnel-wise, even if they start slow, the defense is looking pretty solid this year. One last one for you before I let you go is pretty simple and straightforward. It does not need any explanation here. The Vikings' win total right now at most sports books is eight and a half wins. And it makes sense. They won eight last year.

They won seven the year before that. Are you taking the over or the under on that? Mashing the over. Briefly convince me why. All right. You're mashing the over. Why is that? Mashing the over.

It's, I mean, this team got better. The coaching, the coach got better in the coaching the coach all around the coaching is better offensive defensive uh the team itself got a little bit better um i mean who'd we lose we lost bar we lost uh i mean hicks is probably an upgrade over bar just from a coverage pierce mich Michael, Everson, Griffin, Shelly Richardson. Yeah. Yeah.

See, like, I think that none of those guys really moved the needle. And some of the guys that we brought in Zedaria Smith, Harrison Phillips, um, C Louis Louis scene, um,

potentially Andrew booth. I think that what we've also with the offensive line, Dantzler year two, he's not coming off an off season where he was injured. He's going to actually be able to focus on developing as a player. The right guard competition that we've added, just obviously Bradbury is still a big question mark right now. But just i think that overall from basically every angle you look at it this team is a little bit to a good amount better and projecting looking at like last year like we're we're gonna win more games than we won last year in my opinion and that's yeah that's where i stand on that and yeah if you win more games you you hit you hit the over. I think there are a lot of good points that you kind of touched on.

There's a lot of reasons for for optimism about the Vikings this year. Personnel wise, the new coaching, like the fact that they lost a bunch of close games last year and were terrible at the end of halves and the end of games. I think there's also some reasons to like maybe be a little skeptical just with a first time head coach. A lot of change. The quarterback is still Kirk Cousins, who has kind of been a 500 quarterback for most of his career. The offensive line, the secondary. But by the way, I think I think I said Dan Slurrett for left tackle. I meant Daris. Oops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the eight and a half number makes sense, but I think I'm with you. I think like, I think the over makes more sense as of right now.

You look at their schedule too. And that's, that's another thing that's fairly favorable. You're not seeing a ton of elite quarterbacks outside of like Aaron Rogers and Josh Allen. So, yeah. Hey, what's, what's June Vikings content without a little bit of optimism, uh, Jackson, appreciate you coming on. Um, where can people find, where can people find you on, on social media? Uh, Twitter really,

that's the only place I'm really at for football stuff and that's going to be PFF underscore Jackson. All right. Go follow the man man jackson appreciate you coming on have a good one man yep thanks for having me take care okay i want to get to a few twitter questions before we wrap up the show i've got five here that i'm going to hit so i'm going to try to do this every once in a while so keep an eye out on my twitter at will raggets and uh feel free to send me questions on there this first one comes from Dinesh Kalyana Sundar. I hope I pronounced that right at Dinster 77 on Twitter.

Who are some players that we are not hearing enough about right now that have a sneaky chance of making the 53 man roster. So essentially some long shots who aren't getting discussed much that, that might be able to sneak onto the 53. And I have two names for you that are kind of deep cuts. First one is Zach Davidson, who was the tight end the Vikings drafted in the fifth round last year out of central Missouri. He looked really, really raw last year.

And he is still a very raw player playing at such a small school. Didn't see the field. He was a practice squad guy last year. But just two things work in Zach's favor. One is that he plays tight end, and the Vikings just don't have a ton of depth at tight end right now. They have Irv Smith Jr. and Johnny Munt, who they brought over from the Rams. But those two are both a little banged up.

So Zach Davidson's had a chance to get some reps with the first team offense just because the two guys clearly in front of him have been a little banged up in OTAs. And then just his size and his speed, like the dude is really tall, really long and can really run. And that's why Rick Spielman took a chance on him in the fifth round last year. So I think just because the tight end depth chart is so kind of up for grabs, Zach Davidson's competing with Ben Ellison, who is a guy that the Vikings claimed on waivers from the Jaguars early last year. And then Nick Muse, who was a seventh round pick this year for that third tight end spot, because you assume the Vikings, even if they're not as tight end heavy this year as they have been in the past, they're going to keep three on the 53-man roster.

So I think Zach Davidson's got a shot if he can have a big training camp. And then another one is a guy who was just very recently added to the roster, and that's defensive lineman Jonathan Bullard. And what's interesting about him, I mean, this was a really kind of quiet, minor free agent addition, well past the first few waves of free agency. But Bullard kind of fits a mold that the Vikings don't have a ton of players in on their roster right now. And he's that prototypical five technique where he's the defensive end in the three four um and so he's not like a true defensive tackle nose tackle but he's not a true edge rusher outside linebacker

um Bullard working in his favor has a lot of familiarity with the Vikings coaching staff uh he Chris Rumpf the Vikings defensive line coach was his coach, his position coach at Florida in 2016. And then he's also been on the bears with defensive coordinator at Donatello when Donatello was the secondary coach. So they weren't maybe working super closely together, but that familiarity is why he's been added to the roster. And I think gives him a sneaky chance, which is how the question was phrased to make it onto the 53. There's a lot of competition up front on the defensive line, but I think Bullard's just a solid veteran. He was a third round pick back in 2017, I believe. So I think he's got a chance. This question is from at simply honest on twitter every year we see good players fall off a cliff in

terms of performance anthony bar xavier rhodes linval joseph and everson griffin are a couple examples which player on the vikings in your opinion is the most likely to regress in 2022 now there are several candidates for this because the vikings are a team that has a lot of veterans and has plenty of guys that are either over 30 or approaching 30. And I don't think there's anybody I could pick here that would be a popular choice. This certainly won't be a choice that like Vikings fans want to hear, but I'm going to go with Harrison Smith. And I just think, I mean, Smith has had an incredible career. He's the longest tenured player on this roster, 2012 first round pick,

multiple regimes ago. And the reason why he's been able to stay really productive past his athletic prime is that he's such a smart player. But I think at some point, like playing the safety position, you have to have a ton of physical ability to be able to really move around. And once you diagnose, you got to be able to kind of trigger and go make a play, whether it's in the pass game, whether it's coming downhill and fitting a run.

And I think Smith just seems to me like a guy with his age at his age he might just fall off a cliff a little bit um I I don't think Harrison Smith is ever going to be like a really really bad player um but I think I could see him being a like league average or slightly below league average starting safety this year which I I think would be considered falling off a cliff for him with the standard that he set for himself. Maybe it won't happen. Maybe his instincts and his just elite mind and football IQ will help him not do that.

But that to me seems like the most likely candidate to kind of regress. Adam Thielen would be another one who's up there in age as well. But Thielen's been impressive so far this offseason. This is from Ed Donatello at Skoll or whatever. And kind of the flip side of the last question, what players, if any, have you seen real growth in from last year to this year? It's hard to have like major takeaways from what I've seen at OTAs and mini camps so far. A lot of that'll come in training camp when the pads are on. We really haven't seen anything that's that you can evaluate from like the offensive line or the

defensive line. It's mostly been kind of passing drills that we focus on where you can actually have some takeaways. But anyways, the point I'm making is a lot of this is just going to be projection in terms of players who will grow from last year to this year. And the easy answer is going to be second year players, because that's when that big jump frequently happens is from a player's rookie year to their second year. Uh, so the two guys that I will throw out one is Christian Derrissaw. Um, I mean, he was the first round pick last year. He showed a lot of promise at left tackle athletically, um, in terms of his technique, there there's things to work on, but, um, I, I could see him having a big, big jump this year

and kind of, um, establishing himself as a pretty good left tackle in the NFL and another one is Patrick Jones the second the edge rusher that the Vikings selected in the third round last year he was the only one of their four third round picks who saw the field really at all last year played about 100 snaps made a few plays I can see him with his length his size his burst off of the line of scrimmage kind of carving out a role behind Daniil Hunter and Zedaria Smith in that edge rotation Mike Smith the Vikings outside linebackers coach said that that Jones has the fastest get off in that group including Hunter and Smith so he's a guy that I think he's a good run defender he was a productive pass rusher at Pitt

I could see him taking a leap this year and showing off a lot of growth this is from Cam Dantzler Stan what do you see the cornerback room looking like depth chart wise? Now, based on that username, I imagine this person is curious about where Cam Dantzler fits into the cornerback depth chart. And I think the number one thing that we know is that Patrick Peterson is this team's top cornerback. He's the number one. Yes, he's old. Yes, he was a little bit inconsistent last year and had a hamstring injury and isn't getting any younger. But, I mean, he's probably a future Hall of Famer. He's still incredibly smart in terms of playing the cornerback position and has a ton of experience.

He's seen everything. He's seen all kinds of receivers, all kinds of quarterbacks. He's seen all kinds of receivers all kinds of quarterbacks he's done all kinds of techniques I mean you you're in the league as long as you are as long as he has been and you've kind of seen it all so he's the number one and I think Cam Dantzler as of right now has to be the favorite for the number two and that other starting outside spot but he is going to be pushed for sure by andrew booth jr the rookie the vikings drafted in the second round this year booth is has has some injury concerns he hasn't really been full go at offseason practices just yet but he he should

be good to go for training camp the vikings say so that could be a legit competition and booth's got a lot to to prove as a rookie right away if he wants to see the field immediately, but it's possible. Dantzler has been good. He has good PFF numbers, but there's just a level of inconsistency that he hasn't been able to shake in his first two NFL seasons. You just think about that play against the Lions last year where uh the the vikings lost to that winless lions team and dansler whether that was fully his fault or not was was too far back um just just things like that there's plays in his rookie year where he um gave up a big play

against the seahawks and dk metcalf just he's he's got a lot of potential um he's got good size he was really good in the SEC uh at Mississippi State he can cover but it's just finding a little more consistency with him and then Booth just has a slightly better athletic profile um in terms of his his quickness acceleration speed, physicality to some degree. And then Booth just comes out of Clemson with elite ball skills and elite pedigree in that department, making one-handed interceptions and things like that. So it's Peterson is the one.

Dantzler and Booth are competing for that second outside spot. Chandon Sullivan, the former Packer, is kind of unopposed as the starting nickel, the replacement for Mackenzie Alexander. And then there's some depth guys in there as well. Nate Hairston is another free agent the Vikings signed who could figure into the mix, either inside or outside. Caleb Evans, fourth-round rookie, is an intriguing name to watch. I don't know how realistic him playing a lot is this year,

barring injuries, which are, of course, possible. But yeah, those are the names to know. And then there's a few like Ty Smith, Perry Nickerson, kind of practice squad type guys. And this final question we're going to get to comes from Linwood. If the Vikings are successful next year, do you look at Mike Zimmer differently as a coach? It's a really interesting question. Um, my answer is not particularly, um, but not, not entirely. I'm not entirely saying no. Um, but for the most part, whatever the Vikings do this season, shouldn't change how we

view the run that Mike Zimmer had from 2015 to 2019. When those, those defenses were so good and the Vikings were consistently, if not a playoff team, I mean, they made the playoffs every other year, but they were, had a really good start in 2015. They were in it until the final week in 2018. that was a really good run like mike zimmer um there's been a lot of shots taken at him this offseason um and it's understandable but um whatever the vikings do shouldn't like change or diminish how we view that run zimmer hat now with that said it'll be interesting interesting, based on how the Vikings do this year and the first year under Kevin O'Connell, to kind of look back and see how much blame

Mike Zimmer really deserved for how things went wrong over the last two seasons. Because the last two years were kind of a disaster. The Vikings were still very clearly in win-now mode by extending Kirk Cousins and all that and signing veterans to try to win and going sub-500 both years and missing the playoffs. And Zimmer very understandably getting fired after the conclusion of last season. But what the Vikings have done this offseason is essentially declare

that they think it was all Zimmer's fault. And some players have taken shots at him. Most recently, Chris Boyd, just the Vikings in the way that they have kind of approached this offseason and gearing up to be a win now team again. They've they've made that statement that they think a lot of this was on Zimmer and they think that Kevin O'Connell and Ed Donatel and Wes Phillips and all this entirely new coaching staff, almost entirely new coaching staff is going to make the biggest difference. Cause there hasn't, there haven't been like huge personnel changes. They brought in Zedaria Smith and obviously they had a draft and all that,

but it's mostly the same core group of players with just the idea that a different coaching staff can get more out of them. So if the Vikings are really good this year, then they were right, probably. I mean, it'll be tough to exactly quantify how much of the Vikings being good this year would be on Kevin O'Connell, but probably a lot of it. So they would probably have made the right calculation in that event. But if they're bad, if they're 8-9 again, or even worse, then maybe it wasn't Mike Zimmer's fault as much as the current view is. Maybe this roster is kind of fundamentally flawed in some ways. And Kweisi Adolfo-Mensah and the Vikings made the wrong decision by running it back and doing a competitive rebuild as they've called it. And maybe they should have just blown it up.

So that is kind of a long way of answering that question. I don't think this year's success or failure should change how we view the, the, the bulk of the mike zimmer era but i think it will definitely affect how we view how much blame zimmer deserved for the last couple of seasons so that'll wrap up this week's episode of the will raggett's show uh tune in next week when i'll be joined by former Vikings linebacker and a current K fan personality, Ben Lieber.

So that'll be a fun one. Thanks for tuning in everybody. See you next week.