Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - There's no such thing as Vikings draft rumors -- a Fan's Only podcast

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

Matthew Coller answers fans questions on where Anthony Barr will land in free agency, which free agents are surprisingly still available, if there are any draft rumors regarding who the Minnesota Vikings will pick and if there's a strong case for wide receiver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. This is another fans only podcast where I take your questions. I do not read them first. I take them right from your emails and tweets, put them in a file and then read them one by one. Sometimes that results in me not knowing how to answer them or having to look things up but i like it better this way as instant reaction so if you dm me or if you send me a tweet or send me an email purpleinsider.com is a good place to go send me an email and just tell me it's fans only question and i'll put them in the file and we'll go through them and i'm sorry if sometimes it takes a couple episodes to get to your question i've gotten a lot of them and i'm so happy that you guys have sent so many of these questions

because they're always good, they're always thoughtful, and always interesting, which is why I decided to do this. So as we get closer to the draft, we've got more cool things to get to, and so I'll get right into it. But of course, first, we need to open a sweet diet dr pepper okay all right ready to go first question comes from sean via the email he says i've come across a handful of podcasts and i give them three or four episodes to win me over and in doing so I have consumed a fair amount of information but the one name I never hear is DJ Wanham he seems to be to

have had a quiet breakout season last year and is somehow completely under the radar that is uncommon so I'm curious perhaps is he one of those stat collector types who doesn't do the little things or followed the scheme a me instead instead of we, if you will. I would love to hear your thoughts on him. Well, I think that first the Vikings showed you their thoughts on DJ Wanham by signing Zedaria Smith and moving heaven and earth to keep Daniil Hunter by letting that $18 million roster bonus kick in for Daniil Hunter by letting that $18 million roster bonus kick in for Daniil Hunter. If they were confident that last year's performance by DJ Wanham was something that pointed to

a long-term edge rusher or the next great pass rusher in Vikings history, of which there have been many, many, many of those, then they wouldn't have done those things because both of those things come along with risk. Signing Zedaria Smith to a two-year deal when he's coming off missing an entire season. And then Daniil Hunter has had his injury issues over the last two years, and they're having to lay down a lot of cash to keep him on his current deal and potentially set themselves up to give Daniil Hunter a mega deal after this year. You would not do those things if you thought you had the next guy in

hand. So that's one. Also, I checked this out by the numbers. DJ Wanham's pass rush win rate last year of all the guys who played at least half of the snaps uh was 58th out of 62 edge rushers so he was not really winning his reps on a play-to-play basis against the tackle across from him it was more of just i don't want to call them junk sacks because it's always good to take down the quarterback it's always a big play but when you get eight and a half sacks and say the quarterback scrambles right into you or someone else creates the pressure and then it's a cleanup sack it's not often that he was lining up across from the dude on the offensive line beating that dude and pressuring the quarterback and getting a sack it was much more of kind of the circumstance Mike Zimmer did a really good

job actually last year of creating sacks and I think that benefited DJ Wanham but when you're looking at numbers that project forward there's nothing with him that says okay this is the next development project who becomes a long-term starter say like daniel hunter did or everson griffin did and so i think that for right now dj want him settles into kind of a situational role or somebody who's you know really a straight up backup kind of what steven weatherly was for them uh and i think if you replayed that season at least what the numbers say about his pressures if you replayed last season a bunch of times it's probably pretty rare that he ends up with that many sacks so clearly they don't believe that he would be able to repeat that year in and year out and you know we're talking about

a fourth round pick and usually those guys need development and very rarely do they become what everson griffin or daniel hunter became. Those guys are very much outliers. So if Wanham plays any type of role, then it's really a win for the Vikings. It is really telling about the sack statistic, though, that the sack statistic can tell you lies. But usually pressures and pass rush win rate from year to year are something that's much more sustainable. So I hope that that answers the question and you keep Purple Insider in your rotation of podcasts after that, Sean.

Thank you very much. This comes from Mike, again, through the email. Will Anthony Barr get signed somewhere? Who are you surprised hasn't been signed? Okay, so I'm going to have to look up the free agent list to see who I you surprised hasn't been signed okay so i'm gonna have to look up the free agent list to see who i'm surprised hasn't been signed but uh anthony bar is a tough one because you know he's got this knee thing and if you're a team that is looking to fill a linebacker position like a full-time want 17 games out of the guy Anthony Barr is just not the person that

you want to look to I mean just with his injuries last year and the fact that the knee thing cropped back up later in the season and kept him out I think the word is pretty much out there that he's not long for an NFL career with his knee situation. And when he kept missing time in camp and they kept having to bump him back and back and back, it became clear last year that this might have been his last close to full season last year with the injuries that he's had over the last couple of seasons. I mean, he has mostly been a healthy player throughout his career, but the knee and the torn pec the year before, like you get old really fast in the NFL. And I think that's what's happened to Barr. So even though he played well

when he was in, if you're signing him, you're probably thinking eight to 10 games and an eight to 10 game player is somebody that a team signs in June or July when they're looking for depth or a role player. And it's funny about how this happens, but that's the job as a general manager, kind of like with DJ Wanham, like everything is projecting forward. And if you're trying to project forward forward what Anthony Barr is going to be, you probably don't want to give him any more than a one-year contract. And you probably want to make sure that that position is already filled and he can just have a spot.

Because if you sign him to fill a full-time job and then he plays eight games, well, that means you've got nine games with your backup in there. And that's a very serious fear with Anthony Barr. And I think that's one of the reasons the Vikings quickly moved on to Jordan Hicks, who has been really, really healthy. So I think that that's why he hasn't signed. And I'm not really surprised that he hasn't. But I think that he will.

I do think that when we get to that June, July, couple weeks before camp, when all the remaining free agents are looking for a spot, that he signs a one-year, $3 million deal or something like that. I think that's very possible. But by the same token, Anthony Barr never struck me as a guy who has to have the NFL in his life. Like, I think he has other interests in this world. And I'm not sure that he I'm not saying he doesn't love football because he's a very diligent, intelligent player. And he battled back from injuries and he fought to stay in Minnesota and redid his contract and

all those things from last year so I'm not questioning like his commitment or anything I'm just saying that like he's a he's a bright dude and I could see him having other worldly interests aside from football having made a lot of money with football and if he doesn't get a really good offer i mean that could just be the end of anthony bar's career with that it just he could go out like that i wouldn't be terribly surprised if that happened but i also think if you're a contending team and you need a little depth you get to that part where free agents are desperate and you go how about three million bucks to be our backup or to be our rotational rusher or whatever it might be and that might be hard to turn down if it's a team

that can compete potentially for a super bowl so if the chiefs were to say hey come on in or the broncos hey come on in for three million bucks on a one-year deal and be a rotational player and hey by the way we just got russell wilson and have a chance to compete for a super bowl then i think we could see anthony bard do that who am i surprised that they haven't signed or that that hasn't been signed in general probably jarvis landry's pretty good wide receiver he's not that old he's 30 i would have thought and maybe by the time you listen to this he will have a job that's what's always tough about talking about free agency uh maybe i'm not terribly surprised

that odell beckham doesn't have a job yet but i thought he would have just quickly returned to the los angeles rams and the fact that that has not happened kind of surprises me a bit um there's a few free agent corners who are still out there we talked a little bit about kyle fuller and bryce callahan those guys from denver maybe coming to minnesota that didn't happen but you know you get to this point and it's pretty it's pretty light the free agent list is pretty light uh jc treador would be a guy that you that I'm surprised that nobody picked him right up and I'm surprised he's waiting. I don't know, maybe he's another guy who's over 30 and decides that he's made his money and he wants to move on or he's waiting to see if someone gets hurt in camp or that type of thing.

But I would have expected that there would have been a handful of teams jumping on JC Tretter. I think the most surprised I am in terms of who hasn't gone somewhere, it's Jimmy Garoppolo, has not been traded. That's the one that really has me like, why has this not happened? There's still needy teams out there. Teams made decisions to actively get worse players than Jimmy Garoppolo like Pittsburgh going after Mitch Trubisky or Jameis Winston returning to New Orleans I don't really understand those decisions either in comparison to trading for Jimmy Garoppolo is the price from San Francisco too high are there concerns about the shoulder like that's the Baker Mayfield thing being in a holding pattern I totally get

teams are saying maybe we could draft somebody better I don't know but with Jimmy Garoppolo I mean he's taken a team to a Super Bowl and an NFC championship that's a lot better than anything that Jameis Winston has done for example or Sam Darnold in Carolina so that's the one I know that's not a signing but that's the one that i'm really surprised i would have thought garoppolo would have been the first quarterback traded and yet here we are still sitting and waiting so thanks for that email mike i appreciate it uh this one comes from vikings jazz fan what is the realistic best and worst case scenarios for this season i can't see more than nine wins but i'm a lifelong vikings fan so optimism isn't my thing totally understand you uh vikings jazz fan and appreciate the question well i think let me take

a sip of diet dr pepper and think about this for a second i think the realistic best case scenario really depends on who you are if you want to see your team have better feelings about their coach better culture care about each other more want to play for each other more then i think that the best case scenario for you to project forward and say, yes, our team has a good coach. You want 11 or 12 wins out of this season. And to be able to say, yeah, it was Mike Zimmer who was holding this back. Look how good Kevin O'Connell was able to do. He's going to be a good coach for a really long time. I think that's a, that is a realistic best case scenario 12 might be stretching it maybe i should say 10 or 11

i think a lot would have to go right to get to 12 like green bay would really have to falter aaron rogers get hurt or something but let's say let's say 10 or 11 is realistic but if you want this team to draft a future quarterback that could potentially take them to a Super Bowl, then an alternate reality best case scenario is that it were to win four games if if all of this just everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong and the guys who have injury histories got injured again and the older players slipped and the players we expect to develop didn't develop and kevin o'connell's game management guy didn't know what he was doing which i think he does probably but just everything goes wrong this this is this is, this is not that realistic, but I think maybe a little, and they win four or five and you can get Bryce young, or you could get CJ Stroud or whoever. I don't know

who the third best quarterback is. Maybe it's Spencer Rattler. I'm not sure, but you get one of the three best quarterbacks in a really, really good quarterback draft by not having a good season and regressing even more from where you were last year. That is a best case scenario long-term. The worst case scenario is the one that you mentioned. Nine wins is the worst case scenario because it's not a fun season. Nobody enjoys that. Nobody enjoys an eight or nine win season that doesn't get you into the playoffs fans don't have fun they show up for the last game in boo we saw it last year it won't be different this year it will be frustrating because your team

will show signs of life and then will fail you in all the biggest moments which we have seen in recent years like that's what a nine win season is for everyone. I'm not even speaking directly about the Vikings for everyone. An eight or nine win season is the worst thing you can have when you have expectations of making the playoffs. When you're a budding young team that is plucky, if you're the Jaguars or something, and Doug Peterson's trying to get them back on track. Okay. Well, nine wins would be huge for the Jaguars or something and Doug Peterson's trying to get them back on track okay well nine

wins would be huge for the Jaguars my gosh but when you bring back Thielen Smith Hunter and you do all the things that they did to the salary cap long term to win nine to be one win better than they were last year would be I think maybe the the biggest way that they could spin their wheels and go absolutely nowhere. You wouldn't look at Kevin O'Connell and say, wow, he was way better. And you wouldn't look at them and say, oh, they're set up to draft the next franchise quarterback. Now they might anyway, because the league gets it wrong a lot when it comes to the order of quarterbacks but nine wins eight wins i think those are very realistic and they also feel the worst but any of the other extremes you know paul hodowanek and i had that debate the other day would you rather have an 11 win season and i don't tell you how far it goes in the playoffs

or you get a three win or four win season and draft in the top three. You know, Paul wanted to draft in the top three. And I said, look, man, if you're there on the doorstep, you've got to take that shot at going deep in the playoffs. Those two outcomes I think are very good, but it's the in the middle outcome that we've seen what that does. It's very easy to say that's the worst case because we've seen what that does over and over. It just gets, you know,

where you're drafting 12th and, and this is the highest that they've drafted in a while. So thanks for that question. That's a good one. Folks, Minnesota sports teams are in the playoffs. Yes, that's right.

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Again, that is SOTASTICK, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, 15% off with the promo code PURPLEINSIDER. All right, next one from HeyitsMaddyFez. Justin Jefferson didn't specify his goals for this season but if you were a receiver with his talent and work ethic working with a coach who came from an offense where uh with receiver usage like cooper cup what would your expectations or goals realistically look like that's good that's a good question so i mean we could do this by like a fantasy stat type of thing but i really don't want to look at it that way like last year cooper cup

had to be that for the los angeles rams because robert woods went out and odell beckham came in but he wasn't able to come right in and fill in that spot for Robert Woods. So it was by necessity in a lot of ways that Los Angeles had to throw to Cooper Cup as much as they did. And as great as that worked, that they ended up with the highest expected points added passing the ball and Cooper Cup is an unstoppable force, so there's that. I don't know that you want to look at this question like, oh, if he gets 140 catches, that's where the expectation should be because Cooper Cup was doing that. I think it's more of, can you use Justin Jefferson to drive your team's scoring points? And when you look at the percentage of drives where the Vikings scored points, it was very unimpressive. Let me look it up. It was very

unimpressive last year. And that's what you're really looking at, I think, is a great metric to tell you about how your offense is doing is how often when you have the ball are you scoring that means you're sustaining drives that means you're creating big plays that means you're finishing with an extra point or a field goal and you're helping your defense by being on the field like all these things like last year the rams scored they were third best in the league they scored on 46 percent of their drives okay the vikings were 15 on 39 percent of their drives and they had one of the lowest turnover percentages in the league what that means is a lot of unsuccessful drives if you start the game from the first play saying justin jefferson will win us this game every week.

He will get us ahead in this game, and he will put the dagger in the back of the other team, and then we'll run the football with Delvin Cook to make sure they don't get the ball back. But everything is starting with Justin Jefferson. Then he could still end up with the same exact stats, but the order of operations would be different and more successful in terms of scoring points as an offense i think that that's the way we need to look at it is not

so much hey does he get this many or that many catches like look nobody has more receiving yards in the last two years than just the jefferson in the whole nfl so I don't expect that his numbers are going to be insanely better. I just think that when they choose to force the football his way should be right from the very start, not when they are backed into a corner and they absolutely have to, which seems to be the way that it was over the last two years in many occasions. Oh, no, we're down 14 points. Now it's time to start throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson. I don't think that that's the right way to approach it. And how did you get down 14 points?

Oh, by running on first and second town. Like that was very much the case with Gary Kubiak. And I think that at times it was with Clint Kubiak as well. So, you know, I think my expectations, if I'm Jefferson, is that this coach is using everybody a little smarter and is, it just has a better outlook toward what football is in 2022 to win and how you just constantly have to be thinking, score, score, score, not ball control, not playing it safe just constantly have to be thinking score score score not ball control not playing it safe you have to be thinking right out of the gate throwing the ball all over the yard because that's football in 2022 so my expectation is that we score more points because of me if i'm

justin jefferson and i'm that receiver uh but you know the the fantasy stats i just i would think that they would come out similar even if they're using jefferson in a better way i think it would be really hard to be better that me and also that means you're not really throwing to adam thielen or kj osborne or much out of the backfield remember i mean they didn't have almost anything out of the backfield to throw to i think their second leading receiver had 60 catches and that was the tight end like the vikings have more options than that i think so all right uh next question here at gone fishing 58 could you see the vikings starting off a little slow because their players have to learn new systems on offense and defense as a result hampering their already borderline chances

of making the playoffs this is a tough this is a tough one to project because i do think it's hard on defense i don't know that it's hard on offense i mean i remember in 2018 i mean think about this really they've had different offensive coordinators every year, and we've gotten different results at the beginning of the season every year. I mean, last year, Kirk Cousins started off with a new offensive coordinator and played terrific football for the most part through the first couple of games of the season. Played really well at Arizona, played pretty well

once his team stopped jumping off sides against cincinnati in the second half of that game cousins was really good i mean they start off the season against seattle was maybe the best kirk game we've seen right and that was a new offensive coordinator on offense i don't think it's an issue, but on defense, that's where it feels like all the moving parts have to be in the same spot. And, and think about with the Vikings, it's a lot of guys who have played together before. So the receivers, they've all been together before. Irv Smith been together, Kirk.

He knows these guys, even the offensive linemen. There's really only one new position on the offensive line. The chemistry of the people getting on the same page is pretty good for the offense but on defense yes i think we really saw that last year at times where there were miscommunications in big moments early in the season specifically the um rondale more touchdown that they allowed against arizona and i and one of the reasons is I mean they don't play in the preseason basically at all I don't think we'll see starters in the preseason like I'm not saying that you should the moment you get your tickets sell all your preseason games

but the Los Angeles Rams essentially didn't play any starters in those games. So you're going to go the whole offseason with just training camp to get new linebacker, new defensive lineman, new starting safety, new starting corner presumably, like at least Shandon Sullivan out of the nickel. We'll see if it's Cam Dantzler and Patrick Peterson. But new faces on the defense could, could take a little while. And it's another reason to come right out of the gate and just lean into Kirk cousins and throw the ball as much as you can, because I do think the defense will have a curve here. Could it affect their chances to make the playoffs? It really depends. I mean, if that

learning curve is steep, then the answer is yes. It's not easy to just go into free agency and say, let's grab a handful of good players and decent players and hope it all works out. It did work for Cincinnati, though Cincinnati didn't get off, I don't think, right? I'm trying to remember. I don't think they got off to the most blazing hot start to last season but um they did that with their defense where they kind of went and got one really good player in trey hendrickson and then some average players that worked out for them and they played decent enough defense to let joe burrow be the man and drive their success so you can overcome it like i don't think it's going to take six weeks,

but in an NFC with a lot of close teams in quality, one or two games could matter. It's a hard thing to project, though, because if you come out of the gate and Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter look great and they sack everybody, then that will eliminate some of the problems that they had. Like, miscommunications in the

secondary look a lot worse when there's no pressure all right this next question in our fans only podcast comes from sports guy nelson says hey matt this is for fans only if you'd like talk me into the vik full lean into the Kirk this year and drafting two wide receivers not just one two wide receivers well I think that talking you into a first round receiver is not hard where the Vikings are picking they could take the best receiver in the draft I mean when you look at a lot of mock drafts they maybe have one sometimes it's jake uh drake london sometimes it's garrett wilson it's usually one guy who is going before the vikings pick which means it could be none and they could have their pick to take the best receiver on the board right there at number 12

you won't get that likely at corner it's possible you get the second best corner you won't get that edge rusher you might be looking at taking the third or fourth best edge rusher those are the positions you need the most quarterback still seems like a long shot so if you could take the best player in the whole draft at number 12 let's say you think it's chris alave which is who i think it is but i mean i you know who knows but let's say it's chris alave take him and you could plug him in as the number three slash four to where you know maybe he's playing over kj osborne maybe they're switching in and out they're going to use a lot of three wide receivers people will get their opportunities and in the short term that's really good to add

a blazing fast playmaking weapon right off the bat and like you said leaning into kirk cousins in the passing game and in the long term the just the jefferson thing has to be talked about as we are speaking at this moment debo sam Samuel's family is putting on Facebook that he's never going to play for the 49ers again. It's a real thing that has to be considered down the road that there could be a Justin Jefferson contract issue. And if you drafted another first round wide receiver who could be really good, that's your parachute if something goes wrong with Jefferson. I'm not trying to scare anybody about Jefferson. It's just as likely that he's a Viking for life. But teams should always be thinking about this.

Just the way that they should about quarterback. They should always be thinking a couple of steps ahead because you just don't know how that's going to play out when all the money gets involved. And, you know, who, who knows, like one of the, uh, the downsides of winning four games, um, the good side is that you could draft a quarterback. The bad side is that just the Jefferson probably won't believe in you, you know? So every, every sort of domino has, uh, has an impact or whatever. Uh, there's always a

butterfly effect to everything that happens. And, um, so I think that trying to anticipate those things would mean drafting a wide receiver. And I also just think like, you know, you look at some of the teams throughout history and this is not like a new thing the more receivers you have the more people are open the more your quarterback can make plays if mark rippin can win a super bowl with three great receivers with washington or if case keenum with two can succeed or you know i mean we we've never really seen kirk cousins with three if if randall cunningham can lead one of the best offenses ever right like we've seen this happen over the history of the game taking a shot at it i mean i'm all for it so you can let me know in a tweet if you were talked

into it but i don't think it's hard i don't think it's hard can you find a corner in free agency there's like three for four who are still good right now can you find an edge rusher probably they're a little harder to find but you could get them in free agency each year there's a couple guys who are available um so it's not like those positions are irreplaceable receivers though are just getting very very expensive and if you can have one cost controlled who's great i mean that's what you should look for folks just wanted to mention that you could get the purple insider draft guide next monday by going to purpleinsider.com anytime click on any of the articles to go subscribe to our newsletter. The draft guide comes with one month subscription and you can get all of our written draft coverage.

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Go check it out today. Okay, this comes from Ron Zoni on Twitter. Any whispers you've heard of who the Vikings' number one target would be at 12? I know there's talk of trading back, but if Stingley, McDuffie, Jermaine Johnson are there, and I assume you mean Kayvon Thibodeau here with the initials, slips, any idea who they would take? I'm also team wide receiver. Have you heard if that's a realistic possibility? If Kayvon Thibodeau slips to number 12

and they don't take him that would be a big mistake I think I mean you're talking about an incredible value for the talent of someone who is talked about as the number one overall pick there would be a reason for that player slipping but at that point you just have to take them. As far as hearing who they're going to take, the whole world wants to know who any and every team is going to take. And I can tell you that anyone who claims that they know anything about what's going to happen on draft night is selling you a bill of goods. They are absolutely thoroughly telling you fibs if they claim to know what any team is going to do because if you are inside the building and you are leaking things that are true out to media people

and you are caught doing that you are fired okay i mean think about last year think about how inaccurate mocks are these are the most dialed in people to the industry mel kuiper has been doing this thing forever todd mcshay the biggest names and daniel jeremiah who was a former nfl executive or scout i think scout these people know all sorts of executives and scouts and gs and coaches around the league, they never get it right. And that tells you how little is being leaked out of these teams when it comes to that stuff. Teams only leak stuff when they want it leaked.

They only let it get out there if they want people to know that it's out there. So I have no idea who their number one target is. I really don't. And nobody else does either. And that's why I can't wait for the draft. I mean, have I heard it's a realistic possibility? I mean, no, I don't know anything. I mean, real truly, truly, this is, this is the one area where, you know, nothing and you never do do and the reason that we often get it right is just by figuring it out like last year i think all of us were in on this christian derisaw idea and it happens because it was obvious it was the biggest position that they needed

and it was a position of strength in the draft the same kind of thing with garrett bradbury where a lot of people guessed that he would be the pick because he was their big weakness. Justin Jefferson, Jeff Gladney, like we knew those positions. And so you can take your best guess, but there are no whispers when it comes to this type of thing. There never have been. There's a lot of things that we learn about what happened in a given season dynamics between players uh you learn more when you're in the locker room all the time of course than the last couple of years so i'm excited about that but this is what makes the draft season

and the nfl draft one of the most compelling events in all of sports is because you just have no idea what's going to happen going into it. Um, we don't know who's going to be the number one pick right now. We don't know if it's Trayvon Walker or Aiden Hutchinson or cave on Thibodeau. We don't know. Um, so I can't wait, but you know, is, is there, you know, possibility of taking any of those players if they're there. Like, yeah, every single one of them. So I'm excited for it. Okay, this one comes from Chris Graywin on Twitter. For the fans only pod, react to this mock.

And he sent me a link to a mock, and I'm not going to read the whole thing. But I will tell you that it has Kayvon Thibodeau going to the Vikings. My reaction would be, wow, this is Justin Jefferson, only defensive end version. This is somebody who in college was a great, great player and really didn't do anything wrong and somehow ended up in their laps. And that's my whole take. I mean, that would be a huge home run for them and I you know just is his personality so off-putting that they allow him to drop someone who is a

number one overall talent to drop to number 12 I guess that would be my only question that's the question we would be asking quayse adafo mensa on draft night is okay how did he get to you guys that's what we need to know and the answer with jefferson in hindsight was so stupid it was so silly well he played in the slot a lot like okay and actually interestingly pro football focus uh did a study on like player usage and whether there was a correlation to their success like wide receivers where they lined up that kind of thing and the answer was not really and that's how it kind of goes for most things in college is you know some of the statistics will tell you something, but normally it's, do you have the size, speed, and adaptability to play in the NFL? And if you do, then you can.

So if they were to draft Kayvon Thibodeau, I think they get an A plus from everybody the next day. Okay, so I forgot to include the next person's Twitter and I'm sorry for that. Uh, I, but I'm, I'm not going to go back and track down who it was. So you know who you are. Mystery tweeter. Should the Vikings trade the 12th overall pick for AJ Brown and sign him long-term hashtag competitive rebuild. This is one of the problems with having so much money tied up in a quarterback and running backs okay they can't they just can't there's it's not a one-year thing it's not like you could just push the money into next year if you trade for aj brown and then sign him to an extension. They have made life difficult on themselves cap-wise for years to come. And so you kind of can't.

Is it a really good idea to get A.J. Brown to go with Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen and K.J. Osborne? Of course it is. Is it a good idea? I mean, there are teams who have made the cap seem fake and i guess if you were really really trying if you were going out of your way so if they do this on draft night i guess you can all come back and laugh at me but it would be so difficult after this year when you look at next year there aren't easy ways to create cap

space and so even if you're trading for a really good player filling in the rest of that matters like the los angeles rams had other good players they did not just have like four good players who they paid a bunch of money and then a bunch of schmoes like that's what the vikings have kind of had they've had a bunch of good players who played well and made a lot of money and then a bunch of schmoes like that's what the vikings have kind of had they've had a bunch of good players who played well and made a lot of money and then a lot of guys who you know i'm surprised i'm not seeing in the usfl um that that wasn't the rams and that's not usually how it works with great teams if you trade for aj brown you are making your cap situation for next year impossible to maybe even field an entire roster unless you sign him to a contract that is really low cap it in the first year and then a giganto

cap hit in the future is that possible yes but that's kind of a thing that a Kansas City or a Denver or somebody who is really on the cusp, not a competitive rebuild, but really on the cusp of trying to win a championship. And specifically when Kweisi Adafo-Mento was asked, I think it was an NFL network interview at the owners meetings about competitive rebuild. I think he kind of used it as an example of not trading draft picks for current players. And as great as that sounds to trade draft picks and get good players right away, those players cost money and the rookie guys just don't. And as long as that is the way that it is, the 12th overall pick doesn't cost you almost anything and AJ Brown costs you a ton, then that formula doesn't really work for a team that's trying to stack up its roster.

But would it be amazing for them and be an all in type of play? The type that we were looking for from the start, it was either go all in or tear it all down. And they did neither. Like I, I would get behind it because this has been my idea for a long time is to go get another great wide receiver so i'm interested yeah if they would do something like that but it's so hard to make it work with their cap that i think they've stretched themselves just to the brink with the salary cap so you you can't really do something like that. But if they do, you'll have been on it, mystery tweeter. Okay. Last one. And now I will need more of these because I've now gotten through all the ones I have, which I'm very happy about. So feel free to send them on Twitter at Matthew Collar or go to purpleinsider.com use you know there's a

little like contact me thing i think you can send it there okay this one comes from len via email says for this year's draft the formula should be i'm going to kind of skip through here a little bit len uh picks 11 through 20s to pick up the best value that remains on the board because other teams reach for quarterbacks wide receivers and left tackles okay does that sound right and uh then who will be there at number 12 the more info i see the more it looks like it will be an elite wide receiver yeah i mean i agree with the wide receiver point that i think that wide receiver seems as if it's the position where the top guy has the best chance of being there at 12. And the Vikings are in a spot where they really can pick up the best value or they could trade down if they see really good value a couple spots down or a desperate team that wants

to trade up for a quarterback. But if we're talking about the best player at a position which i know is not how they do it and they have needs at so many positions but they could look at their board and rank their players and say these are the eight guys that we think could be available and if five of them are still there then we're going to move down and if three of them are still there we're going to take a guy like i think that's how it works and that's why mocking is so tough and trying to figure out who they're going to take like i apologize for the rant earlier about like people just don't know how

it's going to work out or who wants to draft who but like that is truly the case that it changes so much after like three four picks year, there's a surprise and then everything changes and everyone has to adapt on the fly. But the most realistic position to be there with the best player to me is wide receiver. But if it's a surprise, if it's Thibodeau, if it's Derek Stingley Jr., which I'm not sure is a total surprise, but if it's him, then I think they'll go with the best player. But think right now if you were making a pie chart you would probably give like 50 percent to trading down and then split the rest between wide receiver defensive end and corner and then give a little sliver to quarterback just to make me happy I guess because that would be very very interesting if that were to happen and we would have a lot of fans only questions to discuss so

thank you so much to everybody for sending all of your fans only questions i will continue to gather them i also pluck some from the friday mailbag we do at purpleinsider.com and um so if you're sending those on twitter i'll usually use a few of those on this as well. But keep sending them. I really enjoy this. It sounds like you guys like it too. So we will keep doing it and keep having fun. And one more week until the draft.

Talk to you guys later.