Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings' Michael Pierce signing went under the radar

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

How does Michael Pierce compare to Linval Joseph? How does the domino effect work with the nose tackle position in Zimmer's defense? What does it say about the Vikings' timeline as a defense? Which players might emerge around Pierce on the defensive line?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey there, my name is Ricky Smith, and I'm the founder of Random Acts of Kindness Everywhere, a nonprofit that simply does exactly what it says, promote kindness everywhere. We know the world is crazy right now. If you are searching for a podcast

that has a deeper conversation about race, my co-host Angel Gray and I will be discussing everything going on right now on our podcast, Random Acts of Podcast on Blue Wire Podcast Network. To find out more, go to ricknow.org. Enjoy the show. All right, we welcome into the show one of my favorite follows on Twitter, no matter whether it's your suspended account or the new account, Luke Inman of Zone Coverage.

What is going on, Luke? Hey, good to be on the show. I know you got the new digs. Super excited for you and your new chapter here, man. I'm ready to talk about some sports finally. I feel like sports is starting to get back into the mix a little bit. So lay it on me, man. What do you got?

All right. Well, I want to talk about your video that you did, breaking down film of Michael Pierce, because Michael Pierce signed pretty early in the offseason, and we went, oh, a fat guy likes to replace Linval Joseph. Fine. And I don't think that we have looked too deeply into Michael Pierce and the differences between him and Linval Joseph and the impact that this position has.

This is kind of an old school thing for me that you go back to the Gilbert Browns of the world, the Ted Washingtons of the world, these mammoth human beings who just stuff gaps up front. And we always kind of chuckle at them, but a lot of times the Casey Hamptons of the world have had huge impacts that maybe we don't even really realize. And I think that you did a great job of touching on it in your video about Zimmer's defense and the value of shutting down first down runs. Teams are still running about half the time on first downs in the NFL, and Linval Joseph, especially in 2017, was just prolific at shutting down those runs, especially ones going up the middle, and of course on third and short too. So why don't we start there with just that role in Zimmer's

defense, and the way I think of it, Luke, is that it's a domino effect that starts with the fat man in the middle. Oh, no doubt. And, you know, I think you're right. When we signed him, you know, there was a lot of buzz around him for a few days. And then remember, Stephon Diggs got traded shortly after. And this kind of got put on the back burner a little bit. And to add to your name, your great fat people 90s name, my dad brought out Jerry Ball after we watched the video. So, I mean, there's a ton of them and and it's not the sexiest position they don't collect a lot of sacks or even tackles

for losses but they truly even in in more of a pass happy league that that the direction we're going in the NFL this is such an important position whether you run a 4-3 it's the nose whether you run a 3-4 or hybrid defense. These guys soak up these extra blockers. And, I mean, it sounds a little vanilla or old school, but you still win this game, Matthew, up front in the trenches. And I think you mentioned it. Linbaugh in that prolific 2017 season, he was just dominant. In fact, even 2016 was his season.

He had the most tackles in his career with 77. And he was just a guy that made everybody's job easier, whether it was the guys next to him, like Everson Griffin, Daniil Hunter, or specifically the linebackers behind him, Eric Kendricks, Anthony Barr, you name it. And I think it's a position, again, because it's not the stats, stuff around the stats sheet, that goes a little unnoticed. But I started to's a position, again, because it's not the stat stuff around the stat sheet that goes a little unnoticed. But I started to watch some film of Michael Pierce and you kind

of forget how important of a position this is specifically for a Mike Zimmer defense who, what's his bread and butter? It's the exotic looks and the blitzes, the different hybrid schemes on third down. But to get there, you've got to put these teams and offenses in third and long situations. How do you do that? You've got to stop the run on first and second down. Limbaugh, as good as he was, you mentioned it, 2017, he broke the record in the NFL for third down conversion rate. 2016, again, he had his most tackles with 77, but his play

declined every year. In fact, his tackles, just for example, declined every year from 2016, 17, 18, and so on, and he never really added a ton of pass rush either. So towards the end, you could see that he just wasn't the same player. He had three surgeries in just two years. He's getting a little along the tooth um it'll be interesting to see what he does now with his new team with the chargers but at his prime at his best um clearly he made a huge difference for this defense specifically again to help Zimmer get in those third and long situations and and then dial up those exotic blitzes and the other part of it too is being great on first down is not just stopping the run,

but it's also being able to stop the pass, obviously. But in the way that Zimmer is able to use it when he's got a dominant nose tackle is he's able to play two deep safeties. So any time that you watch, you can even often see this on TV, unless it's a Greg Williams defense and the safety is 40 yards down the field. But you're going to see one of two things. You're either going to see two safeties back or you're going to see one safety back. Middle open or middle closed is one way to talk about it. Two deep, one deep is another way to look at it. But if you have to play an extra safety in the box

all the time to stop the run because you can't do it with your defensive line, it gives you a disadvantage, especially in the play-action game. I think having two safeties when opponents are running first down play-action is majorly beneficial because think about how often they're using crossing routes, things like that, that safety gives you a better chance to be in that area if you've got two of them rather than one, right? Simple math. And if you can stop it with this big giant man in the middle,

all the runs up the middle, and then have other defensive linemen who are very good against the run as well, you don't need that extra guy to come up. And that's where another part of the domino effect comes. And now, Luke, we're just seeing almost every team in the league using play action on one out of every four dropbacks, and it's usually coming on first down. No, you're absolutely right.

Again, I mentioned it's kind of becoming a pass heavy league. Teams are even spreading them out three, four, five wide consistently. And you're right, as far as putting that safety in the box, man, I mean, whether it's versus the run or stopping the pass and getting some sort of pass rush, if you can just pin their ears back and send four guys without having to send that extra guy. Such an advantage to have that extra guy in coverage. And that's not to say that you don't want to maximize, you know, a guy like Harrison Smith's value in the box. We know how good and effective he can be making some splash plays when he is down there in the box.

But to have those guys pre-snap, pre-coverage in the back ends, it does wonders, again, for that opposing quarterback to know that he's got that extra man in coverage back there. And again, to be able to stop the run or pass with that front four, whatever look or hybrid defense you want to run, specifically with your front seven, it's a game changer, man, to be able to not have to have that extra guy at the line of scrimmage. And again, when Limbaugh was at his best, man, he was outstanding.

I think when I started to really break this Michael Pierce guy down from Baltimore, it's funny to me because nobody, everybody talked about, you know, Snacks Harrison, Damon Harrison, and some other dominant nose tackles. I don't think Michael Pierce really got a ton of love. And in 2017, though, he was dominant. I mean, he was the second-best nose tackle, according to PFF, against the run. And I don't think a lot of people really understood that. Now, he maybe took a quiet step back the year or two afterwards,

but he's still in the top five for nose tackles against the run. So he's been outstanding, man. for nose tackles against the run. So he's been outstanding, man. He's been dominant against the run. I really feel like his pass rush is a little bit better than a lot of people want to give him credit for. He's not going to be dominant. Limbaugh Joseph wasn't dominant in that area, but he's still ranked 10th out of all nose tackles, according to PFF,

against the pass rush. And what I'm excited for is andre patterson working with him and getting his hand technique down a little bit better because on tape you see a great bull rush just dude so strong in that lower body uh he might be no joke he might be one of the top 10 if not top five strongest players in the league i mean he the guy lower body looks like a tree stump that you just can't move. Great bull rush because of it. If he can work with Andre Patterson and get some hand technique down, you may just get a little bit of extra pass rush, which is just going to be gravy on top. But again,

going back to the run and his ability to be so effective on that first and second down against the run, I think is just going to be huge. Listen, this front office, as you know, was in a really tough spot this offseason. They did a great job for about five years. They had the same exact defense. The continuity in the NFL, you just don't see that for five years. And this was the year that things need to be changed. We won't go over the laundry list of guys that obviously left the team in free agency. But they hit the reset button on the nose tackle position,

and they got a Linval Joseph type of player at his prime, and they saved $6 million in the process. So I thought the front office did a great job. Again, we traded Stephon Diggs shortly after. So this story kind of got put on the back burner a little bit. And it's not the funnest or sexiest position to talk about anyways, but I think once we get rolling here, preseason, week one, week two, week three, fans are going to realize just how good Michael Pierce is

and more so how important, again, this nose tackle position is for Mike Zimmer's defense. Well, I wanted to follow up on his specific skill set that you started to get into there. He is much more of a bowling ball than Linval Joseph was. Joseph, one of the strongest players in the NFL, but was also tall. I mean, 6'4", 6'5", and had really long arms to go along with the girth as well, but a different body shape for Michael Pierce.

And the thing that Linval Joseph did that I don't know too many nose tackles I've ever seen, maybe Pat Williams was another one of them, but not too many, who could chase guys down from behind. So if you were throwing screen passes or something like that behind the line of scrimmage, he could run down a running back from behind if that running back was slowed down at all by the traffic. I don't know if we're going to see that quite from Michael Pierce. So where do you see the differences between the two players? Yeah, again, you know, we're talking about Linval comparing Linval versus Prime

or the Linval that you see now, which, again, is just not quite the same Linval as we're used to that Pro Bowl type of Linval Joseph. But, you know, this guy, Michael Pierce, he's on the upswing, man. I mean, he's only 27 years old, really hitting his prime. And the thing that you look back at in Baltimore, there is such a rotation there. There's not a lot of tread on the tires. So 27 years old, but he rotated a lot into that defense. And once they signed Michael Brockers and Calais Campbell this offseason,

the writing was on the wall that they just weren't going to keep this guy any longer. So I think the difference is, though, you're right, 340, if not 345 pounds, depending on the day, six foot tall. Again, that shorter stature, what I really love, he wins the leverage game, man. I mean, Limbaugh was outstanding in a lot of areas and had great attributes, but being six feet tall is still for defensive line. That's on the shorter end, and he gets lower, and any pop warning, you start football, they teach you low man wins. This guy, as soon as the ball is snapped, he's already at a huge advantage winning that leverage game, and whether it was against Marquise Pouncey, a Pro Bowl center, Joe Thune, Shaq Mason. There's some big names on the film that I broke down. You can check that

out on zonecoverage.com. That was just really impressive to see for how little the national media kind of covered this guy. So I think that's the big thing, being just six feet tall. You mentioned it, Limbaugh's six foot four and a lot of interior linemen are six foot three or taller. But being just six foot tall, man, that leverage game is so huge that he's at an advantage right from the get-go. And then he uses that lower body strength, which is just, I mean, almost unmatched. I don't care how strong these interior offensive linemen are. He's so strong with that lower body that he gets a great push,

initial push right away. And it seems like those interior linemen, whether it be the center, the guard, they're playing catch up right away. And they're already two, three yards in the backfield more times than not when he can get a good snap count and get a good jump on that snap. So I think that's the big thing. You're right. He does have some good lateral movement, I noticed, quite a bit.

There's a few tosses and screens that he chased down, but there is also some good play recognition. I mean, he was able to understand that this is going to be a three-step drop and that I'm not going to get to the quarterback in time, so let's just put my hands up and try to at least get in the throwing lanes, if not knock the ball down completely. So I think, you know, the Vikings have had a good pedigree with, they like drafting their own guys, you know that, they like retaining their own guys because they know them, they

developed them, but when they decide to go into free agency, it's a lot of the same kind of backgrounds. This guy was undrafted from Samford, a small school. He barely made the final 53-man roster for the Ravens, but he's got that underdog story. He plays with that chip on his shoulder, and I think the Vikings really appreciate those kind of guys. And even though he just got paid, what, three years, $27 million, something in that range, I think they know that this guy's always going to play with that chip on his shoulder. And the Vikings brass specifically, the front office, Spielman, down to Zimmer, they really value those type of players.

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Discount automatically applied at checkout. Deal ends June 20th. Yeah, you're right. They have a great sense for what type of personalities are going to fit inside of that locker room. And he not only sounds like he's driven, but a technician as well from some people that I've talked to that are familiar with his game, that he really loves to get into the study of that position, which is something that Mike Zimmer loves in his players. How do you think that the defensive line ends up shaping up?

Because I don't see Michael Pierce as playing a thousand snaps or anything like that. Lindvall became much more of a rotational player as he had the injuries and his performance faded to the point where last year, if it was third down, we would see Afadi Adenabo and Stephen Weatherly playing in over the guards. There's a lot of different mix and match here that's possible. James Lynch could be a part of this.

We could see even Afadi Adenabo move inside. DJ Wanham rushed from the outside, the fourth-round pick. If he can show something, or Kenny Willikies, if he can show something, a seventh round pick for Michigan State, but it feels like there's still a lot that's up in the air and how these rotations are going to work. Yeah, no, and I'm glad you brought that up because we've known from the get-go Andre Patterson, Zimmer combo, they want the rotation of guys. They don't want to just rely on the same four or five guys, and they certainly have that going into this season. Again, we knew it was going to be that

quote-unquote mini rebuild year. A lot of guys out the door, 15 draft picks plus undrafted free agents. I'm excited to see what this rotation of defensive line looks like because you're right, they have a lot of options. You know once we get into training camp and preseason, we start to look at some of these guys. One or two of these guys one or two of these names that you mentioned is going to stick out but for me the guys I'm excited about if you have that Michael Pierce stopping the run on first and second down Armin Watts as a rookie last year at Arkansas and Hercules Mata'afa seems to maybe get put on the back burner a little bit who knows he may not even make the 53 but from what I saw when they

were able to put him into nickel pass rush situations maybe he's undersized he tweeted or Instagram picture that he's up to 300 pounds believe it or not so he is filling out quite a bit but Armin Watts and Hercules Mata'afa on third down and pass rushing situations as that three tech player I think could could make a lot of noise. And maybe even Armand Wachs or Jahliel Johnson as the nose tackle in that kind of third down pass rushing situation. Maybe that's what that looks like. You mentioned Afedi.

I'm super excited to see what Afedi does with the full season under his belt. Shamar Steffen's going to be in the mix. I'm not sure how much in this rotation. I'm still not counting out Jaleel Johnson. And then you mentioned the rookies, James Lynch, Big 12 Defensive Lineman of the Year, Kenny Willekes, Big 10 Defensive Lineman of the Year. And then Andre Patterson's new baby, quote-unquote, DJ Wanham,

who he's very excited about with the athletic skills that he has. So I think Pierce, I think you'll see him early on because these young guys, these rookies, they probably won't get thrown in the fire right away. I think you'll see Pierce quite a bit, actually still on the field on third down. But as the season rolls on, I think Armand Watts, Hercules Mata'afa, and then Sprinklin, whatever one of those three rookies you mentioned, kind of win the job outright. I think that's the rotation to expect.

And, you know, me and Sam Ekstrom, our boy, who I know you're hitting the links with here in a little bit, we've gone back and forth. I still haven't seen Everson Griffin sign with any other team. So I'm not holding my breath anymore, but I would love to get your two cents. Is there any chance, what's the percentage that Everson Griffin still ends up back in purple and into this rotation as well? Yeah, I still think it's low.

It's low, but he's going to play somewhere, right? I mean, I could see him at this point in his career, though. He doesn't want to move and pick up his entire family, his wife, his three kids, and start all over somewhere. At this point in his career, over 30 years old. Ideally, I think he wants to stay in Minnesota. Both parties know they can't pay him $10 million, anything in that range. There's no way. But they can front load the contract.

They can give him some guaranteed money up front and boost that contract with incentives if he does play a certain amount of snaps or hit the sack mark, whatever that may look like. I just think he wants to be here. I think Zimmer, especially with how many big names they've lost, would love to have that veteran leader, that voice in the locker room as well. And I think Everson might be at this point of his career. Remember, the Vikings kind of bent over backwards

when he was going through some off-the-field issues, and they stuck right by him. And I think he's at that point where maybe he wants to return the favor and say hey I'll take a little bit less money meet me in the middle and I'll come back and be that veteran leader that voice but regardless even if he's not on the team I still like the rotation of guys a lot of young guys but a Feddie, Daniil Hunter and now Michael Pierce is kind of the old guy the veteran Shamar Steffen as well I like the rotation of guys whether Everson's on the team or not. Yeah, I do too, and Armin Watts is a big part of that.

I watched back for purpleinsider.com the Week 17 game, and he was maybe the best player on the entire field. Wow. Week 17. He was really explosive coming off the line of scrimmage and a couple of plays that had him looking a little bit Sheldon Richardson-like with how quick he was getting to the quarterback and off the line of

scrimmage. But to your point about Everson Griffin, Zimmer did make it quite clear at the NFL Combine that he thought it was a good idea for Everson to come back. I think what everyone's waiting on is Jadavion Clowney. What he ends up getting, and if you're another rotational rusher,

like, well, Everson is more of a full-time guy, but even rotational rushers, they're probably waiting to see where he goes. And then the other teams that didn't land him will be out there looking for players. Arizona seems to keep coming up for Everson Griffin. That would make a lot of sense. But also, I think it depends on Delvin Cook, too.

How much is his cap hit going to go up? Can they sign Anthony Harris to a long-term extension that would lower his cap hit to make money to sign anybody? I mean, we've talked a little bit on the show about Larry Warford and his possibilities. There's a handful of veteran corners who are still out there on the market, and then a couple of rotational pass rushers who I think you'd really love to have that are also out there. And if Griffin decided that the market just wasn't good and the Vikings could bring him back for a one-year deal or something like that that was reasonable, let's say like one year $8 million with it fully guaranteed,

I think that's good for both sides. And especially since the Vikings kept Anthony Harris. That, to me, says it's not a full rebuild on defense. You want to keep your good players around. You want to win the NFC North. This is not a team that's going to tank and try to draft high or something. It's a team that's going for it, so if you could bring in a player as good as Everson Griffin and bring him back, then we could just forget about the Instagram thing of saying that he was leaving. Right, and two points to that just real quick. I was looking at, because Spielman and Brzezinski, this front office, do such a great job of not just looking at this year, but 2021, 2022, 2023.

What does that look like? Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. They're very fluid, and that's why they're one of the better front office tandems in the league. But I was looking at 2021 next year, and outside of Dalvin Cook, which sounds like that's going to one way or another get resolved this year, it's really just Anthony Harris on that one-year franchise tag deal, and then a lot of middle-of-the-tier depth guys, Eric Wilson, Rashad Hill, Brett Jones, Pat Alflon, and Jahliel Johnson may be the biggest names after Cook and Harris so to your point I like that maybe Everson gets a one or two year deal not as much money as maybe he thought but maybe that's worth it at this point in his career to not pick up and start all

over for a new team and move that family again these are these are real these are real people I mean people forget that it's not a video game mad and that it's like there's a lot of human elements to signing with a new team uh as a as a player and as a as a free agent a lot of times guys just want to stay put and finish out their career with the same team the other point to your to your um point you mentioned about the NFC North it seemed like this was going to be a quote-unquote mini-rebuild year. You lost all those big names. And then once the draft kind of concluded, tell me your take, I thought that it was pretty obvious that none of the other three teams,

the Packers, the Lions, or the Bears, really made a strong push and really were really aggressive, I should say. Packers, one game away from the Super Bowl. Obviously, we know what happened. They drafted a quarterback. They don't draft any receivers for Rodgers. There's a little turmoil going on there. Bears, they go sign Nick Foles.

So now there's a quarterback competition. The Lions, hey, Lions are going to Lions, man. They draft a great player, for example, in Okuda, the Ohio State cornerback. Great pick. He's going to be rock solid his whole career, I think. But they also traded away Darius Slay. So you take one step forward, you take one step back. I just feel like what was supposed to be a mini-rebuild year,

maybe an 8-8 type of season, you know Zimmer's never going to lay down. He's going to be aggressive and competitive. But now it just seems like once the draft concluded and most of this offseason has concluded, it just seems like this division's wide open. Do you get kind of that same feeling as well? I do. I do because we don't know what the Lions are going to bring.

If Matt Stafford is healthy for 16 games, he was really good last year. I think when he got hurt, he was the league leader in touchdown passes, and he gave the Vikings one heck of a game in Detroit if their defense had been able to stop anything that the Vikings' offense could do that day. So Detroit is the one that's very much up in the air. But Chicago, they could have changed this entire thing. We talk about the receivers in Green Bay, and to a large extent I agree,

and it's funny to see people making fun of them online for not getting more receivers for Aaron Rodgers but it's almost allowed Chicago to just be like oh yeah signing Nick Foles is totally fine or trade wait did they sign up to trading for Nick Foles yeah it was totally fine but you think about a team picking Nick Foles over Cam Newton just in in real life picking Nick Foles I Cam Newton. Just in real life, picking Nick Foles. I know he won a Super Bowl, but the rest of his career is so mediocre. Cam Newton, when he was healthy last, he was completing 68% of his passes. An MVP guy.

Right, was really showing that he could improve as just even being a pocket passer. So the ceiling on Cam Newton is a guy who wins the MVP. The ceiling on Nick Foles is if he gets four games in a row in the playoffs, you can win. But other than that, he's never really shown that he can be that full-time excellent quarterback. So it's just kind of a crazy decision. And then even really selecting Nick Foles over just giving Teddy Bridgewater

the job because you remember Bridgewater was going to go there, and he would have been perfect for that system. Good point. He was going to go there. That's a really good point. And then they told him, no, no, no, you actually have to compete with Trubisky. This is like, okay. Yeah, they're in that quarterback purgatory, man, where it's like you passed up on Watson

and Mahomes and you moved up, by the way, from three to two just to secure this guy. And it's almost like you have to go all in one way or the other. Either he's your guy and you're going to commit to continuing to try to develop him until his contract runs out, or you've got to say right now, you've got to pull the plug and say he's a bust, it didn't work out. They're in that quarterback purgatory where they don't want to give up on Trubisky, it feels like, but they also know that he's probably not going to be the guy to win you 11 games and win you the division,

so they brought in Foles. I'm with you, man. How a guy like Cam Newton's just sitting out there right now is just, it blows my, we knew going into this offseason there was going to be some big-name quarterbacks sitting out there like the Daltons and the Cam Newtons. But the fact that the Bears, again, passed up, like you said, on Teddy and Cam and brought in Foles, it just seems like, again, out of all the moves here in this division, it seems like the Vikings had the best or most aggressive,

and they were the ones who were, all things considering, the team that had to go through the biggest rebuild. So encouraging stuff if you're a Viking fan. We'll see how it all shakes out. But, again, I think you go back to that Khalil Mack trade and no first rounder again this year. And then the cap situation for the Bears is going to start getting really ugly as well. So we'll see. We always have issues no matter what the team is when we go to Soldier. Still division games. But I think that the Vikings, all in all, I was worried

going into the offseason. I feel a lot better. I think Vikings fans should too. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you that there is no shortage of action going on right now at our exclusive partners at betonline.ag. Sports are slowly making their way back, and BetOnline is leading the way with the best odds and lines for all UFC, NASCAR, boxing, and soccer matches. And if you need more, they have simulated NFL, NBA, and UFC simulations

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with the last couple of roster spots that I think were left open intentionally, then you could improve because there are still some very good free agents out on the market at the moment. Before we wrap up, one of the things I like to ask is what are you sure of for the 2020 season? You can focus on one thing. You can give me a couple of rapid-fire things that come to mind, but what are you sure of? I'll just give you one and give you a second to think about it from my end. I'm sure somebody is going worst to first. I don't know who, but give you a second to think about it from my end. I'm sure somebody

is going worst to first. I don't know who, but I'm sure that it's going to happen. And I'll give you the hottest take one that I can think of is San Francisco going first to worst because that division is so good and you have rising teams that you could end up going eight and eight for San Francisco with that post-Super Bowl regression. still be a very good team, and that division is just great. We could see Kyler Murray shoot up to the top. We could see Russell Wilson lead another 11-5 team just because he's great. So I'm sure someone's doing it. Maybe it's the Patriots. Jared Stidham, they go from first to worst. But I don't know who yet. That's just soft, I'm sure of.

I like that, and I'm kind of just going to wing these. I'll give you two just kind of low key ones. I like that. I think you're not the only one to mention Sam Fran as good as they are on paper because of Jimmy Garoppolo and the kind of uncertainty that can he win the big game? Can he be that, you know, kind of Tom Brady type of ice in the veins when it comes to playoffs? There's some uncertainty there. So you're right as far as the division. You got to look at that surrounding division. And no doubt, that is a tough division. The Rams are going to still be competitive.

Kyler Murray and Cliff Kingsbury are taking their game to another level with DeAndre Hopkins. And then Russell is always good for 9-10 wins. So I do like that. And wouldn't it be ironic, wouldn't it be just hilarious, that the Patriots go about 20 years with Tom Brady, they tank one year, and then they tank for Trevor Lawrence, they end up getting the number one. Wouldn't that just be hilarious?

I mean, that's almost as smooth of a segue as Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning, they tank one year, they get Andrew Luck. Obviously, they didn't win the Super Bowl. Luck retires early. But still, the prospect of a quarterback like that, just unbelievable. I'm going to keep it Vikings-centered. I think no matter who the running back is, I think that Gary Kubiak is going to have a top-ten rushing offense. I think when you look at his pedigree, his history, it doesn't really matter. He's had undrafted running backs in the mix,

and he finds a way to get production because of the scheme and system. Now, I'm not saying that if Dalvin Cook was in there versus if he wasn't, it would look the same. Dalvin Cook could give you a top three rushing attack. Alexander Madison, Michael Boone, Amir Abdullah combo could give you a top 10, top 12. So you're still really good. You're still in the upper half.

Dalvin Cook is a special, special player, though. But regardless, if they choose not to pay him, which I don't think is going to happen, I think that Gary Kubiak's just been around the league so long, he gets it. And don't forget, they've invested a lot in the offensive line the past two or three years. It's not like they haven't been trying. Pat Elfline maybe didn't work out, but Garrett Bradbury is going to take another step up. Brian O'Neill continues to be one of the better young offensive tackles.

And then now we're going to see what Ezra Cleveland through Samia, and even I haven't counted out a guy like Vontae Collins, who I think fits this offensive scheme really well because he's so athletic. He got a shot a few years ago as that sixth offensive lineman, and he looked really good in the process. So I think this rushing attack is either going to be really, really good or one of the best in the league. Either way, under Gary Kubiak, it's going to be great. And then, you know, I know they lost a lot of players on defense, but they still have a lot of really good players, some core fundamental guys,

a good nucleus with Daniel Hunter, with Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks, Harrison Smith. People think he's getting a little long in the tooth, but he's still Harrison Smith. Anthony Harris, that may be one of the best safety tandems in the entire league. I think this defense is, as much as the players they lost hurts, I think they are still going to be one of the top 10, top 12 defenses. I don't know how hot of a take that is.

I think this game still starts up front. And I think the addition of Michael Pierce, as good as Daniil Hunter is, and I'm really excited about Efedi Adenovo. I think he's going to turn some heads nationally, and people are going to start to really realize how good he is. I think this defense, Mike Zimmer, don't worry about those cornerbacks, those young cornerbacks. He's got a good veteran safety tandem.

He's got a good pass rush up front. I think this defense is still going to be one of the top ten defenses in the league. Well, it's things you're sure of, not hot takes. So it's not a blazing hot take. I'm sure of it. It is not a blazing hot take to say a Zimmer defense could be in the top ten, but you are sure of it despite all the things. I promise you.

And I agree. Play this back to me in the first week of January. After they rank ninth. Right. Exactly. Yep, yep. Well, I think that both of those takes are good ones. Delvin Cook is going to be the running back.

I would be very surprised. Got to be, right? They're not going to pay him. You know more than I do. I'll pick your brain real quick before we get out of here. He's not going to get McCaffrey or Zeke money, but they're going to pay. I mean, think about it. They've molded this entire offense around Kirk Cousins and the running game.

There's no way they don't pay this guy, the guy that they drafted, developed, they know inside and out. He's just not going to get that top two, top three money, though, right? I mean, if you're Spielman and you say, dude, McCaffrey and Zeke, they don't miss games, let alone miss snaps. You've missed, like, besides last year, one year, you missed like half the games your first two seasons, right? Okay, give your prediction for the money.

I'm going to give mine. I'm going to go five years, 56 mil with like 28 guaranteed. What do you think? I like that. So that's about 11 and change per year, correct? My math's not that great, but that's about 11 and change per year, correct? My math's not that great, but that's about 11 and change per year, correct? Hello? Oh, you got me? Yep, I still got you.

I'm thinking I lost you. Oh, sorry. I like that quite a bit. I think it's going to be double digits. I think I'm going to go just slightly lower. I'm going to say five-year extension, 50 mil. But, I mean, you kind of nailed that, actually, the more I think about it. I like the guaranteed money. It's going to be an extension on top of this 1.5 million he's getting paid this year. So they kind of soften the blow with the cap. They have extra money to go sign Everson if they want or to restructure Anthony Harris, which is huge.

But I like that. I like that. Five years, we're out $50 million. I'd say about $10 million, but I mean, apples and oranges. I think you're right there. I think that's about right. Because McCaffrey and Zeke are getting what? $14, $15, $16? I just don't. Le'Veon Bell didn't work out. He got paid, what, $13, $14? I I don't see that had Cook played all these games every year since he's been in the mix he would have that conversation but I don't think so with the injury history I think about 10 million but double digits for sure I like that Luke Inman one of my favorite people to follow and talk football with for sure zonecoverage.com is where you can see his very cool video breakdown of michael pierce and which twitter account would you like people to follow well again making this

transition back to the original the og it's at luke underscore spinman i appreciate everybody sticking through the transition but i got the old account back so again if you're already following me thank you for sticking it out if you're following the me, thank you for sticking it out. If you're following the new, quote-unquote, now old account, at Luke underscore Spinneman NFL, drop the NFL at Luke underscore Spinneman. Always appreciate your time, man. Thanks for letting me jump on. And, again, best of luck to you and your new endeavors. Really excited to watch this whole thing unfold, man.

Thanks, man. And you be careful about using those music backing tracks on your videos to get you suspended on Twitter. All right. Well, appreciate your time, Luke. Make sure you follow him at ZoneCoverage.com and whichever Twitter account he just said. And we will talk to you again soon here on Purple Insider. Okay.

Before we wrap up this podcast, a little bonus feature for you here to include Intern Paul. So this is five questions with Intern Paul. And just a reminder for everyone who wants to sign up at purpleinsider.substack.com, where you can find all of my writing. Every Friday, we do a mailbag, so you can tweet me questions or leave them in the comments, and then I go through pretty much everyone that I get and try to come up with some sort of answer, which sometimes ends in hilarious research. Someone asked me for the best wide receiver at every height, so I attempted to find that. Five foot eight, nine, ten, you know, and so forth. So you can feel free to ask

me anything, anytime, and I will enjoy your questions. So in similar fashion, Intern Paul, how are you? I've given you the assignment to come up with five questions to ask me at the end of this podcast. What's going on, buddy? Not much. I'm glad that you did the heights of the wide receivers because as a fellow short 5'8 male, I appreciate giving some love to some of the guys that maybe don't get that much respect all the time. So, I enjoyed that question. Well, you should be a huge Steve Smith fan. Steve Smith, 5 five foot nine and you will not find many receivers that can compete with him in

fact he probably belongs in the hall of fame but here's what I learned you are at the exact threshold below five eight you're not going to find anybody in the NFL same thing goes with above six five six six receivers and above not going happen. So there is your research on the heights of receivers. I hope you have better questions than that, I should say. I don't want to disrespect the question because it was fun to research it. But what do you got? What is your first question in turn, Paul? All right, so the Vikings still have about 12 million left in cap space.

I think everyone's kind of wondering what they want to do with that. What do you think are the best and worst case scenarios for how they go about using the $12 million the rest of the offseason? Well, I think the way they're going to manage that is some of it will be used to spread out Delvin Cook's cap hits for whatever extension he signs. So let's say he signs a three-year $39 million extension, just like David Johnson has. Well, they can work it out. So some of that will happen this year. So right now his cap hit is something like $1 million or $2 million.

And they would go up by $4 or $5 million, and then it would lower his cap hit for the future. And that's one of the reasons that I think that they will ultimately get a deal done that works out just fine with Delvin Cook in the cap is because they can use a chunk of it for what they've left over. And I think that that was intentional. I also believe that they will sign Anthony Harris to an extension at some point here. And that could actually even that out and give them the opportunity to sign another player or two before they go into training camp. One of the issues that they faced is that they can't bring in anybody for visits. You can't bring in anybody for workouts or anything else like that. So if

they wanted to see what Larry Warford was like medically, or even Jadavian Clowney, probably not going to happen. But there are still free agents that are out there. If you wanted to see what kind of shape someone is in, that's pretty hard to do unless they can actually come to you and get a physical. As things start to open up, we will probably see that. I think an offensive line and a veteran corner are the areas where they could spend two, three, four million dollars of this money, whatever ends up being left, to just bolster those positions. Because right now, the guard spot and the cornerback spot, they don't have anyone over

the age of 24 at corner. So they could really use one more guy in there to compete for a spot. They don't have anyone over the age of 24 at corner, so they could really use one more guy in there to compete for a spot. And speaking of guys that still want more money, like Dalvin, Dak Prescott, that's another one in the headlines. A lot of people wondering what exactly he could get. Earlier this week, Michael Urban said he wants the Cowboys to back pay Dak for his years of being underpaid. So that made me think, who in Vikings history would be the most deserving of some sort of back pay? Well, I will tell you for myself, and probably you'll feel this way someday too, is I deserve some back pay for the days where I used to run the board for $7 an hour. That was harder than you think running a NASCAR race.

You really got to concentrate when you're running the board for something like that on radio. So me, I deserve back pay. I'll tell you who it is for the Vikings. It's Daniil Hunter. The Daniil Hunter signed an extremely reasonable contract after the 2016 season or after 2017. He signed an extremely reasonable contract. He is worth every bit of what someone like Khalil Mack is worth. He belongs in the top five pass rushers at the position, and he has not really been paid that way. Now, he's not struggling for money, but if we're purely doing this by what you produced versus what you earned,

Daniil Hunter, I think, is the obvious answer. But really, anybody that has performed at an extremely high level on their rookie contract. So even someone like Stephon Diggs on his rookie contract, he ends up with big seasons in 2015 when he emerges, 2016 he's very good, 2017 obviously he ends up with the Minneapolis Miracle play. They certainly owe him for that and they signed him to a long-term contract extension eventually. But if you're thinking of who probably deserved a little more money because of how well they performed on the rookie deal, yeah, I'd put him on the list.

All right, question three is, the NFL finally appears to be ready to support some activism amongst its players. Do you think Colin Kaepernick will be on a roster come the start of the season? I don't, and that's going to be something that they will have to continue to answer for. How can Roger Goodell make a video where he's saying Black Lives Matter and saying that he apologizes for not better supporting players and allowing them to use their voices, and yet you still have a guy who's been blackballed and has not been brought into a team who is still reportedly working out. He had that workout last year in which he looked at least pretty good from the videos that came out or like he could still of the top 60 human beings to do it? Yeah.

Could he be a better backup quarterback than at least 15 to 17 backup quarterbacks in the NFL? Yeah, definitely. But when the NFL has already paid him for their collusion, we've kind of forgotten about that, that that happened. I don't know if you're going to convince any owner to bring him in. And plus, I think teams will still be worried about how much attention that's going to get from the national media, from the news media, that Colin Kaepernick would be your backup quarterback. And they usually don't want to have that type of attention on someone who's not going to be the starter. However, I mean, it is time to right a wrong.

If you've got Roger Goodell saying that, and you're going to have lots of players kneeling and protesting and everything else, doing exactly what Colin Kaepernick did, and you're going to be okay with that, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to still hold it against him. Sure. And one Viking, former Viking now, Adrian Peterson, said earlier this week he, without a doubt, is going to kneel next season for the National Anthem. What do you expect from Vikings players and how they may handle this situation come come the season that's a really

good question and a lot has changed when it comes to how teams feel and even a coach like Mike Zimmer feels about this movement that Colin Kaepernick started in 2016 I think to some extent you can understand why he was misunderstood. Even though he attempted to explain it to everyone, you could understand why there are some deep-rooted things that people would have trouble understanding, like protesting the flag. It's not what he was doing, not protesting the flag or America or the military or anything like that.

And he made that clear at the time, but I think it was really hard for that message to get through, especially since it became a widespread political issue this year. I think what we'll see is the Vikings organization and their leaders decide on something and it could be players kneeling. It could be linking arms again, if that's the way they want to do it. But we're seeing this from a much higher level than just the coaches. We're seeing it now all the way up from the ownerships to the CEOs to the front office.

I mean, they're starting to take it seriously that players want to have their voices heard. So I think whatever the leaders of this team decide they're going to do is what ultimately happens for the Vikings. All right. And then one more from the headlines is they seem to think training camp may actually be longer than normal. They're going to extend it out to allow, you know, what they weren't able to get in recently to get them some more time to work out, get in better shape. So my question to you is, who will be more disappointed by the fact that there are more training camp days? Would it be the veteran players, or is it the reporters who are going to have to stand out in the sun, in the sweltering heat? I can attest from the Vikings, at least, there's

nowhere to hide there. So who's going to be more disappointed, those reporters or the veteran players? I mean, can they just get us a little tent or something? I mean, just a little bit of shade. Last year, we were all huddled underneath the scoreboard because it was the only shady place. And out on that field, it's hot. It's really hot. But you know what? It's still covering training camp. It's still a lot of fun for me, especially when you have the warm-up drills and you have offensive linemen running into a donut to practice their cut blocks.

That's hilarious. And it's interesting to see how they implement an offense, the things that are important to them, the things that they practice. But I will say that after the 20th straight day of watching the same thing over and over again, we're all tired of it, the players, the coaches, and no doubt the media from standing there watching the same things over and over. Thank goodness for Kari Vedvik last year, that he provided some late camp entertainment. But I think the veteran players probably will dislike it the most. I mean, especially if you're a guy like Harrison Smith or Daniil Hunter, and you've been in Mike

Zimmer's defense for how long, and you know it inside and out, any tweaks you're going to be able to pick up really fast because you already know what you're doing. Do you really need a couple extra weeks of camp? Probably not. But this roster would largely benefit from it. You have players like Justin Jefferson, Jeff Gladney, who are going to play likely really big roles, and it would be helpful to get another week and kind of treat it like a rookie minicamp in some ways. And maybe that's what they would do is bring in players who are inexperienced

for that extra week and let the veterans come in later. All right, that's all I got for you, Matt. Five questions, all right. We hit them all. All right, you's all I got for you, Matt. Five questions, all right. We hit them all. All right, you got any takes? You got any reactions? Oh, man, you're putting me on the spot. Yeah, I would say definitely the Vikings, I believe,

would benefit from the extra week at training camp, especially on the offensive line. I'm thinking now back to our earlier questions, the cap space. I think it would be really beneficial if they added an extra offensive lineman. As we've seen, you can never have too many of those. We've talked about the weakest link basically can determine the whole outcome of the unit. And on the offensive line, if a couple guys get hurt,

the depth is going to be questioned. So they don't even need to go get a Larry Warford. If they can get some guys that can come in and just be there in case some of the guys go down, I feel like that would be really important. So off the top of my head, that's what I would go with. Even if they sign two extra guards and one of them gets a job and the other one doesn't, they have them compete, maybe you've got a shot at having someone at least provide average play, which they've not gotten from the guards in a really long time.

I don't even know when the last time they did get average play from their guards was. Good job, Intern Paul, and thank you all for listening to Purple Insider.