Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings owner says no extension talks for KOC, KAM

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press talk about why they believe the Vikings would be justified in extending Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah early but owner Mark Wilf said that's not in the plans. Plus, Dane talks about what he's looking for from the QB situation as we go into the preseason Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Dane Mizzutani of the Pioneer Press. And we are once again inside TCO Performance Center. And guess what, everyone? We spoke to the owner of the Minnesota Vikings today, Mark Wilf. And so we're going to start there, but we'll also talk about leading up to a preseason game, what we've seen in some of these recent practices, and the mysterious unofficial depth chart. Oh, it's so unofficial. You have to keep

this in mind, Dane. You always think, is it official? And I'm like, no, Dane, it's unofficial. Duh. That's not the real depth chart yet. I'm mostly kidding, but we will talk about kind of where things stand with the quarterback situation with Sam Darnold being QB1 on the unofficial depth chart. But why don't we begin with Mark Wilf and his comments about Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafomensa and contract extensions. It was mentioned by some of our colleagues that right around this time with two years left on the deal was when they extended Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman following the 2017 season so worth asking of course is that going to happen now this is a coach with a 13 win season they just drafted a quarterback and the answer was straightforward

from Mark Wilf um no he said they will not be having that conversation about an extension just yet and didn't really offer a whole lot of further detail on the matter. What is your take, Dane, on the reaction of Mr. Wilf when it came to the extension talk? My take is that if Mark Wilf could go back, watch the film of his own press conference, he would wish he would have just said, I'm not going to talk about that. But instead he said, we're not talking about that right now. It's almost like he meant to say one thing and then actually told us the real thing, which is they haven't discussed the contract extension, which at its core makes sense. They're midway through a four-year contract, coming off a really good year one where they overperformed, and a wonky weird year two where Kirk Cousins blew his Achilles and a bunch of bad stuff happened. We got to see Josh Dobbs. We got to see Nick Mullins. It's not surprising that

an organization would decide not to tie themselves to a regime with a sample size of two years where one year was good, one year was not so good. So at its core, I get it. I get that why they haven't done it. But it's still news that this is the regime, Kevin O'Connell, Kweisi Doffamensa, and they have a clear vision that they want to get done. And it's news that they haven't tied themselves to them long term because I think they need that long term job security to fully construct like what they have in place. I will say if they have a good year, a good enough year, eight wins, nine wins, I think they'll get extended at some point this offseason or next offseason. Even if they have a bad year, though, I think they should get extended because I think that the entire regime of Kevin O'Connell,

Kweisi Nothamensa, and everybody that surrounds them deserves a chance to see this thing through. We have the starting line of they have their quarterback of the future or who they think is their quarterback of the future here. Like I, for them, would like them to get a chance to kind of develop them the way they want to. But yeah, Mark Wolf did not commit to them in full. So we'll it leaves the door open for speculation for sure. Right. And Kevin Seifert, our friend from ESPN, had to kind of clarify. So do you mean you're not talking to us about the extension or are you not talking to them, the brass? And he said both. So there you go. We got no further detail after that. Where I agree with you is I think that if they did come out today and announce to us, hey, we're holding this press conference to tell you that we've given two or three year extensions to Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell, then I would say, OK, that makes complete sense to me because of the overall health of the organization and that NFLPA thing really matters.

And if you want to see its impact, look at some of the teams that graded low and what they've done since. Oh, they've got a new locker room. How about that? Oh, they were an F a couple. You know, right. But with the Vikings, they've been at the very top of the list over the last couple of years. So the players reaction to Kevin O'Connell as a head coach has been extremely positive. You also hired him to develop a quarterback, not to win this year with the quarterback that you drafted, which means that you want to see the entire development curve of JJ McCarthy. Now my research on this Dane, and I did, I'm not kidding. I did research this. When do we know if a quarterback can play historically?

It's usually after three years. Now, every once in a while, it's Geno Smith. I mean, even Baker Mayfield showed he could play fairly quickly and won a playoff game in Pittsburgh in his first couple of years. That would be the timeline for me, where you have the cap space that's been created by moving on from Kirk. You have your development quarterback. You have a core roster that's pretty young, including Jonathan Grenard now is here, Blake

Cashman, these players who could be here for multiple seasons. Christian Derrissaw is locked up as well. I look at the roster as was the general manager flawless. Of course not. But he has executed ownership's plan of the competitive rebuild. So what would really be holding me back other than wanting to see the result of this year first? But I don't know if you're talking about the result of this year.

It could be a Sam Darnold bad start to a season and the season doesn't go the way that you expect it to go. Or if J.J. McCarthy plays once again, historically, the record for rookies, even if they turn out to be good, is not particularly great. I kind of wonder what you're waiting for, because this seems like a situation where you would want to say, hey, everybody is locked in. We're all on this train together and we're going to ride it out to see what happens with this quarterback. If it was toxic, if there was dissent within the team about where they were going and what

they were doing, if the owners felt differently about the overall direction and moving on from Kirk, then maybe I would go, oh, it looks like everybody's not on the same page. Let's see how this plays out this year. This has looked like everyone is on the same page. Let's see how this plays out this year. This has looked like everyone is on the same page. So I don't know why you wouldn't add some years onto it unless, I don't know. I mean, Kevin O'Connell, he was basically dodging the question. Like, I don't think about that and so forth. But I have to imagine if someone came to you and said, we want to give you an extension that you would say, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. And from the ownership perspective, from their actual cash, this matters not at all to the cap or anything's not really my business.

What Kevin O'Connell gets made gets paid, but still the price will go up. If you have a good season, if they make the playoffs and McCarthy comes in or something and they're looking good, everybody's happy. Then you're talking like a four year extension with big money. So I don't know. I don't really understand what the holdup is when you've gotten from point A to point B that you wanted to get to. And the only reason why you had a bad record last year was because your franchise quarterback tore his Achilles when you were a 500 team. Yeah. So I mean, I guess I totally agree with you in that sense that like,

if they would have told us today that they they agreed to contract extensions, there would have been zero criticism from from I think both of us, obviously, but from most people, I think most people would have agreed that this organization appears to be on an upward trajectory. So not doing it, and coming out very concretely saying we're not going to do it until the end of this season, all it really does is on one hand maybe make him more expensive or on the other hand, the opposite side of the coin, leave some room for questioning like should they or shouldn't they which I don't think anyone

really wants to deal with next year like I don't obviously Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Doppamensa don't want to deal with it but I don't think ownership wants to deal with that public perception of oh my gosh they went 5-12 like should they even they should have to prove themselves this year as lame duck head coaches and general managers. I don't necessarily think ownership is going to let the public perception make their ultimate decision, but it leaves that door open for all of that to happen when I do think that it might have just been better to get ahead of it. I think we know – we have a pretty good idea. Like Kevin O'Connell knows what he's doing.

I think we'll learn a lot about him this year. But I think he has proven we have a big enough sample size to say like he deserves to see this thing through. And with Kweisi Adafimensa, like sure. If you want to keep bringing up the first draft, that's fine. Louis Seen, Andrew Booth Jr., probably not going to make the team this year.

If you want to keep bringing up that, that's fine. But if you widen the aperture, like, he has executed a vision. And you look at the cap space next year, they have a ton of it. And he deserves to see that part through too. So just kind of a weird, like way to start a day of training camp where like, it felt like it could have been something like celebratory. Instead, it was something that like, I guess we'll just speculate on for the rest of the year and,

and moving forward. Definitely added a layer of, uh, uncomfortableness to the press conference where it seemed like, uh, it got asked late in the press conference as I was trying to find out more about J.J. McCarthy for this week it seemed like there might be something else on O'Connell's mind waiting for different questions about the extension

now just to be very clear this still is not really a storyline for this season I mean it is because it always is because football and they fire coaches constantly, but with two years from what we understand about his contract left, it's not like he's a lame duck coach, right? There is still a year after, but from the wills perspective, maybe they just say it's always a year to year league. And what they don't want is it to go sideways after they've given an extension and then pay a bunch of money to someone who's not working for them um mike zimmer who they had to continue to pay after they extended and then things you know collapsed under zimmer in 2021 that may be more of their thinking as opposed to we're putting pressure on o'connell for this season at the same time there is thresholds to all of this in training camp

right now at this moment, at this day, what is today? August 6th, 2000 and 2024, whatever it is at this moment, it is very easy to declare, Hey, everything kind of looks good with this, right? Execute the pro, you know, we've gone over it. Uh, but if you go five and 12, it is like walking on hot coals for a head coach. I mean, think about Brian Dable right now, would you bet that Brian Dable has a decent chance to be fired? I would say so. But how much of that was his fault last year? I mean, their offensive line all got hurt. Daniel Jones was terrible. He didn't sign Daniel Jones to that huge contract. And then what Tommy DeVito's out there and you just, okay, he wins a game

and then all of a sudden you're a genius again for a week. But just like Josh Dobbs, it came crashing back down to earth. Well, it's not that different here except for the young quarterback aspect that it feels so horrible to have a bad season that you never know how you're going to feel about it 12 weeks into the year. If that ends up happening personally, I don't think they're going to have that kind of season with good coaching on both sides of the ball. Um, Brian Flores being here is another factor of liking this coaching staff overall. That's kind of a big factor for me

as far as extensions go. It's just that you can never really predict how something is going to end up playing out and how we'll feel about it six months from now in the NFL, because the whole world shifts every month in the NFL. Yeah, and we fall into that as well. Like if they go 5-12, I don't know how we'll sit here next August if we have just talked to the owner and they've doled out extensions. We might feel differently. Like did you see last year? Like if it plays out poorly, like that matters to a degree.

But I really do hope like not every single win and loss is like a referendum this year on like, well, are they going to get extended or not? Because I don't think it has to be like that. I want to, I'm going to challenge myself to do this too, I guess, like be able to separate the forest from the trees and understand that like there are probably times this year where it's going to look really bad. Like that's very possible, very much on the table. There's times this year where

it's probably gonna look pretty good, too. So we probably have to exist somewhere in the middle of that. But that's so hard to do in the NFL, where people just like to talk on different sides of the spectrum. So all today did was leave the door open, though, for those things to be storylines continuing to move forward. And I'm not'm not saying that like it's not my money like the wilfs can do whatever they want um but what they did today was leave the door open for that yeah they did and when you talk on the record about it when you answer the question at all which if you don't and you just say yeah i'm not talking about it as you suggested then it goes away for the most part and we say i guess we'll see what happens when they update us next year.

But when you say, no, we're not talking about it. When you declare, we're not talking about it. Even my eyebrows raised when he said it like, Oh, Oh,

you actually said you're not talking about it. That's interesting. Then it becomes much more part of the overall discussion about what's going on in the season. Everything starts to be painted through the lens of, well, well you know they're looking for that extension in the future so oh they won 10 games it's going to be a four-year extension oh they won five games it's going to be no extension at all and he's going to be lame duck and is that is that a good way to do it i i mean I mean, knowing the impact of fumbles, injuries, Achilles, all the things that was kickers, the things. What two great kicks from Riker's back. Oh, man.

Is he come back eight for his last eight? And I think four of them are 50 plus. Whoa. Anyway, they're not always good, though. Sometimes they're bad. And 2021 is a season like that where every kick went wrong. And, uh, you know, at the end of the Arizona game and the fumble by Delvin cook and all those things that happened, uh, Jared Goff, Tom and Ross St. Brown at the end of a game for them to lose.

We've seen so much of that over the years that if you are evaluating your leadership based on the wins and losses of a middling, probably team. And then one of the hardest divisions in the league, as opposed to is my franchise healthy? Are we headed in the right direction? Like don't make this into a Matt Nagy where we drafted a quarterback to save our butts. This team did not do that. They did not draft a quarterback to save their butts. They drafted a quarterback because they were always going to at this point and then let them have the cap space to spend next year to build the rest and see where this goes from here so that that's that's my take on it uh and we're not going to do that we're not going to every win or loss we'll have that

conversation if we have to but right now we have to have a conversation about a very not look at me in the face. If you are watching on YouTube, okay, right here. Is it official? If you nodded, it's official. You're wrong. Nod the other way. It's not official. Okay. And if someone that you're friends with comes up to you and says, man, you see that depth chart? No, no, no, no. It's an unofficial depth chart that's what it is so don't think it's official however on that dane is it official it's an unofficial okay okay just make sure you were paying attention yeah um sam darnold is listed as qb1 we know that he's taken all the first team reps so really i would like your opinion on the handling of this going forward.

This is an important week. I thought McCarthy had a fine practice today, a little stumble at the end with the two-minute drill. But other than that, it looked okay. It wasn't super intense today. Should he be taking first-team reps this week? Should we be thinking a lot of preseason action? Where are you at with J.J. McCarthy, Sam Darnold, quarterback thing?

First off, the unofficial depth chart it's not surprising that sam darnold is the starter on the unofficial depth chart i mean i i would go as far to say if they made that official that it wouldn't be a bad thing yeah for this preseason game but it's a don't be calling it official right but straying away from the very unofficial depth chart and just talking about the quarterback situation big picture, I think they should operate like Sam Darnold will be their week one starter. I think they should continue to operate like that, but they shouldn't do it in the same way that they handled the situation with Kirk Cousins.

And what I'm saying basically is like, please play Sam Darnold in the preseason. I'm okay with that. I want to see how it looks when it really counts, when it matters. And I know the preseason is not necessarily a good indication of all of that. And I guess, I think Kirk Cousins has probably played

at least snaps in the preseason. I'm not sure. Maybe we can look that up. But it seemed like every single time that an exhibition game would roll around when Kirk Cousins was in charge, it was like, okay, let's just get this thing over with. I don't feel that right now with Sam Darnold, and I don't feel that obviously with J.J. McCarthy.

But I want to see Sam Darnold in the preseason just to see how he looks. Does he look comfortable? Is it okay with how he lines people up at the line of scrimmage? Can he change protections if he needs to? Even if I only see it for three or four series, I want to see it. And I think the only reason we even are thinking that Sam Darnold might not play in the preseason is just because of how Kevin O'Connell has handled things in the past. We asked him about it today. He again said, I have a plan, and basically said, I'm not going to tell you the plan until Thursday. So as we kind of progress through this week, I don't necessarily want to see only Sam Darnold with starting reps. I'd like to see JJ McCarthy get some of that.

I obviously want to see JJ McCarthy in the preseason game on Saturday. But I think everything they do from here till September 8th, I still think they should probably be right now operating like Sam Darnold's going to be the starter and not make any brash decisions based on either a day-to-day in practice or how things look in the preseason um sam donald is that starter right now on that unofficial depth chart and and i think that's okay for a second i thought you said official and i got worked up um kirk cousins man for some reason in my brain i thought that he did play a pre-season game but uh at least according to fox sports statistics and i just want to make clear as soon as pre-season games

have been over in the past i have erased them from my brain like gone i don't remember anything about them don't ever ask me about them they don't matter except for the time that ty mcgill went off in a game the man my hero Because in the lead up to that, it's only because it's funny because in the lead up to that, you said, watch out for T.Y. McGill. And we went, yeah. And he was amazing that night. And then they cut him. That's the only reason I remember it. But according to at least Fox Sports, he did not throw a pass in either of the last two seasons in the preseason which I think we were all a thousand percent okay with considering it was Kirk Cousins no one was going

to be more prepared than him no one has run this offense more than him but Sam Darnold could really use the reps and I did look up Sam Darnold's preseason stats stay tuned for the best part of the show where I read Sam darnold's pre-season stats uh 22 for 33 last year so a lot of work and he was pretty good had 100 quarterback rating but it's not the first he's played every year in the pre-season i don't think they should be afraid of that i think they should try to just get him some reps with his teammates and get him rolling a little bit get him out in the uniform and debut him and then play him three series and have jj mccarthy play the rest of the first half and call it a day hand it over to nick mullins hand it over to jaron hall get your

development reps in with those twos for jj mccarthy and then do it again and then do it again in the next two preseason games and then we can all forget it ever happened and move on with the rest of our lives into the regular season. I think that is a totally fair plan. You don't have to play Darnold in the third one, probably the first two. And if he doesn't, I'll say, oh, and then I won't think about it too much again. But if he doesn't play and McCarthy does, then it will be an even clearer sign that week one is going to Sam Darnold. That's really the only thing we could ascertain from this.

Absolutely. And if we get there Saturday and the inactives come out 90 minutes before kickoff, shout out inactives. Shout out to Chris Thomason, my guy. He loved the inactives. Gone but not forgotten. He's in Denver. He's fine. He's alive. Yeah. loved the inactives. Gone but not forgotten. He's in Denver. He's fine. He's alive.

Yeah. If the inactives come out- If the inactives come out 90 minutes before kickoff and Sam Darnold is an inactive, then I think I would totally, like the whole percentage game we play, and maybe we can, we'll talk about that at some point. Like what's the percentage that JJ McCarthy starts week one? I think I'm probably sitting here at 20% still, but if we get there Saturday, if Sam Darnold isn't inactive, I'll drop it down to zero because I only think you do that if you've already decided. If you've decided I do not want to get this guy hurt by any stretch of my imagination,

which is why I don't think that's going to be the case. I think Kevin O'Connell wants to see Sam Darnold. He's had a pretty good training camp, up and down, lots of ups the last three or four days. Last three have been really good, I think. I thought he was great again today. But I don't think he's proven anything, that he deserves to just be treated in this sense,

like Kirk Cousins, where he was, Kirk Cousins, it was a guarantee. You're going to be the starter. We're not going to screw around and risk getting you injured. Sam Darnold still needs to prove it. He's very much an unproven commodity still in this league, and that's okay. He has a chance to kind of rewrite that narrative this year, but I need to see him in the preseason. And I hope that on Thursday when Kevin O'Connell shares this grand plan

that he has for the preseason, he says Sam Darnold will play some series. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less? Ironic. Let's find us again with UsMode from U.S. Cellular. Visit uscell cellular.com slash built for us to get started.

Yeah. And I think it would make sense for him to do that because he, I mean, has always done it in the past. And because every rep that he gets in Kevin O'Connell's offense is going to get him closer to understanding it. We remember that Kirk Cousins even talked quite a bit during the season in the early part of the year, even as they were doing well, that he wasn't always 100% totally locked in with Kevin O'Connell's offense. It asks a lot of the quarterback, and the more and more you can get out there, the better. I do think that Sam Darnold,old again today had a very good practice he was operating things on time he threw an absolute missile to jordan addison i mean just yeah he launched it well yeah that's right no fans today because of the whole scheduling thing so there

wasn't uh maybe video of this i'm sure the team will tweet it out. It was a phenomenal, spectacular throw, but it's not just those early on. The deep balls were wowing us and everything else was okay. I don't know. But over the last three practices, Sam Darnold has looked pretty locked in to what Kevin O'Connell wants. And just the Jefferson was not a practice due to a personal issue. No injury there. So don't freak out.

But even with Jalen Naylor out there, Jalen Naylor couldn't bring one in on a sideline throw. But Darnold let it rip right on time. It was like back shoulder. It was right there. He has just been pretty locked in so far. So there's no reason for me to think, oh, wow, they're in trouble here. They've got to push McCarthy forward. And I think this is maybe the best time to do this, Dane.

I'm going to make an announcement that I am lowering my percentage chance. I am lowering my percentage chance after seeing it here because I asked O'Connell today about just what he wanted to see for this week. Like, he's gotten so bad at practice. What do you want to see this week? And there was nothing mentioned about rep counts or anything, but there were no new first team reps for JJ McCarthy. If you're going to do it,

you're going to have to do it pretty soon, whether it's today, tomorrow, the next day, because we are approaching, we're talking about next week. We're flying to Cleveland for the joint practices. Whoever's a quarterback.

There's the quarterback and that's locked in. And to not get first teams today it just i'm gonna bring it down to maybe closer to 10 i've been steadfast at 25 it could happen maybe this could play out differently but the offense is in now they're they're practicing and to still have all the first team reps going to Darnold, it feels like it would have to be a drastic change in order for Sam Darnold to not end up being QB1 week one, which as we've always said, if that was the plan, always Darnold and McCarthy develop, it's been a really good summer for JJ McCarthy developing. He is throwing the ball so much better,

so much better than he was in the spring. I think it's been good for him, and I've never had a problem with that plan. It just, if it was going to happen, I think it would start happening very soon. Yeah. So I think I said like five minutes ago that I'm probably still at 20%,

and I think I'm just going to keep it there until we get through the preseason because the whole reason I went up from 5%, 10% is because I could feel that momentum potentially building over the course of a preseason. Like I said, not the momentum from the reporters. Not the momentum from the fans in the stands tweeting out videos. But from the momentum of the team being like, it's got to be this guy. And I think we could still get there but like

I am ready to go like down in percentage or willing to or getting close to being pushing that back down because of how good Sam Darnold's looked the past week or so once he's really started to I feel like grasp everything that Kevin O o'connell wants him to do so we'll see constantly something to talk about but pretty soon probably won't be because i think you're right about cleveland next week like you're not gonna give sam darnold or jj mccarthy or whoever you want to be the starter the reps against another team in like a very competitive practice environment and then go start the other, the other guy. So I think it probably, we could probably call it next week in Cleveland.

And it's still Sam Darnold leaps and bounds ahead of JJ McCarthy, as far as I'm concerned. All right. So you and I will talk after the preseason game on Saturday, we'll be in the US bank stadium press box as always. Uh, and with the field behind us, it's a great view for a postgame, uh, podcast, especially when it is a preseason game that we care about. And that is really interesting. Give me other stuff. What else you got? What, what is intriguing to you other than the overall handling of the quarterback situation heading into the preseason heading into the preseason game. I would say the kickoff,

but I don't think we're going to see anything actual. I don't think we're going to see... I think the people who watch a preseason game, there's going to be 60,000 fans that show up to US Bank Stadium because Vikings fans love the Vikings, and they'll watch them if the game counts, if it doesn't count, if it's here, if it's there.

Everyone's going to show up to this game. It's going to be packed, and a large chunk of the audience is not going to know what the heck's happening when the kickoff rolls around. But I'm not that excited about that, because I don't think we'll actually see what they're going to use week one. I am excited to see just the new kickoff rule in practice, though, finally, real live, we've seen parts of it in practice but they haven't done anything real um so i i'm a little excited about that i'm excited to see jalen nailer because he's been balling in training camp he's so run away with this wide receiver three competition to me that i i just want to see if he can continue to build that momentum into the game.

So excited for Naylor. I think I'm excited to see like which cornerbacks play because Fabian Moreau still continues to get starting first team reps. Like, I think it's a real thing that he could just be a starting cornerback when week one rolls around. But I want to see those, you to see some of the younger guys. I want to see Dwight McClothern, who we found out his nickname is Nudie. Haven't talked to him since then, so we've got to figure out why that's his nickname.

But he's flashed in camp. He's someone Brian Flores talked a lot about. So I think Dwight McClothern is more of a microcosm of like the young guys I want to see when they have an opportunity outside of practice to perform. Um, there's, I could probably list five, 10 guys that I'm excited to see who have looked good in practice, who now need to go look good in a game. Cause there are people on the roster bubble right now who probably need a good preseason to make it i i really want to see how the edge group plays out uh do we see dallas

turner at all in the preseason maybe some snaps we've seen a lot of him with the first and second team they've shown some interesting looking personnel packages that include Dallas Turner Andrew Van Ginkle and Jonathan Grenard on the field same time which was maybe one of our questions going into training camp like were they gonna start to show some of that stuff not that we didn't believe in you Brian Flores as far as moving players around and so forth just where does the rookie fit in? And I think Dallas Turner overall has had a pretty good training camp to put his name on the map as someone they are going to play right away. So does that mean they try to put them in bubble wrap and do not play him? I wouldn't

blame them for that. If they do, I definitely want to see him, but we've been talking about Gabriel Murphy. Owen Porter's another guy we've thrown out there, the linebackers, the edge group. I think that there's a lot of players that are, you mentioned McClothern, undrafted or late-round picks. Levi Drake Rodriguez taking more first-team reps as a pass rusher today. So that's a thing now. That's three practices in a row, and it's a thing.

How they rotate those defensive linemen, how that battle goes behind harrison phillips jonah williams has gotten a lot of work uh in there with jerry tillery down for a very short time uh we're told although he had to have stitches he must have got cleated really bad sounds horrible which is probably why they had to cart him off and everything it sounds like it hurt like hell i would never play again that'd be a career-ending injury seemed awful yeah but he will play again because he's tougher than you are but jonah williams has worked in there that's a veteran that they brought into with the first team and then we have the jaqueline roy's who's running with the second team he's

somebody that i want to see in the games because we got to see him in real games last year there was a little bit of flash i want to see him back in real games. And I 100% agree with you on the kickoff return. But I am way more jacked. You are. I wrote in 2020 an article with the guy who developed this thing, Sam Schwartzstein. Shout out to Sam. He's brilliant.

And also a former offensive lineman himself. And he developed this for the XFL. And I wrote about it during the XFL season in 2020, or just after the XFL season had been canceled because I loved it. And I was like, the NFL needs this. And I went to the combine the following year and, or two years later. And I was asking special teams coaches that oh you do you work special teams nice to meet you what do you think of this kickoff i've been obsessed with

this thing and to have it actually come to the nfl to bring back the playmaking kick returner even if it looks bad in the preseason or they don't make much of it it'll look better when kenny wong was doing it and the guys are really blocking and they're and they're doing the scheme and everything i am very excited to see it in person those are probably the biggest things will reichardt uh we've been talking him up he's kicked extremely well now it's time to go kick in the preseason games where we've seen certain kickers maybe um not have as much success like Daniel Carlson, where Mike Zimmer went for two to shove it in his face. So you never know what can go on when it comes to the kickers. But I do want to see Will Riker get some opportunities. And Dane, do not forget, do not leave this out.

There is a punting competition here. There is an actual punting competition. Seth Vernon Vernon Ryan Wright knock gloves go punt if they're fighting Seth Vernon wins if they're knocking gloves he would win against a lot of people Seth Vernon looks like a linebacker which then like talking about the new kickoff like maybe just have Seth Vernon kick the ball and have him run down there because he looks like he could tackle anybody in the NFL. But yeah, there is a real punting competition.

We don't get to see any of this in training camp because they don't really do special teams. They punt sometimes. They kick sometimes. But even Will Riker, we've seen him kick field goals like three times the entire training camp. I think most of that's done in walkthrough when we're not there. So I'm sure they will split up the punting, and we'll get to analyze it, and we will. It's a real punt-off.

I think Matt Daniels actually teased a punt-off a long time ago, two years ago, and then they cut Jordan Berry. So hopefully we get a real punt-off this time. It was one of the darker moments of the administration so far. I guess you can understand why they didn't extend everyone yet after that. No, truly, there's a lot to watch here. I mean, you could almost go different positions and talk about some interesting players,

including how about the tight end spot? We've seen Robert Tunyon get hurt. There's no word about whether he will play, but it didn't sound like he was going to have a chance to play on Saturday from what Kevin O'Connell said. And then all of a sudden Nick Muse is out here making plays. This team just breeds tight ends. Nick Muse, Trey Knox has made plays over the last couple of days. I'm working on a piece on him. He's an interesting guy. So there's tight ends that might get opportunities in the season that wouldn't normally if t.j hawkinson wasn't banged up i have one more question for you and i

was reminded by it because of jordan addison being in the news the dui thing but also jordan addison absolutely smoking somebody i don't recall who he roasted today for a 40, 50 yard gain. Um, what are our expectations for Jordan Edison as a football player? I feel like every time we've said his name, it has been in regards to what happened off the field and we can't eliminate that. But if we don't talk about that for a moment and just talk about what we've seen from him in training camp, it looks nothing short of terrific in mini camp. And then in training camp, he's been making plays every single day building on what he did last year. It's,

it's looked very good. I think on the field and his chemistry with Sam Darnold seems to be coming along. Yeah. Through the prism of just a football player, he's spectacular. And, and I don't prism of just a football player, he's spectacular. And, and I don't use that word lightly. Like he, he looks like just in his movements as a receiver, more natural than any receiver on the team. Even Justin Jefferson,

like the way Justin Jefferson runs routes, like it obviously is effective. He's obviously incredible and has like quick twitch and great hands and ability to contort his body. And he's just the best. Justin Jefferson is the best receiver in the league. But the way Jordan Addison breaks down on cuts, run certain routes, can, you know, twirl his body in a way that he stays in bounds while falling out of bounds, like Chris Carter-esque. All of those things, like Jordan Addison is a very good football player,

and I think he's just going to continue to ascend and be a very good football player. He would be a number one wide receiver on most teams in the league. If you don't have one of the best, Jordan Addison could be your number one receiver because I think he's that good. I think it was a perfect draft pick at the time because of the way teams have started to defend Justin Jefferson. Well, if you are willing to leave Jordan Addison one-on-one, he's going to roast guys all year. And I think he could have a huge year. I think a suspension could be coming down, which would obviously hinder his numbers in the grand scheme of things.

But if we just think about where he's at as a football player on the field, you couldn't have been happier with how he performed in the spring and how he's continued to perform in the summer on the field. He is really that guy. I think that this is a little bit part of a bigger trend of this training camp. It started out with a terrible injury from Makai Blackman, and so naturally a lot of folks would think it's going to be one of those training camps, and I'm not saying it's not because there's still days to go, but as far as expectations versus what we've seen I think that Jordan Addison

fits into this category of what's kind of the best version of J.J. McCarthy I would have expected it's kind of the best version of Sam Darnold so far that I would have expected it's kind of the best version of Jordan Addison that I would have expected last year it didn't have any effect on his play what happened off the field it does not seem to be this year either, but he does feel a little bit even better to me. So far this year, he does look a little stronger, a little more explosive. Getting off the line, he mentioned, I'll watch from time to time. Just, all right, he's up against somebody. How does this look?

Those one-on-one, it's going to be press coverage. Where's he going to go? How's he going to get open? And he has been getting open a lot. And this is, if you are going back to almost where we started, which was we've gone on this a little bit of a rollercoaster of, well, Sam Darnold has these two great receivers and maybe dot, dot, dot. And then, oh wait, no McCarthy should win this job.

And then now we're back to, oh wait, yeah, no, he actually is getting on the same page with these guys and now you're back to making that case of maybe he could etc etc but i just wanted to bring that up because i think that addison has been one of the winners if you will of early training camp with his performance and how many catches he's made the high difficulty catches on a consistent basis and because of the other part of it, we haven't really discussed that too much. Is there anyone else before Saturday

that you would like to react to their performance that has surprised you, disappointed you, shocked you, startled you, frustrated you? Anyone? No one, like we've covered a good chunk of the roster so like no one specific comes to mind is like i saw about every player i need to talk about this guy or i will die but i i think like he i think i'm most just excited to see who plays like who like who who do they think is far too important to play in the preseason because we don't even want to risk any chance of them getting injured?

Like, is Dornatis going to play in the preseason? Maybe. I don't need to see him. I see him every day in training camp. Probably not. What's the point? Like, does Ivan Pace need to play in the preseason? Like, he was an undrafted free agent last year

who obviously is going to have a big role on the defense this year. But, like, do you want to see him? Like, I don't need to see him either. So it's weird to, like, go into this preseason game really excited because I think they're going to play certain guys. I want to see Sam Darnold. I want to see JJ McCarthy. But in that same vein, like, I don't want to see, like, anybody who's actually important to winning. Right. So it's a weird, like kind of contrast in my head right now when I think about what is it

going to look like on Saturday? So no one really like specific comes to mind. I'm just excited to see that list of inactives 90 minutes before kickoff because generally I don't care about the inactives on Saturday. I absolutely will. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

Oh, a hundred percent Saturday. That's a big story of who is actually going to be in that game. And historically, the more you are in the game with Kevin O'Connell, the less of a good sign it is, which was not that way under Mike Zimmer. So it's something we'll be watching closely and probably start the podcast after in U.S. Bank Stadium. So make sure you check that out live about an hour after the game, after we're done in the locker room and then we'll do our thing.

So Dane, appreciate it. Looking forward to back in game action. How many podcasts have we done waiting for this moment to be back inside that stadium? I am very excited and very excited to talk to all of you then. So we will catch you all later. Football. you