Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings sign Stephon Gilmore

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

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Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, one that i didn't necessarily think i was going to do but here we are as the minnesota vikings have signed stefan gilmore to a one-year 10 million dollar contract 7 million guaranteed so i imagine there's a couple million versus maybe playing time or something like that mixed in but for all intents and purposes, a $7 million contract over one season, and we'll find out if there's anything else that's mixed in there as far as his salary cap hit goes. But the Vikings land a longtime veteran cornerback who was pretty good the last couple years.

I want to go over his numbers with you guys from PFF and what those say about where he may still stand, what it means in terms of the implications and what it says about how this team feels about itself and the cornerback group and who it might impact now that Stephon Gilmore is a Minnesota Viking. And just my understanding is that the Vikings went way above what anybody else was willing to do financially for Stefan Gilmore.

So they bring him in and we might as well start by just talking about the implications of the his signing doesn't mean a whole lot for the long term future of the salary cap. It's just a one-year deal. That means that after this year, he'll just be let go, presumably, or sign for another one-year contract, and then it will be off the books. The Vikings managing their salary cap pretty well over the last couple of years allowed them to walk into this situation where they had enough money to put it down on the table and say all right stefan gilmore come become a minnesota viking so that plays into it that they were able to set up the salary cap to be in a good spot for right now to where they could pay more than some other teams and also you know the having this ability to sign a good player at this point in the year because they had space, which in previous years,

when they were playing with the last couple of million dollars, that they would have to restructure a contract just to sign their practice squad. Yeah, a little different from years past, but it doesn't make any difference into the future unless there's void years tacked onto this. It doesn't sound like from the reports that that's going to be the case. Just a straight up one year, $10 million deal, 7 million guaranteed for Stephon Gilmore. So as far as the cornerback room goes, there are a couple of different ways that this could go as

far as what it means. One, it might mean that a guy we talked about making the team potentially yesterday on the postgame show after the preseason game might not. And they might have to try to sneak him through to the practice squad in someone like Dwight McClothern, who has made an impact in the room as someone who could be potentially interesting down the road for this team and develop over a year but i'm not sure now that he makes the team the other one is fabian morrow where you know they've given fabian morrow a lot of opportunities in practice and they would have been evaluating him this entire time. Just because they signed somebody in the middle of training camp doesn't mean he necessarily makes it. It also could mean that even though they've been positive about where Shaq Griffin stands, that they're not super confident that Shaq Griffin is going to come back to 100% right away or that he's going to be able to stay healthy for the entire season.

I think if we thought that, you know, a Caleb Evans would take another step and be able to sell Brian Flores on what he is, that did not happen during this training camp because otherwise you wouldn't go out and spend $10 million on a veteran cornerback. But now if we look at what the cornerback room looks like and what I would expect if Fabian Morrow is indeed on the team, then you have Byron Murphy Jr., Shaq Griffin, Fabian Morrow, Stephon Gilmore, and Caleb Evans. And maybe there's one more, but five corners sounds about right to me. And then Dwight McClothern ends up being in the, you know, probably the practice squad.

Most of the time, we're always terrified of teams picking up players that get cut, but it doesn't happen really all that often. So, you know, they may just decide they're going to cut him, put him on the practice squad and go from there. But that now becomes a very much veteran room. And where Jay Ward fits in is another one one i don't know if jay ward fits into this or not he could be more of a special teams specialist and versatile defensive back uh where he could play safety what he's done before and where he could play corner uh and uh you know but i think that it's hard to find enough spots for someone like Dwight McClothern if they want to keep Fabian Morrow. But I don't know what they think of Fabian Morrow.

I mean, we've seen him in a couple of preseason games a little bit. We've seen him in practice day after day. It would be hard for me to tell you what their evaluation was of him. They signed him for not too much money. They could just cut him and move on and bring in stefan gilmore that might happen and they might keep dwight mcglothern instead that's hard to say that's one of the decisions that they're going to have to make here and then uh you know jay ward will either have a special teams role or i suppose it's possible that he gets cut as well i was trying hard to to find a spot for Jay Ward on the 53-man roster.

It's not that easy, but they're going to have some decisions to make when it comes to the depth chart and the 53-man roster now that Stephon Gilmore is here, and very much clearly the starting outside corner to go along with Byron Murphy. And then when they move Murphy inside, is it Morrow that sticks around? Is it a Caleb Evans still on the outside? Is it Shaq Griffin coming back healthy? I would assume that it would be Shaq Griffin if he's a hundred percent. And then this will not be a defense

that is a bunch of young guys trying to figure it out. This will be an extremely veteran defense. When we go through the roster, it's almost hard to find anybody who is not experienced other than Dallas Turner and Ivan Pace Jr. going into his second year. But everybody else has been in the league now for a long time on this defense and that means that expectations should be quite high I think it also means that what they saw in Cleveland with the way the defense played and I know they wanted Stephon Gilmore before but to get over the hump here there was already an offer on the table to get over the hump here. Did they bump up that offer at the last minute to make sure that Stefan Gilmore came here? That's maybe the impression that I get is that their original offer was not enough to make him just say, all right, let's go.

I'm signing right away. He left the building, which often means that the guy's not coming back and didn't sign, you know, right away after leaving the building, but then suddenly decides, you know what, actually I will sign with the Vikings. That makes me think they said, what about a couple more million dollars to come become a Minnesota Viking, which wouldn't surprise me because they were great in Cleveland. They played great defense several days in a row, two days in a row against Deshaun Watson and that Cleveland offense. And they took the ball away. They sacked him repeatedly. Obviously they couldn't hit him, but they would have been sacks and the whistle blew their coverage. I thought it was pretty good, but their confusion was really excellent. Their

pass rush was excellent. And the other part of this too is you know with jj mccarthy going down for the year it's really on sam darnold and the offense to win here right we know that the ownership of this team wants sam darnold to lead them to the playoffs they were told don't pay kirk cousins that much money bringarnold, draft a quarterback, but we're still going to continue to win and be competitive. Well, the way they're going to have to do it is a little more on the defensive side. I think they're going to have to be more of a defensive identity type of team this year with Sam Darnold as their quarterback and adding Stefan Gilmore to that mix is important to that because the one big

question that we kept coming back to and I actually was impressed by the defensive tackles this week that doesn't mean they'll be amazing but it's a deeper group than it was before so really the only the only unit that we were talking about as being a big problem was the cornerbacks. And now they add Stefan Gilmore to this mix. So the big question though, with Stefan Gilmore is, is he still good at age 34? Every year that goes on in a player's career, it becomes more difficult to project what they're going to be the following season. We know this from running backs. When are they going to fall off the cliff? Cornerbacks historically have had a little bit of this same problem where they get to 28, 29 years old, seven, eight years in the league, and then they don't have the same quickness that they did before. And it becomes more difficult for them to keep up with young 21 year old speedy wide receivers.

So when it comes to Stefan Gilmore being 34 years old, that brings about the question, is he still going to be able to cover man to man? Coincidentally, his statistics last year in coverage, man to man were actually quite good. I believe he was the 10th highest graded by pff man-to-man Corner and just have his pff grades up here for the last few years there was a small sample in 2021 with Carolina so we'll look at 2022 and 2023. his pff grades were 79.1 and 74.4 aside for Patrick Peterson those would be maybe the highest grades we've seen from a corner that played for the Minnesota Vikings in a long time. Other than the small sample size, Duke Shelley, who I just haven't seen a lot of and doesn't seem like he's going to have much chance to make the team, maybe practice squad. They end up putting him on because you can do

that with veterans. Now the coverage grades from Stefanfan gilmore 81 and 72 both pretty good strong on run defense he's always been a good run defending corner because he's big and as far as if that doesn't maybe resonate with you as well what a pff grade is just in terms of how he performed when the other team threw his direction the quarterback rating against for the last two years when throwing into his direction uh was both in the 80s uh that he allowed only 55 percent uh percentage last year completion percentage into his coverage and uh 80 rating two touchdowns uh or i'm sorry four touchdown touchdowns, two interceptions, had a bunch of pass defended. I mean, the point is that Stephon Gilmore had a very good season last year and a

very good season two years ago. And I think what they're hoping for here is a Patrick Peterson type of year where no he's not at the same speed as he used to be uh back in the day but he has a lot of uh experience throughout his career he is exceptionally large for this position he was a top 10 draft pick once upon a time and an elite athlete once upon a time and he has enough knowledge of the game and enough experience to understand where the receivers are going to go before they go there and still can make plays on the football with just about anyone as we saw from stefan gilmore winning the mvp i can't tell you with any degree of certainty how he's going to look as a Minnesota Viking at 34 years old. All I could tell you is that his last two seasons, even though he was considered an aged corner in his last two seasons, were pretty darn good. And that historically

exceptional corners have been able to stretch beyond the age curve for their position. Daryl Green back in the day, but Patrick Peterson is another good example of somebody who was able to be very effective in the right spot. Oddly, he was the only one in the right spot in Ed Donatell's defense, but that fit for him. He played extremely well and if stefan gilmore can give this team average play even if he gets beat sometimes even if it's not the same quickness that he used to have that is a big upgrade from what we expected and i know that this team also wants to catch the

ball more often when it comes their way that you know somebody like a caleb evans is i think a good depth player and someone who will be in the nfl for a long time and he works hard and he wants it all those things from a caleb evans but he can't make plays on the ball and that has been shown over and over again. Someone like Stefan Gilmore can do that, can play in man coverage, at least his most recent sample. And I'm guessing that the reason that he was still out there was that most teams looked at him and said, I don't know, man, I don't know if we want to give you $10 million for a 34 year old corner, but the Vikings step up, they give him $10 million. One of you mentioned

that carolina was the other team that offered him a contract uh that would be close to home which was my thought is that he was probably waiting on either a super bowl contender or a team closer to his house which is uh where he's from in carolina and the Vikings put down so much more money here now that's the Stephon Gilmore part of it that my expectation for him is that he can be better than probably any corner that they have on the team right now his history says that he can be better than any corner that they have on the team right now the only guy with any high end in his past is Shaq Griffin but Shaq Griffin is banged up and Shaq Griffin has not been that good in in the past right and you know the fact that they lost Makai Blackman to an injury you

know this now creates a big hole there that they have filled today with Stephon Gilmore that I didn't feel like was necessarily filled by Shaq Griffin or necessarily filled by Fabian Morrow, who has been a replacement okay but actually very good and uh has kept teams under a 90 quarterback rating when throwing Adam is graded very well and it also could be that he didn't play well in the game against the Packers in the playoffs which could have shaped the way that people looked at him and I think it was really just age that teams did not want to put a lot of cash on the table or didn't at this point in the season have a whole lot of cash to put on the table but the vikings just did uh because the way that they've managed their salary cap so that's the that's kind of the micro as far as stefan gilmore goes of the this is what the depth chart is probably going to look like and there is

a decision i don't know if they're going to keep mororrow or Dwight McClothern. That to me is the difficult decision in that room. McClothern has shown a lot. He's somebody that I think they wouldn't want to lose. But Morrow is another veteran player. So you could end up having a bunch of veteran cornerbacks that if one goes down, I mean, it's hard to expect a bunch of veteran corners to all play 17 games. So they may want to keep Morrow and Griffin as well and go from there. So we'll see what happens on cut down day, who it is that ends up getting the ax because I did have McClothern on the team as of yesterday, but now I'm not sure if it's going to be him or Fabian Morrow. I would be very shocked if it's a Caleb Evans.

I think everyone likes a Caleb Evans and wants him to succeed. It's just the league knows now that you could throw it his way and he's not going to make a play on the football, which makes it a lot harder. And we even saw that in the preseason game yesterday. That's the depth chart version. The is Stefan Gilmore still good? But then there is a bigger version to this. Now, I look at spending $10 million now as kind of free money. It's not like they needed to

wait for next year because of or I'm sorry, let me correct. It's not like they needed to try to save money for the future because this is just a one-year contract, right? So they didn't have to do anything as far as impact their future in signing Stefan Gilmore. It's money that they had and they were going to carry over anyway, but now that will just be created as soon as he becomes a free agent. And then they go from there with the same amount of cap space as they would have had anyway. So no impact there. and said that we're not talking contract extension that would make you feel like they are really setting the bar high as far as expectations and if the bar is set high for expectations and the ownership is not looking at this season like oh you know it's uh just a rebuild year and bad break with JJ McCarthy. And we'll see you in 2025.

If that's not how the ownership is looking at it and they're looking at it as in, you have to be in the playoffs or that seat's going to get hot, which I don't like that approach by the way, to this leadership, I would not like the approach that if they don't get into the playoffs this year, that the seats are getting hot. I think that that would be a mistake from the Wilfs, but also I know that when you haven't won a playoff game, if you're going into three years without a playoff win, then generally in the NFL,

that's a lot of leeway in itself. I think that when you look at the bigger plan of moving on from Kirk, drafting your future quarterback, going forward, that you could see how the timeline is there for them to win. But the pressure ramped up a little bit when the owner said, yeah, we're not talking about contract extension now. That would be inspiring to bring in somebody like Stephon Gilmore. And also, they have so many veteran players on this team and so many expensive players on this team that this is the type of move that says, guys, this isn't rebuilding. We're in. Even if Vegas says you're not going to be very good, we're in.

When you sign Grenard, when you sign Van Ginkle, when you give the extensions to Derrissaw and Jefferson and Harrison Smith, who was great on the broadcast yesterday, when he comes back and says, I want to play for Brian Flores, I want to be part of this great defense again. to win they're not coming back here saying well hey you know 2024 who cares and stefan gilmore is assigned to those players yes we are going for it we're trying to win this division and a lot of it's going to have to be on the defensive side more likely than not now i don't think that stefan gilmore's addition makes them a Super Bowl contender. I think they've always been a playoff contender if someone in the division isn't as good as they look. And that might be Chicago. It might be an injury in Green Bay or Detroit. You never really know, right?

We project the season and then people get hurt and so forth. So they need to make the playoffs more likely than not on a nine and eight beat somebody out right at the end of the season. But it's clear that that's projected to be last in their division by everybody across the board and make the playoffs with that team, lose their rookie quarterback and still find a way with Sam Darnold, who's never done it before, to make the playoffs. That would be big for them. That would be big contract extension money for Kevin O'Connell. And that's another factor as well. And if you're Kweisi Adafo Mensah, you don't have a playoff win either. It's not just the coach. The GM doesn't have a playoff win either and has to sell the ownership on why he's the right guy to continue to go forward and get a contract extension too.

That's the bigger picture of the stefan gilmore is this is kind of a win now type of move and the with the improvements and the money that has been spent on this defense uh they have a chance on a weekly basis to stop good offenses and give themselves an opportunity to win games uh whether that will actually work, I don't know. Is Stephon Gilmore worth several more wins? Of course not. No player is worth several more wins. But on defense, it's always about the weak link. And with him here, you feel a lot less weak than you would if it was just Byron Murphy and Caleb Evans, just Byron Murphy and Shaq Griffin. Now it feels more solidified and strong with Stefan Gilmore. So I think that covers a lot of these Stefan Gilmore bases. I'm interested in your guys' reaction, questions and comments.

But I mean, overall, where I was sold on this idea was, well, one in Cleveland, where I think we talked about it uh alec lewis of the athletic and i did a podcast after i think we both said if you've got a defense like this that looks this good in a joint practice you should do whatever you can to try to get a top five to ten defense in the league and if that's spending a few million bucks on a one-year contract that has no impact on the future salary cap do it there's no reason not to throw that money down get stefan gilmore here and do the best you can to maximize this defense that has so much talent across the board and i that i think that was their takeaway as well to potentially up the offer. I don't know if we'll hear any reporting on that,

but that is just reading the tea leaves. If the guy leaves with an offer and then suddenly they have a great joint practice and he comes back and signs later, it sounds like they bumped up the dollar figure a little bit to make sure they got him in there. It would have been inspiring to see the way that they played defensively. And I'm sure Brian Flores himself would have been inspiring to see the way that they played defensively and I'm sure Brian Flores himself would have been asking can we just get one more corner in here they have a difficult

schedule they have a difficult start to the season all the more reason to do it with no implications on the cap now if they had signed him to a two-year deal and a bunch of dead money or something, then I would have had a lot more questions, but one year, 10 million bucks, get it done, try to have the best possible defense you can. And if they are largely healthy, I think they can be a top 10 defense and give themselves a chance to make the playoffs. I was looking at Flores' team in 2020 that went 10-6, and they had the 6th best defense and 15th best offense. Can the Vikings be that? Can the Vikings be in that ballpark? If they can, then they could be in the playoffs, and this coaching staff can say, look at what we are capable of. The front office can say, look at what we're capable of and go forward so all right let's get

to your uh questions and comments about stefan gilmore signing and i won't forget the ad reads i promise uh alexander says did you see daniel jones doing daniel jones things yesterday b flow should have a field day week one well i did also see malik neighbors do some malik neighbors things so stefan gilmore better uh get ready to go i look at week one always as being just weird the hardest week to project we don't know anything about these teams and last year we were all saying the vikings are going to beat the bucks right this is a this is a game that you just put down as an automatic w the bucks end up making the playoffs Bucs, right? This is a game that you just put down as an automatic W. The Bucs end up making the playoffs.

Hey, by the way, right? Who thought the Bucs were making the playoffs last year in week one and they end up making the playoffs? So that's how bad we are at predicting what teams are going to be in the first week of the season. I'm not high on the New York Giants or their offense or Daniel Jones. The Vikings, that's one where they really need to win to get off on the right foot. And I do feel the same way as you is that that's a game that sort of screams because the Giants have a good defense too. And they have Brian Burns. That's a game that

screams 17 to 14 total slugfest between these two teams and Brian Flores doing a lot of unique things to throw off Daniel Jones but Daniel Jones an all-time Viking killer based on those two games he played in 2022 think about how much different the defense is now since 2022 I mean who's left Harrison Smith is there anybody else left I mean can't Uh, but Josh Metellus didn't really play on that defense for whatever reason. There's, there's not a whole lot of guys, Harrison Phillips. That's really it for this defense. It's been completely reconstructed to the point where we think it should be pretty darn good. Uh, Evan says, does this mean the bike? Uh, I draft theings defense in fantasy this year how was

green day last night green day was fantastic they did a tremendous job super energy from uh billy joe armstrong a really entertaining show i enjoyed it great great weather last night for a show as well and as far as drafting the vikings defense in fantasy i respect the fact that you're in fantasy leagues that have defense. I think so. I think that they're going to get more sacks than they did last year because they have a more versatile edge group that last season it was Daniil Hunter and then DJ Wanham could sack Justin Fields, but overall was just kind of a guy and then nothing else. And this year now they have three players who are two of them are really good in Van Ginkle and Grenard. And I've liked what I've seen from Dallas Turner. And then Patrick Jones can fit

into a role. Jihad Ward can fit into a role to veterans who have had at least some ups in the past i mean that that is way different that's way deeper uh jerry tillery can get a little pressure blake cashman is actually a good blitzer and they they got a lot out of jordan hicks from that perspective last year but cashman's a better player at this point in his career than jordan hicks could do a lot more things ivan pace has improved. You're still going to have the same thing from Josh Metellus. It's overall, I think quite a bit deeper than it was last year. Dennis says they probably cut Ward to make room.

Yeah, I don't know because they're going to have the, they're going to have the choice there of, do you cut Ward? It doesn't look like Bobby McCain is going to make the team. It doesn't look like, I mean, just as far, McCain can play safety or corner. So just in the defensive back room in general, you know, I think that it comes down to, because Ward does play a lot of special teams and that may matter for this. There's usually one guy and Najee Thompson's been out for the entire summer. There's usually one guy that is thought of as being the special teams specialist.

That's really all he does. And Jay Ward might be that guy. I think it kind of comes down to McClothern or Fabian Morrow. Have they liked what they've seen from Morrow as the veteran addition? If not, then they can move on from him. Fabian Morrow have they liked what they've seen from Morrow as the veteran addition if not then they can move on from him or Mcglethern they could try to get him through to the practice squad which you know we've liked what we've seen from him as an undrafted free agent but it's not like he had these unbelievable preseason games that other teams would have been evaluating and saying oh

wow he had three picks we need to sign him off the vikings waiver wire i just don't know that they're taking a big risk there he wasn't even one of the higher paid undrafted free agents and those guys would be most on the radar of teams looking for someone on waivers but if you pick someone up you have to put them on their 53 and all these other teams have guys that they like as well so I think that McLaughlin will be the guy that we weren't sure about making the team but then we'll just end up on the practice squad but again I'm not really sure Morrow's only been here for a little bit I'm not sure what they've thought of him since he arrived he is an older veteran player who doesn't have an incredible

history he's kind of been a fill-in type of player throughout his career but if morrow has looked good to them then it it feels like they have a lot of okay at corner uh with gilmore and murphy getting the majority of the playing time and then guys who should be backups like morrow and evans and gr and Griffin stepping in when they have to. That feels a lot better than it did after Makai Blackman got hurt. Aaron says, awesome news for the defense. Top 10. Here we come.

Who's going to make the team now in the cornerback room? Who's going to make the practice squad? Yeah, I mean, that's what we've kind of been talking about. I think it's, it really is swings on Fabian Morrow, but I think that it's going to make the practice squad yeah i mean that's what we've kind of been talking about i i think it's it really is swings on fabian morrow but i think that it's going to be murphy gilmore griffin morrow and evans and then maybe jay ward is kept as the special team specialist that's that's how i would look at it right now and and what i'll put on my 53 man roster projection monday look out for that uh on the newsletter purpleinsider.com go check that out that's my guess right now unless they just didn't like what they saw from morrow and have gilmore replace him uh bland toast i'm

shocked the wills for okay with spending additional seven to ten million this season no i'm not at all because they were so far below the salary cap already and yes they did put down a lot of money in signing bonuses a lot of cash to justin jefferson and christian derisaw if you're an nfl owner you got to be able to pay the bills and i think the wilfs have enough money to be able to pay the bills really comes down to having no long-term implications as being a key part of this, that you sign someone to a one-year contract. You'll get that salary cap space back. You give the man a signing bonus and off we go.

And if you're the Wilfs, I've never thought of them as cheap, by the way. I don't think so at all. They spend on the TCO performance center. They spend on the coaching staff. They spend, I don't think so at all they spend on the tco performance center they spend on the coaching staff they spend i don't think you'd have brian floris if they were cheap uh i think they spend on making it the best player experience as we see from the nflpa and what they have rated this team and they spend on the roster they've been to the salary cap at the top of it over and over and over and over again, year after year with Kirk Cousins.

They spent too much on Kirk Cousins. But they went out and signed Cousins and made him at the time the highest guaranteed quarterback money ever. So I've never looked at this team as short on cash. And if they want to win, then if they want to be in the playoffs, then this is the type of move that you have to go up and get. Alex says, is Stefan Gilmore equal to add two more wins to the win total? No, I mean, no player. If we were doing a wins above replacement, which PFF actually created a few years ago, but it was just for the teams. It wasn't something that they put out there and

they would show you a little bit of it during the free agency. They would have the free agents and what they were worth. A cornerback can be worth a lot as far as being one of the more valuable positions. If the guy causes turnovers and makes plays, then of course one corner can shore up a major weakness as they're hoping for with Stefan Gilmore. But two more wins would be a lot. Uh, as far as a wins above replacement,

two more wins would be something like Justin Jefferson adds two more wins. Even when Jefferson went out, they were still able to win some games. Like there's so many factors that go into winning and losing that one player, even if he plays a thousand snaps, he would have to get like 10 picks to be worth two wins. Uh, I think that's just from a numbers perspective, but on the bigger picture, does he slide you up rankings on defense? If he plays like he did last year, I believe he does. Yes. Uh, and if Shaq Griffin was going to be healthy and the older version of Shaq Griffin the entire career and you could guarantee that to me well yeah he's going to be the version from two

to three years ago then I would say well you know this doesn't really mean much but that's not something that um they could really count on particularly when he got injured but shoring up the biggest weakness that if you can't cover teams can just attack you all day long they play a lot of good quarterbacks to start the season they needed an improvement when it came to the cornerback position to just shore up their biggest weakness that teams would be able to take advantage of over and over and over again. That's what happened really against Detroit at the end of last year is a Caleb Evans got benched several times because Detroit just kept going after him and kept attacking him. But now they don't have a guy

that you could target. At least if Gilmore is healthy and plays like he does last year, they don't have a player who you can just target over and over and over again. Murphy has proven to be an average corner in the league, if not a little bit better, if he's in the slot role more often. And then is it Evans on the outside? If they're playing a nickel, is it Shaq Griffin? I think probably they want it to be Shaq Griffin. So it just feels a lot better. Does it add two wins? No, but it might move you up from being the 13th best defense to the eighth best defense. And that might make a couple of games closer. You see what I'm saying?

Like there's a domino effect to that. Last King 85 says, what are your thoughts on a Caleb Evans? He screams mid to me. Yeah, I think that's a good way to describe it. A Caleb Evans is an NFL player. He can be in games and you can use him for a five game stretch and not feel like your entire defense is going to come apart. There are color codings that teams use to describe players in this way. So I don't remember what Rick Spielman explained this once. I don't

remember what the colors are, but let's just say that if you're a blue player, you're Justin Jefferson, you're the big difference maker. And if you're whatever other color, you're a solid starter that could play the whole season. And then there's a different color coding. Let's just say that it's red. Again, I don't remember what the colors are. And that's a fill-in type of player that you feel good about in a short period of time, but you wouldn't want to play the whole season because they get exposed. That's Dakota Dozier. Yeah, you all remember him getting steamrolled as a guard. He was a fine backup guard, but he was not a starting guard.

And there are quarterbacks like this guys who could go 500 in a short stretch uh nick mullins could come in and play a game if you need him to but he's not somebody that you want to play over and over and over again for an entire year that's probably who a caleb evans is and again he can have a long career in doing that zoomer kev says there's a lot of denying the emperor has no clothes vibes in Cleveland right now. Yeah, the way that the Cleveland media responded to some of us, particularly me talking about how their offense did not look good at all against the Vikings defense was kind of interesting

that they're fighting with each other, I guess, about if the offense can be anything and how good Deshaun Watson looked. Deshaun Watson looked like an average to below average starting quarterback to me in those practices. And I didn't see the same juice that he had in the past as far as playmaking. And if he's not as the same playmaker, then he's not all that good. They may have to live in that reality that they're going to have to win with defense as well. These are two teams that are both going to have to do that. Cleveland and the Vikings more likely than not, because watching Sam Darnold against an elite defense wasn't exactly great either.

That when they play elite defenses, which may start in week one, I mean, the Giants have a very good defense. It could be tough for Sam Darnold to put up big numbers, even with a good scheme, even with Justin Jefferson, they are going to have to rely a lot on Aaron Jones and build off of that. I do think the Vikings overall have better playmakers around their quarterback than maybe Deshaun Watson has in a better offensive line. But yeah, they're in it tough because they can't even really look to the future at all. He is it for them, unlike the Vikings. Joel says this team needs to decide on developing players or playing veterans, especially when you have a year where your most likely outcome is no better than eight and nine. Yeah.

That's the interesting part of this defense is that they are a veteran group, but a lot of this defense now, Stefan Gilmore doesn't count for this, but a lot of this defense is staying together after this year. We don't know if Harrison Smith will continue to play, but if we go through it, the key players to this defense,

Cashman, Pace, Jr. Gren if we go through it, the key players to this defense, Cashman, Pace Jr., Grenard, Van Ginkle, Turner, like these guys are all going to be here. Maybe they resign Kambinem or maybe Josh Metellus switches roles a little bit from where he's been. They put in Theo Jackson instead, but there's a lot of pieces that will be here for the future but there aren't a lot of developmental pieces that's a good point there really aren't and that's why you set the expectation is the defense is going to have to win a lot of games for this team and you go get stefan gilmore because that was true before the gilmore signing and they gave every opportunity to andrew ruth jr and to caleb evans to prove that they should rely on them instead of

stefan gilmore but they just didn't step up to the plate so they move on from booth jr and they slide caleb evans down the depth chart those were your younger developmental players the only plus side of that is that what we've seen this offseason is always true about defense. The defensive players are available in free agency. It's you can't find Justin Jefferson on offense. Receivers are hard to get in free agency. But something like corners, edge rusher even is available. Defensive tackle a little less so.

Safeties. How about Justin Simmons signing with Atlanta at the last minute? Stephon Gilmore signing here at the last minute. Usually those guys are available. So as they go into next year with all that cap space, they should be able to shore up the things that they lose this offseason or keep Harrison Phillips or keep Cam Bynum around to make sure this defense stays together.

So even though it isn't a developmental defense, it is a defense that will not be falling off the face of the earth with all of the players that they signed after this season. So there is a, there is a long ish term element to it, but not really a five to seven year element to it. It's more of a two to three a year for the players that they sign. But you're right. I mean, they, when you draft, like they've drafted on the defensive side for many years, a lot of the years with Spielman, there's just not a lot of young players that are behind and then suddenly developing. And it's funny because, you know, Gabriel Murphy, who was banged up for a lot of this preseason, but he made an early impression

on the coaching staff and he's an edge rusher again. We'll see what Levi Drake Rodriguez becomes. He's maybe interesting as a development player, Dwight McLaughlin, I mentioned a few times, but you know, maybe Dallas Gantz is a guy at linebacker but this is kind of how defense works though is you draft high dudes that come in and make plays you have to end up with some random undrafted free agents and then you fill in the rest in free agency it's kind of how it always goes uh aaron says the d line is looking good uh can uh good depth uh can we get a right guard? Well, we'll see about the right guard position. It was a little bit strange to see Ed Ingram playing as much as he did. I don't know if that's a message to Ed Ingram or not.

It's just that hasn't been all that great. And it certainly wasn't in the first preseason game. Didn't look like it was all that great against Cleveland. I haven't looked at the PFF grades yet this morning if they've got those up, but that's not the sign you wanted to see, even if there were other guards banged up for Ingram to be the only starter that was out there. The interior issues are still going to be the interior issues for the offensive line, but the interior of the defensive line jerry tillery has made a difference in this he was not a huge signing for the offseason didn't have unbelievable numbers

for the raiders last year but was much better than he was with the chargers when he played for the raiders last season and he's able to get some penetration he's an enormous dude uh he does take up space in there, but he can also get to the quarterback a little bit and cause some pressure. This isn't a superstar. It's just, it's better than it was last year. And a high times KG says,

disagree about the D line feels like another year without any interior pass rush, good depth, but they all do the same thing. Well, that's where Tillery they're hoping that he changes things up and at least against the browns from what i saw tillery did have an impact there that he was able to create a little bit of penetration but you're right i'm not saying that they are the third best defensive line interior all i'm saying is that it was better

than i thought it was going to be what i thought it was going to be was about the worst in the league. And Harrison Phillips, we can't forget that Harrison Phillips was an above average player through his entire career until they ran him into the ground last season as far as his PFF grades go. last year just trying to survive out there with them playing him so many snaps now they do have a little bit more opportunity to mix and match on that interior the d-line than they did before that's that's all i'm saying i'm not saying that he's going to be way better than he ever was before or they are going to be way better than they were the last couple of seasons. More just that it could be capable. It could be closer to a mediocre or average interior of the defensive line than it was before. That's all I'm saying. If I don't do the ad reads, I'll forget them now.

So I'm going to continue answering your questions, but let me get to that. And I'm also going on Mad Dog Radio at 1220 20 so i have to go before that xm if you were on the live stream the other night you saw me forget that i had a radio appearance and then have to just end the live stream so we will try to avoid that today uh but speaking of being on the phone us cellular notice 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 posts we don't actually like ironic which is why u.s cellular created us mode to help us reconnect

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Visit CircaLasVegas.com for more information. All right, back to your questions. Will says, what's the word on Jaqueline Roy? He was someone that was talked about as potentially having a breakout year, but seems to have had a quiet camp. That's how it's looked to me. It has looked more like a quiet camp there just hasn't been too many times that his name has been brought up by the coaches or that we we haven't seen him get a single first team rep from what i have seen i shouldn't put it that way kevin o'connell seems to uh mention the rep counters a lot in his press conferences so put it this way he has not been a regular part of the first team as even Levi Drake Rodriguez got in

there more when they had people banged up he may end up making the team I was struggling a little bit with who was going to be the backup defensive tackles but as far as taking the next step impressing kind of catching everybody's eye that has not been the case for Jaqueline Roy fifth round draft pick it's kind of how it goes. Maybe we'll see him as the season goes along. I don't know that he's going to get cut. I think he's been more of a second team type player, but not someone that has popped or has been talked about a lot.

And all of a sudden we're saying, oh, they've got something that they didn't know they had. It looks like they kind of know what they have there. Alexander, I think the most important thing to note is that you improve two positions when you're able to play Byron Murphy at nickel and Gilmore as a boundary corner. Well, what it does to that end, Alex, is it just allows for a little more flexibility where last year they couldn't play nickel uh they just they just couldn't it was there you got to play two outside corners and then josh metellus is your slot corner essentially and he would move around of course and did that a lot but you really could

not play a regular nickel package with three corners all the time where now you can, you can play Gilmore, probably Griffin, but even if Caleb Evans is out on the field or Fabian Morrow, it's not the worst thing. Like those guys can play in those situations. So if you have a second down in 11 or something, you,

you kind of want to take maybe Josh Metellus off the field or put him in a linebacker spot and take maybe ivan pace off the field and then have three corners that's something that they really couldn't do last year so in clear-cut passing situations on second down they're still out there playing josh metellus and opposing teams did target him a lot i thought he did a good job with it making tackles after the, but it's not like Metellus is a nickel corner. I mean, he's a guy who can play at that spot on first down and give you a little extra toughness to be able to stop the run. He's a good asset in that way on first down, but if it's second down and long, you want a nickel package out there against three wide receivers. You want Byron Murphy, who's been good in the nickel. And when they signed him, they talked about him want a nickel package out there against three wide receivers you want byron

murphy who's been good in the nickel and when they signed him they talked about him as a nickel that that's what they wanted so they've been pretty clear about that this allows them to do what they wanted to do uh george says mvp gilmore shutdown isn't needed with flores's blitz pressure you just need to split second of coverage to make a play on the ball yeah i agree george that if stefan gilmore plays like he played just last year or the year before for indianapolis and is solid and gets beat sometimes but can make plays on the ball when the opportunity comes can get interceptions can be a difference maker then that's a huge upgrade from what they had before where you're going into every game saying i don't know i don't

know if they're going to be able to cover or not uh team money do you know the numbers of how much man and zone defense uh we ran last year uh yet ish i mean I have a sense for it based on the PFF data for individuals. It was less than a quarter of the time or around a quarter of the time that the corners were being asked to play man. But sometimes it'll be a cover three and you'll just end up guarding the guy and it goes in the books as man, even though they were playing zone. It's kind of a, it's hard to figure out a little bit sometimes, whether did he follow us, you know,

a streak route because he was playing cover three and that's his guy anyway, or did he follow it because it was man to man coverage? All I know from watching is that it looked to me like a heck of a lot of zone last year. And they have talked about it repeatedly that they want to mix in a little more as far as a man goes. And Stefan Gilmore was pretty good at that last year. I don't know about putting him on Roma dunes or Malik neighbors, some of the youngest and fastest wide receivers and saying, just shut that guy down. But can you handle one side of the field? And Stefan Gilmore has done that very consistently throughout his career uh skull guy says gilmore murphy griffin uh evans morrow mcglothern is my guess we keep six corners possible yeah possible

i was trying to work my way through the 53 and getting six corners on it was a little tough just based on what I think they're going to do it a lot of the other positions but six does make some sense it could be McLaughlin it could be Jay Ward to make sure they have the special teamer that does make a difference when you're talking about the number five or the number six cornerback it's not any sort of knock on McLaughlin if they cut him and put him on the practice squad it's just the guy that they're developing for the future and that was always going to be the case with dwight mcglothern he wasn't going to be someone that they were going to throw out there as a starter he's just someone that has popped for us repeatedly during training

camp and looks like someone they could develop over a couple of seasons but it is an undrafted free agent i mean you never really know with those guys jp it's clear that koc can win throwing 35 40 passes a game but it isn't clear that he can win games 20 30 uh 20 to 30 points and run the ball consistently that's why he didn't think a new contract with the wilfs oh why he didn't think a new contract with the Wilfs. Oh, why he didn't get a new contract with the Wilfs. Yeah, no, I think that the reason that they haven't done it yet is number one. I wanted to make sure we clarify this because sometimes we just forget an important detail as we're running through this. There's this year and next year on

Kevin O'Connell's, if the reporting is correct, on Kevin O'Connell's contract. It's not just at the end of this year, he's a free agent and any team could just come make him their head coach. He has this 2024 and 2025. In the past, there have been times where the Wilfs have given a contract extension under these circumstances, but not always. And when the, they kind of want to see a little bit of prove it, then they usually haven't

signed the coach two years early. I think it would be fine to tack on another couple years for us to be able to see start to finish the entire competitive rebuild all the way from the 13 win season to whatever they become with JJ McCarthy. I want O'Connell and McCarthy paired together thick and thin. That's what I'd like to see. I don't want to see JJ McCarthy have to change coaches two years in because they didn't win a playoff game right away year two year three for young quarterbacks is usually when you start having high expectations to win let me see through three years and because we know that the culture is not going to be a wreck we know that it's not going to go the way of the zimmer where the the guy just can't nobody can stand him inside the room or something o'connell's

not going to lose the team so if he's not going to have that part he's not going to lose the team. So if he's not going to have that part, he's not going to lose his mind. He's not going to lose the team. The only thing he could do is lose too many games in this year and maybe next year. But I want to see it all the way through, knowing that it's going to be stable. Let it play out until we're sure about McCarthy and we're sure about where this team is going under Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo-Mensa so I'd be comfortable with them adding on years right now but they can also do this next year and not allow O'Connell to be lame duck and maybe the big decision for the Wilfs and we can

understand this is let's say that O'Connell goes 10 and seven and this defense is elite. Sam Darnold plays well enough. Justin Jefferson has a huge year. They run the ball better than they've ever run the ball. Perfect case scenario. They go 10 and seven. They finished second in the division. They outplay the Packers and they're in the playoffs.

Win a playoff game or not. You might be thinking a four-year extension at that point if this guy can take this team here that was supposed to be last and then take them all the way into the playoffs and have a way above average season versus expectation well you know what we want him to be our coach going forward that's kind of the andy reed thing that i think there was a stat that andy reed had never hit the under like any season for the over under for the kansas city chiefs by vegas he had never gone under that's pretty telling about what a coach brings to the table that that goes back to before with alex smith too if that's what kevin o'connell is a guy that's going to consistently

outperform expectations then that's somebody that you want, you know, as your coach long-term. So they might say four years, but if you go six and 11, which a lot of people are projecting for the Vikings, if that's what ends up coming to fruition, maybe it's a two-year extension. Maybe it's a little more of a timid let's tack on another two years, but we're not really going all in uh you know i i think i think that's fair right i mean if you're if you're the owner of the team that is fair to wait and see how long you want to uh you know lock into these guys this is an interesting thought

from last king does the signing show that ko c and KAM confidence in Darnold as well? I don't know that it quite says that. I think it actually says confidence in the rest of the defense because outside of Makai Blackman, and I will knock on this fake wooden table in front of me, they've been healthy on the defensive side during this training camp. Blackman is the only injury other than Shaq Griffin, and he's expected to come back. And the way that they just played against the Cleveland Browns in these joint practices, that would inspire confidence.

The defense was absolutely great. I thought for both days, there were a couple times where you needed a corner to maybe make a play but if you see that and you also see that you know maybe the offense is going to need a little more help so i didn't look at it as confidence in darnold so much as confidence in the fact that they could win as being more of a defense focused team as the reason but you could you could expand that out a little bit which i think you're doing and saying well they they must believe in darnold enough to get them to the playoffs or otherwise they wouldn't waste 10 million dollars on a guy who's 34 years old sean says before gilmore a playoff

contender after gilmore you solidify your chances or give a chance to win a game or two still so many variables yeah yeah, that's right. There's always a million variables when it comes to this sort of thing. A playoff contender is how I looked at the best case scenario. And I still do that. I still look at it as the best case scenario

is this team is fighting for the playoffs at the end of the season. That didn't really change, but maybe increase the odds of that put it that way the odds of the best case scenario is um a little higher than it was before before maybe the best case scenario was a one in four chance now it's a one in three chance that that might be the best way to put it uh let's see let me scroll a little bit sorry i was a little bit sort of chuckling at this one

conrad said i thought the browns had one of the best defenses in the league what happened saturday what happened saturday is they didn't play any of their players. That's what happened Saturday. It, you had to go back to, and I felt, um, bad for Vikings fans because you had to flip back into, Oh yeah, this doesn't matter at all mode for yesterday. The first player, the first preseason game did because they were playing the ones and twos, all the guys who were going to be out there, except for Justin Jefferson were on the field. The Raiders had a lot of their good players in the game as well, and it was a much more intense type of situation. J.J. McCarthy was completing passes on some draft picks, and he threw the interception to a guy who's been in the league

for a while, a good player, and had some good pass rushers coming after him. What we saw against the Browns was a true exhibition contest. Did you see the crowd? There wasn't any. Because why would there be? U.S. Bank Stadium was full for J.J. McCarthy as if it was a regular season game. Browns fans weren't showing up for that, and they knew that nobody was going to play, which was why the Louisine performance was not something that I was going to play, which was why, uh, the Louis scene performance was not something that I was ready to celebrate though on yesterday's live show. A lot of people seem

to want me to, um, but you know what, real quick, just real quick on that before I continue to go forth. Um, that's the reason you watch. I hope is that when something's for real, I'll tell you. And when it's not, I'll tell you. And some people don't like that. Some people want everything to be treated as if it's a big deal, everything to be exciting and, you know, purple rose glasses or whatever. But that's not my style. My style is to tell you what I think.

And being blunt about it is kind of what I do. And yesterday, the Lewis scene thing, I mean, if that's your best moment three years into your career, that's not good, and I didn't think it meant anything. So sorry for the diversion there, but I saw the comments after, and a lot of people were unhappy with that, but it's just the truth. They didn't care about that preseason game at all, and neither did the Browns, because the joint practices were really what it was

all about. And those joint practices were super intense. Sean says before the start of the season, cornerback room D tackle a D E depth wide receiver depth. Love the wide receiver depth and D de depth defensive tackle feeling good health is important cb more comfortable quarterback more relaxed so i think what you're saying there and you've jammed it into a comment is that before the start of training camp we had all these questions what's the cornerback room going to look like is defensive tackle going to be really ugly what are they going to look like at edge rusher

are there going to be more wide receivers and a lot of these things have been checked off in the right direction now losing mckay blackman was still big it remains big they wouldn't have to go out and get a 34 year old corner for 10 million dollars if they had mckay blackman so that's still a downside i don't feel wildly better about the corners, but if he plays like he did last year, then it will be quite a bit better than it was going to be before they signed Gilmore. And I think they know that.

So that is big. That's important to fill that spot that was going to be taken by Makai Blackman. As far as defensive end depth, outside linebacker edge rusher whatever you want to call it i thought that it should be pretty good but i wanted to see dallas turner after seeing dallas turner it should be quite good and allow them for a lot more third down package stuff that they can mess with the opposing offenses a lot more looks they could

put on a five what did they have the other day? They had something like four or five edge rushers on the field for a third down. And it was like, Brian Flores, you, you wily guy, look at you. So yeah, that I always thought was a strength, but maybe even stronger than I thought the wide receiver depth for sure is way better than what we thought we were going into. But that was why I didn't want the Vikings to sign Hunter Renfro, who has no job, by

the way, at the moment. I didn't want them to sign some veteran player at the wide receiver spot. I preferred to see it play out with Jalen Naylor and with Tristan Jackson and these other guys that they've been developing. I wanted to see that. And it's actually played out quite well. It will have to carry over to the season from training camp, but someone like Tristan Jackson, you keep making plays over and over again. It becomes not a mistake comes not random when that happens. And even just Jalen Naylor playing as well as he has,

that's now something that has been solved that we had no idea about. Can he stay healthy? Was the O'Connell hype for real with Jalen Naylor? And it turns out that through training camp, through what we know at this moment, it is. So you're right that a lot of the questions that we had going in have been resolved. We still don't know. Well, we know who the left guard is.

There was no competition there at all. It was Blake Brandel. Do we know if it's going to be a lot better that we don't know that we can't be sure about. And Ingram is still a question because he was playing yesterday in that game. But aside from that, a lot of the questions have been solved. And Sam Darnold overall, it was last year's easy to be a little bit more down uh last week on Darnold because he was going against the Browns defense and it didn't always look very good his overall performance in training camp has been pretty good and he was excellent in the preseason drive that he had um so I think a lot of things that were maybe major potholes were not hit so far there's there's a few more practices before we get to the season but major major questions have largely been

solved that's a good observation scott this d is quite interesting now probably eight nine b level defenses uh yeah i mean i think it could be an A if they can cause a lot of turnovers and sacks and those things are always hard to project turnovers, especially as you know, the Vikings last year just got butterfingers at the beginning of the season and started throwing the ball out of the back of the end zone. If you're Justin Jefferson. So maybe the other team does that this year. That is something that dictates how strong your defense is. If you go back and look at the 2000 Ravens, they had some preposterous number of turnovers that even as great as they were, usually doesn't happen unless you get a lot of good luck as

well. The Vikings need that. And Gilmore, one thing he can do is he can catch the football. And it's not something that I think Byron Murphy is amazing at. It's definitely not something that Caleb Evans could do really at all. Shaq Griffin does not have a huge history of causing a lot of interceptions. Stephon Gilmore does. PBUs and picks the last two years, he's had a ton of them.

And if he brings that element, even if he gets toasted on a handful of plays because he doesn't have the same quickness, a turnover here or there is twice as valuable as that and the sacks could go up last year they were such a middling team with sacks despite having one guy with 16 of them but this year that can be more spread out with the sacks that's what will be the difference between are they a good defense or are they a really good defense and can you go seven and ten or can you go ten and seven or nine and eight might be dictated by just how well you could take the ball away because we can pretty well project sam darnold's going to give the ball away at times that's just who he is for his entire career but taking it away is going to be enormous at least they have the players to do it uh selling mccarthyism would you

be okay with a turner richter edge tandem for years to come after gurnard and van ginkle um or well yeah uh so um bo richter is is a practice squad guy for sure. Now, he's someone that you would like to develop because you've seen something from him. And there's been a bit of a flash there with Bo Richter. So I'm not down on him at all, but he is a classic undrafted free agent guy that stands out in fourth quarter preseason games that you go okay well that's not nothing but it's also not like someone you plan for the future grunard is not old uh van ginkle is a little bit longer in the tooth i think he's 29 but jonathan grunard signed a four-year contract and him and turner are really the future along with van ginkle who i think can continue to play

as long as he doesn't get injured for the next several seasons. I think Van Ginkle is here for at least two. Those are your guys, those three with Turner, Grenard, but even beyond that, Turner and Grenard could be here even longer than that based on their contracts. Conrad says, don't you think that Kevin O'Connell has been trying to get Sam Darnold to not go for a touchdown pass on every play? Yes, I do. Yes, I do, Conrad. I do think that. And whether he's going to do it or not, you know, I don't know.

I think he's still, don't say it, don't say it. And then they say it, which can be me on the show, by the way, I'm like the Sam Darnold on the show of him throwing, trying to throw it into traffic is me trying to not say something that I want to say. But to your point, I don't think you can totally change that about Sam Darnold. His, okay, so this is good. You call it his hero trigger. I love this.

I may steal this, Conrad. Hero trigger is such a great way to describe Sam Darnold. That something clicks in this man's brain that says, fire it into traffic. Because I can, because look at my arm. And the dude has an insane arm. can you prevent him from doing that only if your play calls are screens and play actions that maybe are designed to protect quarterbacks from themselves but that's not kevin o'connell's offense kevin o'connell's offense is throw it into tight windows get it to justin jefferson even if he's not open.

And Sam Darnold's gonna try. And you know, here's what we've seen. When it works, oh my gosh, it's unbelievable. And when it doesn't work, it's picked off. Sam Darnold, everybody, could make for a very entertaining season. And that's why when McCarthy got hurt, I saw a handful of people saying,

I don't care about this season, whatever. And my thought was the Vikings have turned in really entertaining seasons in much more bizarre circumstances than getting someone like Sam Darnall or much less likely quarterbacks have had crazy seasons for this team but i really love hero trigger i am going to steal that from you uh and uh hopefully you didn't trademark it because that's great the hero trigger went off for sam darnold and whatever happens next is up to god i guess when he throws the ball up for grabs that's good that's good uh let's see a. Alexander, let's get an updated fantasy outlook now on what we think that Darnold's the guy. What do you project for JJ and JA?

Well, you know what? Since I've got about 10 minutes left until I have to go on Mad Dog Radio. So if you have XM series, pop over there to hear me more. Since you brought up fantasy, we might as well consider this an underdog fantasy segment here. And then I will answer your question. And that's what you guys need to do to remind me to do the ad reads for

underdog is to just ask me a fantasy question and then I'll answer it and remind you that underdog who is now a sponsor of the show. We're very proud of that has something new. It's called streaks. You could win up to a thousand times your money. We're very proud of that. Has something new. It's called Streaks. You could win up to a thousand times your money by playing the newest Pick'em game. Is Streaks the road to greatness? Start your streak off by nailing a pick two.

And if you hit nine picks more in a row, you could turn greens into gold and become great. Ready to begin your legendary run. So Streaks, check that out and look if you want to help the show if you watch you enjoy it one of the ways to do it is to use the old promo code over at underdog fantasy the promo code is purple sign up there claim your special pick and your first time deposit offer match up to 250 in in bonus cash. It's a good way to help the show. They keep track of that stuff. Underdogs over there going, Hey, that purple insider, he's got a lot of fans. They're

signing up and they're using the promo code purple. That's good for me. That means they keep sponsoring the show. Now to answer your question, Alex, uh, as far as projecting Sam Darnold, if he plays for 17 games, I do think you want him on fantasy. They're going to throw the ball. He's going to throw for 266 yards a game. Some of the games will be 120. Some of the games will be 340 and he's going to throw 28 touchdowns and 17 picks. And it's going to be wild. That's my projection right now for Justin Jefferson. He is going to have a big year as long as everything is healthy because it's clear from practice. Darnold's hero trigger is just Jefferson. I mean, it's not different from Mullins. It's just

a guy with a bigger arm, Jefferson. And you're going to see a lot of Justin Jefferson. The whole offense is designed around him addison is the one the ankle thing i'm not as worried about for his season although he does rely a lot on his feet and his footwork but usually with quarterbacks that aren't quite as good one of the things that they tend to do is just constantly target their number one wide receiver. That has been the case throughout training camp with Sam Darnold. And my projection for Jordan Addison is similar to last year that I would give him 72 catches, 950 yards, and maybe more like four or five touchdowns than 10. Cause I think there's some regression there. Now, if you're drafting on underdog fantasy

and using the promo code purple, then you should probably look for Jordan Addison later on in these drafts that you get your top wide receivers at the top, Justin Jefferson, and then see who's hanging around later on. If Jordan Addison drops to you, that's where you want to pick him because he's still going to be a valuable

part of this and no Hawkinson to start the season. The ball is definitely going to go to him. I just think it'll go to Jefferson a little more. And then when Hawkinson comes back, he's going to take a lot of that. And if Sam Darnold's hero trigger is not going off as crazy, maybe Aaron Jones gets a good number of these checkdowns that he's trying to convince himself he's allowed to do.

Derek says, assume the D is top five and the offense struggles to run the ball yet again and is below average. Do you think they will or should take a look at promoting Flores to keep him and not extend KOC? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. That would be very, very surprising. Kevin O'Connell has proven to be a very good leader of a franchise, a very good front door to a franchise and even through adversity that

they've dealt with. But also there's nothing more important in the world than the football world. No, actually the entire world. Then the connection between the head coach and the quarterback. There is nothing more important in all of this universe and Mars. Is that part of our universe? I'm not an astrologer. The point is that the relationship between the head coach and the quarterback is most important. And what we saw from J.J. McCarthy and Kevin O'Connell is that they had a really good connection from day one, that coach quarterback connection.

And when you see the quarterback develop like he did from a guy who was really struggling with the footwork during OTAs and minic to come back to training camp. And three weeks in everybody, it's not just KOC overdoing it. Everybody's going, yeah, this guy looks like a franchise quarterback. He looks like your starter long-term. That is what the head coach is here for. Running the ball is not as big of a concern to me. They could get a different run game coordinator get better guards at run blocking that's not going to be the thing that decides whether you are a super bowl contender or not it's going to be how jj mccarthy plays so no i i wouldn't even begin to consider that you do want to keep brian floris around but also is anybody talking about brian floris as a head coach now last season he put it on display and he didn't even get a single interview

because I think that the NFL is just straight up blackballed Brian Flores. That's not right and not good overall. But when you sue the league, hard to see someone making you the head coach of a team. And that means he's probably gonna be here for a while. It seems like he likes it here. His family likes it here.

I'm guessing they pay him pretty well. I think Brian Flores is here for the long term. Other Derek, different spelling. Do you think Najee Thompson will make the team? Thompson has been hurt this entire camp. He'll probably start on IR. It seems like it's a serious injury. We haven't gotten an update on it.

And then they'll decide after that when he comes back. But there just hasn't been any real update on that at all. A basketball guy, football podcast, basketball guy, curious about acquiring Lattimore. His contract isn't horrible. Could send 20, 26 picks for him fits the scheme and the saints need salary cap relief. Him and Gilmore would make our defense legit. There could be something still on the table as far as trading for somebody else. Has Lattimore been good and healthy recently? I don't have his numbers right in front of me.

I don't feel like he has. Older corners are always a little risky in my mind. Where they're at right now is taking a lot of swings at guys who have had some history of being either okay or very good like gilmore griffin morrow and byron murphy they probably don't need to spend anything more to try to get someone like latimore that would be talk about an all-in move i think this is a all-in on the defense move that would be something like that i haven't heard too much talk of latimore getting traded but i feel like i need latimore from five

years ago and not necessarily right now maybe you could say that about stefan gilmore but he played a thousand snaps last season and was pretty good uh zoomer kev would this be a good time to trade players from a loaded position group for a cornerback? No, I don't think so. I don't think they need to make any trades right now. I mean, also, those trades just don't really happen a lot where you're trading good player for good player at this point in the season. Your roster is pretty much what it's going to be. And even as much as you like Jalen Naylor, another team's not saying, let's give you a starter for Jalen Naylor. They would look at

more of what he's done over the longterm. Selling McCarthyism. Murphy was an easy quarterback to target last season. He allowed top three quarterbacks eating, throwing his way, getting picked on more than Evans. Well, and not really throwing his way getting picked on more than evans well and not really as far as getting picked on more than evans the last part of the season evans got really really picked on a lot to the point where they had to take him out of the game as far as murphy goes when so they're they're playing a lot of zone so murphy's back in a zone and if you're the closest person, then it always looks like you were the one who was getting picked on. But I agree that Murphy

was not in his most ideal spot, just being asked to be that outside corner and take on a lot of top wide receivers. And last year, the difference that they're hoping between last year and this year is when they played really bad quarterbacks they crushed them last year when they played really good quarterbacks they got crushed and now having a deeper pass rush and having a deeper cornerback room with more veterans there the hope is that you could play murphy in a little more of his spot as opposed to having to just be locked into Keenan Allen all the time. And that you can have just less weak link on the secondary group.

Evans had a good half a season where he was an average corner, but then it really fell apart at the end when he was forced to play against good players. Sean says, I'm going to get this phone call soon. I'm letting you guys know. Let's see. Letting you guys know it phone call soon. I'm letting you guys know. Let's see. Letting you guys know it'll be soon.

I think it might be at 1230, but I'll just jump off when that happens. Going on XM radio. Talk about this whole thing. Sean says solidifying the cornerback with Gilmore starts to make quarterback extending their progression and allowing the front to get more pressures and sacks. Now that's true. You're exactly right. That working off each other is important that we talk about different positional values, but it's all interconnected. If you have a weak link, then it causes something else to have to make up the difference. And the edge rushers can't make the same impact

if the quarterback has wide open receivers all the time. And that's what happened with Jared Goff. I mean, he had receivers wide open, and it happened when they faced Justin Herbert as well. And he was able to just get rid of the ball on time. It was no problem. And what Brian Flores can do now is he can line it up and rush for, and just play regular coverage rather than having to just send everybody or send nobody and drop it

all off. He can actually play more regular defense stuff than he did last season. Uh, skull Vikings. What's the solution at DT? Well, the, the, the solution at defensive tackle long-term next year, maybe to draft one in the first round. But as far as this year, Tillery staying healthy is important. Somebody stepping up, maybe Levi Drake Rodriguez as a little extra depth is important, but these guys, their role is, is pretty simple. It's they have to be gap protectors and creators in the run game there's stuff in the

middle because you're probably playing josh metellus out there like you're not necessarily playing like a bunch of um like linebackers you know to stuff the run and and your edge rushers granard van ginkle van giggle's pretty good against the run but dallas turner's probably not going to be right away so you're really really important there as far as edge rushers go and if you're playing metellus at a linebacker position on certain plays that's going to make even more vulnerable at times to the run game so phillips bullard and jerry tillery very important they're Also creating lanes for people to rush through. So when they're sending linebackers

and Metellus as blitzers, one of the jobs of the defensive tackles is just to move a body. And it's not going to get a pressure and it's not going to get a big PFF grade, but if you could take a center and just move him to create a lane or a guard, move him to create a lane,

that's going to be a lot easier than a linebacker trying to weave his way through or to go around somebody to get to the quarterback. What you want is free rushing. And we saw that a few times in the joint practice. That's their job for now. You hope in the future, if you're them, that you can get Chris Jones,

that you could get a guy who just completely wrecks the game and have one of those uh alex uh who's the most irreplaceable player on the defense now good question irreplaceable player i think it might be jonathan grenard because you have someone who's just consistent there, consistent pass rush time after time, and everything can work around him. He's not somebody that I think of as being wildly versatile. He's just good at his job and can rush consistently. And it can start there with pressure off of the edge. We might also look at that as what's the weakest behind it. If you lose Cashman or Ivan Pace, you're talking about Kamu Grugier-Hill or Brian Asamoah. That's a big drop off from those guys, too.

So they might be irreplaceable from the fact that you have no one really behind them. But as far as someone who the defense kind of starts with, I think it's Jonathan Grenard. Basketball guy. Gilmore was really good at run defense. Tackling last year's coverage was good, but fell off a little. I wouldn't expect him to be anywhere near what he was in the past, but his numbers, only 55% completion percentage into his coverage, couple interceptions, decent grade as far as coverage goes.

I mean, that's a lot better than what they've had if that's what he's able to do uh ron says their best job is developing uh josh metellus yeah and they they can still do that they can definitely still do that with uh developing defensive players that that's what they're gonna have to do is find some guys like Dwight McClother and like Gabe Murphy, like Levi Drake Rodriguez. There's no defense that can just be put together with high draft picks and free agents. There has to be good story guys who end up playing roles on your defense. And this defense has a good amount of them. Guard guy. Great to see you guard guy. It's been a little bit, any blake brandles on the roster of course you would ask that uh guys that you think will develop into a quality starting guard great guard

question guard guy the one who has stood out to me don't know if he's going to make the team is tyrese robinson not someone i've really brought up at all um but i did like what I saw from him in the first game. And I haven't gone back to look how he did in this last game, but he's gotten a lot of run with the twos. He might make the team as I was making the 53. I put him on the team, uh, instead of Reisner or Feeney. So I think that might be the best future guard that I can come up with. So, all right. Well, you know, I am probably going gonna have to run here to do my radio hit and i'm sorry i couldn't get to all the comments but an hour and a half on stefan gilmore is pretty good and i appreciate everybody with all of your questions um oh okay let me answer

this hannah thanks for watching hannah random Is Mr. Mankato an actual physical award or just something nice that the beat writers wrote about? Yeah, no, it's not a physical award. There may have been at one point where someone did this when it first got started with the old 1500 ESPN. I believe they were the ones that started it. And it was, I want to say it was adam thielen was the first one and and maybe i'm not getting my history right but i believe that adam thielen was the first one and

he may have been given an actual award and then it just sort of devolved into kind of being a thing and i think stefan diggs was that too and every year everybody kind of has their different version of it of who is Mr. Mankato. But it's not like we have a thing that we give to that player. Maybe it should be. It should be. Although that would be very weird for the players showing up now who are Mr. Mankato's. And they're like, I don't get it.

What's a Mankato? Because they haven't been there since 2017. But it's more of a discussion of that guy that we like to have, who's the guy who's standing out. And then I think by the end, it becomes pretty clear and everybody kind of knows who it is. This year, it's Will Reichardt for me. Sixth round draft pick, and all of a sudden, he's been very, very good.

Matt says, Bradbury better stay healthy. Michael Juergens may keep that job if he plays snaps this year. Well, I, you know, I think, I mean, Michael Juergens has been pretty good, but Bradbury is, I think a solid corner at this corner center, solid center at this point. And he's the one I'm least concerned about Garrett Bradbury. But Juergens has been, you know, a guard guy mentioned, I think of Juergens as more of a center, but Juergens is someone that can play guard and could be an Austin Schlotman type of player that can fill in at center or guard some versatility there. I think he makes the team and he's done a pretty good job um so uh how was the green day concert

last night it was great ton of energy you know uh as far as favorite song well the end time of our life or what is it good riddance beautifully done by billy joe at the end just great stuff everybody wants that at the end and he just did a tremendous job of it it was wonderful but uh i really like the way boulevard of broken dreams sounded live i have not really thought about that song as something that i would go back to over and over again but now i kind of will after hearing it live that was good but i mean they played the whole dookie album which is just absolutely classic the crowd was great last night great energy good weather it was good i really enjoyed it okay now

now i actually do have to go because i'm going to get this phone call in just a second but thank you everybody for tuning in here on a sunday morning to an emergency podcast this week tons of stuff on the show lots of guests popping in ben gessling is going to bring out the crystal ball on i think we're going to have that show on Monday late in the day or maybe Tuesday morning. So I'm excited about that. Thanks everybody for reacting to this Stefan Gilmore news and enjoy the rest of your day football.