Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings signed Dalton Risner and ... how does Sam Darnold look at OTAs

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by Andrew Krammer of the Star Tribune to discuss the Vikings brining back Dalton Risner. Also, Coller and Krammer talk about their assessment of QB Sam Darnold at Vikings OTAs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome inside TCO Performance Center. Matthew Collar here along with Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune. And we have just walked off the practice field at the old Performance Center here after watching the second OTA practice open to the media. And I got to tell you, Andrew, what a practice it was. So compelling, so many takeaways. So we're going to dive into that just momentarily. But the real headline for today, the one that has Vikings fans near and far captivated, is a left guard signing. The Vikings have returned Dalton Reisner to his rightful home,

where the offensive line will rise around him. I'm trying. It's May. So, you know, they re-signed dalton reisner uh what do you think uh yeah interestingly enough i was told that they don't expect him to be the starter um that blake brandel is going to continue to be the guy in otas anyway because as you said it's may things can change they bring dalton reisner back for a reason though dalton reisner was very vocal online throughout the offseason about how I'm only asking for a starting guard contract and how he wanted to return to the Vikings, but clearly the money was not lining up. Well, suddenly the money lined up entering the second week of OTAs, and it's not too hard to read into the fact that if he's not jumping into a starting role, if that was not promised to him, as I was told it wasn't, he clearly realized, I need to get into a team.

I wanted to get into a team now and earn my role, whatever it's going to be. Because this guy wanted to be a starter. He started 11 games last year. He said online this offseason, I want a starting guard contract. And I think he had to acquiesce a little bit. Well, and what we saw from him last year was, I thought, starter caliber play from Dalton Reisner. But there was such a stark

difference between him as a pass protector and him as a run blocker and the Vikings want to run the ball better I mean they didn't go get Aaron Jones for nothing and I don't think it was all Alexander Madison for why they didn't run effectively that the offensive line especially on the interior they didn't do a great job in terms of the blocking and Reisner was a part of that I am all for them bringing in someone who is a veteran that we know what the baseline is and saying to Blake Brandel beat that do better than that guy because we know that Dalton Reisner can be out of how many guards you think play uh you know in a year 70 guards 80 I don't know how many play uh but I know how many guards you think play in a year?

70 guards? 80? I don't know. How many play? But I know how many there would be if two played for every team, but more than two. It doesn't matter. Let's just say of 64 starting guards, he can rank 32nd. He could just be a guy.

And if Blake Brandel can actually play at that position, as they have talked about enthusiastically how much they really like Blake Brandel and what he's shown them over the last couple of years then it has to be better than Dalton Reisner and if it is better than Dalton Reisner then it's an upgrade that they should have been looking for this offseason yeah when I asked somebody about this move I was just told hey you can never have too many good football players in the room in terms of bringing Reisner back but I do think because Blake Brandel has not gone into the year as the guy. I was talking to Garrett Bradbury about that last week, and he was saying that it is different when you go into a training camp as the guy. You go into week one as the guy. He's never done that before. And so I do think this

is a little bit of an insurance move by bringing Reisner back in case it doesn't work out with Blake, whether that's July, whether that's September, whether that's October, to have more guys and more bodies in there because they also lost Austin Schlotman in free agency as well this past offseason, shuffled some backup guys in there. We know after what happened last year with training camp, they cut basically everybody who was depth for them beyond the first two, first and second stringers on the O-line. So this is a roster that is very much cycling through its O-line depth and trying to find solutions. And clearly Reisner is a guy they

felt they did need to bring back at the right price. So why do you think that they love Blake Brandel so much? I mean, you know, they've talked about him very glowingly, but he was a sixth round draft pick who was a tackle. And then they moved him to guard and we didn't really see him, but there were opportunities last year to play him that they didn't bench somebody else to put him in and now suddenly it seems like oh well we've got our guy in blake brandle but then not so confidently that we've got our guy that we wouldn't just leave him with the job they want to make sure they have somebody else in there kind of an interesting situation from somebody that's developed for a couple of years i think you kind of hit it on the head a little bit when you talk about them

wanting to run the ball more. Dalton Reisner, for as much as he gave them at 11 starts last year, he was a good pass protector. He was an improvement over Ezra Cleveland in that regard, because Ezra would have too many just lapses or brain farts that would kind of frustrate the coaching staff. Reisner was pretty solid in pass pro, but he wasn't really moving too many mountains up on the line of scrimmage and moving people forward. Blake Brandel is 6'4". He's 3'15". He's as big, taller even, than Christian Derrissaw.

This is a guy who just physically was a tackle at Oregon State, started 46 or 48 games at Oregon State at left tackle, came into the NFL. It was just last year when they moved him into guard. So that's why he, at least that's the reasoning why he wasn't ready to compete for a starting spot yet. This is really just his second year at guard. And so I think they're trying to give him some confidence, give him a runway to take that job. And it's just a matter of if he does. And the fact that they bring Reisner in this early in the process, we haven't seen the contract numbers yet. It either means that that number was so low, the Vikings couldn't say no, or, and, and, or they just felt like they really needed that insurance policy for a guy that we're talking about. And Blake has never really done it before

as a week one starter. Well, let me tell you, we got a quarterback competition. We got a kicking competition and now we got a guard competition. What more can you people ask for from this team out of training camp? But I think that at least they have mild competency in Dalton Reisner. And if that's the worst you do, the overall offensive line should be okay. That there's always going to be, no matter what, in the NFL. Like, look around the league. Go through their offensive lines. Go through the PFF

grades whatever you want to do and find me more than five teams who are looking at their o-line and being like what there it is I mean there's our whole team look at him it's masterful it's beautiful most teams will have some questions along the offensive line and during training camp we're going to find out is it blake brandle's job can he be a difference maker or is it going to be halfway through and we go no it's it's dalton reisner why do you think it is though that the nfl does not like dalton reisner i mean even at this point he's got if he's watching this podcast dalton you know what i'm saying because otherwise he wouldn't have been tweeting about it like why does why does everyone not like Dalton Reisner?

Why do you think it is? Because there's so few great guards in the league that you would think an average one would have more attention. And as far as how he fit in the locker room, I thought it was totally fine last year. Yeah. I do wonder if in talk, when we talk to Dalton, we'll probably get some answers because he's pretty open about this kind of stuff. But my guess would be that there was only so many teams he'd be willing to take a lower level contract with, and the Vikings were one of them. So maybe there's only so many teams. Maybe he had teams like the Cardinals or the Jag or whatever, like name a team you wouldn't want to join throwing a minimum contract at you. And he's like, you know what? And if the Vikings came around and said, Hey, here's a minimum and a little bit else. And that's what took it for him to finally join. I don't know. Why do people not like him? Clearly the league does not view him as a starter. He's asking for starting guard contract money. He

goes out there and says it, he started for four years in Denver. Look at what happened last year. This whole league, let him sit on the bench or on the couch all the way until October end of September when the Vikings signed him. Um, it was after week three or something like that last year the Vikings finally brought him in so I just think clearly the league doesn't view him as a starter and it took until now for Dalton to admittedly say you know what I'll take money that's not starter money I'm glad I didn't do an emergency podcast after he signed because that's all I have to say about it that's uh that's pretty much good like one more thing and then we'll move on to how did J.J. McCarthy look today because I know that's all I have to say about it. That's a, that's pretty much good. Like one more thing. And then we'll move on to how did JJ McCarthy look today? Because I know that's what you're all here for, but, uh, where do you, where would you put this offensive line in the league with,

if Brandel is better than Dalton riser, then we kind of know what that means. We are familiar with Garrett Bradbury, familiar with Ed Ingram at this point, could take a step forward, but I wouldn't expect it to be a huge step forward from Ed Ingram. How good are they? I will say that there is a feeling in the O-line room that this year, Garrett Bradbury will have more value to this team because as it was described to me, like this was Kirk's show. Kirk, when he ran it, he ran the protections. He set the mic points. He would change things when the defense moved. Garrett feels like he could probably, he ran the protections. He set the mic points. He would change things when the defense moved. Garrett feels like he could probably take on more of that. And so if that

adds to his value, it's the intangibles, it's the stuff that doesn't really get talked about or graded as well. But if he can take something off the quarterback's plate, that inherently helps. Now, they still paid him like a pretty mediocre center. And as much as he's improved, I don't think we're talking pro bowl with him anytime soon so that interior line is a question mark and how they match up and how they get schemed up against and blitzed that is very much a question mark especially now with a quarterback that isn't kirk and isn't going to necessarily be as quick or experienced at at changing things or getting the ball out to the hot re that he's comfortable with in the offense all these different things so

i do think that there's value in brad offense, all these different things. So I do think that there's value in Bradbury at center, but I don't know if it's always physically sometimes, which in the football you absolutely need. So I think this old line is going to be what it is in terms of the sum of its parts. It's going to be some two great pro bowl level tackles, and it's going to be a mediocre interior that the old line is only as good as its weakest link it really that's true right so this old line is probably going to be an average old line i think because they didn't do much to address those guard spots they just kind of ran it back yeah i agree with you a hundred percent that the ceiling is not super high because you just don't have excellence on the interior at any of those

positions unless ed ingram takes some massive leap forward and then becomes a great player which usually if you have a really rocky start unless you're a top 10 pick like andrew thomas or something you can improve but your improvements are probably limited and with ingram what we saw last year was some really good games and then hey what happened this week and a lot of times with these interior linemen's just matchup based so garrett bradbury will have a great week and then he'll face grady jarrett and it'll be a terrible week or kenny clark who lives in the man's dreams and that's just how it's probably going to continue to be but i do think that keeping garrett bradbury

here not trying to find a replacement center was a good idea because he knows the offense so well and that is an intellectual position first Bradbury hasn't been on my huge list of massive weaknesses for this team probably since Kevin O'Connell took over it seems like he just fits okay in this offense it's not as much under center maybe that gives him a little more leeway to get his base underneath him and so forth and every time you face a really difficult defensive tackle you're in trouble which actually goes for almost everyone all the time because there are so few great players at that position and that is all now that i have to say about the interior offensive line so uh now you've seen a rookie mini camp an ota this is your second ota practice so let's get a bigger jj mccarthy take from than just today because i thought today didn't look a whole lot

different than last time so i don't have some new observation well let me tell you he was doing that stuff that he did i talked about it last week but uh what's your bigger picture of how you have viewed him in these accumulation of several practices? Yeah, I think this is very much a slow development. This is going to be very much a slow curve, and it might be even a frustrating curve for Vikings fans who want to see their rookie quarterback out there. They want to see him. I know it's been a topic amongst us as writers, and I know it is certainly with fans of whether he's going to be QB three, QB two, when the season opens, I wouldn't be shocked if

he's the third quarterback. If they think the reason Nick Mullins on this roster is because he's that buffer between Sam Darnold and putting your rookie in there before you think he's ready. And if JJ is not starting, they don't think he's ready. So why make them the backup at that point? And I think that's the coaching staff's logic for wanting to not force they don't think he's ready so why make him the backup at that point and I think that's the coaching staff's logic for wanting to not force him into a situation he's not ready for and so my big picture take is when we watch him it's he's a rookie it's when when Kevin O'Connell gets a little visibly frustrated because a seven on seven rep on third down is not going well it's like yeah you got to expect it this is his second or it'd be number five OTA total in his life and the second one that we're watching of him this is something that we got to expect it. This is his second, or it'd be number five OTA total in his life.

And the second one that we're watching of him, um, this is something that we have to expect. And I think the coaching staff has said it every time they're at the podium, they'll say it behind closed doors as well, that this kid's going to require patience. Their offense is going to require patience. I was talking to one of the offensive linemen the other day who was saying, this is a difficult offense. Like people are going to have to really hold their breath and be patient with this kid because he's not going to get thrown out there. He's not going to learn it right away. And even when he does get thrown out there, it might not look great. And it often doesn't for quarterbacks. Not everybody is CJ Stroud. So I just think that my big picture take is when we see him struggle in OTAs, we see him

with the third string offense. We see him. He wasn't even with O'Connell and Josh McCown today. The first and second string were on one side of the field. The third and fourth stringers with Jared Hall and the backup quarterback coaches were on the other side. Like he's not even getting the primary coaching because at this point they got to get Sam Darnold ready. They got to get their guy who's going to be playing ready for week one. And I just don't think it's going to be JJ McCarthy.

And I don't even think he's going to be playing ready for week one and i just don't think it's going to be jj mccarthy and i don't even think he's going to be the backup yeah well from what we've seen so far there's no indication that they're going to push him at all which is totally fine and expected and something that they told us from the outset and talking with josh mccown today which was uh pretty interesting and just as a side note he's aware about the nate pool thing so if you see him in the airport you don't have to tell him but apparently that's been happening to him that people have stopped him and mentioned that and brought that up about 2003 but where mccown just with everything he said circled back to give it time he has a lot to learn and i asked him specifically what is the hardest thing as far

as the jump goes and he kind of joked like if I knew the answer to how to fix that or whatever then I would be making more money but he said the volume of stuff that you have to learn as a rookie quarterback and you can go to some other examples of rookies who have come into the league and they have played pretty well they're going to play one of them this year in cj stroud cj stroud played a lot of football at ohio state it was also really on him that offense at ohio state where the offense jj mccarthy was coming from did not ask for a lot of volume make an occasional play here or there and now we're looking at an offense from kevin o'connell where the quarterback is everything i, you're going from Stafford to Kirk Cousins, veteran quarterbacks who have been around forever.

Now, all of a sudden to JJ McCarthy, who is a million miles away from those guys in terms of experience. And yet he's being asked to learn the same stuff because I don't think O'Connell is going to dial it back, pare it down, make it the kiddie offense or anything like that. I think he wants the full offense that he's going to run. He believes it works. And McCarthy cannot play a football game until he's ready for that.

Do you think that's the right approach? Or would it be better to just make it as simple as possible so he could play faster? Yeah, if I knew that question, I'd be paying millions of dollars to be an NFL head coach, probably. Sorry, I know you want an answer and you don't want us to defer to the people who would probably know better. But Matt, I do think this is the right way because I think for every C.J. Stroud,

there is all those guys that are left on the heap. There's the Sam Darnolds. There's a thousand Sam Darnolds for every C.J. Stroud. There's a Jared Goff who needs to be sent somewhere else to be a reclamation project to develop into a good quarterback. The Peyton Mannings of the world do not happen every generation. The C.J. Strouds do not happen every generation. More often than not, they look like Bryce Young and they have to be talked about as if they need to be saved. So that's where we're at

with J.J. McCarthy. If he went out there and looked poorly, the talk quickly turns to bust. The talk quickly turns to what were they doing trading up for the fifth quarterback in the top 10 and then it turns into a swirling around this kid the confidence issue o'connell having to try and save him from that save him from the outside noise this is all the stuff they're trying to avoid and o'connell saw this in washington with duane haskins josh mccown saw this in 2018 with sam dornell when they were both on the new york jets when sam got drafted there. And Sam got thrown into the mix and got destroyed.

And his confidence was destroyed. And he wasn't the same quarterback that he certainly was at USC. So I think all of these reasons are why we're not going to see Sam Darnall, or excuse me, J.J. McCarthy. And why I can't question it because how often do you see C.J. Strouds? They don't happen. It just does not happen. Patrick Mahomes had to wait a year, and then he was that. And he might have been that right away, but he also got a year to develop.

Jordan Love got three years to develop and looked much more comfortable. I just think there are so many more examples of guys who have been given time and benefited from it than the guys who had to learn on the fly and said, you know what, I'm really glad I was thrown out there right away. I think it always learn on the fly and said you know what i'm really glad i was thrown out there right away i think uh it always depends on the guy because what we try to do with everything and this goes for the draft as well we always try to just look at history and say give me the answers but every single person is different cj stroud's previous experiences and skill sets were different cj stroud entered the league as one of the most wonderful throwers of the football

i've ever seen in my life he ignited the nfl combine when he just stood out there and threw the football mccarthy is still learning how to throw it accurately and we see that even whether he's warming up or he was throwing a little touch pass into the back of the end zone today and he's like oh boy he got that one that's that's good and he's 21 right and he's 21 he hasn't thrown a lot of footballs in his career and he has parts of his game that need refining that you can't start unless you have them up to snuff i think i mean i would be okay if he threw a few interceptions because it was more line drives than arcs but if you don't have the footwork down the timing of the whole thing's not

going to operate and that's where we're starting from his really square one hey us cellular customers i've got some good news so do not hit that skip forward button just yet i'm talking about their special customer event us days what's us days it means exclusive offers just for their customers just to say thanks like twelve hundred dollars off any phone plus three hundred dollars off any tablet no i did not misread that they must really like you all us days at us cellular exclusive offers just for you just to say thanks right now us cellular customers get 1200 off any phone plus 300 off any tablet terms apply and i guess why would let's say you went the other route and kevin o'connell said you know

what i'm going to dumb this down i'm going to try and do what i did last year with josh dobs not to say that they dumbed a ton down, but they did try to simplify things for him. What if I try to change the offense for JJ just to get him on the field? What are you accomplishing in the long run then? And I guess it feels like you're trying to build the plane while it's flying at that point, as opposed to what they're trying to do now, which is we have the blueprint of what we want. Let's try to get him ready to fulfill that blueprint,

as opposed to just change it to get him out there and then add a part here add a part there and then maybe in two years he knows the full offense okay so we don't have much from today for how did jj mccarthy look unless you had observations did you observe anything just the fact that this coaching staff was very much developing and teaching and that we as as the pr guidelines say for what we can say out of these practices they say know the difference between admonishment and teaching. I have to say there was a lot of teaching going on. There was a lot of teaching. I'm going to tell you the truth.

I never read the guideline, and so now I'm wondering what I've broken from that. The one thing I refuse to do is, and I don't know if you're one of these guys i refuse to write down how many pass attempts and how many completions he had i just i won't do it not in may not gonna do it not about training camp are you that guy in training camp if we're like in the pre-season mode of things and it's training camp and it's obvious like if we get to the point where he's like splitting reps and we're talking about yeah could he be starting of course yes but if it's obvious he's still the second or third string then yeah what's the use of that it When they run full speed reps in pads, I could see it because then the performance matters, the production matters.

But even as the way that Josh McCown was talking about it today is, okay, the results are something we'd like to see, but it's really about getting down what we're asking you to get down, taking it from the classroom out there but for sure teaching mode is uh what they're in with jj mccarthy so let me ask a different question how sam darnold looked to you you know i think sam uh looks inconsistent at this point but that's also to be uh understood because the reason why o'connell and josh mccown are spending so much time with that first string offense in practices is because he's learning it. He's going through all these things for the first time.

He knows some things from San Francisco, but he's changing all the words in his head. One West coast kind of concept that they ran in San Francisco, they absolutely run here, but it's called something else. And so he needs to change all those things. Kirk Cousins talked about this of saying one thing was called arches somewhere else in Washington. And I had to come here and learn it as a totally different name. And I can't remember what it was, but the point is, is that they have to translate that. And so then you see it out on the field and it looks clunky. It looks like he's thinking through all these things. It looks like he's thinking through his reads. The ball comes out late, it comes out high. And you wonder how much of that is something that he's been battling his whole career in terms of inconsistency. Cause

Sam was, has been pretty honest with us and saying that the thing I want to be better at is just being day in and day out a better consistent quarterback and achieving those high points that I know I can and doing it every week and I think those are the things we're seeing right now and you're seeing it without Justin Jefferson you're seeing without TJ Hawkinson I think these things will all look better and easier for him once they have their system in place, once his passes that are targeted for JJ are going to him as opposed to Jordan Addison where those things might sail over his head a little bit.

I think it's looked fairly smooth with Sam Darnold. It doesn't look like a training camp practice yet. It looks like an OTA practice where everybody's feeling it out, and it's almost like mid-play going, Oh, is it there? Is this the play? Is this the lineup? Is this the alignment? But the plays that they have run with kind of everybody around and everybody gathered

together, I think that he's been okay. Nick Mullins did not look great today. There were a few frustrated moments from Kevin O'Connell, but you know, I mean, whatever. I don't know what to say. Like you want Nick Mullins around, but you know, even when you watch him throw the football versus the other guys, you don't really want him playing. You just want him here and practicing and so forth. And maybe it's QB too, because he can run the offense. But as far as Sam Darnold, the throws that have gone a little high a little inaccurate i assume that some of that is getting on the same page with receivers and also the fact

that sam darnold might just not be the most accurate quarterback in the league we have watched kirk cousins practice and there's a reason why kirk cousins convinced everybody that he was a starting franchise quarterback that you should pay a hundred million dollars which is because he was one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league so there is this adjustment for even us where we have to go like oh that wasn't really on point like oh yeah well you know it's not the guy who is always on point uh sam darnold does throw the bleep out of the football when it comes to the velocity but uh Jordan Addison said that you know it's been a pretty quick transition and he's a straightforward person so I think it's looked fine it's looked like a pro quarterback running an OTA yeah I should mention there's been no step down in terms

of the arm talent from Kirk certainly like Kirk the talent is there yeah when you when we talk about Kirk I don't know if anyone's saying like boy that ball pops out of his hand like with Sam there's more of that you see more of the third overall pick in Sam Darnold absolutely it's just it's that consistency that yeah we got used to Kirk being such a machine it was just robotic even the checkdowns were robotic they always went to the same spot generally always in stride for the receiver and so it's noticeable now when those things change and it's not Nick Mullins or Kellen Mond throwing the ball and you're still seeing those issues. So yeah, I guess that's understandable that we got to calibrate our stuff a little bit, but I think Sam, I think Sam is going to surprise people. And my guess is how

this is going to go. I think he's going to adapt to this fairly well because of his experience with San Francisco, because of being in a West coast system before being this, I think this was much experience between different teams the setup the receivers all that i don't know i have a feeling we're going to get into the season and he's playing better than people expected all right well what's for sam donald what's reasonable what's unreasonable like as far as expectations go i think reasonable is is a above 500 quarterback at this point i do i think he's veteran enough. I think this offense is ready enough. I think they are going to try to balance it more with Aaron Jones to make it less on his

shoulders. They say they've learned a little bit of a lesson about putting too much on the quarterback after what happened last year with the backups. We'll see. We'll see if in crunch time, Gavin O'Connell calls runs as opposed to passes. We'll see. But they want to do these things. And I think that can help the quarterback. I think that can take some off his pressure or off his plate. And this is such a talented group when it's fully assembled, when Hawkinson's there healthy with Jefferson Addison, you don't need to do much. And Sam Darnold said this, I think in his first availability with us, I just need to get the ball out and let these guys play. And I really think they're going to design a system that might not be as far downfield as it was with kirk but is designed to get that ball out and just let these

guys work uh so he's but he's not throwing it to justin jefferson he's been traded no i'm just not been traded and uh won't be traded either but he was not here would you expect him to be here for mandatory minicamp yes i would um just because even with no contract i do um although he might be getting advice to the contrary so that's interesting well can you question about mandatory minicamp if he shows up here and wanders around the outside of the field uh this would be like in gym class if you forgot your gym clothes they would just make you walk around the outside of the field in shame that's i don't know if i was done at your school but that's what they did at my school and uh so it was like motivation to not forget your gym clothes because then everyone would laugh at you as you were walking around and they're playing

flag football or something uh for justin jefferson if he comes here goes to the meetings and walks around the outside of the field or stands with the specialists who just look around all day at the nice weather is that like is he fulfilling the mandatoryness of being here or not yes that's that's a that's a hold in that's the same thing TJ did in training camp last year same thing Dalvin Cook did in training camp before he got paid yes Yes, that's fulfilling it. Yeah, he could do that. And the team would probably acquiesce and be like, we're just happy you're here. You know, whatever.

But think about how Justin operates. Think about how he operated last year. While TJ Hawkinson was being like, I can't hear what's going on, Justin was also in negotiations and practicing. I think he could hear, but it was his balance was the issue. Yeah, it was the balance. Sorry. It was the balance. Make sure we're got a hundred percent accurate with one of my favorite made up ailment. One of my favorite questions of all time though, came from a local TV person who asked TJ, TJ, you're such a big guy. Don't you feel weird

that this little thing is keeping you out this little earache? And I love that question. TJ even laughed at it. He was like, yeah, cause he knew. Um, but anyway, think how Justin was operating. He was practicing every single day. He was like, yeah, because he knew. But anyway, think how Justin was operating. He was practicing every single day. He was putting himself out there. He was not taking really, I don't think he took a single team rep off. He took everything. Yep.

Unless he's being talked into by his representation to act differently. I don't think he's going to have a change of heart or an about face and act differently. I think he's going to show up. And if he's here, I think he's going to participate. And I think the same thing is going to happen in training camp. It would just, to me, it would take him being talked into doing it differently because how the team expects Justin to act and how we know Justin to act is that he's going to show up and when he's here, he'll participate. What do you think from his perspective is his feeling about the timing of this and how it's like playing out in the public, because there is

clearly a desperation to have something about Justin Jefferson. The NFL world employs a lot of insiders and they all want to have insider information on Justin Jefferson. And the thing that I know, because I was told this about Justin Jefferson, is he didn't want that. Like he didn't want to be leaking this team leaks that we play this out through the media. And we've also seen that on this side as well, where it's been a very consistent message, but there hasn't been many deviations from it. No one has come said, Justin, get here, would you, pal? It's always been we want to sign him. That's all we're going to say about it. And from his side, there's been nothing. There's been no clear cut leaks to,

because we can identify these pretty easily where information is coming from. We know when it's an agent giving it to certain people, there hasn't been that in the Justin Jefferson situation. So I wonder if he feels like, am I being pressured or is there not a lot of pressure and i can just wait i can see what brandon iuk signs for i can wait and see what uh who else is up cd lamb signs for uh jefferson is in general a pretty good vibes guy like he doesn't uh seem to get too stressed by things i think that he's probably going to let this just play out and is not going to let the other stuff push him into signing this contract right away. It makes me think of something that he misspoke at one point. Gosh, I think this was,

this might've been last year when the negotiation started, but he misspoke. And at one point he said, I'm not fond of money. What he meant to say was, it doesn't worry me. I'm not worried about it. It's going to come. And he has said some version of that line many times ever since then. And I think we have to take his word for it. He's not much of a liar.

If anything, he kind of speaks his mind a little too much for the team's liking when he's at the podium talking about what went wrong on third and 15 or whatever. So I think that we have to trust Justin. I trust him that he really is not concerned with this at this point, but also it behooves his agency. It behooves him, as you said, to wait, to wait. And why sign now when I'm not putting pads on for another month and a half, and that's the next time I'm going to put my body at risk. And even then I could hold in, I could show up. I could not get fined and just stand on the sideline and go through warmups and not participate. And even then I can still protect my body and just wait. Cause as you said, there are other receivers. What if there's somebody who resets the non-quarterback number that Nick Bosa set who Nick Bosa's representatives are the same

as Justin Jefferson's. So, you know, they're using that Nick Bosa number who Nick Bosa's representatives are the same as Justin Jefferson's. So, you know, they're using that Nick Bosa number to try to have Jefferson top it. So the, all these things go into it. And to me, it's, it's a thing where the Vikings, if they got a contract on the table for him right now,

why would Justin take it when really there's no risk. You're not going to get hurt right now. You're not even here right now. Well, and in the past, and this is just something we always have to keep in mind, the Vikings have mostly done their major contracts right before or into training camp or early into training camp. Even TJ Hawkinson going on as long as he did was surprising to us because it's normally the first two weeks.

They resolved the Daniil Hunter issue very quickly. Sorry to interrupt you, but the Hawkinson ones were kind of contentious, too, from what we heard. And I think that's why it took so long was because there was a lot of fighting over that number. Right, exactly. And that was the most contentious, and it went a couple weeks into camp. And he still went through warm-ups and was part of the meetings and everything else with all knowledge that he was eventually going to sign that extension. And so I think of Xavieravier rhodes stefan diggs there's been extensions that we've seen where a guy was under contract like linval joseph that they announce when we get there for training

camp and it's not that stressful but it seems like just the world that we live in right now is so demanding of stuff to happen it's like if it doesn't happen today then he's got to be traded i guess and it's the lately probably pushed me to the edge of sanity i thought they wanted malik neighbors yeah let's not even go there but uh so someone said hello to how you been and i was like man this is like misinformation football season i guess uh but you know that the amount of pushing and uh well is he being a diva? If he doesn't sign, he should train. It's like, whoa, these usually don't even happen until it's time for training camp.

So I know that we're all desperate to have it right now, but I think it will come and it will be on the way. I liked your tweet where it was like, tap the sign, everybody calm down. Yeah. Don't make me tap the sign. I forget even what I was talking about. Jefferson, I think. I also said the internet was a mistake because we've ended up in this kind of landscape.

I did want to ask you about Jordan Addison because we talked to him today. And he talked about last year not really having a good enough plan off of the line of scrimmage, which is funny because this just speaks to how hard it is to go from college to the NFL. He had these great releases in college and then got here and found that they didn't work as well. So now he goes into the off season and he is developing that his body doesn't look any different to me,

which I think is fine. I was wondering, is he going to put on 20 pounds or is it going to be like the same sort of slender guy? He didn't have any issues with injuries or separation from corners last year, but what do we put on him as far as expectations? I think that the bar is raised not only just because he's a second year player, but also because wide receiver three and TJ Hawkinson's injury make it so he's going to be more of the center of attention. Yeah. And I thought his connection with Darnold today looked

good. And this is a seven on seven shorts. As we talk, all the disclaimers you can possibly put, I thought the connection looked good. They did connect a number of times in their third down period. So that's what is going to matter here is how is that connection? We know Kirk is so accurate. We know Jordan Addison is not the biggest wide receiver. So there's not a lot of margin for error on missing him. So it really comes down to that. It comes down to how is Darnold's short area accuracy, intermediate accuracy? How is that rapport with Jordan Addison? How can they continue to develop that throughout this summer? Because I think the potential should be through the roof for Addison, just like it was last year. When Justin Jefferson takes all that attention, his first touchdown

against the Bucs, his first game is, I remember that the deep safety sitting on Justin Jefferson's under route, Addison beats the other sitting safety deep on a go route, catches the touchdown. Those are the kinds of things that will be there all day, every day for him every time they step out there. And as long as Darnold can place the ball where it needs to be, this kid can continue to light the world up. And I think he's that good. I think he can be next to Zay Flowers and Smith and Jigba, the best receiver out of that class I agree yeah and when it comes to his body and so forth he found ways last year to work around that there were times where I thought more physical corners were able to get some leverage on him and make life difficult on him

but he knows that now and he knows how to work through that now as long as we're good here with jefferson as we assume that we will be that combination is what makes you confident this thing can work when you're talking about sam darnold he has never had something like this he's had one good receiver in dj moore for a handful of games in carolina but has never had this combination of wide receivers who can consistently get open. And around this time last year, I was reminded about around this time last year, we were talking about, I guess it would have been into training camp, maybe the driving 140 miles an hour and that, that whole issue. And I was very curious to see, okay, that's a rookie mistake that you're

lucky you survived and don't ever do that again and probably should have had some sort of punishment from the team that was more significant than it was. But how are you going to approach this? Are you going to be professional? Are you going to improve? Are you going to show up every day type of thing? Or are you going to do stupid stuff?

And we got our answer that driving may be an issue but he took a very professional approach and so the first thing he comes out and says is i had this specific part of my game that i wasn't happy with and i look to improvement uh i think that's a good sign for him for year two one more thing on the defensive side just look sometimes players at the podium are not refined and so forth and say things that make us chuckle to ourselves and it's not picking on them but it is kind of funny uh you asked Ivan Pace Jr. why he switched to number zero and he said that he had always wanted to be or was his dream to be number zero a dream and you asked him why he said he had no idea

i don't know you know it's fine a lot of things work that way a lot of things work that way with like i've always wanted this you're like why i don't know i don't know you know i it was funny like i didn't even register how funny that was until after the presser you said that to me you're like he doesn't know why it was a dream and i'm like yeah he doesn't does it that was because i get so used to just like some of those stocked can't answers that i didn't register that he said i have no idea why i dreamt this i mean maybe maybe it would be like if you said you know i've always wanted to go to paris like oh yeah really why like i don't know eiffel tower like i i don't know it just always seemed great to me uh so that was kind of funny. But the thing that I actually want to ask you about the press conferences from the defensive side was just about the cornerback group.

Since this has been a very hardcore football podcast, not a lot of nonsense. Shaq Griffins look pretty good to me. Yes, he is lanky. This is a lanky fellow. And actually, I think Kyrie Jackson has looked kind of good to me. Enormous. fellow and uh actually i think kairi jackson has looked kind of good to me enormous and i think that they're better there now because of these two a caleb evans to me looks like the guy who's going to be pushed out as he was at the end of last year getting benched numerous times and the version of byron murphy that plays inside more in my opinion could be better that's not

declaring this group good but it does look better than it did last year when we were watching the corners and juwan williams we miss you a great guy i'm not joking about that really truly a great guy to be around uh but not someone you wanted actually playing in a lot of games that was a guy who started week one of training camp as CB2. I think they've made a serious improvement here, even if it's not to the point where I would say it's above average. Yeah, and I remember then Makai Blackman at the start of training camp last year quickly taking that job from Jawan and Brian Flores being like,

don't read too much into it. It's fine. It's fine. And the subtext is we don't have enough corners. I need to play three safeties every single down. Now we're watching OTAsrison smith is leaving the field harrison smith is leaving the field when they go nickel and they go three corner nickel with byron shifting inside shack on the outside and right now it's mckay blackman primarily as in the two otas we've seen it's mckay blackman as the outside corner and occasionally a caleb evans is rotating in there um i talked to shaq griffin for a while after practice today he seems ecstatic i don't think

he stopped smiling and i gotta tell you it wasn't because of my disposition he wasn't happy because of me he seemed to have that effect on people i really don't you're pretty he seemed he just seemed ecstatic to be here he just seemed incredibly happy and i don't know it was not something i was expecting from a guy who was cut and kicked around the league a couple times last year, cut from Houston, cut from D'Amico Ryan's squad, because he wasn't really living up to that zone coverage they wanted. And he said, when I went to Carolina last year, we played more man. And that's why I wanted to come here to play more man coverage. And you talk about the changes this off season, it's going to be more corners, so they hope they can play Byron Murphy more on the inside.

It's potentially less Harrison Smith on the field with Bynum and Metellus as the deep safeties. And it's a lot more man coverage because they played, what, 15%, 20% man coverage last year? It wasn't much. It was one of the lowest marks in the league, and that is not Brian Flores. That's a testament to how Brian Flores changes what he does

to fit what he has. And now he's going to change what he has to fit what he wants to do, which is getting Shaq Griffin in here to press guys, play man. It's Byron Murphy. They've signed Byron Murphy to be the nickel and he couldn't do that last year. They had to not had to, but Josh Mattel has grew into that spot last year and really thrived.

They would like Byron Murphy to do more of that kind of quick shifty stuff underneath. And it's going to be because of a guy like Shaq Griffin stepping in and it's going to be because potentially Makai Blackman taking another step if he does and especially on third down I mean you really want to have multiple corners out there you don't want to be asking Josh Metellus on third down and long to be tracking a wide receiver even as good as he is at coverage I think that that's not speaking to his strength versus someone like byron murphy and the numbers don't lie with murphy he's a better player inside

historically than he has been outside and when they got him here that was what they talked about like oh yeah you know he's gonna play a little more nickel and then just circumstance and the rest of the roster that made him play outside as more of a number one corner last year when it's not really his best uh place now mckay blackman comes along with some expectations of taking a step forward i thought he was pretty good last year for a rookie and they have some people who can play the football that was the biggest issue for caleb evans is i don't think any quarterback feared throwing his way because even if you didn't throw it perfectly He probably wasn't going to catch it. He's much more in my opinion of a depth guy

You're happy you have him, but you don't want to play him 17 games spielman used to talk about this he would talk about guys who Were he would give them some sort of dot like here or color or whatever it was a big blue dot regular yeah remember this it was like a color system i forget how it worked are you talking about the standard scouting system of a blue chip player red chip player purple yeah trying to be funny but oh sorry sorry yeah yeah i didn't know what you were talking about i didn't remember the colors exactly what the colors were yes yes i know that this is how it works but he would talk one of the colors indicated a guy who if he plays five games you'll feel very fine with okay but if he plays 15 games

you do not feel good with yep and then i was adding shapes to the colors because that seems more fun it was a purple uh rhombus uh dinosaur shaped orange mango specifically colored that means you're a caleb evans yellow i saw some of these triangles yeah that's right um so anyway the point just being that if a caleb evans has to play five weeks as a replacement player that's fine if he plays 17 you're probably in trouble last year we landed in trouble last thing for you um what's the silliest ota thing you saw we saw so kickers they kicked but we were on the other side of the field so i don't have kicking report for you that looks very high in the air way up there uh isn't that kicker still wearing 96 john parker romo no 46 they're both wearing bad numbers wearing i think. They're both wearing bad numbers. Ryker is wearing, I think, 46. They're both wearing bad numbers.

Don't call him that kicker. He has a name. He has three names. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He's got a mother. Right. She gave him three names, and you're going to use them.

John Parker Romo. John Parker Romo. And we're going to know his name until he's not here anymore. The silliest thing to me is that they're still wearing those numbers. Because when, eventually, the roster gets thin to 53, he'll switch to a single whatever digit number. But what did Ryan Wright have? Didn't he have 69 or something?

Oh, yeah. Preseason? Yeah. That to me is the silliest thing. That's the Bill Belichick version of like, we're not going to give you names on your jerseys if you're rookies. You've got to earn them. And it's like rookies get that where, especially if you're a kicker,

you ain't getting the first pick of a number. No, you've got to wait. And so that's why Will Reichert's probably wearing 46 or whatever it is so they set up these fluorescent poles on the ground and they're a few feet away and the running backs go whoop whoop whoop whoop right i'm trying to audio and video describe this you're doing a good job and when someone bumps into a pole though it just sort of flops around and then the next guy whacks into it and then it flops around some more. And it's hilarious.

They were having CJ Ham do it. He's jumping and he hits it by accident. And then the next guy gets whacked with it. Who came up with this? And then the other part that's funny is that they have all these tackle dummies and they're, you know, they're whatever they're like six feet tall and they've got arms.

And one of them has a football tape to the arm. Is it duct tape? It's just duct tape. It's just some quality control intern. It was like, all right, what's your agenda today, Billy? Well, you know, we need you to look at this and, you know, submit this report to coach and tape of football to one of the dummies. Do you have the football version of the TPS reports?

And also get the duct tape. The company who made this, like come up, you know, meld it on there or whatever. Give them a dummy with a football. You can't buy that. I just pictured the intern having a hard time getting it to stick. It's falling off the dummy. He's like, God, the coach is going to fire me me over this i can't get it to stick to the dummy uh the other

thing i should mention josh mccown being active he looked like he was playing today he was running running yeah running routes catching ball catching passes some passes going over his head but he was catching passes like he was moving all over the place i think that that looked to me like a guy who is not too far from his playing days, and he feels like it. So, you know, we cover all these things objectively and all that, but Josh McCown being here, it feels similar to me with Gary Kubiak, where you're like, you guys believe this? You know, Gary Kubiak shows up, you're like, I never would have believed Gary Kubiak would be here calling plays.

This guy's, you know. And Josh has the same charm, too, as. Yeah. I mean, they have that. Yeah, for sure. Former quarterback, backup quarterback, you know, there's a little bit of a Texas accent mixed in there. Yeah. And both like incredible, incredibly personable, incredibly likable. Just they've got just they'll charm you and they will, they might tell you nothing, but they're going to make you feel so good about it.

Do you know how hard it is to make the National Football League? Look at all these college quarterbacks who put up insane numbers. They were the best quarterback in their town. They went to youth camps and destroyed all the other little kids and everything, and they go to Ole Miss, and they throw a bunch of touchdowns, and they come to a training camp in the NFL, and they laugh you out of the building, and idiots like us do like why do they even invite this guy and here's josh mccown or gary who's the same way a backup quarterback who came from you know whatever and gets criticized

his whole nfl life and just you know gets drafted and finds a way to have a 20 year career in the NFL. This is a very unique person. And I almost think that just with backups, we take them for granted, but a lot of them become coaches because you really have to be special when it comes to this. His presence here is I think valuable and significant that they were able to bring him here to work with McCarthy. Yeah, me too. And you got to be, because we see a number of players. Terrence Newman tried it for a year. Guys who were just sicko players who were studying all the time, who couldn't cut it as coaches.

Like you really got to be, it's the next level of addiction and just working longer hours than players ever do. And Josh McCown clearly wants to do that to the point where he walked into a high school coach's office when he was playing for the Panthers back. This was started in 2012 or 13. This was over 10 years ago. This is how his coaching career started. He walked into a local high school coach's office and just said,

hey, I want to learn how to do this while he was still an NFL player. He wanted to be a coach for a long time, and the Vikings get to reap the benefits. So in his most Gary-like moment, he was asked about the Nate Poole thing, and he said, well well you know just uh one of my five good plays in my career and i was like oh man come on the humility of the backup journeyman quarterback i was like yeah we used to just be like oh shucks oh you know i just had a lot of great players when i was coaching back in those days you know i had a running back named tarrell davis you know he's pretty good had some good blocking there from Howard Griffith and uh tell me more

tell me more about Owen Daniels Gary you know that you know that that that that Kyle Rudolph you know he's got a lot of Owen Daniels in his game he's got he was got a lot of Byron Chamberlain similarities there I know he was a player here for you guys so uh you know we're just gonna go out there and do the best we can that's it that's your ota report is that what you came for i'm gonna do the whole podcast like gary kubiak at some point you should all right well that's it good stuff tco performance center we're in the closet looking room and uh it was fun so thanks for your time man of course anytime football