Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings.com's Lindsey Young tells incredible stories and ESPN's Kat Terrell breaks down Marcus Davenport

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Vikings.com's Lindsey Young joins to talk about her article on Matt Asiata's 15-year-old son, who was the victim of a random shooting and recovered to play football again despite doctors believing he had almost no chance to survive. She also talks about her special relationship with Bud Grant and tells stories about the legendary head coach. Then Katherine Terrell, who covers the Saints for ESPN, comes by to discuss Marcus Davenport, why he didn't work out in New Orleans and his upside in Minnesota. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here and joining me on the show from Vikings.com, Lindsey Young. Lindsey, you dropped an incredible story today about Matt Asiata on Vikings.com. And I have to say, there are a few stories that sort of stop you in your tracks, but this one definitely did. So I want to break that down with you also you wrote about your relationship with Bud Grant which was a really special relationship you created a lot of content with Bud over the years so I want to get into those things but first how are you enjoying your off season it's already been pretty eventful for the Vikings yeah it has Craig Peters and I were just talking about like I can't believe that it's we're almost into April already like there's definitely I mean you and I were just talking kind of offline about how

there's kind of some like dips and lulls and action but like this offseason has seemed pretty busy like there's plenty of stuff to write about um this time of the year I always have like such mixed feelings because I don't think it's any secret to anybody that I get very attached to people. And so it's hard when we're like, you know, parting ways with guys like Eric Kendricks and Adam Thielen and, and stuff like that. But then there's also this other piece that's really exciting because you're bringing in new players and new personalities, new talent. So I have a love hate relationship with free agency, but it's always night, but it's always nice. Like, it's a nice change of pace to get into the offseason, have different stuff to work on.

Even like you mentioned, the story that I just put out today on Matt Asciotta, like, it was nice to be able to have, like, the energy and the capacity to put into an off-field story like that. And so just always looking for stuff to do. Yeah, and we'll dive into that in just a second, but I was going to say that how old should we feel that when I got to Minnesota in 2016, Adam Thielen had not broken out yet as a good wide receiver in the NFL. And Eric Hendricks was a second year linebacker that people were talking about, like, maybe this is a year he takes the next step after a good rookie season in 2015. And now they're old and too expensive to keep around. And they leave and we're like, wait,

how long have we been doing this for that? We saw their whole career arcs at this point that I will say that that hit me more than probably anybody else that has left over the years. Kendrick's hit me super hard because I started in December of his rookie season. So like he had already, you know, I didn't come on till like mid December. Um, but yeah, he was a rookie that year and like, people were kind of excited about him and like, but he was very much under the radar at that point. Like, I remember talking about like, nobody really knows who he is like outside of Viking, the Vikings fans and stuff like that.

And yeah, for him to like now be like moving on to the Chargers and like really look back at his whole career here. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I am so old. I think it's also like people were giving me a hard time because I was like excited about the Vikings bringing back like Andrew DePaula and Greg. And, you know, I like I have a personal friendship with Andrew's wife. And so there is a little bit of that piece, too. But I've also been giving people crap and saying, like, look, if he leaves, like if Andrew DePaula isn't on the team, like there are no players that are my age or older. And so Andrew and I are the same age.

And so I kind of like cling on to that to still feel young, I think. Now our friend, Chris Thomason, who is leaving the beat to go to Denver, which will never be the same after that. But he has always said that you're not officially old until the oldest player in the league is younger than you. And so we've still got time as long as like Aaron Rodgers goes, you know, to the jets and all that happens. And so we've still got time. As long as like Aaron Rodgers goes to the Jets and all that happens. Now that Tom Brady's out, the bar has lowered a little bit, but I think we're okay.

Also, no one should ever give you a hard time about anything good that happens to a long snapper. So Andrew DiPaola getting his contract, that is an amazing story. That guy was out of the league and he had torn his ACL and it looked like he had no career at all. And then comes back all pro pro bowl contract. Like that's no one should ever be against Andrew DePaulo.

It is such a good story. And I think like he's been really fun for the fans too. Like I get it that like on game day, maybe that's not really the position that you're honing in on, but he has done like fun content stuff with us. Like what we clipped this thing out of the dad mode series that we did with him. And it was just like a little piece of the, of the segment. And it was on Tik TOK and it went absolutely viral. And it was just this clip of like his daughter asking him for a snack and him being like, I'm sorry, like I didn't bring any snacks and just crushing her. Like her spirits were just crushed. And I think like he is this relatable person that people like enjoy hearing

from and enjoy seeing stuff about his family. So I was pumped when he came back. Long snappers are the most like us, even though they are so freakishly talented and also way more athletic than us, but they don't look like Rashad Hill or something, where it's just six-foot-six and huge arms or anything, so he kind of does look normal. But great story for him, a fun one to follow along. And anyone who's not honing in on the long snapper on game day, I don't know what you're doing.

Just seeing something, yeah. So, yeah, it has been an interesting offseason. We'll continue to follow your content on there um as the roster changes or maybe doesn't i don't know i guess we'll see but i was completely captivated by your story about matt asiata because i had no idea that this had happened to him and his family that his son was shot in a mass shooting and went through just a terrifying couple of, I guess, weeks, months with his son and his health situation. So I don't know where you want to start with that story, because I think most people don't know that this happened to a former Viking who was very popular here. Matt Asiata scored a lot of touchdowns kind of a, a hard hat kind of player. And I had no idea. Also Matt Asiata having a 15 year old son threw me off a little bit too,

as far as our age, but yeah, I'd love, I'd love you to tell the story. Yeah, he, well, he has five kids, which is crazy. And I remember when he was here with the Vikings, he had five kids. And he will make jokes about that, about I was definitely the only guy in the locker room with five kids. So I heard like when the shooting happened in January 2022, I heard about it. And I didn't make any connection right away. I heard about it. I saw that it was outside of a Utah high school. And there were three teenage boys who were shot and two sadly passed away. And one, Ephraim, was in the hospital. And I can't remember exactly how I figured out that it was his son, but I made that connection. I know there were a few players on our team at the time or previous teammates of Matt's like Anthony Barr and CJ Hamm,

who had like reached out and expressed their support. And at the time, you know, I had just kind of been praying for the family and had interest in telling the story. But of course, like in the middle of that chaos, like he was even a couple months after was like fighting so hard to like just have a normal life. And so it was like content was very far out of my mind at that point. But I did kind of pay attention to his story and then reached back out this offseason, kind of shortly after the season, reached out to Matt just to kind of gauge how he felt about sharing the story. And he and his family were super gracious in, you know, trusting me with that story and being willing to talk about it. But it's like heavy, heavy stuff. You know, you talk about like him just being out, like they had just got a new puppy and Matt was like walking the puppy and gets this phone call from his sister. And he was I almost didn't answer the phone like sometimes you don't want to talk to your sibling when they call you you know um and it was just kind of this light-hearted thing and all of

a sudden your world is completely flipped upside down um and he talked about like the damage the physical damage that was done to Ephraim like um, completely damaged, like, his pancreas, his liver, his small intestine was pretty much completely taken out, and so it was, like, six months before he could even eat, like, solid food again, which is crazy when you think about this 15-year-old kid who was on the varsity football team and eating, like, crazy, you know, like like to all of a sudden be in this dire of a situation. The doctors gave Ephraim 1% chance of survival. And Matt was talking about in the story how there was even one point where the doctor said, like, you should probably bring his siblings in and like say goodbye. And they had to make that call of they had two older daughters and two like real

young little boys. And so it was like, they brought the daughters up, didn't really tell them that this was the reason, but in the backs of their minds, like not knowing if he's going to survive. And it goes from that to like, okay, he's continuing to like fight. He's continuing to do really well. He had multiple surgeries. And it's interesting when you talk to Matt, because at that point, right, like all you're thinking is that you hope your son will survive. Like football had been this whole goal and it's like nobody like there's no thought of ever playing football again. It's just like, is he going to survive? And he did. And like one of the coolest parts of the story outside of obviously him defying the odds of 1% are the fact that he needed a small intestine transplant. And the Asiata family was told that that type of surgery, transplant, match, et cetera, all over my head.

But that that can be like a five to 10 year wait. So he would have been like eating intravenously and all of that kind of stuff. And they got the call, I think after like three months, three months or six months, I can't remember. It's in the story, but just like things like that, that kept falling into place. And the fact that he is not only recovered almost completely, I think he just had another minor surgery recently, but he's playing football again. Like he's getting, um, you know, like looks from colleges and scholarship offers and stuff

like that. And it's just wild to me. So, um, I think, you know, like I could go on and on about this and I won't, but like, there's such an epidemic in our country with gun violence. And so I wanted this story to shine light on that, but also to shine light on one of the stories that had a happy ending. And like you said, I think fans really liked Matt when, when he was here, he was a good guy in the community and all that.

So it's really good to see this all kind of work out for them. Yeah. I mean, part of it, a great detail in the story was that the bullets were hollow tips, so they explode when they hit the person. And that made it so much more challenging for doctors. And that was one of the reasons that so many organs of his were impacted and how hollow tip bullets can be acquired in America is mind blowing. But I guess that's for another podcast. But in your conversations with Matt, I mean, just I guess, how did he get through this? Because, you know, there's a lot of people who go through traumatic things in their lives and with family members and everything else. But I can't think of much more

than getting that phone call and having to go through all of those things. I mean, that just has to have so much of an impact on your everyday life, but also mentally as well. Yeah, I think so. Like, and in talking to him, I feel like several things kind of came out. I think there's a piece of it of just trying to be strong for his wife and for his other kids going through that, you kind of like, I think you just sort of like put your own feelings on the back burner almost and try to just like get through each day. I know that their faith is very important to them. And so he did talk about that piece as well. And really having like that as a pillar in their life. And it's really cool to hear about how him, how Matt Matt and his wife like kind of just tag team this whole parenting thing is so great. I mean, we talk about how they were such young parents and

they were, but like their family is such a success story. And it's cool to talk about how during this recovery period for Ephraim, like Matt was really focused on the physical part of the recovery, like helping him to stay motivated. And there were times when Ephraim like wanted to like lift weights in the hospital bed. And Matt was like, no, like we don't have to do that. He was like, dad, like I want to. And so it was cool how he could kind of pour himself into that part of it. And then he joked how his wife's like role was like helping him to get back on track with school and stuff like that. I mean, Ephraim's like an A student and he's already back caught up in school, which is crazy. And so but Matt was really honest, too, about like this feeling that your world's kind of falling apart, you know.

And I think most Vikings fans probably remember that when he was here, I think it was in 2013, his father was tragically killed in an accident back in Utah. And I remember like sort of that being a discussion and like him mourning his dad. And he brought that up in this story about really wanting to honor his dad and the way that his dad taught him how to raise kids and have a family. And so, um, you know, I think he's kind of Lee and kind of an inherently like strong individual mentally, but, um, I'm with you. Like, I can't imagine going through that. And it's probably one of those things where like, you get the strength when you need it. Um, but it's been a huge, huge ordeal for them. And he talked about how for months, it just, they were just sad and anxious and scared all the time. And it was like, and then stuff just started to turn around and, you know, they've been able to have that family time again. And it's just such a happy ending. Yeah. And the fact that he's playing football again, like,

did you ask how that's possible? Cause I feel like that would be one of my first questions is, wait, he's actually just even living any sort of normal life after going through that would be difficult. Right. So what Matt said from a physical standpoint is that had he not gotten the transplant, football would not have been an option. Like contact sports would not have been an option. But he said that when they got the call that there was a transplant, they had to go to Nebraska, to a hospital in Nebraska to get this transplant done. And he said that one of the first things that Ephraim asked the surgeon is like, can I like play sport? Like, can I play football again after having this done?

And the doctor told him, like, once you recover from this transplant, like you will have no more restrictions physically. And so he does have like very unique dietary like restrictions because of what his liver and pancreas and small intestine have gone through. But like, as far as being athletic and like having the contact sport and everything like that, he's still able to, to just basically return to normal, which is crazy to me. That is completely crazy and makes no sense, but an incredible story that you wrote and people should go. If you follow the Vikings on Twitter, which like 5 million people do, then they tweeted out there or vikings.com.

Matt Asiata's son survived shooting, defies odds in return to football. Amazingly done story. Great work. I also wanted to ask you, so I won't give away all the entire story for that so people can go read it, but I also wanted to ask you about what you recently wrote about Bud Grant's passing. And I think one of the most interesting parts of Bud Grant was that, I mean, the man probably made enough money to retire in Florida, but he didn't want to do that. And Bud was in Minnesota and also was very

welcoming to people who wanted to interview him. You saw him interviewed pretty often. He would, but it felt to me like you and Bud Grant formed kind of a special relationship. You did the Letters to Bud series, which was amazing. And I guess I just love to hear about how that developed over the years from you getting the job, writing for the Vikings website, and then getting to know Bud through the latter part of his life. Yeah, thanks for asking me about that, too, because it just is something that's been really special to me. And so the first time I ever met Bud, I was actually not working for the Vikings. I was working full time at my alma mater. And I was just kind of writing on the side. I was doing some blog work for Vikings territory at the time. And, and so I've been

following along, obviously, with Viking stuff, I was very familiar with who Bud was. And he had his annual like garage sale, I think it was supposed to be a one time thing. And then it just every year kept coming back to no one's surprise. But so the first time I met him was truly like as a fan. I was born and raised in Minnesota. My dad always told me about Bud Grant. I thought that this was such a unique opportunity to like meet someone like that just in person at his home in Bloomington. And so that was sort of my first memory of like meeting him. I just remember he was like very kind, like serious, but kind. Um, and he, I had like this custom painted shoe that a friend had done for me that was like Vikings and, and he autograph then that next year, it was about six months before I started working for the Vikings. I actually reached out to, it was like a friend of Bud's who was helping him run the sale. And I talked to him about potentially wanting to talk to Bud

for this story. And I think I always just took the approach where I was like really transparent about who I was, what I was doing. Like this wasn't for any big news outlet. It was just something that I was really interested in. And so Bud agreed that I could come to his sale and like interview him there. And so I went and kind of like sat a chair down next to him and figured it would be a few minutes. And, you know, he talked to me for about a half an hour. And I just like remember thinking even at that time, I'm like, I could sit and listen to this man's stories for so long. Like he's engaging. Um, and he has like, you know, at that time he was what, like 88 or something like that, 80, 85 maybe. So it's like, he's elderly, but his mind was so sharp, like up until the end. Um,

and so I had that really great interaction with him. We talked a lot. He, I told him about kind of what I wanted to do with my career. Um, but then it was like six months later that I got hired by the Vikings and I was getting kind of a tour of the press box and, and the field that was at, um, the U of M. And I was walking with my manager, Craig Craig and we kind of turned the corner and there was Bud and I remember thinking like oh like there's Bud Grant like that's so cool that he's here and whatever and he was like hey there she is and and came over and like gave me a hug and like gave me this like kiss on the top of my head and it was very sweet and very endearing

um and I still remember the look on Bud or on Craig like, okay, like my job here is done. Like I have nothing else to do. So it was kind of this like unique connection from the beginning. And then throughout my time at the Vikings, like I had said, I couldn't remember who said this, but someone within the organization had joked that I was like the Bud Grant whisperer. Because if we needed to like make a request of him or if we needed to like, um, like ask him a clarifying question or something like that, like a lot of times it was like, Linds, why don't you go down to his office and ask him? Because he tended to just be a little like softer, um, with me. And so, but over the years it just really grew. Like the letters to

Bud project was really cool and really unique. And we talked a lot during that. He would check in on the project and ask me questions and just really loved that I was doing that. And so it was an online project that was on Vikings.com. But I got like a bound copy made just like at a print center and gave that to him. And I remember like he thought that that was really cool. And that really touched my heart. And so I think just organically over the years, like we developed this more of like a friendship, more of a, more than a work-based relationship, you know, like I would eat lunch with him when he would come in or I'd stop by and sit in his office for a while and chat with him.

And, you know, he would we did a lot of content around him, like you said, and I just got to know him really well. And he would always give me a hard time for certain things like he would before I got my dog that I have now, he would talk to me about having a dog and like the importance of like having a well-trained dog and like he would get really serious about it. And I remember when we did purple pups with him, I was like getting really affectionate with his black lab at the time. And I just was like, Oh, she's so sweet. And, you know, and I just remember like the look he gave me of just like pure annoyance. And he was like, I bet you'd let a dog sleep in your bed with you. And like, that was very, he was very disappointed. So when I got Tater last year, I had to let him know, like, I'm crate training my puppy. And he was proud of that. So he was

just a really special person where I think he had kind of this persona of like that gruff exterior and being really stoic. And like those things were real, but it just wasn't all he was. You know, he was funny and he was kind hearted and he really had like strong, strong values. He didn't like, you know, cussing. He didn't like smoking. He would talk, he would talk about like the rule, different rules that he had for the players, you know, when he was coaching and just really like integrity was very important to him. I remember him talking to me about that, like to never gain someone's trust and then throw that out the window or betray their trust for sake of a story, things like that. So it just he was really, really special. And obviously the COVID pandemic made things difficult. And I do remember thinking like when we were kind of all in isolation, like I hope that I can see him again.

You just don't know when someone is that elderly. Um, but fortunately I was able to see him multiple times after that. Um, and just have lots of really great memories. And so, um, when he passed away, I actually was in Florida. Um, I was coming home that day, but I got a text and a phone call from my manager that morning and I was just devastated. Like I was completely I just didn't see it coming. And I've had a couple of people be like, wow, like how can you be like shocked or saddened by like someone who is 95? Like he lived a great life. And I'm like, he did live a great life. It's also still OK to be sad. Like, and I think Matt,

like you can attest to this. He kind of just seemed like this person who was kind of invincible a little bit like Sid Hartman, you know, who made it to a hundred. And I kind of thought that Bud would just try to outlive Sid. And it was sort of this thing where I don't think people took him for granted, but he just was always around. He never really appeared to be in poor health. He, you know, it just was very unexpected. And so, you know, I was happy that I got to kind

of reflect on my relationship with him and share that with other people. Because like I said, he, he was stoic, he was grumpy. He did have kind of this like gruff exterior, but he was so much more than that. Yeah, it did take people by surprise because I was at Bob Hagen's retirement party, who's the Vikings PR man. And Bud Grant's son was there that night and said, oh, my father's a little under the weather. He's doing fine and nothing to worry about and whatever else didn't seem to be suspecting anything at all. And then it just kind of happened. And also I would say too, what I wrote for the lead to my story about Bud was send your condolences to the entire state because it's, you know, so many people form that relationship with him. And even if you never met him, it felt like you knew him so well and he was so available

and around. And it always amazed me that he had an office and like that he would actually come to that office and spend time there. And Kevin O'Connell talked about how Bud Grant was there and they would have lunch each week. I mean, what a great experience for Kevin O'Connell to have. I wanted to ask you just one more thing was, what was your favorite letter to Bud? Because you chronicled all the letters that he had gotten over the years, and I'm sure that you could pick a bunch of them, but I wondered if one sticks out that you'd want to talk about. Yeah. So there was this one, I feel like it would be really easy to pick one of the letters that were from maybe someone that we've heard of, like the letter from Herb Brooks was really cool. And there was,

you know, even a letter in there from Richard Nixon or former like NFL owners. But there was actually this one woman who had written a letter and who had told Bud that she wasn't really a big football fan. Her husband was this massive football fan who just loved Bud Grant. And they lived on the East Coast. And so they had gotten tickets one time to when the Vikings came out to play the Patriots because her husband just like was so passionate about seeing this person on the sidelines. And it was a sad letter because she said that her husband had passed away at like 36 or 37 or something like that from a heart attack. And it had been, you know, completely unforeseen, but she talked about just like how big of an impact like Bud had made on her husband and like the values that he had and the things that he watched

for in football. And like, and so through that, she kind of had become a football fan herself and had followed, you know, Bud's career. And, and she really was just writing this letter to like, thank him for having such a huge impact, like on her husband's life. And it was ones like that, I think that like, really touched my heart. There was that one. And then there was a little girl who had written in who was like 11 or 12. And she was very cute because it reminded me, I think, of my interest in football growing up. And she had thoughts and opinions for Bud on who should be starting and what plays he should run. And so that kind of stuff was really

fun too. Just the fact that I think he kept those is what, you know, touched my heart. Like, you know, of course, if you have a letter from Herb Brooks, you're probably going to keep it. But these are from fans who, you know, he didn't know from Adam, but it was cool to see how much that they had impacted him. Yeah, I think that that's one of the great things about chronicling a project like that is also it reveals a lot about Bud and how he was viewed and who wanted to connect with him and things like that, but also said so much about him. So it's a great thing. And go search it, Letters to Bud. I'm sure you can find it easily in a Google search. Lindsay, you do awesome work. So now before we wrap up, let's do a mock draft. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just messing with you, but we've got more off-season excitement, I'm sure, to come. So people should follow your work

at vikings.com. But I really love when you do these long features, these in-depth deep dives. You do tremendous work with those. So I appreciate you taking us through two of them and implore people to go find these projects because they're such good reads. So thanks so much for doing this. And I really appreciate you coming on. Yeah. Thank you, Matt, so much. I always appreciate our conversations and the ability to talk about these two stories specifically is, I really love it. And I will give one tiny plug since we're talking about letters to Bud. So we're actually inviting fans to send in letters again. So if Bud, if you had some sort

of interaction with Bud, or if he just impacted you in some way, we are inviting fans to send in letters. And we may do a second installment of the series, and we'll kind of see how it goes. But at the very least, those letters will be given to Bud's family. So there's more info on that under this at the end of the story that Matt and I are talking about. So you can find that on Vikings dot com. But I really, really would love to see what fans send in. So just want to put it in a plug for that. That is such a great idea. And I'm sure that you will get all sorts of people sending in their memories of Bud. So thanks again, Lindsay Young,

go to vikings.com, read the story, follow you on Twitter, follow the Vikings on Twitter to find it. And I retweeted it too. So it's, it's out there. If you can't find it,

you're not trying. Great, great stuff, Lindsay. And we'll see each other soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Matt.

Joining me to talk a little Marcus Marcus Davenport, and to explain the entire salary cap to us, Catherine Terrell, who covers the New Orleans Saints for many outlets over your time there. Presently ESPN. Catherine, how are you? Great to be with you. I'm doing great. I just got my first coffee in the morning, so I'll be even better in a few minutes. My house ran out of coffee yesterday, which is always disaster week in my house. So I'm doing much better now. Well, that's not good for you because this is your season. I have jokingly called you on Twitter, Cap-thrin-taro, because nobody has to understand the CBA and the salary cap more than a New Orleans Saints

reporter. I have to say every year, your article about how they're going to make enough cap space is truly incredible. And also I have realized too, that if anyone ever implies even slightly that the cap exists, New Orleans Saints fans, it's like they smell blood in the water and they just attack. it doesn't even matter if you're talking about them you could just say you know I think the the another team has some cap issues they're like no cap issues are not possible like what is the deal with that it actually is hilarious it's like um Regina George at the end of Mean Girls of like when she's standing there just watching the chaos happen. I don't

know if I'm Regina, like, because every time I see this happen, and it's happened a lot over the years, I just kind of sit back and watch. I think it's because this has literally been going on for 10 years. I'm not kidding. If you go search Cat Pal and Saints, you will come up with articles from 2013. All the way back to when Drew Brees signed an extension that back then was huge and today would look like peanuts. And it's crazy. And the Saints just keep doing the same thing year after year, and they're going to be doing it for the next five years, probably,

because that's how long it's going to take to get out from under Derek Carr's contract. And it's not even a bad contract. Honestly, when you look at it, it's just, they have no, they have to make negative a hundred million dollars into positive a hundred million dollars or whatever every year. You know, I should really take tips from them. Like, how do I do this with my own money? I need to learn these, these ways. Right. Just continue to tell people that you'll pay them later pay off all of your bills later yeah that's right actually this is the credit card let's let's just for a second because we're very much in the same boat here and the Vikings

just today it was the Star Tribune reported that their two signings Byron Murphy and Josh Oliver added void years which of course makes my brain explode because you do have to pay the void years. But maybe we could talk just for a second about how this is all possible, because I think that there is kind of a lack of understanding. And I will be honest, I get very confused sometimes by the salary cap stuff of how a team can so consistently have cap trouble and then work their way out of it. But also it does end up having ramifications for them. Yeah, the four years thing happened five or six years back.

So I've covered the Saints off and on in some capacity since 2012, with the exception of three years I covered the Bengals. So in one of those years when I was covering the Bengals, 2016 or 2017, the Saints tried to sign Nick Farley, and they had no cap space. And I believe the Saints were the first one to do it. I could be wrong. That was when they came up with void years, which basically adds – sorry, a fly just flew right in front of me.

It basically adds an extra year to the contract, but the only purpose is so that you can give a player a giant signing bonus and then spread it out for accounting purposes. So you can only spread signing bonus out for five years. So literally every year of a player's contract, you could add a fake year and convert base salary to signing bonus, which is the Saints' favorite thing to do, and then add another fake year and then spread it out even more.

So the Saints have been doing this for a long time now, as I said, since probably Nick Farley, who didn't really end up playing for the Saints that long, actually. It's kind of a crazy story how that turned out. I think he had a heart issue and had to retire from the nfl um but the there's a downside and that is if you do all these void years and the player leaves in free agency his contract automatically voids and then you're paying all this money all the remaining signing bonus to a player that is not on your team it is like cutting a player before his contract is up,

which is what happened with Marcus Davenport, what happened with David Onyemata. The Saints are paying $10 million to David Onyemata this year. He's not on the team. Now, of course, he got that money a long time ago, but that is multiple players that they can no longer sign. So it's, you know, that's the downside of it. But if you're a team that thinks, hey, we're good. If we can win this year, then who cares about our future selves? Like we'll just worry about this year. Yeah. Andrew Brandt said, if you only

think six months ahead ever, then doing stuff like this is really good. And the cap doesn't exist. But if you have any outlook beyond six six months which apparently the New Orleans Saints don't and just keep hurting themselves more and more as we go along all of it made sense for Breeze but it made a lot less sense after Breeze it also seems like this is in the Vikings case and in the Saints case a very ownership type of driven thing like yes we will cut that check right now because a lot of times that's how it has to work. We'll give you the signing bonus today. Yeah, it'll be hitting the cap later, but we've got the cash on hand to be able to give it to you. We're not all ownerships really want to manage it that way.

Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of owners that are not willing to cut an enormous check over and over again. Cincinnati, honestly, is one of those teams. It's not how they operate. They're a team that likes to not guarantee a ton of money and basically go year by year. But their pitch to free agents is that, hey, you're almost guaranteed to see out your whole contract if you come sign here even if you don't have the guaranteed money and that's changed a little bit um the bangles even started doing i believe they did a void year on trey hendrickson and granted i was post-covid but i still was so shocked to see it um so they've even changed a lot of teams have started doing this void years trend. No one, no team does it as much as the Saints, but a lot of teams that think, hey, we have a window to win. We're going to go for it. And

the Saints have long believed that that window is never closed. And that's the funny part. Like we're talking about, it's been going back to Drew Brees. I remember I was covering Drew Brees in 2014. I remember how old he was then, probably mid-30s. And we had the whole talk about the window and whether the window was closed. And he said the window wasn't closed. And so now fast forward eight years later and the Saints still think the window is open. And, you know, maybe they're right. We won't know until we see it all play out in the fall.

But that's why they went after Derek Carr instead of saying, Hey, we're just going to take the salary cap lump now. And the downside of that is it's, it's a five-year deal. You can get out of in three years, but they're going to have to be converting these giant numbers for years. And we'll just, like I said, we'll be talking about it for a long time. Yeah. I mean, I guess I could see part of their thought process

when you look at the rest of the NFC South and you go like, well, Tom Brady's gone, right? I mean, when are the Panthers going to be good? It's going to be at least two to three years if the Panthers hit on their quarterback before they're competitive. But at the same time, like Derek Carr has this similar Kirk Cousins-y history of kind of being a middling quarterback. This is not really Drew Brees that you're bringing.

It's almost like, do you realize how special what you had there was with Drew Brees? So I kind of get it, though, because if you don't have an opportunity to sign or to draft a quarterback super high, then what is your other option if you're in a division and you have a lot of established players that you can win? So I totally get the Derek Carr thing. It's just hard to see that having any more of a ceiling than maybe just like making the playoffs. Well, I mean, look back a few years ago when Kurt got all that guaranteed money and I feel like people were really shocked at that and contracts with huge guarantees are becoming more of the norm, but still very far away from giving out fully guaranteed contracts with the exception of one person, obviously. So it shows that team lives and dies with the quarterback and you're going to have to

pay up in some form or fashion. You're either doing it in a free agency or if you're any sort of good team you're giving up a ton of first round picks and mortgaging your future to get up high enough to get a guy that could be good uh more the other way i guess is if you you've just gotten so bad that you're already up at the top of the first round but you know then how many teams are going from that bad to good enough to like going from that bad, getting their quarterback and then having him play on a level that's good enough to get them to where they want to be before his rookie contract runs

out. And, you know, the, the Bengals were able to do it. And, you know, obviously the Chiefs got Mahomes, although they didn't pick him top five, the Saints actually wanted him. That's kind of funny to think about alternate history if they had gotten him instead of Marshawn Lattimore. But yeah, I mean, quarterbacks are just going to cost some sort of currency, I guess. And it just depends on how you want to go about it. Yeah, it does feel like in more ways than just the cap, the Vikings and Saints kind of our Spider-Man meme at the moment with the way that exists with Kirk and Derek Carr.

It's like, can you guys really win? Right. Can you really win? And you've hurt your cap enough to where you can't really stack your roster and the guy's a little too expensive. And there's just this thing. But then opportunity has to be there to have the rookie quarterback contract, which is tricky. You know, my biggest problem is the saints haven't had a quarterback named Billy Joe

in a really long time. I think that's. You said two. I know. Billy Joe Hobart, Billy Joe Tolliver. Yeah. That was before my time,

unfortunately. Yeah. Very disappointed. But when I was growing up and I collected football cards, I had both. And I was like, what are the odds? What are the odds? So let's talk about two Billy Joes. Let's talk about Marcus Davenport though, because I think for the Vikings perspective, it makes a lot of sense to

sign a guy to a short-term deal that might have some upside. However, that does ignore all the potential issues with Marcus Davenport, namely that a team that never lets anyone go unless they really want to let him go. So why did the New Orleans Saints not want to keep Marcus Davenport? Yeah, he's an example of the void year thing.

He's costing them $7 million in dead money. And they are definitely in a bind because their best pass rusher is about to be 34 years old. Their guy that they picked to replace Cam Jordan was Marcus Davenport, and he's gone. And the other guy that was either going to replace Davenport or Jordan, Peyton Turner, hasn't really shown his potential yet. So with all that being said, you'd kind of think, wow, maybe they would try to make a play to keep Davenport because we don't really have pass rushers. And he's going to count against the cap anyway.

I don't know if they offered him anything or what they offered. I do know that Dennis Allen had said that they would like to keep him, but teams always say that. They always love to keep you if they can keep you for cheap. No team is really going to turn that down. I think the issue with Davenport, and I was trying to pull up his Vikings contract, is that he's just very inconsistent.

You've seen his potential. You can see it in the stats. When he's good, he can be great. Unfortunately, we haven't really seen great a lot between the injuries and then this year, for some reason, he just kind of disappeared. I don't really know what that reason is. He really did kind of have a tough offseason. He had multiple shoulder surgeries at the beginning of the 2022 off season.

So he has all these shoulder surgeries. He's trying to get his shoulder right. I think the shoulder made him miss a lot of games. You get to the spring or summer or something like that. And he had surgery on his finger. So basically he had most of his left pinky finger amputated because he had had a problem going all the way back to college. So obviously you know if you're any sort of lineman on either side, basically all you're doing is messing with fingers every single play.

I mean, you look at an offensive line that's hands have been playing for a long time they're always crooked and going every direction it's crazy so I think that's kind of what started to happen to Davenport in college I think his pinky like I'm trying to remember the exact story um something had happened to it and it just never got right and I don't even think it could straighten out and so he kept putting off trying to fix this for years and years and I think it was painful and it wasn't working and finally after all these years he just said well I'm just gonna cut it off um he didn't just do this for fun you know um like uh Ronnie Lott right to keep playing um he thought it would help um that was ronnie lot right i'm not just

making that up yes it was yes okay um he thought it would help and theoretically it will but i mean his stats really weren't there this year um i think it could probably take an adjustment period to learn how to do that again with only nine fingers i mean jason pierre paul did it uh so it's not like okay because he doesn't have 10 fingers um something's seriously wrong but also i'm telling this rambling story because it paused his shoulder rehab so basically it put him all the way behind he didn't get to participate in the beginning of training camp i think there may have been conditioning issues with that. I mean, it all goes hand in hand. So if Davenport can come to this offseason, not have surgery, be healthy,

be able to have a full offseason where he can just get his conditioning right, all of that, then I think he's perfectly capable of having a big season. And I think that's why the Vikings signed him. I think they see an extreme amount of potential in this guy that just so far has been inconsistent, but he has shown flashes of it. I'm going to tell you the truth. When I asked you to come on, I didn't know amputated fingers were going to come up. I really didn't.

I had not seen this story about Davenport and his finger. When I mentioned Ronnie Lott, then you had a blank look. I was like, wait, he did cut the finger off, right? There's so much finger talking. And they were both pinky fingers. Yes, that did happen with Ronnie Lott. I was trying to think, because you said it was Ronnie Lott. And I was like, wait, I think, Oh, yeah, I think there was a story.

I guess myself. Yeah, no, it was definitely him. And not only that, but the Vikings have some recent history in this. Their long snapper got his finger caught in someone's helmet and it ripped off the end of his finger. And yeah, and I think it was his agent sent the pictures of it to a couple of reporters because we were passing them around the media room one day and it was horrifying so it's a god it's still a scary terrifying game it isn't quite like guys eating glass back in the day but uh it's it's still not for people like us but um 2021 marcus davenport really pops out on the numbers. Great pressure statistics, good sack totals, all those things. Is there a world where that is the Marcus Davenport the Vikings get

and they're happy with him and they love him and he's wonderful? I definitely think so. I think one thing about Davenport is I recall at the beginning of the 2021 season, I feel like I was talking to Dennis Allen, who was a defensive coordinator at the time, not the head coach. And he said something like, you know, well, the light bulb really came on for him this year, which I mean, take that how you will with a player that was entering this fourth season. And I believe it was 2021. It could have been 2020, but, you know, these things start to blur together after a while. But, you know, he said it kind of started to click for him because his first few years, he did play a lot

and he actually had decent numbers. They, again, they were just inconsistent. So that 2021 season, I believe he did have the injury. I think it was the shoulder that limited him to nine games. But he could get on the field and just you'd look at him and he would make these spectacular plays. And you realize, oh, man, like sometimes I forget like how much talent he actually has. I feel like it was the 2021 season where he racked up a bunch of sacks in just a few games after he came back from injury.

I'm doing this and looking at the stats. Yeah, there was a three-game period in November where he had four and a half sacks in three games. And then I think he got hurt right after that. So it was kind of sandwiched between, it was like sandwiched between periods of time he didn't play. So I think that guy is not lost. I mean, that was only two years ago. I think that guy is still there despite, you know, having a truly down season,

really in half a sack. So I don't know. I guess I'm trying to explain what happened, but also give hope that it's not like you're signing a 35-year-old, that it's the last-ditch effort or anything like that. I think the talent is totally there if he has the right scenario to see it through. This is a thing we struggle with all the time. Like fans like to call players injury prone.

It's hard to say that. Yeah, it's tough. Who can predict their future though? Like because some guys have injuries and it's just bad luck and then they get it back together. But also the accumulate, the number of times in the last five minutes that you've said, well, he had this injury, this injury, this injury. It was a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's pretty concerning.

And that's why you end up with a one-year contract. Before I let you go, I wanted to ask about New Orleans because it became in 2019 my favorite place to be because the playoff game there and everything else, well, I guess technically that was early 2020. Is there a city that you've ever been to that has better food than New Orleans? Oh, that's a really good question. Like United States or like anywhere?

Well, let's just go U.S. U.S. Wow. That's a great question. I mean, obviously, if you go to New York, you have your option of, you know, getting whatever you want. I don't know. I mean, it's tough. It's tough. I kind of feel like I have to rep for my city. You know, I have not been to Minnesota since 2007.

So maybe one day I'll get to go there and see but um yeah I've never covered a game there either which is kind of seems crazy with how many um good games these two teams have had between each other but um yeah I feel like I have to to stick with New Orleans um it's definitely the place where you have to like watch your diet the most. I think it is number one on my list without question. And it was maybe like a day and a half and I may have had like three meals, but I was like, I think these are the three greatest meals I may have ever had in my life. So yeah, it's the best. I'm like trying to like, all I did, I went on vacation recently and um i we had marty groz in vacation in st patrick today so i'm trying to cook at home not eat out at all um which is hard because all i

did was eat out for a month and you know how it is in season you just eat out all the time and it's just impossible to be healthy at all so you have to do it in the off season so this is me trying to not go out and eat new orleans food uh's a struggle. Yeah. I would say, well, in Minnesota too, it goes from either you can't like do anything outside because it's too cold or you can't do anything outside because it's too hot. It goes from minus 10 to a hundred and there's no like nice time to just jog and be outside and whatever else. It's always a struggle. These are all excuses for us being out of shape, but that's okay. We don't have to cut off fingers and play defensive end or anything.

So we're fine. I don't think that would save you much weight, honestly. If you cut off a finger, I don't think that's going to help you. If you're a football player, it's probably not going to help you make weight. No. It really did. I had no uh idea about this finger thing and it's entirely thrown off the whole conversation but uh yeah i would before i leave the way you went here the way i found out oh yes i was just i i had to go grab him in the

locker room um after i don't remember what it was it may have been otas it may have been minicamp he's about to leave and i wanted to ask him to think about the shoulder. And he has this bandage around his hand. And I was like, hey, what happened to your hand? He's like, oh, I cut my pinky off. I thought he was messing with me. I really didn't believe him. And he's like, yeah, no, really, I cut my pinky off.

So he has like three reporters around him. Because you know how it goes in the locker room. People see you talking to a guy that hasn't talked in a while and everyone just like does the shuffle over. Pretty soon there's four of us talking to him and he's explaining like the bandage on his hand and the whole gruesome thing about his finger and how he cut it off. And I think we all double checked. First of all, we asked him if we could, if we were allowed to put that out there. He said yes, he understood we were going to report

about the finger. But I think we all double-checked each other like four times to make sure that we had the correct terminology and why the finger got cut off because I've never experienced anything like this in my career. You see some weird football injuries, but that one, I think that was probably

one of the bigger surprises I've ever had. What you just described there is why if I ever have to miss a day of locker room, you know, my brain just goes haywire. Like, because anything can happen. You could show up to the locker room one day and a guy is lacking a pinky. You just never know.

Or like the one day I missed locker room in 2013, the one day, and I'm serious when I say that, there's like this big to do with the reporter and a player and the player was mad at the reporter and all this stuff happened. And I had sat back from locker room to get work done. And I just couldn't believe that I missed the drama in the locker room that day. And I don't teach you always show up for access.

I'm sure fans listening to this, what are you talking about? Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, uh, this job is never boring. I'll tell you that. No, no, no. You can never, uh, you can never really try to step away from it, but that's totally fine with us. So, no, no. You can never really try to step away from it, but that's totally fine with us. So Cap Thrin, you did a great job at explaining the salary cap and about Marcus Davenport's digits and just the overall context of Marcus Davenport, which I really appreciate. I'm glad we could get together. And you know what?

I didn't set up on my system here to put the Prince photo up over your head. I wish you did. That's my favorite photo I've seen in all of free agency. I'm going to send that to my friends for the rest of eternity. I was glad that the entire nation of football reporters enjoyed that as much as we did here from Harrison Smith. So anyway, well, great to get together with you. Super fun. Hopefully the Vikings play in New Orleans sometime soon. much as we did here from uh harrison smith so anyway well great to get together with you super

fun um hopefully uh the vikings play in new orleans sometime soon and i can go back or you come up here and we will show you the the cheeseburger that is that we're known for the juicy lucy you've heard of it right well we used to have a place down here called juicy lucy and i loved it and it closed down like 10 years ago um I really truly cannot believe I've never covered a game there it's one of like three stadiums I haven't been to and it's such a bummer I didn't get to go to the Metrodome I don't I haven't gotten to go to the new place um one day one day I'll get to go there and go to buffalo and hey like i said vikings and saints seem to always have a lot of great games between them and i enjoy covering it um hopefully we'll have one soon yeah yeah for sure i don't know when schedule wise i'm not one of those freaks that has memorized

the who the division they're playing three years out so we'll just have it happen but let's not use it as an excuse to wait until then to get together so we'll do it again and uh really appreciate your time and uh great to talk with you yeah absolutely anytime