Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Was it win now or rebuild? Vikings fans have a lot of questions about the team's draft approach (a Fans Only pod)

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fans' questions about the team's draft, including which draft pick has the highest ceiling, whether Rick Spielman's old scouts swayed the draft and whether we should look at Kirk Cousins's contract extension differently following the lack of quarterbacks taken in the draft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you, and this is another fans-only podcast. I put it out just two hours ago on Twitter, and there's already 56 replies for questions. There's several emails, several DMs, So I am absolutely loaded with fans only questions. And I always try to get to all of them. This might be a little tough, but throughout the week, I'll have multiple episodes answering all of your NFL draft and Minnesota Vikings draft questions. And, you know, I'm excited to get all the reviews from Chris Trapasso, CBS Sports, Seth

Galena of Pro Football Focus is going to come on. Of course, those guys are going to give us what they thought about the Vikings, what happened with the quarterbacks, how the league has changed since the draft. And I was listening to Kevin Cole of PFF talk about how this year had more trades of first round picks than the last couple of years by almost double. So there's a lot to discuss in the NFL and with the NFL draft. So let's get right to it. Let's open the Diet Dr. Pepper.

And some of you actually have questions about the Diet Dr. Pepper, which I thought was interesting. So hold on. All right, let's start this up. Okay, take a sip and I'll be ready to go. Okay. Leading us off here is Josh Smith at Josh R. Smith, Joshua R. Smith on Twitter. A good friend of the show subscriber on the, on the sub stack. Really appreciate him. A good friend, a good internet friend. We haven't met. But you know, I guess, I guess now in 2022, people can be your friend without having met them in person.

Josh asks, hard to see a true difference maker in this Vikings draft bunch right now, given the various factors and questions with some of the selections. So which player could make the biggest impact on the team in a best case scenario for him? Good question, Josh. Well, I think the answer is kind of obvious. It's probably one of the first two guys drafted. I mean, Lewis scene has a really, really impressive, uh, athletic profile. So I, we try to give you the relative athletic scores because it sort of crystallizes what percentile athlete a guy is coming out and how he performed versus everybody else in the combine.

And Lewis seen was really high. But just to give you sort of percentiles on his exact athletic profile, he's a 93rd percentile height. So he comes in as one of the tallest safeties in the league and 95th percentile 40-yard dash. So one of the tallest and fastest and not just well not that you can really hack the 40 if you're running a 4-3-7 but his 10-yard split was in the 83rd percentile at 1-5-1 which means the quick explosive his broad jump was 133

which I know that reading combine numbers is not exciting, but that's in the 96th percentile. Like Louis seen is an absolute freak athletes. And that to me right off the bat gives him the highest potential ceiling and the potential to be a star player in the NFL because he has the raw athletic ability. Now with Andrew Booth, since the draft, watched a little bit of Andrew Booth. And what I noticed is that, and I'm not going to try to get scouty on you, but I mean, he really plays the ball extremely well. And is it shut down or

locked down corner? Is it Jalen Ramsey? Like like I don't know about that most people are not Jalen Ramsey but if Andrew Booth reaches his full potential I mean he could be a big impact player in the same way that maybe not quite Xavier Rhodes was but yeah well I guess in the last couple of years since Xavier Rhodes they haven't had a guy that I can compare it to because no one has actually been all that good. But think about if you had a slightly better version of what Patrick Peterson was last year. Somebody who's not making game-changing plays all the time, but is good in coverage and is solid against the other team's top wide receiver, when the other team rolls out their best guy, and you have Andrew Booth, this is his potential. This is his ceiling.

He's got a chance to track that guy, because he really has good football skills, and it's not just, oh, an athletic profile, and they drafted him because he runs so fast, or whatever. This is a guy that when you watch, you are impressed by the way he moves the way he gets his head around the way he gets his hands on the ball the plays that he's made and he did it at clemson which is a you know a very quality program uh that played against a lot

of top wide receivers so there's a lot to like there if andrew booth is healthy so both of these guys the first two picks could have in the absolute best case scenario impacts in sort of a poor man's version of Harrison Smith, Xavier Rhodes, like those two guys at their peak Smith and Rhodes are among the best in the league. They're pro bowlers. They're on the number one defense in the NFL. But if it's like 90% of that or 80% of that that's really helping you as a defense in the best case scenario so I think that like improving the secondary and this is where like the freak out over the draft is probably too much questions are totally fair though the freak out is too much because you got two really good players in the secondary

and that's going to matter and so best case scenario is and quesia da fomenta talked about this you get four or five defensive backs that you consider to be very good football players and when people get hurt you don't drop to a usfl caliber player and you can really slow down opposing passing games by having good secondaries. You need good everything to be great as a defense, but if you've got a good secondary, it gives you a chance. And I think what we saw last year, even though the Vikings racked up a ton of sacks, that having a bad secondary, having two or three players out there at once

who could not play, yeah yeah that really tears you apart because the other team is just going to target and target and target your bad players and so even if lewis scene and andrew booth even if they just play and are the average of what we expect from guys that are picked where they're picked i mean that could that could be pretty good. If they're more than that, because their ceilings are decently high, then you could have, you know, the bones of something really good to go forward with in the secondary. So I think that's, that's how they could be a difference maker kind of paired together on their own. It's a little harder. If Lewis seen is a really good safety and here's, we've got plenty of evidence of this and the corners are bad, like it's still going to not be good. Harrison Smith played fine.

If not really good the last couple of years, it didn't matter because they couldn't cover anybody one-on-one. So I think booth is the more important to being a difference maker, uh, you know, and then scene, uh, is a guy who sort of not cherry on top, but you know, and then seen is a guy who's sort of not cherry on top, but, you know, those safeties when they have good cover corners to work with them and good pressure, then they become extremely, extremely dangerous. So it's really interesting that, you know, when you draft positions, how it's a living being thing as a defense, it's not just you draft a receiver he runs by people profit it's sort of

like the pieces all have to connect together to be a great defense and you know if lewis seen is really good but the corners that they drafted are are not and they struggle over the next couple of years then the impact of that top pick lewis seen is not going to be felt in the same way it would if they also got good corners um hopefully that answers the question all right this comes from at bulldogs 13 tv two theories legitimate or tinfoil hat one with this offseason being so similar to previous ones i wonder how much control the gm. Is it plausible that the collaboration group essentially gives the GM a list of things they want and say, make it happen? Or two, I assume the emphasis on defense was Zimmer's fault, but almost everything they did this year was defense related. I wonder

if ownership is in love with the history of the purple people eaters and the current skull chant, essentially mandating that we field a good defense okay let's start with the first one i think that when you talk about collaboration that does mean you're listening to a lot of people and a lot of the people who are there being listened to still still were also there during Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer. That might play some role in how they approached the offseason, but they also have a coaching staff that's mostly new. And the coaching staff is also being brought in on this, as we saw from the signing of Z'Darrius Smith when they talked a lot about how Mike Pettin wanted that.

So you have coaches who have their wants and needs you have a scouting staff that has their opinions on certain types of players and certain types of maybe needs that they should get or where somebody should be picked on the board how much a particular prospect should be valued and then you have Kweisi Adafomensa making the final decision, presumably. I don't think that there's time in a draft room for everybody to take a big old vote. Maybe that is how they do it. I guess we'll have to watch those inside the draft room things that the Vikings put out. But I don't think it was raise your hand if you want a Caleb Evans.

You, you, you, you, okay, let's do it. I don't think that's exactly how it worked but I don't know that that's the cause of the offseason being similar is that Kweisi Adafo Mensah would be listening to all these other people you know I think that once you extend Kirk Cousins all the other things almost have to happen so you guys know that I like to play chess. One of the things that happens in chess is called forced moves. So when you say, put the King in check, the King has to move or it has to be blocked. So it's not in check anymore. That's a forced move. Like once you extend Kirk cousins, all these other things are basically forced moves. You can't get rid of Adam Thielen and take away the second best

receiver that the cousins has. You can't let other people walk out the door who could help you win because you have a 34 year old quarterback. And once ownership says they're not taking a third round or fourth round pick for Kirk cousins, then you're forced to extend cousins. See how these like go one after the next. Um, that's not in the. See how these like go one after the next. That's not in the proper order, but they go one after the next. If you're not going to take the deal, then you have to extend cousins because as we saw the draft for quarterbacks was worse than anybody projected it to be, but I'm sure the Vikings knew that. And so then you're forced to keep those other good players when there's no deals out for them. Then you're forced to really try to rebuild the side of the football that was so bad for last year.

And this ties into part number two, which is, yeah, I mean, maybe they love the history of the purple people eaters. But also the Minnesota Vikings defense is truly horrendous the last two years. Some of it is caused by the offense. We've talked about that on the show, that three and outs are not particularly helpful for you. And the Vikings have had quite a few of those. But as I speak here, I'll try to multitask and look up where the Vikings rank for total points allowed over the last two seasons. It cannot be good. And I think that if you were coming in just with an overall plan,

what is our overall plan, how we're going to improve, once you are forced to do those other things, then you're forced to try to make that defense that's been so awful over the last two years a lot better. And shout out to football reference here. Always a super helpful thing. Okay, I've got it. The Vikings have allowed the sixth most points in the NFL over the last two years. And again, it's not all the defense that there's been some clock management.

You're punting too often. You're three and out too often. Those things cause this to happen in part, but sixth most points allowed, that means no doubt your defense is super bad. And I think that that was where they were forced to go, is to improve the defense once they did those other things. And then you also have to look out in the future. Patrick Peterson

is here for one year unless he plays great then maybe it's two Harrison Smith is here for probably two more years like you need answers for these very important positions going forward especially on cornerback but Harrison Smith has been such a big part of this that you're looking for the next Harrison Smith knowing how valuable he is so you're not necessarily drafting for this this that you're looking for the next Harrison Smith knowing how valuable he is so you're not necessarily drafting for this year but you're also looking out to the future as well saying you need to develop corners you need to have this playmaking safety or it's going to be pretty tough to improve that number that really bad defense it probably won't be completely overhauled in one year. So you're

probably thinking a year out as well. That's the best explanation I think I can give. And now I need a sip of diet, Dr. Pepper. People ask how many I had during the draft. I didn't count. It was a lot. I mean, I've always got one, you know, like, I don't know if people are like this, like maybe if I was alive in the fifties, I would have just been smoking, but instead it's diet Dr. Pepper. Like just, I'm the person who would have had the cigarette all the time in my hand, but instead it's this. And, um, I don't know, maybe the FDA can tell me which one is actually worse for you.

Let's see. All right. This comes from Bob h332 uh do we actually have good competition for right guard anybody able to slide over to center so yeah i mean it depends on your definition of good competition uh ed ingram only played left guard according to pro football focus looked up every snap that he took. All of them were at left guard. So they said he has positional flexibility, but he has not played that position in college and flexibility, just meaning right to left, not tackle or not center. So, I mean, you know,

you could say, well, that's not that hard to move someone from left to right guard, but I think that it is for a rookie. I'm not sure where he fits into that competition. Ed Ingram for the first year is very likely going to be a backup. So then you're talking about three guys, Jesse Davis, Chris Reed, and Wyatt Davis as being the competition for right guard. Ole Udo, I think is out of this, but maybe they'll throw in some reps to see if he improved how comfortable he was there. I think it just wasn't a very good fit for Oli Udo. He's much more of a swing tackle and that's where he'll be. Chris Reed, I think is a decent player. Think about what was it, 2019, what Josh Klein gave the Vikings is basically what Chris Reed has given his players, I'm sorry,

his teams over the last couple of years. He hasn't been a hall of famer or a pro bowler or a star, but he's been much closer to average than say absolutely terrible. And it is incredible when you look up the Vikings guard performances in recent years, and we know some of this is caused by the quarterback, by the fact that Cousins is not as affected by the outside pressure as the inside pressure. And even when Brandon Sheriff was on his team, he still had the majority of pressure coming from the inside. So that tells you just how difficult it is to block for somebody who stays in one spot in the

pocket. If you're an interior offensive lineman from that perspective, Jesse Davis and Chris Reed really have their work cut out. And is it a huge difference maker? Well, I mean, it's going to be better. Presumably either one of those two would be better than what Ole Udo did last year. But is it a good competition? No, it's more of a necessary competition with two players who have proven that they can start in the NFL at a fairly competent level. That's not exactly hyping up our training camp right guard competition takes, but that's kind of what it is and if Wyatt Davis comes in and really surprises us and blows our faces off with how great he is well then you know he'll be in that mix too and maybe Ed Ingram gets a try over there but I think Ezra Cleveland is pretty well set being their left guard and again maybe we're surprised by that they are going to have

a different running scheme it's not going to be the wide zone uh they're calling it their the middle zone like i guess we'll have to figure out what that means but uh they talked about how bigger offensive guards can thrive in this system uh and you know i don't know so what that means for ezra cleveland i'm not sure but i think ezra cleveland proved that he can start in the league last year. So you're pretty well locked into that. So good? No. Exciting? Not necessarily, but it is a competition for sure. And I guess we'll see if Ingram ends up working his way into that. Spending a second round pick on a player who isn't going to have much of a chance to start there falls under that category of being pretty questionable beyond just the character stuff folks well there

is plenty of classic football gear to check out it's soda stick the hockey playoffs are beginning and you can jump on board with soda sticks amazing hockey designs dollar bill krill moose madonna the old north stars logo they've got everything for you for a deep playoff run hats shirts hoodies and prints for your fan cave go to soda stick.com that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com use the code purple insider for 15 off all right this is from from josh at j holla halada 316 all right did the vikings make a mistake by not taking an edge rusher on day two they seem to be putting a lot of faith in the health of hunter and smith while reaching for a guard with a concerning arrest on his record and taking an off-ball linebacker. I mean, I think this is exactly right, Josh. Yes, very much.

I mean, the fact that there were guys on the board that they could have looked at as pass rushers, it really surprises me that they didn't just take one of those guys. I can't really tell you that I have a good explanation for it because when you look at even the price of a pass rusher who's just kind of a guy, somebody with a halfway decent history, it still costs you money in free agency to get those guys. And the depth that they have right there right now, there are a lot of bodies and maybe they

believe in some guys that are there. But I mean, I haven't seen any evidence to say that a Kenny Willekes or a Patrick Jones or a Janarius Robinson is somebody who's set to be the next edge rusher at this position. And this was also a draft. And we've talked about how the draft analysts do get it wrong from time to time but this was also a draft that was discussed as being really deep and really good at the edge rusher position so from that perspective i mean i i do think it's very surprising that they didn't go at that spot

or at almost any spot until the fifth round with a pass rusher and really even in the fifth round they got somebody who is a total project player and not considered to be someone who's going to step in right away and make a huge difference when it comes to you know getting after the passer so surprised absolutely maybe there's another option here they don't have a lot of money to spend after the draft and I mean they have some probably enough to bring in a situational rusher but it's not like they just have oodles of cash laying around to go get whoever they want so yeah I think that as we pick apart like what the good things they did were and what the mistakes might have been not getting someone who you can develop into a

future starter and could help right away at the edge rusher position probably is a mistake all right on to the next one tan the man on twitter at T-A-N-N underscore the underscore man. How much of a tell is it on this year's draft class that no future picks were used to move up in round one and very few picks were used in the later rounds to move up and down? I don't have my list of all the picks that they used to move up and down in the second half. They did trade up for Andrew Booth was the first trade up. And then they also traded up for a Caleb Evans, I think, right. To start the fourth round a tell, I don't know. You know, I don't think that they really could have gone into this thing,

especially with their cap situation saying let's compete for AJ Brown because AJ Brown signed what a $25 million per year contract or something right after he was traded. They weren't in that ballpark, um, for the miserable receivers who want to get paid club. Uh, they were not led into that. And you know, I mean, if they were going to move up to get someone like Derek Stingley at three or Sauce Gardner at four, I think they would have been held hostage. I mean, they would have had to given up a next year's first to do that because the Jets were mocked to take Sauce Gardner for I don't know how long if he ended up getting to number four. And Derek Stingley, after his pro day, it was very clear that he was not making getting to number four. And Derek Stingley, after his pro day, it was very clear that he was not making it to number 12. Like if you were still mocking Derek Stingley

to number 12 after that pro day, like that was just not gonna happen because the league is looking at that guy's traits and his upside and saying he could be a superstar corner. They're gonna take him very high. So he went number three. If you wanted to get into that range that would have been really difficult so then who are you trading up for and why would

you be using next year's capital actually now that i think of it they did use a fourth round pick from next year to move up so they did a little bit um to do this to draft the player that they wanted but no they didn't use, you know, their first round pick from next year to go all in on something. I don't know what it would be that you would go all in on. If you were absolutely in love with a quarterback, then you would do it or desperate for a quarterback. Then you would do it. But that's only when there are first round prospects as quarterbacks. And this year there was just one. So next year also, I mean, it just stands to reason that they're going to draft a quarterback in the first round

next year, unless Kirk Cousins takes them to the NFC championship that based on his contract and his age, it makes so much sense for them to be in that mix to take a first round quarterback next year. You wouldn't want to move your first round pick from next season to move up or even really a second that you might have to use in a trade up for next year. Like that would just be a bad play. And if you go into a draft thinking only about next year, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. You really need to think a couple of years out, a couple of drafts out as you're formulating your plan so they did use a little capital to go get their guy from next year but only a chris herndon trades worth in a fourth round pick all right this comes from at jeff the johnson jeff a longtime follower

quacey's approach this offseason could work they might feel the very good team and either make Kirk a better and or find a QB OTF. What is that? QB OTF. Jeff, you need to spell these things out for me. Oh, QB of the future. Beautiful. In the next few years. But do you think it limits the amount of slack he will have? He's kind of on Rickick's script so failure would mean immediate frustration so let me just recap what you're saying is the way that they've done things this year there's a chance that they're good but uh there's not much room for the rebuild part of competitive rebuild when it comes to patience with quesia dafomensa and I think that that is right. And that there shouldn't be because they chose a direction. And again, there's not a lot of rebuild to the competitive rebuild.

Like they drafted like a regular football team this year. They got to players of positions that they need now and later. Like they didn't do anything that said, Oh my gosh, like they went all in for the future. They didn't keep trading down and take 15 draft picks like Rick Spielman did, which is more of a future kind of draft. What was that, 2020? I mean, that is we need bodies. We need darts. We need as many chances as we can.

This is how we're rebuilding. Well, they didn't do that either. They did a very standard, here's some players we like. Here's some positions we need plug them in see if it works out uh you would have drafted this way if you were trying to win this year right i i think i don't think there's any more rebuilding than there is win now to this draft i mean you're hoping andrew booth is helpful right away. You're hoping Louis Scene is a starter and that other guys can be depth for you. Special teams or if somebody goes down that maybe a player develops through the season.

Those are not big-time rebuild moves. And I think that this organization should be held to the same standard, not just because it's a different person, but the standard that they set by taking the direction they did. If they had not extended Kirk Cousins and said, we're just going to let his contract play out, then that would have been very much sort of a future kind of move. If they had kept Kirk Cousins, but then moved other guys to stack up more draft capital, even if it was thirds and fourths for other trades, then that would have been very rebuildy and there would have been more patience, but there's no reason to have patience.

I mean, when they say we're going to be quote, super competitive, you better be super competitive. And when you make moves in free agency, like getting Jordan Hicks, Patrick Peterson, like these are short-term moves. Those are not long-term players like Harrison Phillips, I thought was the type of signing that you can lock in for a few years. And if they did that, even that would have a future projection out to say, well, look, I mean, Harrison Phillips doesn't change your fate this year, but he is going to be on a much stronger roster next year, two years, three years from now, kind of a core player in his prime. But that's not what Jordan Hicks is. That's not what Patrick Peterson is. And that's not really

what Zedaria Smith is. Zedaria Smith is a win this year right now, keeping Daniil Hunter win this year right now. And I think the expectation should be you're deep in the playoffs. And even if that expectation does not meet what we think will be reality, like what we think will be reality shouldn't be the expectation, right? Like the expectation is set by the path that they chose and they chose a path to be quote super competitive so that's what they better be or Kweisi Adafo Mensah is going to have a lot of heat on him right away from the fans and there's some questions I'm going to get to later where people wonder like you know should they should they stay on board with this um and we'll talk about that but you know i i think when you go down that

road and you don't do the more prudent long-term thing which was to rebuild a team that failed for two straight years to make the playoffs and over the last four years has been overall failure if you don't change that then you better get different results all right this comes from scott mccullough another longtime supporter of the show and of the newsletter he says i find it ironic that we spend weeks before the draft talking about how no one has the answers and then we use expert lists to judge a pick in the end it's really about the process so how do you feel about uh how do you feel quasi balanced competitive and rebuild given the number of trades well let me say this first here's what history says about the consensus draft board it says that if you reach on players which the vikings did a number of times if you reach on players, which the Vikings did a number of times, if you reach on players,

and we'll have actually Arif Hasan is going to come on later this week to kind of explain this, that you are taking a huge risk. Now, if you select guys who drop, you are not, according to just the way people have studied the consensus board. So all of the top draft analysts are put together in a pot by a reef of the athletic. And there's also other people who have done similar things to this and they give you where all the draft analysts think that players should fall. And if you're the ones who take Cole strange in the first round, or you're the ones who take Ed Ingram in the second round, those picks could work out. But what history tells you is that the risk of that thing going bust is much higher than if you pick around the same area someone was expected

or if someone drops and you're the one that takes them. So if you're the team that takes N'Kobe Dean because he dropped due to a health issue, that doesn't mean that guy goes bust. But if you reach on cole strange there's a very good chance that he's not worth it or he goes bust and i think it is fair to judge someone's draft against the analyst and reporting universe because of what that history says now that doesn't mean they always get it right. And we have criticized them for the quarterback situation for this year, but there is sort of a wisdom in crowds element of this where historically it just adds to the possibility that you got it wrong. So you have to have a really good reason to reach and we weren't given a really good reason

for ed ingram in particular but you have to give you have to have a really good reason to reach you have to see something that other people don't and that is overconfidence to me in drafting being as random as it can be i think it's overconfidence to believe that we're the team that sees something. No one else sees it. I mean, that's why the Raiders are where they are. And why Mike Mayock doesn't have a job is because the Raiders constantly went totally against the consensus board. Now, if we're talking later picks, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, oh, you know, PFF has the guy at number 200 and they took him at 165 i don't think

that changes the odds much but i do think if someone is in the fourth round and you take them in the second round uh that's that is worth using the experts list to compare when there's a big gap okay so to your point how did he balance the competitive and the rebuild? I don't know that there was any real rebuild. Like, there was no thing that they did that leaned so heavily toward rebuild that I would go, oh, wow, what a rebuild draft. Like, no, I think that it was to be competitive by drafting a starter and an immediate depth player. And Andrew Booth will compete with Cam Dantzler.

I mean, you can bet on that. So immediate depth player and Andrew Booth will compete with Cam Dantzler I mean you can bet on that so immediate depth player the second and third round pick the Ingram and Asamoah picks are much more toward the future I don't know if that is really truly like a rebuild angle though because if you're if you're doing a reboot I think we need to define like if you're doing a rebuild draft you want as many players as you could possibly have for one. And you want them to be at the positions that matter the most in terms of surplus value, what you would pay for that player. If that player was a free agent and they were good versus what they'll give you on their rookie contract. And that means wide receiver, pass rusher corner. Like those are the top three tackle would be

another one which obviously the vikings don't need at all so we could throw that out but you know they went a little heavy on the on the corners with two of them in one in the second and one in the fourth which i would praise and say that's a good idea but the other positions they just left and so if they were drafting edge rushers and corners and wide receivers and that was the pretty much the majority of the draft i i would say well that was very rebuildy because those are your cornerstone players as opposed to you know a guard whose ceiling is maybe being an average player or a linebacker who might fit well in what Ed Donatell wants to do. But nonetheless, I mean, we're talking about an undersized linebacker that

is taken around the same area as Chaz Surratt or Troy Dye. And, you know, like those guys aren't like foundational type of players, or even if they're average, they're not giving you a ton of surplus value. So I guess that's why I would say it's kind of neither competitive or rebuild, but it leans more toward competitive because Louis Scene can come in and help right away. Okay. This is from Jerry Lohse, J-B Lohse on Twitter, L-O-H-S-E, maybe similar to Kyle Loesch. Maybe it's the same pronunciation, former Twins pitcher. Barring a complete disaster of a season, to have any shot at drafting a quarterback next year,

the Vikings really need to have a couple of these QBs from the 2022 class hit to eliminate those teams from drafting one next year. No, this is a good question, Jerry. I like this this let's see let's go to the list of football teams and let's try to figure out who might need a quarterback next year what a good question uh all right so the miami dolphins could definitely need a quarterback next year um just going division by division here,

Pittsburgh probably won't, even if Kenny Pickett is a good, but they have a chance to finish last in that division. Everybody else in the North is set in the AFC South, the Texans. I mean, Texans, they, they are drafting CJ Stroud or they are drafting Bryce young, right? I mean, the Texans should win three, four games. their coach maybe last year won too many games for them like no we need worse uh they might I mean it's altogether possible that Davis Mills plays just good enough to be something for them but Texans would be the far and away favorite here probably for the number one pick the Titans could need a quarterback next year. Indianapolis could be looking for their future quarterback

if Matt Ryan doesn't play great. So I've got four teams right now that could be looking or really definitely will be. Nobody in the AFC West. In the NFC East, the New York Giants definitely will, so that's five. The Commanders could be that six. Philadelphia, seven. Detroit, will, so that's five. The Commanders could be that six. Philadelphia, seven. Detroit, for sure, that's eight.

They're another team that if things go bad for them this year, they could be all the way down at the bottom. Chicago, Justin Fields is not their guy. I want to throw them in that category and call it nine. Atlanta, for sure, so that's ten. Carolina's 11. The Saints are 12. Tampa bay tom brady i swear will retire at some point that's 13 the cardinals are going to keep kyler murray i think so i don't

want to put them in that category that's a reach seattle definitely so that's 14 teams 14 teams could be possibly looking for a quarterback next year. Maybe some of them will solve their issues by trading for Jimmy Garoppolo or Baker Mayfield. But I also don't think that precludes them from drafting a quarterback next year. So let's just call it anywhere between 10 and 14 teams. And we didn't count the Minnesota Vikings either. Yeah. So even if the ones, Oh, your question was if the ones that hit, so where are they hitting? Uh, Washington got Sam Howell, right? Like that doesn't seem super likely. So he's not going to play. Uh, Matt Corral could hit

in Carolina or at least convince them that he's a hit. Uh, Malik Willis, if he shows that he can be really good as a backup or in preseason, but he's so raw that is he going to convince the Titans if they're terrible that they shouldn't draft a top guy? Probably not. The teams that took these quarterbacks, I mean, it's really a stretch for those players to hit to the point where they could say, no, we have our franchise quarterback. So I still see about 10, 10 plus teams that are likely to be looking for quarterbacks next year for long term options, which, you know, I mean, that's it's going to be the competition will be stiff if that's what the vikings are looking for in 2023 to make a draft pick there or they could end up pushing it even farther out i don't know

but you know we'll see i mean so much changes in a year but just trying to project it right now there will be a lot of teams who said oh the reason we didn't pick one of those quarterbacks in 2022 is because of 2023 and there will also be angry quarterbacks too guys who you know don't like where they're at and so forth so lots changes we'll see what happens but yeah i think that kind of illustrates it right all right this from gone fishing. Why go near a guy like Ingram with a second-round pick? Did Quasey actually use analytics to support taking this guy here? With questionable background, he's more of a fourth-round flyer in my eyes. I can see taking a chance on him, but not in the second round.

I mean, you and me are on the same page, my friend, and that's exactly how I feel. The fourth round flyer. I just think that if you're going to really go into a lot of detail about how you're trying to change up your culture, you don't have to draft somebody with this background. That is something I keep coming back to. As if there weren't other guards, there were other guards.

And let me just tell you too, this isn't a big swing for the fences. In terms of those percentiles I was talking about, like where Ed Ingram stands for his athleticism, he ran a decent 40, a good 40, but he's undersized for the position. Six foot three, 307 pounds, a really poor vertical jump. Everything else, pretty average. I'm going to look up what relative athletic scores. I mean, this is just, it's just a confounding decision. It's just a confounding decision. He had good pass blocking numbers for lsu in college but the scouting reports that you read on him don't rave about his pass blocking technique that it could be wrong of course could

be wrong but yeah he was a 74th percentile athlete so not anything special as far as his combine numbers i don't get it and i wish we had a better explanation we didn't get one uh he has good feet was what we were told all right well mike max and his good feet store ads on wcco radio would be happy with that but uh for the rest of it i don't know i don't know yeah it's a it's a hard one to figure out. Even if they didn't, even if we didn't have the background issue, I think we'd be going, huh? Like, I mean, okay. But I didn't hear anybody saying about Ed Ingram leading up to the draft or read anyone who said, oh gosh, if it wasn't for this background thing i mean he would just have this unbelievable

ceiling and all sorts of teams wanting him um you know it's it and also if like you said though if it was a fourth round pick there wouldn't be so much focus on it like this is a valuable pick this is what you traded with the lions to get another uh you know second rounder and nfl.com projected him in the fifth round i mean this is not this is not a small difference a fifth round pick taken in the second i don't know nfl.com is usually fairly accurate in where guys go uh so and it's you know right here um ingram's run blocking is a notch below his pass protection and might not be in an area where he improves as a pro. He lacks prototypical girth and bend leverage and power at the point of attack,

and his motor to sustain blocks is inconsistent. However, teams with patchy pass protection along the interior could bump Ingram up their board. Well, that's certainly what the Vikings did. They bumped him up the board a lot. So, yeah, you know, look, I try hard to not get on one – and I know some of you are going to be like, what about Kirk? Well, he's the quarterback, okay? Like to get on one thing and just not ever let it go.

But this is, I think, one of the biggest things to come out of this draft is this very bizarre pick where nobody thought this player would go. So we will move forth. We will move forth. Uh, this from at Kev bot. Hi Matthew. I know we wanted quasi to analytics the draft, but do you think things have mostly stayed the same because we had the same scouting department i think it's fair uh i think it is it fair to think that it may be completely different next draft i don't mean to bring up the 2023 draft already oh look kev bot draft simulations are going man it's time 2023 draft sims let's do this i don't know i don't know know. But I'm not ready to give that as an excuse, I guess.

I mean, what the scouts do is they go to their different areas and they write their reports and they give grades on players. And then everybody comes together and they look at them. Your director of college scouting, your player personnel, people, everybody gets together. They look at them and they start to make up their board and talk about these are my top players from my area. Here's the number that I put on them here. Do I think this guy could be a hall of famer, pro bowler, average starter, below average starter, backup player, that kind of thing.

Where do we put them? And they all, and they start to form their draft board and rank their players. And then as they get into the draft process, they start to go through the mocks and the Sims and they figure out if what happens, then who off our board would we want to go to in this spot? When would we want to trade down? And then the way that Kweisi Adafomensa appears, this is very much appears because I'm not in there in the draft room. None of us are to be handling things is that he's taking advice and opinions on what to do as things are coming

off the board. Is this someone we want to spend our big draft capital on? Is this someone we don't? Et cetera, et cetera. Is this what we want to trade? Could we get this player and that player if we trade back? All those things are going on. But at the end, the guy who makes the call is Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. And he's the one deciding on the position.

He's the one deciding on the position. He's the one deciding on the value, and he's the one deciding on who they want to have on this team long term based on those scouting reports. But I don't think that the scouting reports or the scouts are going to be so massively different than other scouts they bring in. Also, Ryan Grigson, who seemed to play a big role in this thing, was not with this team. Ryan Grigson was with Cleveland to play a big role in this thing, was not with this team. Ryan Grigson was with Cleveland and was previously the general manager of Indianapolis.

So I don't really buy that. I don't buy that all of a sudden next year, Kweisi will analytics the thing. Also, the scouts we spoke to, director of college scouting, assistant director of college scouting, I mean, they talked about the analytics element and the math element of figuring out the value that quacey brought to this thing so this is a quacey adafo mensa draft he can run away from that all he wants uh but there's no there's nobody else whose name goes on it other than the general manager who makes the final calls on these things and i don't think that you have a former Spielman scout in the back of the room saying, Kweisi, I demand you take this player. Like the

scouting reports that the Vikings have from their scouts are probably going to look fairly similar to every other team who looked at all of the same potential prospects, right? And so then you have to make decisions as the GM on the value of those things that you're buying when your scouts are telling you maybe this guy or that guy is not more valuable. But when you don't take an edge rusher and take a guard like that's that's not, oh, a scout told me like that's you're making an active decision to take a less valuable position. So, you know, I mean, that Ingram might turn out to be a really good player for them. I don't know. I guess none of us will know until we start to see them in training camp and preseason games and it plays out.

But there was no analytics the draft here. It was a pretty standard draft. But I don't think that you put that on anybody except for the general manager. OK, so I wanted to end with a more fun question. There's some kind of heavy questions here that, you know, I kind of didn't want to end on like a dour note. Well, I'll do it anyway. All right. This comes from, let's see, how do i say this twitter name mar delicious 23 on twitter how do i continue to follow this team if they don't do anything to change their own misfortune and continue to plot along the path of mediocrity can you talk me into them playing the long game and building the

team around a new quarterback next year yeah yeah i yeah, I think that, well, there's a couple of things. I mean, plotting along in mediocrity, unfortunately, if we're putting out all the outcomes, what is the least likely? Like, let's do this real quick as an exercise to try and figure out the answer to this question. Because I get this a lot. You know, people will say, how is this different? Why should I why should i watch i mean first of all what are you doing on sunday i mean you're probably going to watch this football team but if you're investing your time to listen to

even a show like this and be engaged in what's going on i think you want to know that it matters and so if we lay out all the outcomes we we would say being truly terrible, winning like two or three games is unless Sean Mannion plays, it's to quote Ralph Wiggum, impossible. I mean, Kirk Cousins will win seven games by being Kirk Cousins himself. So right there's your baseline. So let's say if we're pie charting this, there's like, you know, 5% chance, 10% chance that they're really bad. And then if we're talking about seven to 10 wins, that's like 60%, 70% chance. And then anything else is, you know, maybe a 10 or 15, 20% chance.

I don't know if I added that up, right? Definitely didn't. But you understand what i'm saying is that the pie chart has this huge percentage between seven and ten wins and slivers for every other outcome um so that's one of the reasons that you would not want to follow them plotting along in mediocrity uh i would say though that we don't know how that pie chart changes with a new head coach, which I think becomes the number one storyline is that they didn't really help Kevin O'Connell,

so they must very much believe that he's got answers. In those other slivers, it becomes really shocking and wild. And aren't the Vikings the slivers all the time? Like, yes, last year was pretty predictable, but it was also unpredictable from game to game. And every game was crazy at the end. Like this franchise has so many wild and shocking and unpredictable things. I would have said the same thing to you before 2017.

And maybe I've mentioned this before, but I remember having a conversation with my boss Brad Lane at 1500 in 2017 after Bradford went down about traveling and he was like look I don't think it's going to be worth it to travel on the road because this team is just like not going to be good they're going to win like eight games and there's no point. And yeah, I ended up traveling quite a bit because they won 13 games. The slivers are what makes sports fascinating. And we watch for them, the things we don't expect, the outcomes we don't expect. If this team wins four games, it's going to be insane. Like it's going to be a calamity.

That place will burn to the ground if they win four games after going all in to be super competitive. By the same token, if they win 12 games, then they're a legitimate competitor for the Super Bowl. And the margins are thin, and the league is weird, and the NFC is not that good. And that's what you watch for. Uh, if it ends up being a massive time suck though, there are people responsible and changes that have to be made in a direction that has to go somewhere and a new quarterback for sure. If they end up with seven wins or eight wins and then all of a sudden, and that's what we're looking to find out here for this season. So that's the best way i can describe it to you but i understand the feeling i i totally understand the feeling that when you're

minnesota wild fans probably feel this way right like how good it is to have a really competitive team after so many years of just being mediocre i think mediocre is way tougher to talk about and way less interesting than bad. Bad is usually hilarious and crazy and funny and weird and good. We don't see a whole lot of that recently in Minnesota sports except for the Lynx, but think about the Lynx. Think about filling the stadium and hall of famers and greatest of all time players and all those things and what that means to have that it's those uh extreme outcomes that are the most interesting and this team has not lived there so i completely understand the feeling it's the extreme outcomes that we wonder if they could

happen that i could tell you if they're falling apart or they're winning every week that you're going to want to be here for it. So I think that's the best I can do. All right. Tons of questions still to go. I was trying to keep it around 40 and I ended up with 55 minutes almost here talking, but that's how many great questions we have still remaining. There will be episodes just sprinkled in throughout the week. Look for them. I label them, you know, the fans only if you enjoy it. Send me an email. Send me a tweet. We're going to work our way through the offseason doing this on a regular basis until you folks stop having Minnesota Vikings questions, which I'm guessing is never. So I really enjoy doing these episodes. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk again soon.