Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Was Jared Allen overrated? How many passes will Dalvin Cook catch? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Matthew Coller answers questions from Minnesota Vikings fans, including whether former Viking legend Jared Allen was overrated, how the Vikings could get to 12 wins and which factors will determine that and how many passes Dalvin Cook can be expected to catch this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is another fans-only podcast. Your tremendous questions from either email at purpleinsider.com, the top right corner, there's a contact us. Or if you're on Twitter, you can direct message me if you've got a little bit of a longer question, or send me just the regular tweet, the at mention, and just tell me, Hey, I want this for the fans only podcast. I'll throw it in the file and we'll continue to run down your very good questions as we go throughout the summer. And I was looking at the schedule the other day, and I kind of had an anxiety spike because we have an idea now of uh everybody's training camp schedule i think the vikings have

the rookies coming in either july 24th or july 25th and just pulling up my calendar we are about a month away from that so as we get out of june into july then we'll go down the stretch we'll do all of our training camp previews every single single storyline will run through them. We'll start to ramp up the guests from other teams that the Vikings will be playing this year and other guests who cover the complete league and all those sorts of things as we go along. So let's get right into it. I'll open a Diet Dr. Pepper. And we can jump into your questions. Here we all right this comes from andrew via the email he says is there any reason that kenny wong woo can't be the same or better than what jerek

mckinnon was in minnesota was jet more of a traditional running back my memory is that he was very much like kenny wong woo no, I think that that's actually a tremendous comparison because I don't know if Kenny Wong Wu is exactly going to be the guy who runs like Delvin Cook does 275 times a year and is that number one running back. He's never been that before. That doesn't completely mean he can't be it's just that in college he was more of a 1b or a kind of a change of pace type of back and now in the nfl he's only gotten a handful of carries so could he be a guy that has more of a type of role where he gets 100 carries a year 120 carries a year along, along with someone else, maybe after Delvin

Cook is gone or when Delvin Cook gets banged up, that he's the guy that steps in and switches on and off with Alexander Madison as opposed to Alexander Madison just getting all of the carries. And I was just pulling up the numbers on, you you know Kenny Wong Wu's combine from two years ago a 4-3-2-40 is just amazing and I won't read you these other numbers but if you're wondering about like the percentiles of his athleticism the 10-yard split he was in the 98th percentile so that's when you're talking about quickness and that first step in the first 10 yards. And if you look at Jarek McKinnon, he ran a 4-4-1 and was in the 97th percentile of the 10-yard split. So they ran almost the same in terms of quickness.

And, you know, Jarek McKinnon, it's kind of funny, had played some quarterback in college. So he wasn't necessarily a traditional running back either but he was very good when it came to the screen passes which i think is a place you can use kenny wongwu and they can really line him up in some different places run him in motion you know find different ways to get wongwu on the field like the vikings did a little bit with Jarek McKinnon, but in hindsight probably could have done actually more of that. And maybe there's a Cordero Patterson type of, he's not going to be a wide receiver for Kenny Wong Wu, but maybe you line them up in different spots and find ways to get him

the football. I mean, when you look at those speed numbers and then you see what Kenny Wong was already done with the football in his hands there's no reason that they shouldn't find more ways uh to work him into the offense even if it's three four five plays a game when delvin cook is 100 healthy a guy with that type of speed and quickness you want in but as far as the comparison goes how much they're going to use Delvin Cook. Will it be the same way as in previous years? I would be surprised if it is the same way of previous years, but sometimes like football coaches are football coaches and Delvin Cook is a tremendously talented player.

He's one of the top running backs in the league. And so there might be some feeling of, we want to have this guy out there every single down because he's one of the best players in the league. That was how the previous coaching staff felt. And I think a lot of that had to do with the running backs coach, Kennedy Palomalu, who absolutely loved Delvin Cook and wanted him in the game. So I think it would be smart to rotate like like they did a little bit with um you know latavius murray and jerek mckinnon when delvin cook was out i think that wouldn't be a bad idea if delvin cook ended up with 200 carries as opposed to almost 300 and you got kenny wong woo 75 and alexander madison is mixing in as well that might be the right way to go about it. But that will be one of the storylines as we go into training camp.

Does it look like Ken, Ken a Wong was getting those second running back reps, or is it purely Alexander Madison in mini camp? It was Ken a Wong Wu mixing in at times with Madison. But as we go into the training camp, that's when Ken a Wong will, will have to prove that he can handle all the pass blocking assignments that he fits really well with the offensive scheme and has learned the scheme. Um, and, you know, kind of show the coaching

staff that they can trust him. If Delvin cook is taking a breather for a series or something like that. Uh, and also he's going to have to learn if they're putting him in those different spots, where he's supposed to line up, what the motions are. Like it's not as easy as Madden where you just sort of punch in, okay, I'm going to move this running back to receiver. I used to take the fastest corners. I think this was like Madden 04. I would take the fastest corner on the team and then just move them to wide

receiver and then throw them the ball all the time. And was fine like it doesn't really work that way uh so with Wong Wu he does have to show this coaching staff that's getting the first look at him that he can handle these assignments but if he can then he should have a role on this team and then maybe as you go in the future if they move on from Delvin Cook after this year maybe it is Kenny Wong Wu and somebody else as a Latavius Murray and Jarek McKinnon but as far as who they are as players Wong Wu is bigger as far as height McKinnon was kind of a not a bowling ball but he was just really strong he was short but he was very very strong Wong was a little bit taller but very similar in terms of their speed and the fact that they don't have a traditional this guy ran 400 times a year

in college type of background of being a draft pick and one was taken in the third the other was taken in the fourth so I think there's a lot of similarities there okay next one comes from Peter I think this was an email I'm a longtime vikings fan and i have an opinion that will likely antagonize many other vikings fans well peter you should have tweeted it then uh i think jared allen is overrated while allen could be counted on for three to five big plays per game it seemed like he was pretty much invisible for the rest of the game he seemed to get routinely overpowered by bigger tackles the truly great defensive lineman consistently blow things up and create havoc even when they're not getting a sack

i think the fact that alan had a big personality and a lot of charisma which i actually really liked inflated fans and media members evaluation of how good and effective he really was. Do you think that my perspective outlined has merit? I know this was before your time in Minnesota, but I still value your opinion on this. And can you think of the most notable example of the Vikings or NFL in general, where the converse was true that a player was truly great, but was underrated because he had a low profile personality. Okay. A lot there.

So first I have to go to the numbers on Jared Allen, uh, because we always need a guidepost. I think to tell us about like, that's, that's, I think the best way to use a lot of statistics, right.

Is to use them as a guidepost. To start there. Like what this guy's numbers said and then we can work our way down. Let's go back to he would have played last in 2015. So if you're wondering like how do I figure out stuff when I'm writing articles, this is kind of how. Is I just go to the numbers first and then start looking around and gathering other information. And I think by the PFF numbers that I have here. So, you know what?

Actually, interestingly, he played more in the PFF era than I thought. I did not realize they have grades all the way back to 2006. I guess I thought that he would have been maybe more past his career, past the prime years of his career with PFF. So this is interesting. Wow. I'm going to have to investigate more numbers from farther back because usually I'm only looking at ones from the last few years when I'm studying today's NFL players. So this is great. But as far as quarterback pressures, he was tremendous.

He peaked at 75 pressures in a season in 2012, which is astonishing to have 75 pressures an entire season. And you go back to some of those sack years, really, really effective. His pass rushing grades are phenomenal, but your intuition about the other parts of his game, about the run defense and the tackling is somewhat correct. When he was a Viking, he did not grade very well by PFF as far as the run defense part of the game. Now, of course, he wasn't asked to cover or anything else like that. And his tackling grades are mostly okay, but his run defense was below average for 2008, 2009, and 2010, and as a whole on his career, pretty mediocre.

What I would say is, though, I understand what you're getting at as far as someone like Everson Griffin would impact every play at his best. And he would have great run defensive grades. And there's other defensive ends that are like that, that were the true defensive end that is playing a huge role in every part of the game. So historically, there are guys like that. What I would say though, is Jared Allen making those couple of huge plays a game cannot be discounted for what those are worth. So he's 16th all time when it comes to total sacks. And there are some studies that have looked at the impact of sacks that show that they're almost the same. And in some instances, even better than interceptions. Like if you throw a long pass and

it's intercepted okay well that's might not be a big deal if it's 40 yards down the field or something like that but you get sacked and then you move the chains back you have to punt the other team gets a punt return like you can lose a lot from a sack you can be in the midst of a great drive a momentum changing drive in a game. And here comes Jared Allen off the edge and he beats his tackle and is completely takes out that entire drive from the offense. So, well, I don't think, you know, by the numbers that Jared Allen was the unbelievable all around player, like Bruce Smith, Reggie White, those guys who did absolutely everything, the all timers of the all timers. I, I do think that when someone can create

14, 15, 22 sacks in a year, that that is a lot of plays that are destroying drives for the other team. And it's worth a lot. But I also think that your criticism is fair and it is accurate by the numbers. Like you said, I didn't see every Jared Allen game, but this would be my process for kind of quickly figuring out, like, is someone's take worth listening to? And I think that yours is worth listening to on this matter. That doesn't mean I wouldn't put Jared Allen in the Hall of Fame

because he was one of the best pass rushers ever, and his pressure rates are phenomenal, and his sack rates are unbelievable, and that's worth a lot to winning football games. Is it the same as calling him the best defensive end of all time? No, there's clear evidence he's not the best defensive end of all time, but maybe deserving of that criticism while you're watching him play. It also could be a little bit just that sometimes you have to sell out in order to get sacks and you have to do things.

And I know JJ Watt has been criticized about this in the past where you have to sometimes take guesses and take a big swing, just see what happens. And sometimes you miss and that results in a big play by the other team. And then you go, what was he doing? She was selling out for the sack, right? But then he also got a sack later in the game. So there's some give and take. There are many, many pass rushers that are the same way with Jared Allen, except for not many of them had the type of consistent year in and year out incredible sack success. So it's almost like if you had a quarterback that hit mostly on deep passes where there's a lot of value on hitting mostly in deep passes.

It's not the same as hitting on all passes, but you're still doing the thing that is the biggest play and the most important and the one that's going to get you closer to scoring points or in Jared Allen's case, closer to taking away points. So that's how I would answer that one. Can I think of a notable example where the opposite was true, where a player was great, but underrated because he had a low profile personality, you know, the first guy that comes to mind and I, and someone will have to correct me if it's from back in the day, but I always kind of thought of him this way is Chris Dolman that Chris Dolmanman did not have commercials or shoe deals. I mean, we didn't have social media back in the day, but Chris Dolman is seventh all-time in sacks and had a 20-sack season,

one of the best players in NFL history. And I don't feel like even when I was growing up, as he had Pro Bowl after Pro bowl and all pros that he ever quite got talked about in that same conversation. But the guy finished with 150 sacks and was an incredible player off the edge. And I remember him as more of the guy that we're talking about as that all around type player. So just thinking about kind of in the same position that maybe Chris Dolman would be something like that. I think that in today's game,

that's not often the case because we are privy to so much information that it's really, really easy to figure out who's great. And we have so much fantasy football and we're talking about it all the time. The NFL is just rules everything. So nobody really goes under the radar. Like there's a joke about Robert Woods that he's like talked about as being underrated. So often he's overrated. And I think that that's very true for a lot of today's game. The guy that would come to mind for me uh was somebody that my friend sage rosenfels played with in houston

uh andre johnson just the pro of pros you never heard a thing from andre johnson and he played with matt schaub didn't have great quarterback play all the time and was a dominant borderline hall of fame wide receiver. Never with a word to say, it seemed. Like you just never heard about anything from Andre Johnson, except for the time he got in a fight with Cortland Finnegan and kind of beat the heck out of him. Other than that, though, Andre Johnson was the quietest, best superstar in the league. So he kind of comes to mind when you talk about guys that,

had they self-promoted a little more might have gotten a little more attention all right next question from at rat trapping let me get a sip here folks want to remind you to go to soda stick.com that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com use the promo code purple insider for 15 off your purchase. It is summertime. It's baseball season. They have all sorts of great Minnesota baseball gear. And if you are prepping for training camp, get your Purple People Eaters shirt,

your Can't Stop the Thielen hat, and all sorts of other great football designs. Go there. Sotastick.com. S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Promo code Purple Insider for 15% off. All right. What would it take for the Vikings to reach 11 to 12 wins?

I see it as a possibility with a top five scoring offense and a top half scoring defense. Those rankings usually a lot around 10 wins but could this team dare i say it get lucky i think that to get 10 to 11 wins what they have to have happen and let me pull up their schedule all right viking schedule and you go through this schedule as we all did you know in the first day that it came out, but I haven't looked at it as much since. So you pull it up and what you see is if they got off to a hot start in the first couple of weeks, you get a win against the Packers at home. Very possible we saw them beat the Packers last year.

They have not struggled in the last few years to get W's off the Packers. So let's say you get a win there. You go to Philly, you get a win. And you start off really well. You play a lot of teams that have quarterbacks that are just either unproven or very volatile or just not that great. Like Jared Goff in week three is just not that great.

And then Winston, not that great. Fields, not that great. Tua, not that great. Two weeks later, it's Carson Wentz, not all that good, right? And you see Zach Wilson, Goff again. You've got Matt Ryan, who might be completely toast by December. You have Daniel Jones, who I'm not convinced at all is going to be way better because of Brian Dable. And then at the end of the season, it's Justin Fields again. And if you squint and you only really look at the quarterbacks,

you can talk yourself into 11 or 12 wins based on just that alone. I don't know that they have to have a top five offense. I think it's really kind of an order of operations thing. Like if you start off hot and then some things fall your way as far as these other quarterbacks, if Carson Wentz isn't a great fit in Washington if Tua is struggling in Miami if Justin Fields doesn't take a step if Zach Wilson doesn't take a step if Mac Jones drops back all these things can happen at once and you end up with 11-12 wins you probably probably need one against the Packers. You need the Lions to not restore the roar.

You need the Lions to continue to struggle and maybe have the whole Dan Campbell thing be kind of just narrative from last season. You need Sean Payton's absence to hurt the Saints over in London. You also need London to be weird and help you out a little bit there, but it's a fairly even game. It's just,

you can't have James Winston have one of those crazy hot games. You need Matt Ryan to be a little bit older and not look great with the Indianapolis Colts and their very good supporting cast. If three out of four of those things go right, you know, you know, whatever the 75% of those things go right, you know, whatever, the 75% of those things go right, you could get to 11, 12 wins. If the division is awful, you can still get three or four or three out of four

or all four games from Detroit and Chicago and get one from Green Bay. And then all of a sudden, everything just looks a lot clearer and a lot easier. And all of these things might have factored into why the Vikings decided to go this route. Now, it's a little bit dubious in some ways because, well, you know, all those things going right at once doesn't always happen. If half of them, if less than half of them go right, if Tua does improve, if the Giants

are better, if Carson Wentz is a great fit and is reinvigorated in Washington, like you could see these things going the other way. But we've also watched recent seasons where these things all fell into place. I mean, 2017 would be a great example. They certainly earned the wins that they got, but Rodgers getting hurt would be one of those things that completely fell into place that year. When they played Cincinnati,

there was a report right before the game that Cincinnati's coach was being fired and the Vikings just came out and blew their doors off right away. Things like that can go your way and fall into place. Not always, but it certainly can and you don't really trust a lot of those quarterbacks that i named do you trust zach wilson to be way better do you trust justin fields or mac jones to stay the same or get much better do you trust winston you know to be great that day No, you don't trust any of those things.

I think that if there's one path, and of course, if it just turns out that they get really good luck in opposing quarterbacks, we will all say that Kevin O'Connell had all the answers. But if they end up being, say, 10th in scoring, because there are so many AFC teams, but you still end up being in the top five in the NFC in scoring or the top even six or seven. Their defense could be good almost by default of playing those quarterbacks if all of them struggle. So that that to me is the route is you stay mostly healthy, which who knows, right?

Like who who could ever predict? No, they're getting hurt. Like those are the hardest predictions from predictions week that i still have some left over is like this guy will get hurt like i don't know maybe he will maybe but who could guess uh but if they do stay fairly healthy and those quarterbacks that are volatile you hit the downside of those guys, or you match up well against some of those teams, you can get to 11 or 12. I don't think that it's the most likely scenario. Vegas doesn't think it's the most likely scenario, but it is within that realm of things you could see happening. So I guess that's the path for me. It's not necessarily where they rank, but how those quarterbacks against play versus the Vikings, if that all makes sense.

All right, on to our next question. This is from Jill via the email. She says, I was impressed by James Cook leading up to the draft. He was a good running back, but his strength seemed to be a receiver out of the backfield. During his combine workout, James looked like he had some raw characteristics similar to his brother, at least as far as speed, acceleration, and vision. So if they do have a very similar skill set, yet James has carved out a role as a receiving back, why can't Delvin do more of this as well is it just that the previous vikings offensive coordinator didn't give him a chance except for in screens or is delvin really a different type of player

than his brother i guess another way to put this is could delvin rack up numbers like christian mcafree if given a chance that is a great question jill and i really appreciate you sending it um i i think that if you have siblings uh you know how different they can be to start off with the comparison to his brother i have two brothers they're both left-handed and neither one of them knows anything about sports if you asked either one of my brothers who is the quarterback for the las vegas raiders I think both of them would say, wait, Las Vegas Raiders, they moved. When did that happen? So I don't think that there's really a James Cook, Delvin Cook comparison as far as what they're like as players necessarily, that it looks like James Cook has more natural receiving ability than Delvin cook does. I would also say this though,

that the, the whole running back out of the backfield being a receiver thing is a bit of a myth. Like I remember looking at Christian McCaffrey's numbers and finding out that McCaffrey only ran like two routes or was only targeted two or three times on any throw farther than say, like, I'll look this up as we're, as we're talking any route farther than say like nine yards. Um, most running backs out of the backfield are running screens and swing passes, which Delvin cook is very, very capable of doing, but the idea that they're going to use him in any way more than that.

Let me look up 2019 Christian McCaffrey and we'll look up his receiving chart. Okay. Receiving depth for Christian McCaffrey. Right. Okay. I got it. Out of all of the catches that he had, which was quick math over a hundred, he had four that traveled more than 10 yards through the air,

four passes that went more than 10 yards. And he had 75 that were between zero and nine yards. And he had 56 in terms of targets that were behind the line of scrimmage. So only four times was he running between 10 and 19 yards. Now, if you compare that to a receiver who gets a lot of catches, like let's just pull up Justin Jefferson and look at what his receiving depth looks like from last season, it's a lot.

So he had 61. So Christian McCaffrey running back, who is touted as half a receiver, had four targets down the field past 10 yards, and Justin Jefferson had 61. So there's a, I think that we all want that really badly. Like we want the, the running back hybrid out of the backfield to play half a receiver role. Uh, but I just don't think that that's really happening in the NFL. I don't think that that role really exists all that much. And it's probably smarter to have Delvin cook, be a part of the short passing game.

And as part of the line, you know, behind the line of scrimmage screen game and things like that. Also, I don't think that he has incredible hands. Uh, we've seen him drop a handful of passes. Like, I just don't think that he is supernatural when it comes to running routes. Like I'll give you an example, 2019, he was targeted, uh, 26 times as far as between zero and nine yards. And he had three drops. Like that's not a very good rate, um, for somebody on such short throws. So he doesn't have these really sticky hands,

but I think that what you can do is within those confines, you know, you're not sending him down the field. You know, you're not lining up in the, in the slot and running deep balls very often, maybe once a year to catch the other team by surprise. But what you are doing is finding misdirections,

improving the screen game so the 2019 screen game behind the line of scrimmage yards per reception delvin cook averaged 12 yards a catch behind the line of scrimmage in 2019 that's absurd last year 5.5. That's a massive difference. So improve the screen game, improve the blocking, the setup, how you pair different plays with a screen to catch the defense off guard. That should be much more where the focus is as opposed to the idea of sending Delvin Cook down the field. But I think his brother is more of a natural type of receiving back and both of them are incredible talents. And if I'm not mistaken, his brother's in Buffalo. So I'll be interested to see that. But that's a great question, Jill. Really appreciate that one.

Okay. Next one comes from Paul via the email. Do you think the Vikings moves this off season have maximized the potential return for Kirk Cousins in the following season while other GMs may have drafted wide receivers or brought into guard perhaps Quasey's genius is in realizing that Kirk will get his stats no matter what so he turned his attention towards moves that would benefit the team most as a whole rebuilding the defense retaining and slightly overpaying key veterans in some cases it's not slightly my friend uh has quacey focused on increasing the expected win total in the near term in an effort to raise kirk's perceived value next offseason and use the draft capital on the

quarterback in the future could that be an apparent spielman zlike offseason? In fact, is Kwasi's next level move that you have been asking for, is he rebuilding in plain sight, but we just couldn't see it until after the draft with a lack of first-round quarterbacks? I would say this, Paul, your galaxy brain on this is like a 10 out of 10, and I'm impressed because I think your creativity here of working this into secret genius by the Vikings is is well attempted. But I would say I can't get on board with this idea. If you want to trade Kirk Cousins and draft a future quarterback for next season, if that's the plan, then you want to be drafting that quarterback as

high as possible you want maybe they wouldn't be able to tank and get number one but you want to have a swing you want to be within shouting distance of being able to trade up with a team that doesn't need a quarterback to get your guy at the top of the draft you wouldn't want to fix everything on the roster with veterans that won't help you down the road. Like Patrick Peterson, for example, or Jordan Hicks, those guys will not help you down the road. Like that's not rebuilding at all. That's like actively hurting your future because you're going to have to replace those positions after this season or after two seasons by getting these veterans, as opposed to developing players at those

positions finding out who can play and then replacing who you need to replace when you get your salary cap right that's the other thing about any rebuilding would have to include getting the salary cap right which they did not do and i read an article this week that their current dead cap is 14th in the league so above average dead cap at the moment and in the future depending on how things go if they have to move on from some players that they don't want to plus the dead cap space for pushing contracts down the road like they could be one of the higher teams in terms of dead cap, especially if they trade cousins with his extension, which comes with about half the deal of being dead cap, which again does not really point to we've set this all up to trade him.

What it really points to, I think this off season is let's see if it was all Zimmer's fault. And if it was, then we stay the course with Kirk the next year. And if it was all Zimmer's fault and if it was, then we stay the course with Kirk the next year. And if it wasn't, and we go seven and 10 and Kirk struggles, then you draft a quarterback and attempt to trade him. If it's somewhere in the middle,

if it is the nine and eight or eight and nine, then I believe what they'll do is they will stay with Kirk cousins for 2023 and draft a quarterback to sit behind Cousins in the Mahomes, Alex Smith, or Rogers Favre type of dynamic. And they'll play it out through there and they'll kind of hit repeat and they'll continue to draft people. And then they'll sign some players in free agency. It won't be big names and so forth and they'll kind of do this again and yeah it will be uh maybe six years of doing the same kind of thing but that's the position that they've put themselves in i don't think that it's a pump and dump where

they're trying to build up his trade value by getting eight or nine wins. Another part of it is too, that everybody in the NFL knows what Kirk Cousins is at this point. There are no illusions about what Kirk Cousins is. The scenario that would involve him being traded somewhere would be this. If a team had a really great roster and we'll look at a team that called the vikings about potentially trading for them the indianapolis colts they have a really great roster they have no answer a quarterback and they trade for kirk cousins to give it a shot that was the vikings 2018 that will be the a team next year so if they finish eight nine seven and ten i think that's how it probably plays out if they finish better than that and they're in the playoffs,

then Kirk will continue to be the quarterback through 2023, but they very well may draft one. And if it's worse than that, if it's six wins or something, that's probably when you're really looking at, okay, we absolutely have to trade him. But no, I think that this offseason said, look at the schedule, look at what we have as far as veteran players and veteran talent, look at the culture that was here and how ugly it was.

Look at the offensive scheme and how it maybe held certain players back or didn't maximize everything they could do. And let's give it a shot to see if we can win. I think that was much more of what it is, but I really do appreciate the attempt. And I think it is a good question to try to look into what they're thinking was and what the timeline is. But I can't buy into it was a secret genius to set up Kirk

to have more trade value because why would you want to hurt where you were drafting a quarterback next year? That's what they would have done here okay good question good question questions like that are why we do this and by the way that's another thing i want to mention is if you have an idea like that and you think i don don't know, this guy's just going to dunk on me or whatever. I'm not going to. Uh, and as, if you're asking your question, if you've got an idea about the Vikings and you're asking a question because you thought of something and you want to know what somebody else thinks, like, feel free to answer it. I I'm if, if it's a question that we

can have fun with and have a good discussion, even if I'm not like fully on board with you there, I'm not going to make fun of you on the show because this is why we do this, like to have a good time answering questions. And even if some people listening were going, oh, man, like it's a little bit out there. That is totally fine. If your idea you feel like this might be a little bit out there, but it also might be right, or it might be a fun conversation to have, or I just want to see what someone else thinks, send it over.

All good with all types of different questions. So thank you for that, Paul. Next one comes from at Head Coach 21, longtime listener and follower of Purple Insider. Let's see. For the fans only podcast. Defensive turnovers are random, but how do you look at turnovers on offense as a stat that randomly changes

from year to year? Do you look at it? Like if team X did this, they could lower their turnovers. When it comes to quarterbacks, there's probably something to that. Like if you're consistently, although I don't know, because Jamis Winston didn't throw a bunch of interceptions in his very small sample last year,

but I think there are quarterbacks who are much more prone to throwing a lot of interceptions. But if you're hinting that there's a little bit of possible regression here for the Vikings when it comes to turnovers, I would tend to agree. This is something that we don't bring up very often, but last year, the Vikings barely turned the ball over at all. In fact, they had the second best turnover rate per drive of anyone in the NFL. The only team that turned the ball over less per drive was the Green Bay Packers. Uh, that, that was one part of the Vikings game that really worked for them. And if you go back to 2020, it is not the case in 2020 that the Vikings, let me pull this up here. Uh, they ended up with the 22nd best turnover rate in 2020 versus 2021.

So what changed? I mean, in one way, Clint Kubiak, I think was different from his dad to start the season and did not want to push the ball down the field as much. He wanted to go much more quick game, a lot more short passes. If you recall, Cousins average depth of target was Alex Smith or Teddy Bridgewater like early in the season where it was a lot of quick and short passes. His completion percentage was very high. His PFF grades were very high because if you complete the passes that are just the average throws, the quick throws, the easy ones, you're not going to get negative grades very often.

You're not going to get hammered by those PFF grades. That usually happens when you're making big mistakes on turnovers. And if you're pushing the ball down the field more, your chances of making a big mistake are higher. So then as Cousins was asked to push the ball down the field more by Zimmer, his average depth of target went up and the turnovers increased a bit and his Pff grades went down a bit even though at times he wasn't playing worse um so you know it's kind of a really interesting dynamic to look into statistics and ask why i think that part of it is playing style and if you're going down the field a lot if you're philip rivers and you're always throwing into coverage because you believe in yourself

more interceptions are going to happen more More big time throws are going to happen. That's Matt Stafford. The Rams caught the right side of variance with Matt Stafford. He threw the most interceptions in the league, but he also hit on some really big plays that were really important to them and their turnover rate. I'll take a look here with the Rams, what their turnover rate was, but it must've been fairly high because Matt Stafford threw a lot of interceptions. Uh, and if the Vikings, let me pull this up. Yeah. They were middle of the league. The Rams were 16th last year

in part because they were throwing a lot of those passes. Uh, but it's worth adding that if I remember correctly, Kirk cousins fumbled like four or five times in the first couple of weeks and every one of them bounced right back into his hands. So they, they did have some fumble luck there. There's no guarantee though. And this is where the regression thing is always funny to talk about, because if you look at the turnovers and say, oh, well, they had a low turnover rate last year, so they'll definitely turn it over more this year. Well, I don't think last year really affects this year. It's just that it could easily stay below average in a good way for this year.

But if it's even creeping back toward normal, that was one of the good luck things that happened to the Vikings. People talked a lot about the bad luck things. Delvin Cook's fumble in the first week that shouldn't have been overturned you know field goal in the second week those two really tough losses but over the stretch of the season they did not have a lot of fumbles bounced the wrong way they didn't have a lot of tipped interceptions which we see from time to time and Uh, and Kirk cousins has had in the past. That's something to watch is if they end up as 16th and turnovers, then the road is going to be a little harder. They'll have to be that much better. So when we talk about, well, they ranked

14th, if they rank, you know, maybe what a little bit higher or a little bit more efficient, but they turn the ball over more than you're talking about giving the opposition better field position, things like that. So there's never one stat that really tells us everything. But I think that it was a factor last year on the positive side of their offense that helped them was not turning the ball over very often. And as far as what offenses can do. Yeah, I think it's I think it's playing style is one for sure and how you want to go about the passing game. Bruce Arians' quarterbacks always had a lot of interceptions

and always pushed the ball down the field, had a lot of sacks, which result in fumbles, but also hit on those big plays. But the fumble thing is total randomness, total luck. There was one year where the Kansas City Chiefs, if I'm remembering this correctly, they started off a season slow and then won a bunch of games in a row. And I recall some crazy stat and I could have this like slightly wrong. So I apologize for the details. But there was some crazy stat that they had recovered 15 straight fumbles or something by other teams. And that just, that's randomness, right? If you flip a coin a hundred times, it doesn't go every

other one. You're going to get 10 heads in a row, 10 tails in a row, and it comes out 50% in the long run. That's kind of how turnovers are. So that's something to watch this year are you luckier with turnovers um okay let's see let's see okay why don't we finish this off with a prediction from uh at joshua r underscore smith friend of the show he says cam bynum will lead the team in interceptions while patrick peterson will finish with zero that That's his first prediction. As a result of Kirk and the new offense learning a new system and Kirk nervously checking down, C.J. Hamm will exceed his season-high number of receptions, 17, by Week 9.

Okay. Thielen will miss at least five games. Osborne will finish with more receptions than him. And after a loss this season, there will be at least five games Osborne will finish with more receptions than him and after a loss this season there will be at least one instance of Kirk and Kevin O'Connell giving contradictory messages about something to do with the offense and Kenny Wong Wu where we started will end we'll have one touchdown return of at least 70 yards all right one by one the Cam Bynum interception thing interceptions as we were just talking about with

turnovers in general very hard to pin down who's going to get the most picks cam bindham's role though in this office or in this defense is something that we will be watching very closely cam bindham is a talented player he's a versatile player and i wonder about him getting a lot of reps in the slot mixing in with chandon su. And remember, this is just something to throw out there. Lewis Seen has to earn the job. He has to beat out Cam Bynum for the job. And I think that he will, but Cam Bynum is a talented enough player to get on the field a lot. And when there are injuries, we'll probably see him play more in games. I was looking at Denver the other day from last season, and they had a third safety that played about 300 snaps. And not many of those were as a fill-in starter. If they're doing something similar with the Ed Donatell defense,

then I think we'll see a fair amount of Cam Bynum. But I certainly can't tell you you're wrong about who gets the most picks. If I had to bet, I would say Harrison Smith because he's the best player. And as far as Patrick Peterson goes, he's probably good for a couple, but it's not the old Patrick Peterson who's going to be jumping routes. He has to play a little more safely than maybe he did back in the day. As far as CJ Hamm exceeding his season number of receptions by week nine, I would be absolutely shocked if that happens. He does check down to CJ Hamm sometimes when he shouldn't, but I don't

think that he's going to become even more obsessed with CJ Ham. And I, I also think that we're not going to see Ham on the field quite as much as he may have been in the past. He'll still get playing time. And I think they, they like him and their early impressions are good of CJ Ham. He's here for a reason, but I do not think he's going to be that much of a target for, uh, for, uh, Kirk cousins. If anything, it will probably be Irv Smith who ends up getting a lot of the checkdowns that he becomes kind of what like Kyle Rudolph was to Sam Bradford in 2016, where every time he panicked, he just threw it to Kyle Rudolph. All right. Feeling missing five games. Like I said about injuries. I mean, who knows? I don't know. Like

feeling has had full seasons where he's been fine. He's had years where he's been banged up. His injury last year was not a long term type of thing. I don't think KJ Osborne finishes with more catches than him. I think there's other guys who maybe eat into KJ Osborne's catches a little bit in rotations. As far as the after a game giving contradictory messages. I mean, that's the lock of the century. Of course they will. Like it's like they may get along better, but you still have the same quarterback. And I think it's always going to be that way.

And I would not be surprised at all if Kenny Wong Wu has a touchdown return. So great stuff there from Josh on the predictions. So you can send those to, if you want, it is not officially predictions week, but it's kind of always predictions week in the NFL. So there you go.

Well, and if you've sent any questions and if you sent predictions, remember I'm working my way through them. I know that I talk too long when it comes to all of these, but they're great questions and I really enjoy answering them. I know I tell you guys every single show, but I really do. So keep sending them a purple insider.com contact us on the top right corner or on Twitter at Matthew collar. So thanks so much to everybody who has listened and who sent their questions and we'll talk to you guys again later.