Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What do analytics say about Kirk Cousins?

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

What statistics are sustainable from year to year and which might suggest regression for Kirk Cousins? How does he perform when asked to throw the ball often? What context do we need when analyzing Cousins? Read Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizway or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey, everybody, Matthew Collar here. Before we get into the show, we're excited to share an exclusive trailer with you. After the show, from Blue Wire Studios comes Golden Goal Stories of Soccer Legends. Each Monday, two new episodes. We'll take a look at some of soccer's biggest stars and the biggest moments that define their careers. All narrated by Brandon Kelly, the host of Blue Wire's Always Cheating podcast.

From Messi to Rapinoe and many, many more, each episode will focus on historical plays and the personalities that made the sport great. So stay tuned after the episode and check out Golden Goal Stories of Soccer Legends wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome into another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me is Steve Palazzolo from Pro Football Focus to talk quarterbacks. What is up, Steve? Ah, just doing great over here and getting ready for a baby and quarantining and, you know, the whole thing. How are you doing? I know. If we get halfway into this and we have to stop because you are literally having a baby and you have to run to the hospital, then we'll do that. But we'll try to talk some quarterbacks in the process. And maybe real quick, we could talk about how sad we are about minor league baseball. No minor league baseball this year is the worst thing in the entire world. I mean, I don't know if everyone

knows that you were a minor league baseball player. I was a minor league baseball play-by-play broadcaster. And there's so much that happens in a minor league baseball season that is weird, that's hilarious, that's super fun. And I was thinking July 4th I would have been in the minor league stadium watching the fireworks and all that. The whole town shows up. And I've been missing those moments as much as anything else with sports. It's definitely sad, and I really been missing those moments as much as anything else with sports. It's definitely sad and I feel, I really feel for the players because the players have,

minor league players have a very short shelf life, much like NFL players. I think fans, they see the glamour, right? They see the guaranteed contracts at the major league level, just like they see the superstars at the NFL level. But right now, I think the players at the NFL level that are a little worried are the guys that have a three-year shelf life, a four-year shelf life, and they need another year to play, just like a minor league player might need one more. They might only have one more year, one more shot before there's another draft class and more

prospects before they get released like I did three times. So, you know, I feel for the players in that from a minor league standpoint. And there is something special, too, at the level that I was doing of guys who were good college players but weren't huge prospects, and this was their one summer as a pro ball player. And it was sort of like, hey, remember these moments because you're probably not going to make it to the bigs. And a lot of guys missing out on that thing. Their families would fly into this tiny little town to come to a couple of games and stuff like that. So hopefully we get right back on the horse next year with minor league baseball. But we've got to talk QBs.

You guys, you and Sam Monson on your podcast did an awesome episode about how you figure out if someone is good at quarterbacking. And I love the place that you started, which is when a quarterback has to throw or drop back more than 40 times, how well do they perform? And no surprise, Tom Brady is good at this. Shocker, Tom Brady is great when everything is on his shoulders. But there's so many quarterbacks, Steve,

that are in that middle group. So you got your Brady, your Rodgers from a couple of years ago, your Breeze that are just so much better than everybody else in circumstances where it's all on them. But Kirk Cousins seems to fall in the middle of just about any category we ever use to figure out how quarterbacks rank. So what did you find with Cousins when it came to looking into what happens when the Vikings or Washington have to rely on him, because I think this year we might see more of that with a lot of new pieces on defense. Yeah, I mean, just to back it up a little bit, I think when you're evaluating quarterbacks,

it's just such a fascinating position because clearly it's the most important in all of sports, but it is the most dependent sport, I think, as far as production goes compared to other sports. You know, a baseball player has one-on-one interactions with the pitcher. And, you know, basketball, you know, you shoot your shot, right, whatever it might be. But, like, obviously football, quarterback production, they have the most say in how well they play. But they really need receivers or they really need blocking. And those other things all come together and so when you can split things out in different ways I think we all realize and this happens all the

time in analysis you say uh this guy had a great game but hey they ran play action 20 times and it was a bad defense and you you add these five layers of context and I think sometimes it's true you know and I thought in this analysis, sometimes quarterbacks feel like they're protected by the running game, by play action or whatever it is. And the idea here is what about when they're on their own? What if they do actually have to throw the ball 40 times a game? And I do think the analysis did a good job of separating the Bradys, Brees, Rogers, and Peyton Mannings of the world from the rest of the quarterbacks. But I do think all of those mid-tier quarterbacks,

all those middle-of-the-pack rankings lists that Kirk Cousins lands on, he did show up pretty well in this number, in this percentage of games that you actually graded well when you had the ball in your hands more often than not. And I think it does actually tell a little bit about style. Dak Prescott was not good at these games. Phillip Rivers wasn't good at these games. I wasn't expecting that, but Eli Manning was.

So I do think you just glean some insights as far as guys who are like a little bit more aggressive, willing to take chances, might have some ugly games in there, but they might also give you a chance to win. And I think, believe it or not, Cousins and his check down reputation has had some gunslingery type of games through the years, and I think that's why he landed better than expected on this list. I looked up, and I know that analytics people hate this, but I looked up the win-loss record when he had to throw at least, I used 39 passes because he had three games of 39.

I thought, can I increase the sample size a little? He was 5'17 and 2", because, of course, Kirk Cousins has two ties. Mixed in there is the most Kirk Cousins he's had. But, you know, when you're having to throw 40 times, it often means you are down. And I'll give you an example. There was a game against New Orleans where PFF grades Kirk Cousins' performance extremely well, but they got way down in the game, and he's putting up a lot of great throws,

and they come back and they lose by one score. He ends up with a very good grade, but you lose the game. And a lot of guys are about.500 who are the really good quarterbacks at this, but I wonder how we balance that of the PFF grade might have been good, but you're playing down and the opponent is not being as aggressive defensively. They're playing a lot of cover two and a lot of shell. That's a lot of allowing you to throw those underneath passes or even get down the field a little, but take 10, 12, 14 play drives to get there and not have enough time to win the game. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some of that, that again, with quarterbacking,, there's definitely some of that.

Again, with quarterbacking, because there's so much dependency on a million different things, no analysis is going to be perfect, which is why I like looking at this just from looking at the quarterbacks just from this particular angle for that particular podcast. I do think there's something to, because you're the quarterback,

you dictate how you play as well when it comes to these games, right? So I think Cousins, rightfully though, does he play well in these games? Yeah. But does he rightfully get this perception of, maybe it's not checkdowns, but it's like, are you taking that chance all the time? And this is where I struggle with Kirk Cousins' analysis. And I used to struggle with Alex Smith's analysis, too. I have, like, the five games off the top of my head where Alex Smith showed that he could carry a team. It was 2011 against the Saints in the playoffs, and 2013 he went head-to-head with Peyton Manning, and 2015 against Andrew Luck.

He has these games where he makes these great throws, but the overall body of work of Alex Smith is a little bit more on the conservative side, very conservative side. He'll put up decent numbers, but he's not going to go win a game for you. But I saw that he was capable. I think that's where Cousins is. He doesn't have the feel for being as aggressive as he needs to be in some of these games, I don't think. And maybe it shows up well statistically, or the grades end up okay because he doesn't make a ton of bad throws, but he's just missing when he needs to be that aggressive. Aaron Rodgers has a little bit of that too, and I think that's why he hasn't made comebacks at the same level as a Brady

or whatever it might be. I'm one of the few analytics people who will allow win-loss record because I do think using Brady as an example, who I think is the best by far, because this is one of my arguments. His win-loss record when they give up 21-plus points, 28-plus points defensively, when he has to throw the ball 40 times, 50 times, he is in a different world as far as win-loss record. And while you don't just judge quarterbacks by win-loss record,

I do think when you get to that level, fourth quarter comeback opportunities, Brady's the best. Quarterback dictates how they play the game, and I think that's part of what makes Brady great and separates quarterbacks when they know they have to be more aggressive or know they need to be more conservative. I think Brady, Peyton, those guys have that down. And I know that you and I have discussed this a little bit in previous shows

that we've done together about win-loss record, but I think it's just a great starting point. And then you ask, all right, why is this? So Kirk Cousins, since he became a starter in 2015, is 42-35-1, I think. So it's a little above a 500 quarterback. You go back through all your journeymen, your classic journeyman quarterbacks, your Kyle Orton, your Gus Farratt, they're always 500. Even my pale Sage Rosenfels on the show he didn't start a ton he's a 500 quarterback and then you have your guys who completely failed in the league who just lost and lost and lost and lost and have awful records and could never be real starters and if you just chunked them that

way you'd probably end up with a lot of results that were right honestly right so if someone is a little above 500 I like to look at and say say, well, how can they be better? Like, what was it that held them back? Is it something that can change from the scheme? With the Vikings, for example, Kubiak and Stefanski come in, and they make a lot of changes from what John DiFilippo did the year before. Suddenly, Kirk Cousins is a better quarterback across the board. That would have been one of those things where you say, why was he a 500 quarterback?

Well, that might be one reason. Or they did have one of the easier schedules in the league that also plays into this. So I'm, I've always been with you that why would you throw out something that is actually the goal of the sport, which is to win and the person who is worth the most wins above replacement. I wonder what you, so you guys put out the QB annual every year, and it's amazing. It's just got so many detailed stats that I like to cover my body in as soon as it comes out and write like five articles about. But I want to know which ones are sustainable, like which ones we can look at and say, all right, we know what he did last year, but next year this is what he will continue to do well

from all of the data that you put out. Yeah. So it's funny because I'm actually working on some of this stuff for NFL teams and, you know, we give them, all of our NFL clients get this massive database of information and I'm trying to sift through that for them in the next product that we're building for them. And we're calling it the stable unstable page and just saying, here are the things i'll pull up i'll pull up kirk's page as we're going here but um the things that are stable from year to year the things that you want to look at and then the things that will tend to fluctuate and i thought the kirk cousin story from two years ago is fascinating because he took he was really awesome in the first half of 2018 and he took a step back

and on our podcast we said man here's the number that's gonna make him drop awesome in the first half of 2018, and he took a step back. And on our podcast, we said, man, here's the number that's going to make him drop off in the second half. His play under pressure was ridiculous. He had the third-best passer rating under pressure, and that's just the thing that's not as sustainable from year to year. So I do think that the things that you can generally bank on going forward, and I'll look at Cousins from, say, just like a two-year sample even, so even beyond what's in the QB annual. You want to avoid negatively graded throws. So the quarterback has way more say in his bad stuff than he does on the good stuff. And what I do like is when we come up with a number or, you know, the numbers say something that matches things

intuitively. Because again, how many times do we go back to a quarterback and say, well, his supporting cast was better and his play caller was better. Your supporting cast is not going to make you throw the ball more accurately, but it's going to give you more opportunities to throw the ball and hit a guy in stride or whatever it might be and hit an open player. So your positively graded throws tend to fluctuate. So from a Cousins standpoint, he was well above average in a lot of the – he's been above average in the stable stuff, clean pocket grade.

Early downgrade is actually way more stable than, say, third downgrade, even though most analysts go back and say, let me see how this quarterback did on third down. But that's the time – the sample size is smaller. And, you know, Carson Wentz in his MVP caliber year in 2017 was ridiculous on third down. And that was just one of those things we said, unsustainable. And he came back down to earth the next year or so.

Cousins is in the 95th percentile at just avoiding negatively graded throws. The last couple years, that means you could probably bank on that next year. And part of it is maybe being a little bit more conservative, having easier throws, fewer opportunities to miss, but it's a good number as far as, you know, banking on that being similar next year. And he's actually on the lower end of positively graded throws in our system, meaning you give him more opportunities, more open receivers, better playmakers, you might actually get more production there.

So Cousins does show well in a lot of the stable metrics going forward. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Baseball is back, and Soda Stick just launched its latest partnership with Hormel Foods and the Tommy Watkins Foundation to pay homage to the Hormel Row of Fame. It debuted in the Metrodome in 1992,

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original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. I think that really speaks to the idea that Cousins is what you put around him because if people are open, he will find them. If he has time to throw, he will throw. But there's this other part of Cousins, though, where he invites pressure on himself. And you mentioned the pressure rate. It seems like his is pretty stable outside of maybe 2016,

where they had an unbelievable offensive line in Washington. But this idea of holding onto the ball too long, which is one of those, everyone who's watched Kirk Cousins is going, throw the ball. Get rid of it. What are you doing? Especially after Sam Bradford, who was like, check down five yards. Let's get moving here. Get it out of my hands.

I wonder what it says about that and his lack of mobility. Because PFF had him as the dead last running quarterback in the league and i i do feel like the running value is separating some other uh quarterbacks you know from kirk cousins so how do you kind of factor that in when you're deciding how good each quarterback is how much yeah it's a great question i think you know when when josh rosen and sam donold were coming out, say what you want about what they've been at the NFL level, I looked at the two.

I'm like, oh, they're not that different as passers. But, man, I think I trust Darnold making plays outside the pocket and with his legs far more than I do Rosen. And I do think for a lot of guys that aren't, unless you're great, like Joe Burrow could be great from the pocket and he can run a little bit, but he could be great from the pocket. Unless you're great, you need some sort of mobility, right? Or else you are going to be kind of stuck in that middle tier.

And I do think that's where Cousins is. And, you know, my buddy Sam always talks about there. He just has this, something happens with him where, you know, sometimes you look at a guy and you say, there's a natural playmaker. When you watch Patrick Mahomes, natural playmaker, spatial awareness. He knows what's happening. Where Cousins just has a few plays per year where you're like, what's he doing? The swing pass backwards against the Jets a couple years ago.

He had one. It was maybe the Lions. Last year he threw it right into a guy's gut, laid in the down, and he got away with it. So there's just a few of those all the time. I think that is the bigger issue with Cousins. I think from a macro point of view, if he can't create with his legs, I look at the way the Vikings quarterbacks have played under Zimmer

through the years, and they've had a guy that ranked in the top ten at avoiding turnover-worthy plays in our numbers. They take care of the ball from Teddy to Bradford to Keenum. And I thought the idea of bringing Cousins in was hopefully going to be them saying, let's be a little bit more aggressive. I thought we saw it at times last year. But I thought that they showed you can take a Keenum or Bridgewater or Bradford and play ball control and trust your defense and all that stuff.

But I thought that Cousins, because, man, he can throw – throws the post really well. He can throw the cover two shot. Like, he makes some decent downfield throws. My thought was maybe you live with a few more turnovers from Cousins and let him be aggressive down the field. I don't know if we've always seen that through the years. And I do think because there's no running value with Cousins and there's a few of those brain farts

in the pocket and all that stuff, you actually do want to, if those are going to happen, you might as well get some chunk plays out of it that aren't just schemed up. The scheme was great last year, rollouts and deep passes. They were there. Cousins hit them and everything. But man, let him be more aggressive. And I think that's kind of where you need the offense to be able to take that next level. So I think if Stephon Diggs was listening to you say that, he would say, yes, Steve, yes, throw the ball.

That was the difference between Case Keenum and what we've seen from Kirk Cousins, is Keenum would just not care at all and heave it up into Adam Thielen or Stephon Diggs, and they would oftentimes come down with it. In 2017, they came down with everything and that's been part of this when Bridgewater succeeds that's when Diggs is starting to emerge and then Bradford has close to if not a career year that's when Thielen and Diggs are very good and then we've seen them amplify quarterback numbers throughout the entire time they were here now Diggs is gone and I wonder how you think that that changes the formula

for Kirk Cousins, because if we're going off your PFF offensive line rankings, that doesn't look like that's going to be a whole heck of a lot different. Yeah, they still have enough question marks up front across the interior as far as pass protection goes. Putting all line rankings together is a tough process because the Vikings had the third highest percentage of positively graded run blocks last year. So like they were giving the running backs opportunities, but they also had the second highest percentage of negatives in the run game. So they were giving them some bad opportunities too. You probably, you see that as a fan, right? Like, Hey,

look at this great job by the line. Next play Dalvin's getting hit in the backfield four yards. But from a pass pro standpoint, Riley, Riley Reif just you know Brian O'Neill's been pretty good interior's been a question so yeah the pass protection isn't great luckily the scheme protects them at least a little bit yeah I think my concern with the pass game is I really think you win in the NFL by making life difficult on opposing defenses right making them have to cover, you know, at least three guys that they have to account for on a given play. The Vikings have a good pair of tight ends, but not having Stephon Diggs replacing him

essentially with Justin Jefferson is a massive question mark. Now, I think Jefferson can be a pretty good player. His skill set is very Adam Thielen-like. You know, you could probably put him in the slot and crafty route runner. Thielen's great against press. Justin Jefferson, question as far as press goes, right? So there's just more question marks here where I think in the NFL, you really want to have three or four playmakers that you could choose from on a given play because that's – like, defenses shouldn't be staying up late

at night trying to figure out how to stop a running back. You just drop a safety into the box, right? No matter who the running back is, you just add another player. But like, if you're going to try to defend the Dallas Cowboys with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup and CeeDee Lamb, you got to put some thought into that. I don't have to put a ton of thought into Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson and B.C. Johnson, Tajay Sharp, you know, so that would be my question mark with the Vikings. How do you stop Dalvin?

You bring an extra safety in the box, and you're probably going to be okay more often than not. So that's where I think the Vikings take a little bit of a step back from a pass game standpoint, and Les Jefferson is awesome right away. My sense is that the receiving weapons you have have a heck of a lot more to do with your success as a quarterback than offensive line, even though every sports talk radio caller that ever called into any station I ever worked with would not agree with that Cousins doesn't have any time to throw even though he held onto

the ball longer than anyone in the league but right what is the gap there because I mean the Vikings have had in terms of receivers about as good as you can get a Pro Bowl tight end, two Pro Bowl caliber wide receivers who are consistently top 20 in your rankings. And Diggs is a guy that every young receiver is studying his tape, figuring out how to run routes. You take somebody away from that, you get more double teams for Adam Thielen. But, you know, I wonder if, like, what the gap would be between how your offensive line performs and how that impacts a quarterback versus the weapons you have.

I think it definitely leans toward the weapons. It is one of the tough things, I think, for fans to wrap their head around is that the receiver getting open protects the quarterback more than the left tackle. So what we always say on the podcast is creep back toward average. So if you have a disastrous, terrible offensive line, if you can just rank in the middle tier, then you can at least get by if you have good receivers.

I thought the Raiders a couple years ago, they had to decide. I can't remember who the tackle was on the board. Well, they could have taken a tackle or they could have drafted Amari Cooper. And I remember thinking back saying, this is the type of decision an NFL team comes up against. Do I give my young second-year quarterback a great wide receiver who can get open, make life easier for him, or do I get him the cornerstone left tackle?

And there's arguments for both. I thought Laramie Tunsell improves the Houston Texans' pass protection immensely last year, but it was because they were coming from the worst left tackle in the NFL. If they just had a Riley Reif, so to speak, and then they upgraded to Laramie Tonsil, you wouldn't feel it as much. So it depends on how bad you are. Just don't be a disaster on the offensive line.

Just don't give up pressure on 40, 45% of dropbacks. Just don't give a guy zero time to throw on third down. Then as long as you have, you would prefer to have a receiver who gets open and not just one. You want two or three or four again you want to make your team as uncoverable as possible that is how you make a quarterback great and i think you take you know the high-end quarterbacks the tom brady's of the world they'll produce no matter what but if you have a full year of a gronk and edelman or randy moss then you have hall of Fame seasons. That's Patrick Mahomes right now.

And then you have the Andy Dalton 2015 season. You have Mitch Trubisky in 2018. You have guys who don't even play great, but the production is great because of their receivers, which is, again, far more important than their offensive line as far as putting up passing production, which should be the goal of your offense. Right.

And I think about with the offensive line and when we're trying to value these different things, that one size doesn't always fit all, as we see from Cousins, because the interior rush gets him more than, I think, other quarterbacks. If you interior rush Deshaun Watson, he'll just mosey over there real fast and find somewhere to throw it. But Kirk Cousins likes to stay in one spot. Gets that pressure in his face. That's when you see high or inaccurate throws. We saw that against Chris Jones in Kansas City where Jones dominated that game. Same thing happened in San Francisco.

Their interior pressure in the playoff game was incredible, and there wasn't much he could do. Before I let you go, Steve, and go grab your baby out of the womb, make a big-time catch, I guess you would say. Yes. That was inappropriate. And I'm sorry for that. That's all right. Give me based on the numbers that you're looking at for 2020. Assuming we're having a season, I'm going forward that way. Yes. A riser and a faller for quarterback, somebody that you look at the numbers and you say, you know what, this really should be better. Or it was scheme, supporting cast, whatever it might be,

for someone who should be better. Or, hey, this person was really propped up. You know, 2017 Case Keenum, even the Vikings were looking at it going, don't think that's going to keep happening over the long term. And, of course, it didn't with him. So give me a riser and a faller quarterbacks based on your numbers. Yeah, so I think Ryan Tannehill is the obvious regression candidate. I think no matter which way you slice it, you can just look at passer rating

and say, well, he's not going to have a 117.5 in the regular season no matter how you slice it. It's going to be tough. And Tannehill, when you look at just the last decade, a guy who we talked about positively graded throws, he was number one last year. He has never been close to that. So that is a supporting task dictated. Now they're all pretty much coming back. So could he duplicate it? Yes, but positively graded throws, they still tend to

fluctuate a little bit. So I expect Tannehill that last year was, he was awesome, but not in line with the rest of his career. I think going the other way, let me just take a look here and see. I mean, I think the interesting thing here is I look at a guy like Derek Carr, and it's not so much that he played better than he should have last year, but it's this aggressiveness thing. We saw Matthew Stafford go from three years of one of the lowest average depth of target, depth of completion, and it's like, come on, Stafford, you've got a cannon for an arm.

There is nobody more fun to watch, unless you're an NFC North fan, than Stafford for like three games a year. And all of a sudden he comes out averaging like four more yards per attempt from a target standpoint, and he puts up huge numbers before he gets hurt. I want to see Carr make that move. And I don't know that he will. We'll see. But I think having Henry Ruggs and that speed could give him that ability.

I could see Carr, if he's more aggressive, putting up better numbers, maybe not this year, but in the next couple years, if they can have Ruggs, have Darren Waller, add some more playmakers there, he would be the guy I'm more asking for a playing style change because I think you need that. Derek Carr is a talented quarterback. You don't need to have him playing like Alex Smith. I wonder if there ever strikes a feeling for Derek Carr,

in a way maybe like there did with Alex Smith in his last year. I don't think he ever talked about it, but with Mahomes behind him knowing he was done in KC, he was just like, let's throw it. And he was great at it. I mean, he had an unbelievable year. And at some point, Derek Carr has to realize if he doesn't have a winning season and he's not playing well, his coach has all the control over this entire franchise,

and they're just going to go out and get somebody else. I wonder if that pressure ever compels him to start hucking it down the field more. But he had about the worst wide receivers in the league last year. I'm not sure how much he could do there. They were bad. The difference, though, is going to be in the head coaches, right? You have Andy Reid in Kansas City drafting a quarterback that you watch him in practice, you're like, oh, gosh, this guy looks like a future Hall of Famer.

Andy Reid wants to score points, and he's aggressive. I think John Gruden just wants to avoid turnovers. That's when he starts glaring at you, and I think that is why his quarterbacks tend to play a little bit tight. And, you know, Carr wasn't even going down the field when they were down 20. You know, Vikings fans talk about Cousins. Maybe he's not aggressive enough. Like, go watch a Raiders game when they're down 20

and he's checking down left and right or throwing the ball away on fourth down. So I think he's talented. He's very good. But, man, he just needs to chuck it down the ball away on fourth down. So I think he's talented. He's very good. But, man, he just needs to chuck it down the field a little bit more. Yeah, we saw that against the Vikings. I think Waller had like 23 catches underneath checkdowns when they were down by 20 points. Right.

Steve, your podcast with Sam Monson is one of my favorites. I always listen to that while I'm going jogging or whatever else, playing hoops outside with the headphones on. So I appreciate your guys' hard work in putting together a great show and everything you do at PFF, man. PFF underscore Steve is where you can follow him if you don't already. Thanks for coming on, and great to have you on the new show. Yeah, of course.

Thanks, Matt. Appreciate you having me. Hey, before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you that sports are coming back, and so are your chances to bet on your favorite teams and events. There's no better place to start than our exclusive partners, BetOnline. Get in on the action for this week's big UFC fight, or check out odds on NASCAR, Formula One, and the Premier League.

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Not much, Matt, just recovering from Fourth of July weekend and hoping we can have some training camp to start talking about soon and some football to look forward to. So that's got my fingers crossed. We are very close. We are in the final march toward training camp and holding our breath that it's actually going to happen. And if these other sports can get into their training camps

and not have it be a complete disaster, that's going to give me a lot more confidence. But that is not one of your questions is how nervous I am about training camp because it's about a 9 out of 10 at the moment. But I I think we're going to be okay I think this is going to happen so kick it off what is your first question of five questions with intern Paul well one of the questions that surely will have if training camp and hopefully when training camp starts is along that defensive line there's some spots open for some guys who haven't totally proven themselves there's some rookies that could make who haven't totally proven themselves. There's

some rookies that could make a difference there. So I've got a couple names and I want you to tell me who seems most likely to carve out a role. So we've got James Lynch, rookie, obviously, who was picked. And then Jalen Holmes, Jaleel Johnson, two guys who haven't done much since they've gotten here. And then Hercules Mata'afo, who always seems to, in training camp, generate some headlines, but we haven't really seen it on the field. So of those four, who do we see carving out a role? I think that the most likely for this year, even though being a rookie in the NFL this season in particular is going to be challenging, James Lynch has the best chance to carve himself out a role, because last year we saw Stephen Weatherly really take on that

interior rushing third down situational type of role and he left and signed with the Carolina Panthers for I think a four-year deal 12 million dollars and that spot is wide open Lynch was one of the best pass rushers in college football and really when you look at how many sacks he put up last season it's one of the best single seasons ever by a pass rusher in college, and yes, he did drop to the fourth round. I think that's because he's a little bit of a tweener, but that's always worked for this situation. With Weatherly, he was more of a defensive end, even an outside linebacker in college, and here he is rushing over the guard, having success. We saw that from Brian Robison. We saw it from Tom Johnson,

these guys who became situational rushers. And Lynch profiles the best for that. I think that they saw the same thing in Jalen Holmes a couple of years ago, but they wanted to move him from defensive end to defensive tackle, same as Lynch. But he didn't have the production that Lynch had. In fact, he had almost no production in college, and then that's shown up in the NFL. Now, Mata'afa was very productive in college like Lynch, but does not have the body like James Lynch does. He is undersized, and I know he tweeted out a picture of his scale saying that he weighed 289 pounds. That's great, but he's only six foot one, and if you don't have the quickness of someone like Aaron Donald, you don't have that crazy, crazy burst off the line scrimmage, then it's going to be really difficult to beat guards

and centers in the NFL if you're undersized and you aren't a complete freak of nature. I don't have super high expectations for Mata Afa or Holmes. And Jaleel Johnson, I think he can make the team, but in just a similar role of what he was doing. It shows you since they spent $27 million on Michael Pierce that they did not feel confident in turning a nose tackle role over to Jaleel Johnson. I think there's an outside chance he gets cut, but more likely he's just in that rotation once again. And then probably this will likely be, I think, unless he has a big year as a rotational player, probably his last year with the Vikings is just someone who comes in when there's an injury like he's been the last two years. Yeah, as long as James Lynch can learn the playbook, and I know that's a big if,

and can just get, you know, just feeling ready and comfortable, then just that production, I feel like that can translate best to those three guys who haven't had a lot of production so far with the Vikings. Next question is, we're past the 2020 season, so it's always time for people to look at their decade teams, all decade. And so I saw a photo of some standings that just accumulated everyone's standings in the 2010 to 2020. Obviously, Patriots were ahead at 125 and 35. And that got me thinking, who was the best team in the last decade, excluding the Patriots? So who has had that sustained success? So who was the best NFL team of the last decade in your mind?

That is not the Patriots. I am going to, yeah, I'm going to go with probably the Seattle Seahawks. And I know that of late, the Seahawks have not been the same as they were when they were a number one defense year in and year out. But I think they had four number one defenses in a row in terms of points against. That's extremely difficult to do. They should have had two Super Bowls. They had the 2013 team is probably the best team of the decade because they were one of the best passing games

and the number one defense in the NFL. They've had a top three quarterback for a large part of the decade, which would be a huge factor in my mind. And even when they've had down years, they've still been in the playoffs or still had good seasons. They missed the playoffs, I think one year and were 10 and six or nine and seven. And that was a catastrophe for them to miss the playoffs. So they would probably be my pick. Because I don't think you can pick a team that doesn't have a Super Bowl in this decade. If you

were going to pick New Orleans, one there's in 2009, right? So you can't pick New Orleans. They've been great, a lot of stretches throughout. And Baltimore does have a Super Bowl. Maybe they get in this conversation. Kansas City with the Super Bowl maybe gets in this conversation too. Those are teams that are there the entire time. But I don't know if anybody's got a better resume than Seattle, do they?

No, the only other one that you didn't mention, I guess, would be the Green Bay Packers. They had one right at the beginning of the decade. They've had some sustained success. And I think the only one, they've just gone against the Seahawks so many times, and the Seahawks seem to get the better of them in the playoffs. So I'd agree with you, Seahawks get the edge there. Third question, transitioning to this season,

the Titans just announced on Monday that they will allow season ticket holders to opt out of the 2020 season. I've seen some chatter online about even Vikings fans interacting with each other about whether they'd feel comfortable, whether they'd want to go to games. Some were saying, well, you know,

if there's more space, I like that, but then they don't get the atmosphere that they'd normally get. So if you were a fan, you had had season tickets would you want to attend NFL games or would you want to you know roll over your ticket package to next year I think that whatever the safer route is is always the one that you want to go here isn't it I mean it's one year out of your life to just sit back and watch the tv broadcast like every other sports is going to have. It is certainly weird. I've watched some Korean baseball on ESPN, and it's odd with the cutouts and the stuffed animals that they've put in the stands. They've got cheerleaders and masks.

It's super weird. I mean, it's something like totally dystopian about watching it, but rather than being inside especially with a dome being on the inside atmosphere I would want to just kick my season tickets to the future a lot of people I think have looked at COVID and said oh well you know it's not that big a deal or something like that and that might be the reason that we are in the place that we are unsure of whether we're actually going to have football or not or any of these sports that are going to work is because too many people have been lax about it now again uh not any any type of doctor or epidemiologist or anything else

i would say for outdoor stadiums it does seem like if you had people who were willing to take the precautions wear the masks distance within the stadium, and be outdoors, that there's a very low chance of passing it around. Since we see protests and things like that, protesters wearing masks and not sharing it like crazy, the odds are probably pretty low. But if you're a Vikings fan, indoors, I don't know. I think that's a really hard decision if they're even going to let fans come in at all. But I personally err on the side of caution and stay in my house all the time. Yeah, that's where I'm at. But I guess my biggest thing when I go to games is the atmosphere.

And if, you know, they're only 25 percent, 50 percent, it's like you're not getting that atmosphere. You're getting a better viewing experience, usually on television. So I'd rather just wait the year, not worry about, did that person cough to my left? Like what's going on and just stay home and watch it. And I'm sure not pay all that money to be there and not get the full experience. The skull chant would be a lot less moving.

I'm sure if you're in the stands when it's just like, wait, can I hear those people that are across the stadium? I will say that if the NFL is going to allow people inside of stadiums, you know that they're going to take extreme measures when it comes to the safety. So it's probably, if everyone is required to wear a mask, it's probably going to be okay. It's just me personally, I don't even go on boats because I feel like it's a little too dangerous out on boats. I am very risk averse. So I would probably, you know, back off myself.

Yeah, I'd recognize that level of school chant because at my old high school, they kind of ripped it off and did it with cats because we were the wild cats. And we didn't win a football game in my time there. So there were a lot of cathartic cats chants. Let's go, cats! Yep, I'd be used to that. Speaking of stadiums, Amazon recently bought naming rights to a stadium in Seattle that they're going to use for their new NHL team and their WNBA teams to play in. And they named it the, like, climate change arena. I don't remember the exact name for it. But if you could name a stadium anything you want, what would you name your stadium?

Well, I will say that my favorite naming rights is probably the Yum Center in Louisville, right? I forget the whole name of it, but calling it the Yum Center is delicious sounding and wonderful. Yeah, you know, I would probably, I am a huge fan, having grown up in Buffalo, New York, of chicken wings. So I might just take, if I could pick anyone to be my naming rights sponsor, Duff's Wings in Buffalo and make them, you know, the Duff's Wings Center and that everyone inside would be required to eat wings if you were going to come to a game. I would probably go with something like that.

I mean, naming rights are always a fun thing or kind of a bizarre thing sometimes. And I personally also love the bowl games. And I – what was the one? There's a bowl game that is particularly funny that isn't going to happen anymore this year. So that's unfortunate. Oh, the B-Fo Brady Bowl. That's the one. The B-Fo Brady Bowl is no longer going to happen, I think. But that would be my other one is I would pick them up and make my stadium, the B-Fo Brady Stadium. It's just super football.

Yeah. I'm all for absurd stadium names. I think there's the Smoothie King Center or something. Oh, yeah, New Orleans. New Orleans, the Pelicans. So anything that is absurd and you can maybe have a T-shirt, you know, Target just really doesn't do it for me. U.S. Bank, I want to get out there, get outlandish with them. Final question.

We've talked a bunch about how far Xavier Rhodes fell the last couple of years and a little bit about how Linval Joseph kind of dipped in production. And so I was wondering, last year we saw those large drop-offs. Are there any current Vikings that maybe a year from now we're looking back and saying, wow, he fell quite a bit this season? It is a remarkably different team in terms of age. Last year, there would have been a lot more candidates for this, and some of them, like you said with Xavier Rhodes, would have come to fruition. I also would have said last year, Everson Griffin, he played pretty well. Linval Joseph, he fell off quite a bit from where he was in 2017.

With this year's roster, it's a lot harder. And the names that you're able to throw out there for players who are older, if they don't play well, it's going to be an extremely long season. And that starts with Harrison Smith. I didn't see any signs of Harrison Smith dropping off last year. If you look at all the PFF grades and everything else, he's a top three safety in the NFL, as he has been for a very long time. And I think that he's going to get overlooked for the Hall of Fame, but will someday deserve it. I would not bet on him falling off at any point this year,

but you just look at the guys who are a little bit on the older side, guys who are getting into 30. The best candidate for this, probably Riley Reif. He's been the guy that all Vikings fans want to trade or move or get rid of. Now, last year, when you look at his overall performance, he's a middle-of-the-pack offensive lineman. And his contract that he signed, that huge deal a couple years ago, for as much as they've gotten out of him in playing time and him being exactly a mid-pack tackle, it hasn't been a disaster of a deal like some other ones that they've made.

But he has always had these nagging injuries, and when someone's getting to that 30 range and they've got nagging injuries in the past, you always look for a potential drop-off. The one that would be a complete nightmare would be Adam Thielen. If Adam Thielen dipped in his play after last year with the injuries, and again, like Harrison Smith, I do not expect this. I expected it with Xavier Rose. I do not expect this with Harrison Smith or with Adam Thielen. But if Adam Thielen had more injuries and he started to show signs of aging, I don't expect it because he doesn't have a ton of mileage on his

body for his entire career. His first couple of years are spent on the practice squad and then as a special teamer. But that one would be disastrous if the Vikings had to rely on a rookie, on B.C. Johnson, on Chad Beebe, Tajay Sharp. If these had to be your weapons for Kirk Cousins, that could be a problem. But other than that, I mean, it's such a young roster. There's nobody else that you point to and go, uh-oh, I'll give you one other one. And, again, I would not expect this either. But if Anthony Barr loses one step, it's a problem.

Right now, he's still really fast for his size. He's way above average size for an NFL linebacker, 6'5", 250 pounds, and can run a 4'6". So that is a unique specimen of a human being in terms of his physical play. But if he lost a step and suddenly became kind of average speed for what he does, then considering how much he's getting paid, that could be a real problem. But I don't know, am I missing somebody here? I feel like everybody else is either in their prime or is a rookie or, you know, I can't think of any other players who would be potential for drop-off. I had two, other than what you said. One, Kyle Rudolph, I guess, would be one that you could think of. I think last year we were wondering that a couple games in,

and then his production saw an uptick. And I think with Kubiak, you'd think he'd be in the best system to continue what he's doing, even as an old tight end. But just another year for him, that could be one. And then just another, not fun one, because we don't want anyone to drop off, but I guess a disastrous one, that's what came to mind when you were saying that, would be Dan Bailey. if Dan Bailey starts showing his age at kicker and Vikings again

are struggling to find a kicker so that could be another one but kickers can kick till they're really old so I I don't know if that one would be as much age but that was just another one that I thought of Britton Colquitt the punterter, would be another one. But his value, as we discovered, really exists in him being a great holder for Dan Bailey. Yeah, I wouldn't expect a drop-off from any of these guys in particular. And that's how fascinating it is with the NFL, how quickly things can change. You go from a team that feels like it's on the wrong side of the mountain, and then all of a sudden, you're looking at this year and next year as a team on the rise again, a team that's rebuilding up its roster,

and all they need is some players from the 2019 and 2020 draft classes to step up, and they sure threw a lot of darts this year with the draft class. So if you hit on three of these guys, three of the 15, four of the 15, all of a sudden your team is back to being competitive with a quarterback who's under contract and a lot of, I mean, if you end up hitting on the two first-round draft picks, you have got stars on rookie contracts and you can spend around them. Everything really over the next couple of years rests on how those draft

classes perform, but you are no longer in that space. It really turned quickly. You're no longer in that space of, well, you got some old guys. You got to win now. You have to do everything you can and take risky moves and stuff because these guys are about to fall off. The Kyle Rudolph point is an interesting one. I think Rudolph is just going to be who he is.

Maybe he'll be like 43 and he'll just be large and they'll still be throwing him the ball in the end zone for seven yard touchdowns or something like that. Even though he didn't rack up a ton of catches last year, he still gave them quite a bit of value. After this season, we'll see what the price versus what he brought was, but I think that there's still a lot to offer with him as well. So there isn't really one, if I had to pick one, Reef is the obvious one that I would circle first. And then everybody else seems like probably have at least this year and next year still in their primes. And you'd be surprised at a massive fall off. All right, Matt, that's all the questions

we have. Okay, good job. Intern Paul, five questions as we do enjoy doing from time to time. Well, great job. And if you see any tweets you like from the Purple Insider Twitter, Paul is often behind those. Yeah, make sure to follow Purple Insider. Follow Purple underscore Insider. Thanks for that. I have railed against on this show underscores,

and then you come out and create the Twitter account with an underscore. It's fine. Yeah, I'm sorry. My personal account, it's habit, you know. I'm putting it on your evaluation, your internship evaluation, which I will definitely be doing. All right. Well, thanks for all your help, Intern Paul. Hope you enjoyed our five questions. Feel free in the comments to leave any of your answers as well or shoot us a tweet, and we'll talk to you next time on Purple Insider. This is Brandon Kelly, the host of Blue Wire's new podcast, Golden Goals. From Lionel Messi to Marta to Pele, our show takes a deep dive into soccer's superstars.

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