Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What does winning do to the Vikings' timeline? Why did the Packers not invest in receivers? Will we see Kene Nwangwu soon? (A Fan's Only podcast)

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans' questions, starting with how winning this year will impact their long-term decisions. Does a good season mean everyone comes back again in 2023? Did the Packers mess up their own timeline by investing in defense while Aaron Rodgers was aging? What do we think of the interior offensive line? Will we see Kene Nwangwu get a chance to see the field beyond special teams and more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is another fans only podcast. In fact, it's going to be part of a double fans only podcasts or two podcasts. What do they call them? A double album. Like back in the day, they don't do those anymore, but they used to, if you're old, you know that, that they used to do double albums. And so this will be that type of thing. Only there won't be any B side questions like there were on double albums. No, this will be only the good stuff

for you guys, because there are so many questions that I still have in the file and I am trying to live up to my promise to read as many as humanly possible. And this is a great time to do it because no Vikings press conferences on Monday or Tuesday. I've got some time. I interviewed a physics professor about punting, like the things that people usually do when they're taking that little break in the bye week for the Vikings. And also I wanted to bring up that the curse continues for all teams that are facing the Minnesota Vikings this year. Just as I'm recording this, Matt Ryan has been benched. I mean, naturally.

And Elijah Vera Tucker and Brees Hall are both out for the New York Giants. I'm sorry, for the New York Jets for the rest of the entire year. What is going on? I mean, it's a spooky season out there here. And, you know, there's all the nightmarish movies and everything else that are running on tv all the time so i guess maybe i'm just thinking too much about the possibility of a real hex that somehow maybe the vikings broke their own hex or they hexed the other teams that they're facing i don't know but you're if Sam Ellinger is still the quarterback by the time the Vikings

play the Colts, that will be, I think, four backup quarterbacks on the schedule, which is a quarter of the schedule being backup quarterbacks. And only the football gods know what can still happen between now and then. But they'll play Arizona. We'll continue to do all the previewing that we usually do. And it will actually be quite interesting to listen to Kevin O'Connell when we get back there on Wednesday, talk about what they looked at in the bye week. We discussed it a little bit with Kevin O'Connell right before the bye about how he wanted to look at why they haven't been able to hit passes deeper down the field and all sorts of things like that.. But we'll get a chance to discuss kind of what the process was through the bye week, and we'll go from there.

But for now, it is on to your fan questions. This comes from at Tim Rizzo on Twitter. As the rest of the Vikings schedule gets considerably more difficult down the stretch, a 10- 7 or 11 and 6 season is quite likely it will probably lead to a home playoff game given the Packers struggles and who knows from there my question how is that outcome any better than trading away all of our assets prior to this season and starting over with a few core pieces an above average but not stellar season will probably encourage the Wilfs or Kwasi to double down, focus on the competitive portion even harder in 2024 and

kick the can farther down the road. Your thoughts? Yeah. So here's the way that I always put this. When they decided to bring everybody back that we had to set the bar. And I'm sorry if you guys have heard me say this like a number of times about set where we need to set the bar, but I think it's a really interesting subject. The bar had to be set at, are you a legitimate Superbowl contender? Because when

you don't do things that will help you down the road, and that doesn't mean tank. And I always want to make sure we clarify that because if we were talking about a season this year where they had traded Kirk Cousins to the Colts, and I think the Colts would be happier at this point, if that had happened, traded him to the Colts, signed Marcus Mariota and moved on from say, Daniil Hunter and Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen and replace them with some younger free agents or draft picks or younger players at those positions. Let's say it's DJ Wanham, it's Josh Metellus, it's KJ Osborne and a rookie wide receiver or somebody that they signed that was better than Albert Wilson. Like what's their record right now? I mean, Daniil Hunter was very good in the last

game. Adam Thielen hasn't really had a breakout game yet. And Harrison Smith is mostly being used as an over the top safety. Not that he's not been great at it because he has, because he's great at football, but maybe the record is four and two instead of five and one, if not still five and one. Right. And so that was always my case from the very beginning is i think you can still compete because you have justin jefferson if you and also they could have spent money in other places had they created i think it was 25 million dollars in cap space that would have come along with moving on from cousins and right now the difference between cousins and mariotta statistically isn't really all that much now Now I think before the season,

you would have said it would have been greater, but my thing is you have Justin Jefferson on this football team and we've seen just the Jefferson or Stefan digs and Thielen in the past really help quarterbacks. And I, and I think in general, that's just the case in the NFL is that, you know, your wide receiver when they're at that level, um, can absolutely help your quarterback a lot and elevate the play of your quarterback. Mariota right now for a middling Atlanta team is averaging 7.8 yards per attempt and has been an average quarterback. Uh, he has more turnover worthy plays than big time throws, which is not uncommon for

Mariota. He's done a little bit of scrambling and he has an 89.9 quarterback rating. So he's been a average quarterback so far this year. And if you were an average quarterback for the Vikings, which they have been so far at quarterback average with Kirk cousins this year, you're probably four and two or five and one, and you still have a really good chance at winning this division as bad as the Packers are. That was how I looked at what competitive rebuild was supposed to mean is get the cap right for the future, sign some younger free agents that would be good long shots or, or just guys that can help you for multiple seasons and then reset that

quarterback situation. So you can have a competitive year. You could potentially win something, but you're not spending as much money or locking yourself in which a no trade clause mildly locks them in, uh, not completely, but mildly. And I think you would have ended up with some results that are pretty close, only more opportunities in the future. And I mean, I think that trading Daniil Hunter, there's a good chance that would have brought back a first, a second, a pretty high draft pick for the future. And again, I think Hunter will be good the rest of the season. He seems to have found something against Miami and that that's

important to have. The Vikings still don't have a very good pass rush and DJ Wanham has developed. And so how much would you really lose there versus what you have now? Now, of course, as they're in a position to potentially compete for something more, uh, if that does come to fruition, if they get 11 or 12 wins and go into the playoffs with a home playoff game and with the numbers that say they're a legitimate contender, if they run through some of these teams that are good, if they play really well in Buffalo, if they beat the Dallas Cowboys, like all those things would make me say, okay,

well they've checked off all the boxes that they needed to check to justify that direction and so from that perspective that would be a win for them to have picked the right year to bring everybody back had the things go their way and then give themselves a chance to potentially go to the Super Bowl if things go right in the playoffs like that's always the goal and that's never really happened I mean 2019 was definitely closest, but that team was probably too flawed to get through the NFC and get to the Super Bowl. And we saw that in San Francisco.

But now, I mean, you're really talking about the playoffs. If things go in the trajectory they're going now, being entirely wide open, right? And the opportunity being there, if they can get to that threshold that says, hey, you're legit. So that's what we're looking for in the second half is don't collapse. Don't lose all your games to good teams

that you are going to face in Buffalo, Dallas, the Giants, potentially the Jets at that point, and show that there's something here and there's an opportunity to do that. So, I mean, from that perspective, they've hit it pretty well. That's not really entirely your point, but I always want to kind of reset where we stand on that whole competitive rebuild thing. Your point is that if they go to the first round of the playoffs at 10 and seven, and they lose in the first round let's say they face dallas that kind of a bad break there that the nfc east has all the good teams that's

who you face and micah parson sacks kirk cousins nine times and we all move on with our lives are they going to say hey look we were that close we just need a blank you know we just need a better defense we just need a couple of more this or we just need a better defense. We just need a couple of more of this or that. Let's just draft whatever. Let's just develop this or that. Like, no, I mean, I think that there is a long-term concern of this year being competitive, causing them to continue to try to run it back and do some of the same things. But father time is also going to force them to do some things. Otherwise. I mean,

it, it, it really can't be many more years of this with some of the players that they have in key positions, but could it be another year for 2023? Definitely. At some point though, that,

that the clock is going to strike midnight on Adam Thielen and Harrison Smith and Eric Hendricks and all the guys you've been hanging onto that are stars for a really long time. Patrick Peterson, Daniil Hunter, Zedarius Smith, like all of these guys at some point, uh, who right now are playing pretty good football. I not near their peaks, but pretty good football, good enough to get some wins. Um, but eventually that does run out. Does it run out by 2023 or do they run it back? Now, let me throw this scenario at you though, which would be, let's just say that the Vikings win 12 games and they win a playoff game and then they lose after that. All right. We would look at that as a pretty successful season

of having won 12 and put themselves in a position to potentially go to the Superbowl. If things went right in the playoffs, let's just say that they didn't. I know it'd be a Vikings first, but let's just say. And then they come out and say, all right, well, we're going to run it back with Cousins and most of these other stars for one more year. We're going to try to add some things in free agency, restructure contracts, do it all again. However, we're drafting a quarterback in the first round. Would you take

that because i think that that then becomes like maybe a route that's possible if they have a great season that they can't just move on from everybody all of a sudden and they have to try to bring it back particularly with the fact that the nfc north is not getting better from here. Like let's say Rogers retires and then, you know, the Detroit is still whatever Detroit is. Chicago is a year away or two years away, and they're still trying the Justin Fields thing. Then you have to give it another shot, but also with the recognition that this can't go on forever with cousins considering his age and that you have to try to draft a quarterback and go back at it. So I think that a lot of people would take that scenario of if they do have an 11

or 12 win season, most of it's coming back with improvements that they can make to take another shot at winning the division and going into the playoffs with a legit chance to win a Super Bowl with the understanding in a very Chiefs-like manner with Alex Smith, with the understanding that they will eventually be changing quarterbacks. The only problem you run into there is that if you're turning things over to the new quarterback after you're moving on from Cousins, then you might be setting that player up not Not the best. However, look at the offensive line. Look at the fact that you have Justin Jefferson, presumably in this scenario, you've already signed him to a massive contract extension. You can hand the keys over to a rookie quarterback in 2024 and have it look pretty good. Now we are way, way, way down the line on this.

There's still a lot of football to be played this year. I just think that that scenario is not the worst for the franchise that I've ever heard. And this thing could go many different directions, but that seems like a plausible one. If they are as competitive as you're saying, they run away with the division, they have the home playoff game. Then I think that that sounds possible now if they don't draft a quarterback and they don't develop that player for a year then it gets more muddy and if they extend cousins then it's going to be kind of confusing because of his age and the price tag it would take and then doing the dance over and over

again hoping for a year where every other team just loses all of their star talent and you have the easiest schedule. Like that doesn't happen all that often. That's why they have to take advantage this year. There should be urgency. There should be some desperation. And that's why we're talking more game to game this year than future. I think, uh, even though I've, I've made the bi-week exception, but like, that's why is because there is a lot

of urgency to win this year when everything has gone your way. It's a great question though. Like how does winning this year impact who they're going to be in the future? All right, let's get to the next question here. I know I said, I'm going to go faster. And then I did not do that at all. But that like what you've hit on right there is in my mind, one of the most interesting subjects about this team, like hands down is how it all works relating to the competitive slash competitive rebuild, how it all relates to their big picture timeline, where the quarterback fits in all of this, and what will it mean to have had so many things go right for them and get off to this hot start and potentially have a really good season?

What does that do to their timeline is such a great subject to discuss. So thanks for that question, Tim. All right, this one is from ICU2Ugly on Twitter. Talk me into Green Bay going half all in with their approach, resigning their defense and Rogers, but wasting one of Rogers last year, developing wide receivers instead of going full Rams and getting the best team this year.

Do you think Green Bay will be deadly come the end of the year? I am not convinced Green Bay is going to be able to turn this around. I think there are games that they can still win because they do have some talent on their offense. Aaron Jones being a little bit of that talent. And I don't think Alan Lazard is a bad player. There's enough there to beat some bad teams, but after you lose at Washington,

I'm less confident in that they're going to have a really tough time turning it around. And maybe they will trade for a receiver at the deadline that can help them. But I don't think that suddenly Green Bay just becomes this crazy competitor. It will probably be like 2018 where we continue to think, no, they've got to turn it around. They have Rodgers. They've got to turn it around.

And they just never really do. That's how they look right now. It's funny because the Vikings are running this one man race in their division and all they have to do is not step in a giant pothole, which is something that the franchise historically has done on numerous occasions. But that's how it feels to me. Now, your question is about their off season. I don't understand it.

I truly do not. I mean, A.J. Dillon, for example, is a nice player, but they didn't draft a receiver at that point and instead go with a running back. When you go through their drafts and you see the lack of weapons that they picked to put around Aaron Rodgers until they take Christian Watson,

which, like you said, you're talking about not even a win-now receiver, but more of a developmental receiver rogers until they take christian watson which you know like you said you're talking about even not even a win now receiver but more of a developmental receiver who didn't play at bama or something that that was a guy that everybody knew was going to have to develop and then he gets hurt pretty much right away which happens a lot with rookies anyway that you can never really count on rookies to make a big impact on your team. And yet they tried to fill out their receiver room that way. Randall Cobb is a hundred years old. Lazard has never been a star like what, why they wouldn't try harder to replace Devante Adams with somebody who was better is really

strange to me. Sammy Watkins. I mean, you would think that they would have moved heaven and earth to replace Devante Adams with somebody that at least had a chance in the draft to be special right away, or that was in free agency that they overpay and mess with the contract. Like New Orleans did this for Drew Brees all the time. All they did was mess around with contracts to make sure they could give him everything they could possibly give him. And they've been punished for it in the longterm, but who cares? Like you went for in the final years with breeze, this team decided that it was more important to them to, like you said, bring back the defense draft defense and then run the football. Yeah. I don't know i mean i think that there's a lot of mistakes there there's some argument for them drafting jordan love but even you kind of go back to that and go

it wasn't even really that they drafted jordan love it was that they also drafted eric stokes who's just not that good like why i yeah i mean there's a lot to question there for sure um rogers has some very valid complaints i think uh none of them really are valid if he's complaining about matt lefleur i think lefleur has been really good for aaron rogers i mean that's not a hot take he's won the mvp in back-to-back years it's really the front office just kind of allowing this to happen and really focusing on defense. And when you have one of the great quarterbacks in history and you're focusing on defense, I mean, I guess I have questions there. Like, why was that the case? Did they just think,

Oh, Aaron will take care of it. That's kind of what it looks like is they just thought, well, Aaron, we'll just make all these receivers better and it will be fine. And that is foolish when you're talking about a guy at his age whose skills could really diminish at any time. We've seen this from many quarterbacks in the latter half of their careers, and we've seen it from many just this year alone. Russell Wilson is not the same. Matt Ryan's getting benched. Tom Brady can't play anymore. Like, eventually age comes for you. And the only way to extend it is oftentimes with that supporting cast receivers and offensive line, their O-line is not the same

and their receivers are clearly not on the same page with Rogers, which, you know, maybe he needs to take some responsibility for, but you also have to have talent and they did not put a lot of talent. I mean, I think at the beginning of the year, was it either ESPN or PFF had them 32nd for receiving talent. And it's really shown. I don't understand their direction. I think it's been botched in a lot of ways and that Devante Adams and Aaron Rogers together and a really good offensive line, really good the last few years that's fallen off. But I think that they've covered up for some of the negligence there of not adding more receiving talent. And then all of a sudden, here you are as a bad offensive football team. And I'm sure that Vikings fans are very upset to see

it, but yeah, they made, they made some clear, clear errors and the beneficiaries are right here in Minnesota. Folks, I'm seeing that liquid death is starting to catch on. Some of you have even sent me tweets of displays in the store, but for those of you who do not understand why there are tall boy cans in the water aisle, allow me to introduce you to liquid death water. It's a new brand of mountain water and they also have sparkling water options as well. You guys would not think that anything could knock me off my diet soda at the top, but the sparkling lime from Liquid Death is delicious. And here's the thing, Liquid Death may have a crazy name and crazy logos, but it's really about quenching your thirst in a way that does not include a plastic bottle. The death part is about using aluminum and killing the use of plastic,

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death at the Halloween party or something. Go get liquid death at your local Target Walmart seven 11, or find a liquid death retailer near you with their store locator tool at liquid death.com slash insider. That's liquid death.com slash insider. Uh, onto our next question here, this from at McGillis one, what's happening with Bradbury and Ezra Cleveland's PFF grades? Is it a smoke screen? Now, I think this question may have been asked before the Miami game, which kind of tells you how cluttered my fans only, uh, you know, fans only, uh, file is. And I'm sorry for that.

Organization is not usually my best skill because both of those guys had tough days at Miami, but let's take a look at where they stand right now, because that's a great question. Early in the season, they both had pretty good to very good PFF grades. And as we stand right now on the Vikings offensive line, you will not be surprised by this. Christian Derrissaw is dominating. He's one of the highest graded left tackles in the league. Brian O'Neill typically is doing pretty well. I think that this right now is one of his lower PFF grades, but it's still

above average. And he's surprisingly allowed two sacks, which I think might be more or as many as he allowed all of last year. The rest though, it kind of looks like it's usually looked Garrett Bradbury is much closer to average in his PFF grade, which is really all anybody asked for from Bradbury. Can you be an average pass blocker? And so far on the whole, he has been, but it's just one or two games that have been pretty tough, but that's, that's being alignment, right? It's like, if you're a batter and you have one or two bad games now and then, and you go, Oh, for 5, well, that's going to hurt your overall average, and it's kind of who you are. But Bradbury right now I think has his highest pass-blocking grade,

which might be affected by playing out of the shotgun more. Competition is part of that for sure. So they need that to continue. Right now he's got a 62 pass-blocking grade. If that continues, they should be fine. If that sinks, it's going to be a problem. Ezra Cleveland has sunk below average with his PFF grade, which kind of tells you about how bad some of the games he's had

when it hasn't gone well. And he's allowed 13 pressures, which is second on the team. And you didn't ask about this, but Ingram is at a 39 pass blocking grade. So he has been a liability. The other two are hovering around average. And if they're hovering around average, that's okay. You can absolutely manage with two of your offensive linemen being kind of replaceable players or, or, or I would say above a replacement level player, I should say, because a replacement level player, I should say, because a replacement level player, you expect to come in and get beat a lot and give up a lot of pressures

and grade in the fifties and just be kind of a liability. But if they could stay above that, and there's no gargantuan weak link from Bradbury or Cleveland, then they might be able to cover up a little bit for Ed Ingram and then hope that he improves in pass blocking as the season goes along. But I think that what you saw in Miami was just kind of reality with both of those players with Bradbury and Cleveland, that they are beatable, that when you send five man pressures and everybody has to go one onone, somebody's getting beat there. And I do think that opposing teams who are coming up on the schedule are going to look at what happened in Miami and say, you know what, we need to send some of these man-for-man pressures when the Vikings are going to not keep anybody else into block. And this might have to be an adjustment for them that if the other teams are running five man pressures and it's man for man on the defensive line

versus the offensive line, you have to keep a tight end. You have to keep a running back or a full back in just to give some extra blocking because there's going to be one person on that offensive line that struggles on a given play. given play if a team is consistently pressuring that way so I think that like the overall of those two players is that they've shown at times that they're starting level players Cleveland and Bradbury but they're not exceptional that they're still prone to weakness still prone to tough games and getting beaten by the league's better players. And eventually the Vikings are going to have to consider an upgrade, maybe at both positions.

Cleveland, I think we need to give a little more time, but center, I don't think that Bradbury has gone so far to say, all right, wow, they screwed up by not picking up his fifth year option. Like they did the right thing with that. And some of the weaknesses have still been on display. It's probably not going to change. Like this is going to be who they are. It's really the onus is on cousins in part, but he's not going to change either. So it's really on Kevin O'Connell to learn how to manage the fact that you still have interior weakness. How are you going to deal with this? And against Miami, they just started throwing quick passes. And that might have to be the answer that the bootlegs, uh, at times can be helpful and good.

Um, but maybe that's not always the answer if play actions are developing slower and it's going to have to be a lot of get the ball into the hands of Justin Jefferson and let him make plays. Um, but can you do that all the time? Like, that's going to be another question. It's, it's just question it's it's just it's something they're going to continue to have to work around when they play teams that have better interior pass rush or just better pass rush in general because they really still have

strength at the tackles and weaknesses on the interior so that's kind of where we're at with that i think that it also tells you a little bit just in general about those single game or small sample size PFF grades. Like guys can have good games. They're in the NFL, they're high draft picks, but over a longer period of time, it starts to kind of show itself and separate who's really great at this week after week and who's inconsistent. I think that's a lesson because what we love to do is go right to the PFF. And of course I do this, go right to the PFF grades after a game and say, well, how did everybody play? And then we draw conclusions from that. But sometimes we have to say, all right, this guy had a bad game or this guy gave up so many pressures. Let's look at why

let's try to figure this out. Or, Hey, that was just a small sample size and it really doesn't tell us who that guy is. And I think with Bradbury, that was probably it. Like we all kind of know the truth there about the strengths and weaknesses of Bradbury. And it, you know, just a small sample of games where it was working didn't mean that everything had completely changed. But if he continues to play at this level, they can survive. All right. On to the next question here from

at PatThePingu on Twitter. Let's see, another fans-only question for you. Less of a question, more of a plea. Can you please help me make sense of why Kenny Wong-Wu's zero offensive snaps all season? Why he has zero snaps all season? With Cook showing some signs of regression in Madison having minimal

success my only guess is that it's more so Kwesi than Kevin O'Connell benching Kenny Wong Wu to keep his legs young when he has to be a more featured role for next year presumably in the post-Delvin era no I don't think that's it I don't think that Kwesi Adafo-Menta can really tell Kevin O'Connell who to play. Uh, in fact, I would say that he can't like that's in general, the way it works in the NFL. And this does like change from team to team. It varies. And sometimes the owner tells you who to play, which there's a report about that being a potential thing in, in Indianapolis that maybe Jim Ursae just said, we've got a bench, Matt Ryan. Um, but normally the way that it works is the general manager puts together the team and is there throughout the season to make your additions and subtractions and is in constant communication with the coach about their decisions. But at the end of the day, the coach is

deciding how to use the players and even if the gm thinks he can make maybe suggestions but i'm not even really sure if that happens if you're really supposed to do that in in just the way that the structure works as the general manager i don't think it goes over very well if you went to the coach and said don't play kenny wong will because we need him for next year. The coach is saying, excuse me, we're winning football games and we're going to do everything we can to win football games. We're not thinking about next year. Uh, I don't really understand the number zero either for Kenny Wong.

He is such an explosive talent. We even saw him, you know, get a couple of kick returns. What was it? It was against Chicago,ago uh where you're still seeing it i mean the kick returns haven't been as successful as several touchdowns like they were last year against baltimore and san francisco but you still see that first step and that quickness he was coming off of an injury in training camp that may have been a reason to not use him super early but i think with both him and Jalen Rager,

there are some more opportunities to get those guys in the game and get them to touch the football. It might be just that coaches love Delvin cook because he's one of the best running backs in the league. And I don't think there's been the same pop and it actually shows up in the data, by the way. I don't know if I brought this up or not. This might have been in the written form of the mailbag, but the rushing yards over expected for Delvin Cook the last two years, or I'm sorry, the two years when he was at his best 2019 and 2020, he was gaining between a half and an eighth of a yard on average per run over what was expected based on the blocking this year he's dead on average so it's still like been 4.8 yards per carry and the blocking has been pretty good

but it's more of a product of the blocking he isn't exceeding expectations in the same way that he has in the past which i think kind of tells you about how it matches up with your eye test that it doesn't quite look the same so he's not like awful and hasn't fallen completely off the edge sean alexander style where he's averaging three yards to carry it's just more dependent on what's going on around him how the defense is playing how the offensive line is playing than it would have been in the past but he's still delvin cook and if you're the running backs coach who is normally the guy who makes this call by the way that we're putting it on Kevin O'Connell and certainly Kevin O'Connell could say to the running back coach, I think it's Curtis Modkins. He could say, Hey, um,

we really need to play. Can I Wong? Well, I really like what I've seen from him in practice. That's something that Kevin O'Connell can do. Uh, but normally when it comes to those rotations, you're leaning, you can't do everything as the head coach all the time on game day. You're usually leaning on your running backs coach to manage when those guys are going in and out, when a guy needs a rest, how that rotation works. And it's something you discuss. So again, if O'Connell wanted this, he could do it. But on a game day, it, it, a lot of times rests on the running backs coach. And maybe there's a reason for it.

Maybe it's, hey, we don't like how he pass protects. So if he's out there, he's got to touch the ball. And if we're handing off, we're going to hand off to Delvin Cook. There might be a reason for that. But when you look at the guy run the ball, there's got to be some opportunity somewhere to mix it in for a play, a couple of plays, throw him a swing pass and see if he can blow it up. You know, let's say you line them up in the slot and you throw one of those little bubble screens and see if he can explode or run

an end around with him or something to get him the football, give him up, give him the old Cordero Patterson pitch play. Remember that like in 2013, where they would just pitch it back to Patterson and he could kind of run in space a little bit. I'm with you that I think that he's a guy that could be utilized on this offense for an explosive play here or there that hasn't been yet. And I'm a little surprised by that. I mean, I thought going into the year that there was even a chance he would be the backup running back, depending on fit. Then Madison looked very good in training camp. Seemed like they really liked what they saw from him. But the fact that Wong Wu hasn't even been in the game.

Yeah, that is something that I wonder if they do look at that in the bye week. Like, how can we get somebody like that involved when some of the other skill players, Irv Smith Jr., KJ Osborne, they haven't really given a whole lot when it comes to explosiveness. So it's a great question. I don't have a great answer for you, but it's something that maybe we can ask when it comes to the second half of the season, if he continues to not get in there at all, kind of where his progress is at folks i know you've heard me talk about soda stick for a long time now but i'm telling you you have to start following them on social media for new fresh gear they are releasing all the time of course they have the classics like

the moss moon design and the metrodome shirts and hoodies but as the local teams go along in their seasons soda stick is constantly putting out new stuff whether it's the new horn state gear or the vica dantas rex shirts lots and lots more from all the minnesota clubs go to sodastick.com and follow them at soda stick on twitter that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com on Twitter and use the code purple insider to get 15% off your purchase. All right. This comes from Chris via email. Hi again from Canada, Matthew.

We're five and one. We'll take it. Help reinforce my faith in O'Connell at all and their clock management. We went into the last six minutes of the Miami game up seven and had a ton of positive occurrences, a 53 yard touchdown run, successful two point and an interception and a fumble recovery, but somehow needed the hands team to recover an onside kick to, uh, to salt the victory. Did they manage that, uh, as well as they might have? Yeah, that's a great question.

I'm going to have to look back. Let me take a look back here. If there was any clock management issues there, I don't remember there being that. At the end of the first half, they could have been more aggressive for sure. But I think the way that everyone was playing, they decided that a field goal was a safer play. Let's see. More than anything. It was that huge play by Jalen Waddle that, that kind of screwed this up. Cause you're right. That a lot happened there. They were up 24 to 10 after scoring a touchdown, then they get the interception. I mean, it should be over at that point. And then there's that, and you would call this a garbage time touchdown

to, to make it 24 to 16 because there's only, let's see, there's only two minutes left in the game when they get the ball. It's under two minutes when they score and they were down by two scores and you need an onside kick, which almost never happens. I think it was more of a product of maybe after so many emotional happenings there in a row, they kind of took the foot off the gas for just a second. And Jalen Waddle ran down the side of the field because he's one of the fastest players in the league and they end up giving up a 49 yard catch. And then of course they score a touchdown

and it kind of looks worse than it was. But after the interception, the game for all intents and purposes was over. I mean, if, you're talking about the win probability. I don't know if they used to have this on the ESPN box score. I don't know if they still have it. Oh, yeah, they do. So, after the interception, I can look at this. Like, let's see here. I mean, even to the very end, they're up by, let's see.

So, yeah, right. So, as soon as it goes to 24 to 10, it's a 99.1% chance to win. So what happened after that? Yeah. It was them just falling asleep at the wheel for a second, giving up a big play and a garbage time touchdown. But I didn't think that it was any, uh, malfeasance by the Vikings there. And overall, if I had to grade Kevin O'Connell and the way that he's handled the clock, I'd probably give him like a B plus. Like he hasn't been this psychopath with fourth downs or anything, which, you know, someday I'd like to see it. Some coach that when they have fourth down and five at their own five yard line, just goes for it anyway, knowing that if you give up the touchdown, get the ball back, it's not the

worst thing in the world as opposed to punting it it away and the other team still gets it in great position. And there's a chance that you get it, right? So like, there's a good argument for that. And last year I interviewed the best Madden player in the world, and we talked about game management. And he said, that would be, if this thing goes to a completely different level someday, you'll see teams going for fourth down deep in their own zone because that's actually not a bad play. Although if you have a punter and this is what changes it, if you have a punter that can send it 80 yards, well then you punt, but it's usually that whole mathematical formula is usually based on just the idea that you're not going to punt at 80 yards.

If you punt at 80 yards, it completely flips the field. But if you put it to Tyree kill and he catches it, let's say at the 45 and he runs it 10 yards, they're at the 35 already. Like, so you might as well try to get a first down, but that's like totally, you know, kind of like galaxy brain a little bit with game management, but I definitely do it on Madden as well, but overall, so he hasn't been this like going forward on fourth down all the time, crazy, whatever. There's a few fourth downs that I wondered, is this really the right thing to do? I think the one against Chicago where they got away with because of a penalty, they probably shouldn't have gone for it.

There's been maybe one or two where I've thought, oh, maybe they should hear the New Orleans one. It's a good example. They incomplete a pass to Johnny M, maybe they should hear the new Orleans one. It's a good example. They incomplete a pass to Johnny Mutt and then run out the field goal team. Like dude, it's fourth and one, like get a first down score, a touchdown here. Um, but aside from that, I think it's been fine. That that's how I would grade. I haven't even seen like in previous years and maybe they don't start doing this until halfway through the season. I don't know why I haven't seen this in previous years, though. I've seen sort of a grading system for coaching decisions.

And I'll have to look that up and figure out where that was coming from, because I used to see reporters tweet about it a lot. Oh, here was the best decision or worst decision of the week. And I just haven't seen that. I used to get emails that would break down every coach's ranking and where they made decisions. And you'll never guess where Zimmer was. Uh, it wasn't great. So I, but if I were to grade it, I'd say it's been a B I don't think that they have, uh, had, this is a major problem. You're

not losing games because of game management. All right. Uh, this one comes from at Dempdorf on Twitter. Let's see. Vikings fans are really down in the defense at the moment. And whilst we're kind of in the middle of the pack, I understand as we're giving up a lot of easy yards. Do you think that the players will get more used to the season as it goes along and we'll start to see Donatello introduce more wrinkles and get more aggressive? Or is it going to be a shell defense and rely on one key stop all the way? Yeah, that's a good one. I do think that they want to be more aggressive at some point here

soon. And I think that they were against Miami. And this is such a joy of the internet is that I can actually look and see how aggressive they were against Miami. Because to my eye, it felt like Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson were blitzed a lot. When I watched the tape back, that that's what I thought was that they were rushed a lot, but I can also pull up the numbers. So why guess? Um, okay.

So no, not with Teddy. Teddy was not blitzed really at all. What about Skylar Thompson? Cause early in the game. Oh yeah. Skylar Thompson was bl early in the game. Oh yeah. Skylar Thompson was blitzed a lot. So they didn't really blitz Teddy at all, but they blitz Skylar Thompson on six out of 15 dropbacks, which is unusual for the Vikings. And I did see, um, Sam Monson friend of the show

tweeted out a chart of team's aggressiveness and so forth, like how aggressive you are, how successful you are. And, uh, the Vikings were both not aggressive and not successful. So, I mean, I think at some point you do have to pick your spots and start blitzing people just to keep them off balance. Uh, Eric Hendricks is generally decent at this. Jordan Hicks has had a good career as a blitzer. Harrison Smith has had a good career as a blitzer. I think there's a case for that. And maybe it is because they're just concerned that too many corners are going to be one-on-one, but if you're getting beaten on the back end, as much as they are anyway, and giving up a lot of yards, it might be worth a shot to pick your spots there. Does it have to do with the comfort of the defense is a great question because every

week Donatello will tell us that guys are getting more comfortable and he loves what he sees and everything else. But how true that is, I'm not really sure. But against Arizona, for example, like you're going to have to send some people after Kyler Murray, but you also can't let DeAndre Hopkins just roast you. And I thought it was interesting. Someone pointed out that DeAndre Hopkins has played or in his first game back played a lot in the slot, which is not advantageous for the Vikings, considering that they're giving up a lot of their yards in the middle of the field. I think adjustments do have to be made here to what they've done defensively,

because if you give up this many yards, like we were just talking about the fumbles, the interceptions, stuff like that, it's not always going to continue from week to week to week that you're going to have that one or two plays that just bails you out that sometimes teams are just going to move the ball and hold onto the ball and beat you that way. Uh, if you don't do some things that are a little more aggressive. So yeah, I think that

that is something that has to change. What's hard for me to say is how much that has to do with comfort in the defense or just a philosophy. It might be just Ed Donatel's straight up philosophy. He does not like to blitz, but they did it against the young quarterback in Skylar Thompson. Now, maybe it'll be more of a week to week thing and they just haven't wanted to do it so far, but you know, against Justin Fields, I could see why they wouldn't have wanted to blitz Andy Dalton because he's a veteran quarterback and he gets rid of the ball quickly, but I didn't think they did it enough against Justin Fields. Somebody who hangs onto the ball, struggles to read defenses.

I mean that, that would have been, I think a better choice there. So yeah, that's, um, that's something I really want to look at closely from week to week though, is do they increase how much they dial up pressure? Uh,

let's see. This comes from Scott via email. Let's see a lot of Daniel Hunter talk lately. I wonder if switching him over to being a three, four defensive end rather than outside linebacker would be a better fit. We don't have a good interior pass rush to begin with. And he also has those traits to win there. Plus he's good against the run. What are your thoughts? I guess I would say this, that like what you're saying is, is logical, which is get them lined up over the tackle.

Like he used to be, get them at that defensive end position and maybe put DJ want them more at the edge rusher, put them over the tackle, put somebody else out wide and roll with it that way. And I think in certain situations that we might see that happen where there is somebody over the outside of Daniil Hunter and he's lined up directly over the tackle. I don't think what you could do is make a change that big in the middle of the season, which would be trying to teach him a whole new to that guy, get his hands on him quicker, get those power moves coming, use the long arm, because that's really his best technique. Get that arm on a guy and keep him at an arm's length, which is really long for him, and then throw him one way or the other, or drive him straight back into the quarterback. That's really what he does best.

I was watching, and I know Nick Bosa's got a hand in the dirt guy, but his bend the other day around the edge where he can turn the corner and get a, what, 45 degree angle to the ground. That's not really who Daniil Hunter is. And that's sort of what you have to be able to do to be that outside linebacker. Now, I mean, his performance against Miami was the best of the year and it might be that outside linebacker. Now, I mean, his performance against Miami was the best of the year and it might be that he's adjusting to the fit, but I still think that him getting hands on the tackle as quick as possible is the best route for them. I just don't know if it can be like,

now you're playing this position. Like that probably can't be the case so much, but I think that there is an adjustment there. I think, yeah, I think that you're, you're onto something for sure. I don't know if they can make a massive change though. All right. One more question here. Good stuff. This from at McNeil, Jared, let's see for fans only podcast here. I noticed Andrew Booth jr. Was finally off the injured list though. He was dressed on the sideline Sunday. He didn't play at all that i saw with the bye week coming up uh it made sense for booth to sit out my question is what kind of role do you see for booth the rest of the season when do you think that he next sees the field also the

vikings appear to be one of the healthier teams in the league how much of that is luck how much of it is the new training staff um okay that second. That second part I think is I'm going to go like 50, 50. I mean, I really do believe, and this is something that I had people tell me in training camp. And so I, I had this feeling for, they would, they would overachieve when it came to health because they are very smart about it. So they deserve to be praised, but man, how many injuries are just a dude like Louis seen getting his foot stuck in the turf?

How many injuries are just someone falls on your leg or you tweak something the wrong way. So luck is a big part of it, but that doesn't take away from the praise for sports science and them updating their approach and having a coach who buys in. I mean, I think that this was one of the biggest, I don't think, I know, this was one of the biggest criticisms of Mike Zimmer from the players is the way that health was handled. And they just did not feel like he understood some of the stuff that the new staff understands. I think he wanted to push everybody back onto the field as fast as he could.

I think that Zimmer was downright offended by injuries sometimes when he felt like a player should be back out there. And I'm basing that on him slamming them in press conferences. So Kevin O'Connell's approach is completely on a different level. I think that there are guys you hear him mention in press conferences, Tyler and Uriah, like a country band or something, but those guys are doing a tremendous job, but look, I mean, no one's fallen wrong. Like that's a pretty good break for you that that's happened. So I think that that is partially luck as far as Andrew Booth jr. Goes camp dancers played well and Patrick Peterson's played well. And I don't think as Andrew Booth Jr. goes, Cam Dantzler's played well and Patrick Peterson's

played well. And I don't think that Andrew Booth Jr. is a slot corner, which is what they really need. I mean, Sullivan has had a struggle so far this year, but asking a rookie to just go play slot when it's a completely different position is incredibly difficult. I think that he's just depth. I think he's a special teamer and he's depth. I don't think that you're going to see him very often for now. And that's fine. If Cam Dantzler plays well and Andrew Booth Jr. is on the bench and you have great performances from

your corners, outside corners, which I mean, great might be a little aggressive. If you have good performances from Dantzler and Peterson, which I think they've gotten, then Booth stays on the bench and he develops for a year and he gets completely healthy and that's fine. And he's a part of your future, but he's not a part of this season aside from if somebody gets banged up and then that's okay. Because then the next man up, if someone does get banged up is at least the player that has first round talent. Uh, and you know, had, I think a pretty good camp. That's somebody that you can sort of rely on to not be a disaster as far as depth goes. And usually at the cornerback position, the next man up is a disaster. That's kind of where I see him right now. And again, it sort of goes back to every draft night.

We remind everyone, okay, you can't just pencil these guys in to do this, that, or the other thing. And this is, this is sort of why, right? Like we didn't know that Cam Dantzler was going to take a step forward. It appears that he has, we did not know how much Patrick Peterson had left and with Booth's health, it just hasn't been good so far. So I think that in a way, the less he plays and the more he's healthy for the future is better. If he can develop and practice and get some

opportunities and some reps in maybe a rotational role, that's also possible that as the season goes along, you start to rest Patrick Peterson a little bit. They've done this with the defensive line. They've even done it with the linebackers, getting Brian Asamoah out there after he's played well on special teams and earned some opportunity. So you might see that. I think that's kind of the best case scenario. He stays healthy. He gets 200 snaps filling in for Patrick Peterson now and then, and maybe has to play a game if someone's banged up. And that's sort of your first season for a guy that has very good potential in the future. Okay. This was part one of our double album of fans only podcasts. Hope you enjoyed it. And thank you all for the questions. More to come football. Thanks everybody.