Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What is a fair expectation for Brian Flores's defense?

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about another round of OTAs upcoming for the Vikings and then answers fan questions about whether Brian Flores can turn around the defense quickly and where he can help most. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. I'm Matthew Collar here and this is another fans-only episode where I go through all the questions that people have sent me, and many of them are great for today's episode, so I'm excited to give answers to them.

And we are entering phase something of the Vikings offseason, another week of OTAs, where we will be out at TCO Performance Center. And just real quick, a rundown of some of the things to look for. We're going to be out there on Tuesday to watch practice. Number one is, once again, who's showing up? No Justin Jefferson last week. We'll see if he's there this week. I would not expect Delvin Cook or Daniil Hunter unless there is some resolution. And if you guys are looking at your calendars and realizing it is almost June 1st that is really the date to look for of will the Vikings release Delvin Cook

will they trade Daniil Hunter after June 1st where it becomes favorable to trade him with his contract or will both of these things play out through the summer also with Justin Jefferson I notice a lot of people on the internet who are trying to look at his social media and say, well, you know, he's posting this or he's posting that. Does that mean he's getting a contract extension? Look, I've always been in the camp that Jefferson, it is so much more favorable for him to sign an extension this year, whether it's a three-year deal or a five-year deal that trying to play this out and fight it all the way to the final moments of how long the NFL allows teams to keep players through fifth-year options and franchise tags, it's just not a

favorable option. And that's the way that the CBA is designed. And if it wasn't, then you'd probably see a lot more guys fight it, but that's the way the world works. And if Justin Jefferson ultimately doesn't like the direction after a couple of years, well, then, you know, he can start having that conversation about going elsewhere. But for the time being, the Minnesota Vikings have all the leverage. It behooves him to sign a contract extension. So that's what I think will happen. It's just, is it going to happen now? Is it going to happen before camp?

Or do we go into next year still having this conversation? Then things get really interesting. And oh, by the way, was missing OTAs because of that? Was it getting an insurance policy like Anthony Barr did a couple of years ago? Was it to put some more pressure on the Vikings to get this thing done and get him here? It'll be another week before we land at mandatory minicamps.

So if he's not at OTAs, then mandatory minicamps is where it becomes very interesting if he is there or not. And if he's not, I think we'll know, all right, something is up here with this contract negotiation. And if he is, maybe we'll get a chance to ask him how he feels about where everything stands, or maybe at the start of mandatory minicamp, that's when they'll announce his contract extension. Usually they do come before camp, but would not be the first to happen earlier in the summer.

I remember Eric Hendricks went that way. So I did see last week a lot of freak out from folks about the Jefferson situation. And I think that if you listen to the episode that was on the podcast only feed with Will Raggetts, we talked a lot about how some patience is going to be required for this thing. But I'm still leaning toward Jefferson signing an extension. Also, we'll see if we get our first OTA look at Jordan Addison. We did not see him practice in the one day that was open to the media, so kind of where he's at.

Is it a health issue? And we'll hopefully get a chance to talk with Kevin O'Connell about why we didn't see him practice last week, or was it just a workload issue that they want to make sure they're taking it very very slowly with him because you know there were some injury issues there last year and then into this offseason with the combine and so forth so it's hard to say why he wasn't there we didn't get a chance to hear from O'Connell on that but we'll see if he's back out there for OTAs. And just a reminder that

there's nothing worth getting super upset about at the end of May, early June, when it comes to OTAs. So anything that you see or read or whoever's not there, not worth it. Save that for much later when we've got things to really, really dive into. So speaking of that, let's get into some of the questions here that we have from Vikings fans about OTAs and what has happened and what will transpire in the future. Let's start with Matt Verrick. Is that supposed to be like a playoff Maverick that I did? We've we've gotten questions from Matt before, and I don't think I ever put two and two together that it's supposed to, is it supposed to be like Maverick, Mattverick? Maybe that's what I should call myself and steal it from you guys. Anyway, Matt says, felt like the Vikings offense last year was very boom or bust, and there were long sections of games where they had three and outs. Do you think that was just

getting used to the new system? I think that that may have played some role and they certainly talked about that from time to time where there was I don't even want to say miscommunications but just not a being fluent in the offense the same way that you would want to be if you're Kirk Cousins and the wide receivers and so forth but I also think that this is purely a if you're Kirk Cousins and the wide receivers and so forth. But I also think that this is purely a product of who Kirk Cousins is as a quarterback, that whether it's game to game or even first quarter to second quarter to third quarter, there is always a boom or bust element of his game. And when we think of him as somebody who is game manager-ish, and I don't mean that as an insult. I mean that he's got to execute the offense. Things have to be going in the right way. And he is not a playmaker

off of schedule. And I think that is always going to limit what he can do on third down. And I've brought it up a couple of times throughout the off season, but it really stuck out to me that someone like Daniel Jones converted a heck of a lot of first downs. So when you don't have that running or scrambling part of your game, you can't be a Patrick Mahomes. You can't be a Josh Allen on third down where if the other team pressures you or gets everything right, you can just make them wrong and run for a first down. Well, that's not an advantage that the Vikings have. So I think that puts a little bit of a cap on what they can be as a consistent team converting third downs, keeping drives going, because if something goes wrong, if there is pressure, it's a lot of times

going to result in a sack. There isn't going to be playmaking after there is pressure, so he's not going to escape the pocket and dodge three tacklers and make a throw down the field. That's just not really who Kirk Cousins is. And I think that those physical limitations keep you from being at the top of the league when it comes to converting first down after first down after first down. And the evidence is really in the scoring percentage. When we look back a couple of years, and I just scrolled back to 2021,

under Clint Kubiak as the offensive coordinator, they were 15th in scoring percentage. So that means the percentage of times you score on a drive versus the number of drives, right? So a good scoring percentage is around 45% to 50% would be really good in the NFL and that's just not who they've been in 2020 even though Kirk Cousins put up big stats that year they were 18th in scoring percentage so no matter who he's had as an offensive coordinator there has not been this consistent every time they get the ball you expect them to score or every quarter and nothing ever really works that way in football a lot of times it is you score 14 points in one quarter zero in the next you always see those graphics of first half they put up 282 yards in the second half it was

only 114 like you'll see that all the time so sports work that way a lot anyway somebody who scores 40 points in a basketball game probably scored 20 in one quarter and then 20 the rest of the game but for the Vikings because of those limitations because there isn't that ability to extend plays and sort of force your will on the other team that it's going to have to be where they rely on those hot runs. And I think that there's also a little bit of, I don't want to say mythology, but when it comes to year two of a system, every off season, every team that is going into a year two, you will be able to Google them and find all the articles saying, well, all the players say it's year two of the system.

And that means that they're going to be better. And when this has been researched, it's hard to find any true evidence that teams are significantly better in year two of the system. Now that doesn't mean that they don't feel better about it. It just means that we can't expect certain production to go up just because they're more comfortable with it. They had a lot of great moments on offense last year. They were a top 10 offense. And I'm not sure that asking them to be any different than they've ever been over Cousins is really a fair expectation.

If they are, and it's year two of the system, and oh my gosh, everything is so much better, well, then that's good. I mean, that's good for them uh but i don't know that you can really rely on that being the answer of oh well now they've got it so uh they're but i mean they had it in by what week four or five week six and then there's a whole second half of the season and so forth so maybe there was a couple of games in there but even then they came out in week one and absolutely trounced the Green Bay Packers. So some of that stuff is, I think, a little bit

overrated. And I don't know if I'm going to be the one to be banging the year two of the system. It'll be much better type of drum. I think that what we all know is exactly how this offense is going to be with only one or two wild cards that could change the math a little bit. And those are Jordan Addison and whatever is happening in the run game. Because last year, their run game was wildly inefficient. It was one of the least efficient run games in the entire NFL. So they bring in Josh Oliver. They want to do more 22 personnel, 21, 12, all, you know, big personnel, fullback in there, tight end in there, just to run a little more effectively and then use play action off it, which they weren't particularly great with play action last year. It was really the first time

in Kirk Cousins' career where he hasn't been great off of play action. So I think that there's an area where you could gain 20 or 30 points over a season just by running better using the expected points added metrics. In that way, you could improve. And with Addison, if he can be a threat right away, and this doesn't really speak to the fantasy numbers, the 70 catches of Adam Thielen versus let's say it's 50 catches from Jordan Addison but the threat of beating someone one-on-one the threat of some deep plays to Jordan Addison we just did not see those at all from Adam Thielen it was so much underneath stuff last year that if there is a deep element to Jordan Addison even a little bit that could also improve their scoring. But it's probably going to be the same type of boom or bust

that it's always been throughout Kirk Cousins' career. And I will be impressed if they find ways to improve on it system-wise. But I also think the system fit them pretty well over last season. And it's hard to see the areas where it's going to be so much different and so much better than it was last year. I mean, they had a receiver put up one of the greatest seasons in NFL history. So, you know, it's hard to say like, oh, well, go do better than that because, because I don't know, like, what are they going to change system-wise that makes it better than that? I'm not really sure. Maybe

efficiency-wise. And that's something to watch as well, because there's no true one stat that tells us about the efficiency or effectiveness of an offense. So if the Vikings were running better and they were more efficient passing the ball, they possibly could produce a little more to the point where they're not having to come back in games and they're being able to hold on to leads and converting on third downs and things like that. So stats can be really tricky with how they use them, but based on their defense right now, and you know, all that, they're probably going to need to score a lot of points. So I don't know. I mean, I think that three and outs though, are still going to be a product of, of who they are. Next question comes from Joe says, I have a question about the Z trades at

Darius Smith. The return was so low. Why not release him months ago? Seems like a courtesy and your reputation is worth more than we got. What am I missing? Well, I mean, fifth round picks are worth a little bit more than a sixth and a seventh by a little bit. So maybe there's that. You got Stefan Diggs, KJ Osborne with fifths. I don't know if you ever heard that. That's not a guarantee that those fifths actually turn out to be something because I think Michael Pruitt was also a fifth round pick and plenty of other guys as well. So I'm being a little facetious there. But what I would say is that it was beneficial salary cap wise, at least as far as I know, because I have not still seen the Zedaria Smith numbers come out on over the cap.

And I can check again as we speak on Zedaria Smith, but I have not seen how much the Vikings kept of Zedaria Smith's contract. And it is not listed there so I'm not sure just yet what the implications were for the Vikings cap regarding Zedaria Smith but I do know that a trade is favorable or was favorable by the way we analyzed it before and that's why we talked about them finding a way to trade him because they could create a little more cap space by doing it than by just straight up releasing him. So that may have been one of the reasons that's a little more on the speculation side until I have the exact numbers. The other point would just be

getting something is better than getting nothing. I don't think that this trade hurts Kweisi Adafomensa's reputation. I think it probably just got him a little bit of something to even out a trade somewhere else, somewhere down the line. Maybe you spin one of those fifths into something else later on, like a kicker slash punter. No, don't do that. That doesn't work. Don't do that. Corey Vedvik did not work. And I believe it was a fifth that they gave for him. So don't do that. But I mean, getting a little bit of draft capital, moving up a little bit is better than absolutely nothing. And I think if you're Kwesi,

you're probably not that concerned if people around the media, because I think that around the NFL, they would understand. Around the media side say, why couldn't you get more? He's a really good player. Well, when you have no leverage, it's hard to get a whole heck of a lot and it's similar to the

amari cooper trade that the cleveland browns did last offseason where everybody knew that the dallas cowboys were moving on from amari cooper and the browns decide to step in and say well we really want him we don't want to just sign him We really want him and we can afford him with our cap situation. And maybe they're shuffling around some money to fit Zedaria Smith. But that's a major advantage of having cap space. And when we talk about the cap space all the time and cap flexibility, it's a real hack because if somebody else is in trouble, you can offer them two-fifths and they have to take it because they need that cap space off the books. The player in this case was unhappy and you couldn't do much about it contract-wise, and then you get the guy.

And that's one of the reasons it's good to have cap space. Now, I don't know when it is that the Deshaun Watson cap hits. I haven't studied the Brown salary cap situation. When they're going to start really smacking that team in the face. It'll be soon enough. But for right now, they could afford it. You might as well get something back, take them off your books, and move on. I don't think it's such a blow to Kweisi Adafomensa that he's going to be too concerned about that. I think another issue here

too with the trade that maybe, I don't know, I didn't really think of too deeply until just this moment, is if you release Zedarius Smith, he gets to sign wherever he wants. So let's say that the Chicago Bears, team of lots of cap space, says, hey Zedariusries why don't you make it you know every team in the nfc north and this goes for the lions too why don't you just come to every team in the nfc north and come sign with us come sign with the lions come sign with the bears well that's not good for the vikings he's really good and especially if you play him early in the season so i guess if it was the lions they'd play him late in the year but But if you're, you don't want to play against him, you don't want to help them. So send him off to the AFC because you know, Zedarius Smith is not going to be like, I think I'll sign. He signed with

the Vikings, right? He's not going to say, I think I'll sign with an AFC team. So I don't have to play the Vikings. No way. That guy loves a good revenge game. So I think that that was a big part of it as well, is making sure he's in a location that he's not going to really be able to hurt you. Folks, our new sponsor, Oakley. Maybe you've noticed it has taken our show to the next level. Oakley, express yourself and build a look that is made for you. And guess what? That's exactly what I did.

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oakley.com for more information today. This comes from Pete, Brianrian floris he lost a few defensive pieces since being hired and now is going to be relying on less experienced unit to hold up yeah i mean mainly zadaria smith so what is the biggest thing he can do to help them oh yeah well i mean a couple of things number one is he can find who is going to be a part of this team long-term. And one of Brian Flores' major assets is his background in scouting and player evaluation. This is a big deal because you have a bunch of players who are not experienced really at all in the NFL. I mean, a lot of them, Louis Seen, Andrew Booth Jr., Caleb Evans, Brian Asimov, all these guys have not really played in the NFL.

And then you have more rookies coming in here. You have Makai Blackman. You have Jay Ward. Where are these guys all going to fit? And you have some other players, even from the previous regime, still hanging around, Patrick Jones and DJ Wanham. These guys are young. So who's going to be here?

Who matters to your future? Who's going to fit with your defense that Kevin O'Connell wants to play now this more aggressive philosophy? I guess he just decided that this year and not last year when he wanted to play. Let's force him to dink and dunk a million times. So I don't know about all that, but if they would stay or change depending on what Brian Flores does long-term. But let's assume that they want to stay with this philosophy and who fits and who can play and who can't play and what positions you have to evaluate and replace right away.

That's a big benefit, I think, with his evaluation abilities to know who you're going to keep around and be able to evaluate them properly throughout the year so did you draft a hit or a miss with lewis scene or the corners or asamoah is he the next eric kendricks or not um all those things matter to the future because they have to find out a lot of things throughout this season about this defense and about the personnel. The other thing is, I think that he can at least put some pressure on opposing quarterbacks to have to scramble a little bit to find the right reads, to have the offensive line on the same page. Everything was just so easy for opposing

quarterbacks last year. And the proof is somebody like Mack Jones was playing over there with a second grade offense for the new England Patriots and just didn't seem to be all that uncomfortable as he was throwing for, I think a career high in yards. Mike White is a journeyman backup quarterback. And he's in there as he had a journey. I don't know if he's a journeyman yet, but he's a backup quarterback and he's in there throwing all over the place on the Vikings. Teddy Bridgewater was coming off of a concussion. It was the third string quarterback. He couldn't practice all week. He came in and threw for a bunch of yards against the Vikings. I mean, everybody was having their time against the Vikings last year

and they won't want that again. They will not allow that again, I think. That even if there are big plays allowed, even if there are games where Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts lights them up and has no problem with all those blitzes, I at least think they're going to make a lot of quarterbacks more uncomfortable this year by being aggressive. And that sort of ties into using players to their strengths, which I think was one of their biggest problems last year. And it's something that Brian Flores talked a lot about last week when we were there,

was trying to discover what everyone does well and then meld your defense to that and kind of come together with what you guys do well, what I want to do, bring that together to form your identity as a defense. That's what he discussed a lot. And maybe there are some guys who can't do anything well, and those guys get cut eventually. But I think a lot of these guys were drafted for a reason, right? And maybe playing a little more man coverage with certain guys and not asking them to read a ton of route combinations or bringing Lewis seen in pressure where, you know, last year, again, it was asked to drop back and play a free safety and read a lot of

different things. And he wasn't really allowed to play fast and had a lot that he had to learn very quickly. Harrison Smith is another one that is a good example, but we know Harrison Smith's going to be good. I think it really matters to the young players, finding out what they do well, finding out where they fit. And that helps you in the short term. It's probably going to be more fun to watch. It's going to be more entertaining. I don't know how much better it's going to be. That really depends on the players. Um, but I think the aggressive mindset as opposed to a defense that really didn't work for the personnel last year and I do think that the ideas of Vic Fangio are really good and can work but you have to have the right personnel to fit to it and Ed Donatel did not have that last year and it was square peg

round hole and I think what Brian Flores can do is he can shape the pegs and the holes and make them fit together. So maybe it'll be more conducive, maybe to be more entertaining. And maybe we'll learn that some guys who they drafted recently can play. And if they can't, then we'll know who has to be replaced. That's where he can help them. But is he going to make it a top 10 defense? Probably not. I mean, it's just going to be a really tough task. Usually it takes a few years to build up a defense. I mean, think about even when Mike Zimmer took over and you're not going to find too many better defensive minds. Takes over in 2014, they're okay. They show

progress. I think this is that type of year. And then 2015, they become quite good. And by 2017, they're number one in the league. It's always a progression with that, unless you spend a crazy amount of money. But when you're drafting, you have to develop, you have to have a lot of pieces kind of coming in and out to find out who fits. And that's where he can help in the long-term. The short-term, again, maybe we get some more sacks. Maybe we get some cover zero interceptions. But I don't know if it's going to be way, way, like, worlds better than it was last year. All right, this one comes from Chris.

Is there a possibility that the Vikings franchise tag Kirk Cousins if the draft doesn't go their way, I assume you mean next year, and they play their way out of a top quarterback? No, they cannot franchise tag Kirk Cousins if the draft doesn't go their way, I assume you mean next year, and they play their way out of a top quarterback. No, they cannot franchise tag Kirk Cousins again because he has already been franchise tagged two times. And I think if you franchise tag someone a third time, and I have not memorized all of these rules, but I think if you franchise tag them a third time, it's like the highest paid plus or something like that. It's absolutely out of this universe. Cap hit makes it so it's impossible. The rules are really designed so a team can't just do it again and again and again without getting heavily penalized.

So, no, they can't do it. And those franchise tags, they stay with a player forever. So if you were tagged twice by Washington you're tagged twice you can't get like oh he went to a new team so now they get two new fresh tags no that's not like that so he's already been tagged a couple times and you know that's kind of that's that's where that at that that will not happen again it's either extension or he goes and the way that they're talking, I don't know. I think an extension is still within the realm of possibility. I do. I'm not saying that I think that tomorrow he's going to get extended, but I wouldn't be shocked if tomorrow he's extended. It just seems like what you're saying they understand, which is they couldn't

trade up for a quarterback that they wanted in this last draft. They did not want Will Levis. And when they're looking at next year, if they think right now, and plans can change, but if they think right now that there's only really two quarterback prospects that are interesting to them for next year. And you never know who's going to emerge, but are they going to take that risk? And if they are looking at their team, expecting to be very good, and then maybe two years from now, very, very good. And I don't know how Justin Jefferson feels, but if he wants to keep Kirk Cousins, all of these things could add up to an extension. How long it's going to be, I don't know if they're still having those negotiations.

But I think that there was probably a difference between two and three years or two and four years, something like that. I think the Vikings had only so far they wanted to go and Cousins wanted to go farther than that. And probably when you look at what Derek Carr and Daniel Jones made, that he would be looking at making just as much or more money than that. And probably when you look at what Derek Carr and Daniel Jones made, that he would be looking at making just as much or more money than that. So you can see how they reached an impasse. But at the same time, this is always where we've run into. It's like you can see why the two sides wouldn't come to an agreement. But ultimately, the team says, how are we going to find a better quarterback than this? And Kirk Cousins says, all right, then let's get another extension done and I'll keep running this back. So I don't know,

maybe that's something to discuss with a few guests this week or something about that possibility, but it just strikes me that I think that that's still realistic. I don't mean to scare anybody, but I think it's still realistic that a Kirk Cousins extension could happen before the end of the summer. So I guess, I guess we'll find out, but one thing I know it won't realistic that a Kirk Cousins extension could happen before the end of the summer. So I guess I guess we'll find out. But one thing I know it won't be is a franchise tag. This question comes from CJ. What are Kirk's Hall of Fame chances? Aren't the Vikings, JJ, KOC, et cetera, his best vehicle? If so, why can't they compromise on money?

Well, as a yeah, that's what I was just talking about. I think that they might be able to eventually. Maybe it's flexibility in the third year that allows the Vikings to either stay or go. Like one of those decisions of by this date, you need to do whatever two years down the road, or they could move on, something like that. I mean, consider this. Derek Carr signed an extension with the Raiders last year. He signed a four-year extension and they set it up so if they needed to cut him,

they could, and that's what they did. And so an extension is, everything is really year-to-year in the NFL. An extension is pretty tenuous unless it has a massive dead cap hit. And even then, sometimes there's ways to work around that. So why can't they compromise on money? And maybe you mean, do you mean Kirk or do you mean the Vikings? Maybe you mean on Kirk's side? Well, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Kirk came out and said he was totally willing to play on the final year of his contract and he's had to do that many times. But if you're him do consider this you know how old you are right like you know that there can't be many more contracts and many more

extensions to be had so if the money is good and you can project out what you'd be getting rather than looking at Derek Carr and saying his contract with New Orleans was not anything special. So if you end up playing, say, OK football and they go nine and eight, are there other teams that are going to line up to give you massive dollars? After this year, we did see kind of a middle class of quarterback emerge where you have the top, top notch paid guys getting 50 and then below them is 40. It's still a lot, but 38, 35, 40 in that range, that is a little more middle-class ish, not a true middle-class, but middle-class ish. And I think that if cousins looked at what happened with car and said, you know, I'd love

to have that three-year deal and maybe he can kind of push them into it, but I don't know how much I'm getting getting even if i have a good year if he has an unbelievable year and they make the super bowl well then the vikings will just you know roll up a brink's truck for him but if it's just an okay year with a team in transition is he going to get much more than derrick carr got i don't know in i mean a lot can change next year maybe there's a desperate team but i don't know so uh from the compromise perspective yeah maybe it is uh in kirk's best interest to do that and it's also possible that he could change his tune a little bit of well maybe i do need you guys more than you need me since they have made it clear that they were trying to trade up for quarterbacks

that they were checking in on trey lance that they were trying to trade up for quarterbacks, that they were checking in on Trey Lance, that they were doing all these other things to kind of say, Hey, Kirk, we'll do it. We'll move on. As far as the hall of fame chances, they're not good. They're not good. And there is, I've cited this before the hall of fame monitor stats are not going to make as big of a difference unless your stats are out of this world because there's 17 games. It's a pass friendly. I mean, we're going to have to recalibrate the whole where someone

ranked at the end of whatever, but an objective measure for this is the Hall of Fame monitor by Pro Football Reference. And I've got that up in front of me and his comparables right now are Jeff Garcia, Trent Green, Andy Dalton, Matt Hasselbeck ahead of him where he could pass a couple of these guys as he continues to play. Mark Brunel, Dave Craig, Alex Smith, Tony Romo might actually be a decent comparison for Kirk Cousins. I mean, that's a lot of guys who are good, very good quarterbacks, but not Hall of Fame level. And I don't even know if Matthew Stafford is going to make the Hall of Fame.

I would say probably not. And I mean, he's got a Super Bowl. So even if Kirk Cousins played for a couple more years and even made the Super Bowl, even won the Super Bowl, I don't know. I think he would have to win it. He would probably have to win the Super Bowl in order to get in. But we're even having a discussion about Matt Ryan and the Hall of Fame. And Matt Ryan, his accomplishments rank much, much higher than Kirk Cousins. His are more comparable to Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, Terry Bradshaw, Kurt Warner. He's in that conversation by the

Hall of Fame monitor, which is not the perfect way of looking at it. But his Hall of Fame chances as of right now, unless he wins a Super Bowl, are I mean, fluttering it somewhere between zero and 1%. There's still a ways to go in his career, possibly, you know, there could be five more years, or with a guy who's in his mid, possibly. There could be five more years. Or with a guy who's in his mid-30s, there could be one more year or two more years. But if you don't have a Super Bowl, he hasn't played that long, actually, because even though he came into the league in 2012, he didn't start until 2015. So he doesn't have even those, hey, he's the all-time leading passer or something like that. A couple of Pro Bowl appearances, not making all pros, not making MVPs. These are the things that put you in the Hall of Fame generally. So I would say almost 0% at the moment. And the bar is going to be very,

very high for quarterbacks in this era because everybody knows of the numbers that they put up. I mean, Joe Flacco won a Super Bowl, not going to be in that Hall of Fame conversation, right? So there's quarterbacks who have done it that are not Hall of Famers. And if he were to do it, maybe he's got a better case, but probably not. Let's see from Jeff. I heard you say that you think we can get 10 or 11 wins in this upcoming season. Respectfully, how much of this is your head versus your heart? Being objective, talk me into over eight.

Well, number one, I don't think that I've had any struggles with being objective about the Minnesota Vikings. In fact, I think a lot of people have maybe not always loved the level of objectivity that I have brought to the table. I particularly remember last year talking quite a bit about how the Vikings point differential, their metrics, when they were 8-1, were not really pointing to a team that was 8-1. And I don't know how happy everyone was when that happened, but ultimately they end up, you know, kind of where they were. So that's, that has long been a thing. I think that I've done pretty well here, but I will tell you about my philosophy when it comes to picking the games and how many games I think that they will win. One is I pick it a lot by expectation.

And that means the Vegas expectation, the team's expectation. And I think that, well, Vegas first has them at eight and a half. So that's not very far off from 10. I did not go 11. I went 10. Will Raggetts of SI, he said 11 in our conversation a couple of weeks ago,

but I went with 10. So eight and a half and 10 are not too far away from each other. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Vikings even bump up a little bit to nine over under by the time we get to the season. So I think that's still in the ballpark. I also think that when you bring back Kirk Cousins and you have Justin Jefferson and you draft a receiver, a lot of first round receivers have been impact players right away. And you have the same offensive line coming back, an offensive system that proved to work last year pretty effectively. Even just having a top 10 offense usually gets you

to eight to 10 wins just on that alone. The defense, I mean, I don't know, right? Defense is such a wild thing. What happens if you have this really hard schedule, but all those quarterbacks get banged up right before the game? I mean, you kind of saw this last year. Josh Allen got hurt right before the game and plays them at three quarters health and so forth. And we saw lots of quarterbacks benched,

backup quarterbacks last year. It could happen again. So you could have that, or all of them could start and the defense could be horrendous, but I don't really know. Like a lot of times it's the order of operations, it's people improving or not improving. And I think that makes it volatile. I think it's probably more volatile than it was last year when we were projecting. We kind of knew exactly what they were. And even though they won a few more games,

then we thought they still were exactly what they were, which was close to a kind of a nine win team. And I think this is about the same. I went through the schedule. There's a lot of games on there where I think they are a better team than who they're playing. And I picked the games by how I would expect it to go. Here are the games that you should be expected to win. And then I threw in a random one or two. So you blow a game against say the Broncos or you don't sweep the Chicago bears, things like that. But if I'm picking the whole thing, uh, every team in the NFC North, I'm probably taking the lions with 11, the Vikings with 10 green Bay with eight Chicago with seven or something like that. But I also think too, that it's hard to pick

the schedule and it's hard to pick the standings accurately because we don't know all the things that are going to happen through training camp, injuries throughout the season, different factors that start to play in. I'm only taking my best shot on if you bring back this whole offense and it produces similarly similarly what type of team you should be and that's a nine to ten win team uh and the defense i mean i don't want to say it can't get worse because it can always get worse but wow right i mean it was really truly horrendous last year so i'm i'm expecting a little bit better on the defensive side but i really don't know what to expect.

So that's what I went with. I don't really have a whole lot of heart for any of this stuff, right? That's not really how I do the job. So that's really entirely what it was about. But if you told me, if you came from the future and you told me, no, dude, they only won six games, be like, okay, I could see it. I mean, you get a few injuries on the offensive side. Defense is a lot of players that turn out to not be successful draft picks

who are unclear, and they play a lot of great quarterbacks, and boom, you got six wins. But when you go through it, it's pretty hard to convince me that they're not going to beat at least some of those teams. If they start off slow, I could see a tough season. But if they beat Tampa Bay from the start, I mean, you got a lot of teams in there that I think are equal to them or worse that they should be able to come up with 10. And also is 10 like something special, by the way, I mean, is 10, 10 is not special. 10 is like an average season. And that's kind of what I expect them to have. so that's kind of my thought process in doing that let's get into our more than meets the eye stats focus presented by Oakley how good was Kirk

Cousins in Kevin O'Connell's offense this is a very interesting question when you look at the stats he won 13 games had eight fourth quarterbacks, and posted the most yards since 2016. And yet there was some conflicting stats from Kirk Cousins in what some would argue his best season. And yet his quarterback rating and ESPN QBR stat both were the lowest of his career, not just with the Vikings, but as a starter, even lower than in 2017 when he left Washington. Kirk's PFF grade was his lowest since joining the Vikings, and he set career highs in interceptions and sacks. And yet, at the same time, the Vikings passing game was seventh in expected points added, which was one of their best marks of the entire last 10 years. So what is the truth about Kirk Cousins when we look at all the statistics from last season? I think what it

comes down to is a couple of things. Number one, the Vikings leaned heavily into Kirk Cousins and a pass first offense. And the more that you pass, the more there is the propensity to make a mistake from time to time. So even though his sack and interception totals were high, his sacks per drop back and interceptions per drop back were not very different from where they had been in the past. Also, I think Kevin O'Connell asks him to hang in the pocket, hang with his reads a little longer, which will sometimes result in mistakes, but also can result in a lot of big plays as well. And the other part of it is that throughout

Kirk Cousins' career, he has had tremendous play action offensive coordinators. Sean McVay, he had Gary Kubiak, Kevin Stefanski, all of them run systems that rely heavily on the play action but yet last year they struggled to get a lot out of the play action which is unusual for a team that is run by kirk cousins and i think that that hurt his stats and also would probably suggest that it will be a focus uh for this year and that they can improve in that area also the screen game at times was pretty spotty. And in the past, he's had some years where his screen game, especially 2019, was very good. So these statistics can sometimes be misleading.

But with everything involving Kirk Cousins, it was complicated. That was more than meets the eye, stats focused, presented by Oakley. All right. From Wrigley E, Jordan Addison reminds me of Terry Glenn and Santonio Holmes type of player. My question is, what would your top comp be? And how good is this offense if he's Glenn or Holmes? Well, Terry Glenn's rookie year was unbelievable for the New England Patriots. If Jordan Addison catches 90 passes like

Terry Glenn did as a rookie, wow. I mean, yeah, this offense is going to be top five, not just top 10. If you have Addison and Justin Jefferson going 100 catches each and you have your Keenan McArdle and Jimmy Smith combination or something, yeah, if he's one of those guys, your offense is freaking amazing. If he's that right those guys, your offense is freaking amazing. If he's that right away, I mean, long-term that's what you're aiming for, right? You're aiming for them to have that type of combination that they had for so long with Diggs and Thielen or Jefferson and Thielen. So right away, I mean, Terry Glenn was one of the best rookies as a receiver to ever come into the NFL. I don't know if I can put it quite up there. I think that I would say, now let me look at how big those guys were. I

don't remember exactly how big was Terry Glenn. Was he big? He was only 5'11 and 195 pounds. So that's an interesting one. I like that. I could see that. How big was Santonio Holmes? Because you have to consider that Jordan Addison is not very big. Yeah, Santonio Holmes, 5'11", 190. So yeah, I like those comps. I guess I was thinking a little more along the range of like an Emmanuel Sanders is, let me look, let me look on here. Let's see. He was 5'11 and 180 is what he was listed at. But Emmanuel Sanders became a really good receiver by running routes and tracking the football. And it's amazing how if you're elite at those skills, you can be good no matter your size. And that was Emmanuel Sanders. He was kind of a guy I looked at.

I think a lot of people have also looked at Kelvin Ridley as a potential comp for him. Undersized guy, but you put him next to a Julio Jones, and then all of a sudden he's really, really good. I like both of those. And if he becomes Emmanuel Sanders, just looking at Emmanuel Sanders stats, he was part of a couple of years into his career, some really great combinations of wide receivers. So 2014 Broncos, and they don't have Peyton Manning on this team, so it's a little different, but in the 20, yeah, 2014 Broncos had Demarius Thomas, 111 and Emmanuel Sanders with 101

catches. Could you be that? I mean, that's the absolute ceiling ceiling but it shows you that if you have a combination it can be very dangerous of receivers like that so i think that that's probably the ceiling for jordan addison i think being anything higher than that is maybe setting it too high and uh it's possible that you know someone like terry glenn is a little too high but i like both of your comps of smaller guys who are, who were really able to get open, track the ball, had great quickness. Yeah, that's,

that's good. I think that he fits into the, those categories with a lot of those receivers. Now he is smaller than all of those guys though. Like keep that in mind that Terry Glenn is 190, Santonio Helms, 190, and do they really want, and that's why I went Sanders because he's closer to where he is now. I think if he puts on 10 pounds, that's fair, but I don't know that you want him putting on 20 or 25 pounds because quickness is really his thing.

But good comps, yeah, I like those a lot. This one comes from Doug. It seems like Kirk has played with, quote, the worst guards in football every year of his career. Is it possible that Kirk is making them look so bad? Yes. So this is something that I looked into maybe two years ago with cousins that every year of his career, the majority of the pressure came from the guard position. And that wasn't to say that he didn't have great tackles because Trent Williams,

are you going after if you're an opposing team, Trent Williams. But even when Brandon Sheriff was his guard, still there was a lot of pressure coming up the middle. Even when he had talented and well graded by PFF guards, they were still allowing a good amount of pressures. And I think that a major part of that is that teams know that he can't scramble and push pushing up the middle is the way to go after him. And the same thing went for someone like Drew Brees, who was never going to run away from anyone and was undersized. And Kirk is undersized, not as much as Brees, but undersized attack him up the middle, lots of blitzes, stunts, twists, and, twists, and try to force him to have to move

off his spot or to get flustered in the pocket. I think that that's a strategy that almost everybody deploys against the Vikings. And they've played in a division with Akeem Hicks and Kenny Clark. So that's going to matter too, that when you've played for years, and I know this wasn't last year with Akeem Hicks, but for years they played in a division where the four of their games came against two of the best defensive tackles in football. So that mattered as well. I also think that strategically speaking, in terms of building the roster, that they

did not want to spend a lot of money on the guard position. So they've spent draft capital there. And you're often playing rookies. And if you're playing rookies at guards and centers, then they're going to be inexperienced. They're going to struggle with those better players. They're going to struggle with the pass rush. And that also relates to Kirk and his contract as well, that you have to make concessions

on your roster when you have such an expensive quarterback. And that has often come in the form of trying to play rookies, drafting people, or filling those spots with your Dakota Dozers or your Tom Comptons. Some positions have to be cheap when your quarterback is making so much money. And they also spent on other stars as well. The Anthony bars, the Kyle Rudolph's to give those guys, you know, big contracts that caused, um, you know, the guard position to be overlooked a little. So I think it's both. Uh, I think that it's his playing style, uh, combined with taking shots at those positions that are unclear, that are unproven. It's not like you know exactly what you're getting there. It's, well, Tom Compton's starting 16 games for the first time in his career, or Dakota Dozier, or hey, let's throw Drew Samia in there

and see what happens, or let's throw in there Ed Ingram because he was a second round pick and start him the whole season instead of Chris Reed. These guys are going to take their lumps. And with every team attacking, with a lot of teams getting better at pass rushing up the middle. Yeah, that is a thing. And that's why, by the way, when we contextualize stats, I mean, you got to look at all the factors that could be a cause. So one other thing is we haven't seen any of those guards go elsewhere and then become really good players. So it also could be that they didn't do a good job of picking guards. But the fact that it's happened in a couple of different places where the majority of his pressure was coming up the middle, I think it connects to him.

And also pressure and sacks are quarterback stats. Those are not just on the offensive line. In fact, a high percentage of pressure and sacks is caused by the quarterback who has control over when he gets rid of the ball and what he does when there's pressure. So, you know, I think that your inclination is right to lean toward that, that it's not just the players, but also I think it has been a lot of the players. I mean, they're playing a rookie last year. They were playing a rookie in Ezra Cleveland, and then they're switching in positions. And when you don't have stability and you're not putting money into it and you don't have proven players, you are probably not going to get great results

unless you have Tom Brady catch the ball, make the quick read, get rid of it instantly. If you have that, well, sure, but that's not Kirk. And it's also not this offense, by the way. This offense also asks deep drops, deep developing routes, looking to push the ball down the field. And I think that asks a lot of the offensive line as well. And that's one of the reasons that the field. And I think that asks a lot of the offensive line as well. And that's one of the reasons that the Rams were so good is that they graded at the top of the league in pass blocking in 2021. And that's going to be a tough task for the Vikings. But as part of the conversation, you have to bring up that when you don't have a mobile quarterback

who doesn't get rid of the ball particularly fast and really plants himself in one spot in the pocket that it's going to make a difference uh you know for the guards and and what they're dealing with for sure i think that's a that's a really good thought okay one maybe two more one or two more thomas asks delvin Cook's 2022 declining output has been well documented, but I've also read that his running speed is still excellent. Is it possible his decline

stemmed from a new scheme? Well, that's where we get a lot of help from two things that are supposed to kind of cut through. One of them is the rushing yards over expected where previously in his career, he was producing way more yards than were expected based on the tracking data. So the tracking data shows

where the blockers are, where the defenders are, and then calculates how many yards you're expected to get. Now it's not a perfect metric, but I think that it tells the truth to my eye where I would see situations that I thought, and I'm sure that everybody did this, a little more burst from Delvin Cook would have hit a hole, hit a gap, and he's off to the races. It just didn't happen in the same way, especially in the second half of the season. There also maybe was a little tentativeness because of the shoulder. That's also possible as well. And I also think that when you're talking about his running speed, that you're talking Also, maybe it was a little tentativeness because of the shoulder. That's also possible as well.

And I also think that when you're talking about his running speed, that you're talking about a top speed. So when he hit his top speed wide open flying at full speed against Indianapolis and full speed against Buffalo in those touchdowns, well, that was good. Yeah, I mean, that was top speed in the NFL, full speed. But it's not the top speed that goes with older running backs. It's really the quickness, that first step. There's something about that as the amount of carries rack up, as age comes for everybody, that it starts to slow down ever so slightly.

And I think you could see that last year. I think that really eye test also matches up. And by PFF grade, it was his lowest. It was not the same Delvin Cook last year as we've seen before. And I don't think it was really the scheme or the blocking because they graded well as blockers. Maybe the scheme is a little bit different from what he did last year. But I think it's just the reality

of what happens here. And even if it's none of that, it's just purely the scheme and they could adjust it and so forth. It still would be a good idea to move on just money wise, I think, rather than bringing him back. And also finding out why, as we've talked about quite a bit, you have a bunch of draft picks picks guys behind him. Why did you draft all these players if you were never going to move on from Delvin Cook? Why draft Dwayne McBride? Why draft Ty Chandler? Why spend picks on these guys?

And I know that wasn't their pick, but Alexander Madison, why bring him back? Why have Kenny Wong on the team still if you're going to do that? But that leads into the next and maybe our final question here which is from scott weebles on twitter is kenny wong a cut candidate with the passing of the new kickoff rule i would say no because what the kickoff rule is going to do it's going to allow teams that don't have kickoff returners to get like training wheels. So let's say you have a horrible kick returner and every time they try to kick off short to force you into using your horrible kick returner, he just calls for fair catch and you get the ball at 25. So it's sort

of putting him in a cocoon. He doesn't have to do anything. He just has to catch the ball and do a fair catch. But with Kenny Wongu, he could score a touchdown at any given time so they're not going to utilize that new rule very much who the guy who gets screwed on this is matt daniels who was very aggressive in the way that he was using those pop up kicks into the corner around the five or ten yard line and then pinning the returner back and this almost seems like it was a response to teams doing that as nope, we're not going to let you do that anymore. But yeah, it's that right there is, I think, going to make it harder on Matt Daniels to come up with a way to take advantage of the kickoff and try to create positive plays for his kickoff unit. But as far as Wong Wu goes,

I mean, if they kick the ball to the five yard line and he waves for fair catch, we're going to go, what? No, return the ball. You could go for a touchdown. So I don't think it will impact him really at all. Let me rapid fire. I got three more questions left. I will rapid fire through these. This is from Marcus. Brian Flores was not willing to tank in Miami, yet it is a possibility that the Vikings trade away everyone to compete for Caleb Williams. I was under the impression tanking is not allowed. And I assume you mean that after June 1st, they could trade Kirk, trade Hunter, cut Delvin Cook. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that they're going to trade Kirk Cousins. So that's number one.

And just by not trading Kirk Cousins, and if they do, wow, that'll be really something for the show. But what are our odds right now at trading him? 10%? No, not even 10%. 5% that they trade Kirk Cousins, it would be shocking if they did after June 1st. Again, if they do, the content, the discussions, they'll be wild. So we'll see. But likelihood is not super high. As long as they have Kirk Cousins, they're not tanking.

They're trying to win. They're trying to win the division this year. And Brian Flores, I think, knows the assignment. I think he knew the assignment when he got here. The job is to take a bunch of young players and figure it out and deploy something that's more aggressive that fits better to your talent and see what you can do i don't think that he came here and took the job and said number one defense baby i think he said this is a bit of a project to work with now i'm sure he would have rather have had uh zadari smith and if they have to trade daniel hunter well that's going to be quite the blow. But he's going to work with young pass rushers

and try to find spots where he can use blitzes to create pressure and do the job. They're not tanking unless they trade away Cousins and play Jaron Hall or Nick Mullins. I mean, if that's what they, that's a tank, but it would be really, really stunning. I mean, if that's what they, that's, that's a tank, but it would be really, really stunning. I mean, if they're trading away Kirk, it's for Trey Lance, right? It's not to tank. So I don't think that that's going to really be a part of the conversation at all. And trading away Hunter, they've got other pass rushers that they're going to try to develop. His job will be

harder for sure, but I don't think it's a tank to trade him away it would be a tank i guess only if they really move the quarterback i can't think of any other way that it would it's but you know i don't think he came with expectations that he was taking over the best unit in the league i think he already knew that before they moved on from zadaria smith uh from joe it would be interesting to compare the 2020 Dolphins defense to the 2023 Vikings defense, wondering what kind of expectations we should have for Brian Flores. So the 2020 Dolphins defense was really good. And that is not the expectation for Brian Flores. I think it's much closer to the 2019 Dolphins defense, which was really bad because it was

a transition year for them, a tank year, yes, but a transition for their roster where they moved on from a lot of people. But from 2019 to 2020, they signed a bunch of guys. They signed Kyle Van Noy, Shaq Lawson, Byron Jones. They brought in a bunch of talent. So that's really your next year. I think this year play everybody who's fresh and young, figure out what you have, and then start adding pieces from free agency to boost up your defense everywhere you can, because they've added nothing from free

agency outside of Byron Murphy and Marcus Davenport. And that's it. So it's not like they went out and grabbed a bunch of guys to fill up the defense. The 2020 Dolphins did a lot of that. They also hit on some picks and they also developed some players quickly. But I don't think you should say, oh yeah, they're going to be this great defense because he did this in Miami. He had two years to do that in Miami, if I'm recalling correctly. and I'll check just briefly to make sure that I don't have my history wrong here with Brian Flores about where they ranked from 2019 to 2020. So 2019, yeah, on defense, they were 30th in yards and 32nd in points, and the next season,

20th in yards, but 6th in points. They went from 28th in takeaways to first in a one-year span, but the roster was significantly different. I think Brian Flores is probably very good at his job. I don't think he's a magician. I think that what will determine this is whether those players find fits and whether they develop and whether they make plays and the schedule is hard and so i don't think this is a 32nd ranked defense but i do think it's probably in the 20 range that'll have its moments because of the aggressiveness and some guys will make plays but they lost playmakers i mean they lost zedaria smith that's a lot of sacks they they they replaced zedaria smith with a guy who had no sacks last year so that's a lot to make up from Patrick Peterson was at the top of the league and pass breakups and interceptions.

Duke Shelly had a ton of pass breakups. There's a lot of players who actually were decent last year for them. Eric Hendricks was one of the best run defenders in the league. Even if his coverage was, you know, not as good because of the scheme. So yeah, I don't I would not put expectations on this defense of being a top six in terms of scoring against if they are well then we're not talking about 10 wins we're probably talking about 12 13 and maybe even a more legitimate but that's a little bit imagination land for me. Expectations is, can you creep toward average? And can we be

saying by the end of this season, wow, this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy are guys you go forward with. That's kind of what happened in 2014. That's kind of what they need to happen now. And then you go into the next off season and you start loading up around those players who you know can play all right last one last one push it a little longer than i wanted but tons of great questions uh from abby saha hopefully got that right ivan pace mr mancato thoughts a london fletcher comp for him though ivan needs to prove a lot to reach those milestones um Yeah, I mean, London Fletcher is one of the great linebackers of, you know, the 2000s. So that's pretty high bar you're setting there.

Mr. Mankato, though, great pick. Fantastic pick. All it takes for a linebacker to get in the Mr. Mankato conversation is one pick, a couple of sacks, undrafted guy. He's a playmaker. He's fast. And look, if he's going up against third and fourth stringers in preseason, he's going to have some opportunities to make plays just like he did in college. Great selection for Mr. Mankato. I've got Dwayne McBride first. Ty Chandler, I think still qualifies. That's a good one from

what we saw in preseason because he didn't really play in the regular season. That might be a good one. I think those two are probably at the top because running backs just get so many opportunities, but Ivan Pace right there, a guy who's not a developmental project so much as already as a playmaker. I like it. It's a great selection. All right. Thanks everybody for the awesome and interesting questions as always purpleinsider.com or at Matthew Collar. If you want to send me your fans only questions, happy Memorial day to everybody and hope you got out there and traveled and grilled and watch sports and did all the great things that we can do in America. So thanks everybody again for watching or listening and we will see you soon.