Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What will the Vikings do with their newfound cap space?

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom look at the Minnesota Vikings' cap situation and discuss the bump in cap space now that we've reached June 1. For the first time in a very long time, the Vikings are in the middle of the pack in cap space, meaning they can spend on... something. But what will they spend on? Plus, a tweet reminds us of the bizarre nature of the Yannick Ngakoue trade and we play Nice or Minnesota Nice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Sam Ekstrom presented by Scout Logistics as always. And we've got a few things that we got to check some boxes here off the list of things that we haven't discussed that have gone on, Sam. And then I've got a game for you

that I want to call Nice or Minnesota Nice, where we take a look, a little snapshot of the roster as we go into the second week of OTAs. And we'll have fun with this one. And then we go into the second week of OTAs and we'll have fun with this one. And then we'll have a hardcore week two OTAs for tomorrow after we've seen an actual practice. And we've spoken to Mike Zimmer, which we have not talked with Zimmer in quite some time,

I guess since the draft now. So we'll have that tomorrow. But for today let's just talk about it being June 1st as we record this and the Vikings have cap space, Sam, I almost fell over when I went to over the cap.com and I looked at cap space and I, and the Vikings weren't at the bottom. What is going on here? Like there's not a negative. There must be a mistake. Jason Fitzgerald from over the cap.com. But I think this is very interesting. Like it's a long summer

and a lot can still happen to this roster now that they have, what is it? $13 million in cap space to work with. So how do you think they use it? Yeah. 13, 14. It's, it's a pretty bountiful amount when you're at this stage of free agency. I mean, if you equated that to like number of players that could be signed, there's like 10, like you could sign 10 players if you wanted to, because most people at this stage, a lot of them are going to accept a million dollars. That's just the reality. And some good players too, like Drake or Patrick and Darkwee's last year. I mean, those were guys that had a lot of starting years, pretty good reputations, and they signed for a million dollars in August and July. That's just how it's going to work at this stage.

There are some positions where there's way more supply than there is demand, particularly cornerback and defensive line, where there are some veterans that are available that you're scratching your head and saying, how, like Sheldon Richardson, you're only 30. It's not like you're washed. You played 900 snaps last year. But I digress. How did the Vikings get in this really good cap situation? Because it kind of stuck up on us, right? They were negative. They were negative. Oh, they leaked into the positive. Oh, but then they signed Dalvin Tomlinson for a bunch of money. Now they're back to even. But they just plan? What was their logic behind it? Because

they could have utilized the $5 million saved at the time in the heat of free agency when that money could have actually been used on some blue chip free agents. Instead, they decide to push it down the road to become $7.9 million on June 1st. So they saved 2.9 million in the process by waiting two and a half months. So how will that patience pay off? Were they telling themselves, Hey, we need to make sure we have extension money for Daniil and Brian O'Neill. Hey, that rhymes Daniil and Brian O'Neill. Nope, not really. All right. You can edit that part out if you want. That was excusable. I'll never do it again. Nope. Nope. You get no mulligans on the golf course. You can edit that part out if you want. That was excusable. I'll never do it again. Nope. Nope. You get no mulligans.

On the golf course, you take lots of breakfast balls, mulligans. I took one today. I took one on the last hole. You don't get them here, though. You do not get them here. You got to live with what you say. All right. Accountability.

So, Daniil Hunter and Brian O'Neill's extensions won't cost them that much against the cap this year. If I'm using like other players as templates, like they will probably tack on their signing bonus money this year. And then the bigger salaries will come in future years. There'll be a little bit backloaded as the cap increases, but like with Dalvin Cook, with Eric Kendricks, the contract essentially stayed the same in the final year of the deal. And then they just added the signing bonus money. And I think that's what they'll do with for sure O'Neill. And with Daniil, if they restructure him, they actually have the ability to maybe keep the cap number what it is today, or even a little

lower if they want. They can reduce the base salary, add in the signing bonus, Daniil would get his raise, and he'd get more long-term security. So they're still going to have a decent amount of money to sign players. And I wish I knew what they were thinking. Like, why did they feel like they needed this extra almost $3 million? And it feels like there's going to be some talent added to supplement this roster, don't you think? With the players that have been rumored to be coming here,

whether that's a D.D. Westbrook or a Bashad Breeland, that tells you that, okay, maybe they are aware of the things that we're talking about. They do need more corner depth. They do need more wide receiver depth. And I think at both of those positions and defensive line as well, I think there's some pretty interesting options, like except for maybe defensive end where a lot of the good ones are taken up unless you want Everson Griffin back here. You can get some veteran defensive tackles, for instance, that were hurt a year ago. Kwon Short, Jarrell Casey, Geno Atkins is the big one that everyone wants to talk about because of the Zimmer connection. At cornerback, you can get Nickel Roby Coleman,

Brian Poole. Why am I blanking on the name? Oh, Darkweeze Denner. All three of those guys were top 10 in the slot two years ago, and they're not that old. Those are probably million, $2 million guys. Wide receiver you can you know larry fitzgerald's out there golden tate is out there there are some big names available and as the days go by they get cheaper and cheaper now the last thing i'll say on this is that at this point if you're one of those players if you're a veteran are you gonna take a million dollars to to be like kind of a wide receiver three or a first cornerback off the bench? Or are you going to wait till training camp and preseason,

wait for someone to get hurt and then fill a much bigger role when teams are desperate? I think that's the play if you're a veteran. I don't think you accept a tiny offer when you can hold out hope for raking in a lot more in a time of desperation. So that's the danger in assuming if you're the Vikings, oh, we can get these guys now. You might not be able to because the Vikings don't have a lot of clear-cut starting roles to give away. And we may have to wait a couple months

to see this really play out. Yeah, all good points. And I think we saw that last year with what, like Malcolm Butler and Jadavion Clowney waiting till the very last minute to sign and even Logan Ryan the same thing we all went well what is Logan Ryan doing well another part of this too is that once minicamp breaks these guys go on vacation like sorry we're not negotiating contracts now for the most part unless there's some huge trade that happens like we are going to go to the cabin we're going to go to cabo whatever it is that these people do like they're doing it so um usually then you know you come back camp starts to ramp up teams actually look at their roster on the field and sometimes and i think this was the case last year with the yanni kagakwe trade well

someone got hurt to neil hunter but also i I think Mike Zimmer looked at it and said, ooh, boy, yeah, I'm not so sure this defensive end position looks very robust. And I think we're gonna have to go get somebody else. And that's how the Ngakwe trade ends up working out, which maybe we can discuss a little bit because I saw an interesting tweet from Mike Clay of ESPN on that,

but I don't wanna get too far off track. You asked why they did it with the June 1st designation. My guess is, maybe it's maybe a two-tiered guess. Number one, uncertainty over whether Daniil Hunter would rework his deal. I don't remember the exact timing of those things, but you're right that Rudolph was one of the first sort of things to happen in the off season.

And so were they not sure, like, are we going to be able to rework Barr's deal? Are we going to have to cut Barr? And that won't actually create a whole heck of a lot of space. So there was also some other uncertainty of like, would they chase one of the big pass rushers? And that would cost them a ton of money because there were reports that they had gone after Carl Lawson,

Trey Hendrickson. Those guys would have cost a lot more than Delvin Tomlinson. So maybe they wanted a little bit of help to sign the draft class. Like if we got to get all this extra space done, well, this will allow us to sort of know how much we have left and then we'll have the draft class later. But I mean, neither one of those explanations is great. So I think that maybe part of it was that they knew that there would be a lot of people after June 1st available or other trades that they could be looking at, or they are aware of the Daniel Hunter situation and what they might have to do with that. And it might end up costing them more money. I think I'm not sure. I mean, I would love a good answer to that. I know we won't

get one. What we're going to get is this answered as we go along and we'll get it figured out so and and i actually should apologize i made a mistake too i didn't yell what now sam when i asked you what they're going to do with this cap space uh can we talk about ngakwe for a second i'm gonna read i'm gonna read you a tweet because i i've gotten some actually good messages on this from people about ngakwe so from mike clay of espn hold on scrolling okay got it players with eight plus sacks now of course this is like arbitrary end points thing but just listen players with eight plus sacks in each of their first five nfl seasons five NFL seasons, Aaron Donald, Derek Thomas, DeMarcus Ware, Reggie White, and Yannick Ngakwe. You look at what Yannick Ngakwe made in free agency, and you look at the current situation

with Daniil Hunter, Instagramming pictures of him, absolutely not at OTAs. So there's no, we have to worry about reports. Like we know his Instagram has made it quite clear. He's not in Hawaii with Aaron Rogers, but he ain't at OTAs. So you kind of need a pass rusher. Steven Weatherly had zero sacks last year. He's probably not that guy. DJ Wanam, we'll see, right?

Oh, hi, captain. That's your dog. So- DJ Wanam might be a captain someday there you go do you uh is there any part of you that thinks like maybe you shouldn't have traded yaniki gakwe and maybe you should have kept him and let him get a bunch of sacks and then re-signed him or like it's sort of like i want to do like a Seinfeld thing like what's the deal with this thing like it just sort of continues to be a weird deal that happened that I sort of um I've sort of got got it along the way but when you pull back to the 30,000 foot view you're like I I don't know I'm not sure well this is well I mean rumor has it that at some point this offseason maybe we'll we'll write

about some great what-s in Vikings history. Maybe this will be like a what if in time, like if the eight sack street continues for another 12 years and he's an all time great. We'll look back on the enigma that was Daniel Hunter in purple. And and I think we always overestimate. Sorry, you mean Yannick Ngakwe. What did I say? Daniel Hunter. I'm sorry. Yannick Ngakwe. Sorry, you mean Yannick Ngakwe. What did I say? Daniil Hunter. I'm sorry.

Yannick Ngakwe. We will look back on that enigma, and I think we will say, you know, we really overestimated, as we usually do, how restrictive the cap was going to be. Because we all said, well, that didn't work out, but they probably wouldn't have been able to re-sign him anyway. And I think we say that pretty frequently. We assume guys are gone. We assume that teams can't afford people. But the Vikings could have afforded it. They afforded Dalvin Tomlinson, who signed for just a little bit less in Minnesota than Ngakwe in Las Vegas.

They also afforded Patrick Peterson and other free agents as well. So this was not impossible for them to swing. And if they had kept him around in Minnesota, I don't know if that would have increased or decreased his value. I will say this. I didn't think he was particularly effective. Based on what Andre Patterson talks about, like the things he values, Yannick Ngakwe did not fit that bill. Now you can criticize Andre Patterson's methodology too for saying that he's too rigid,

that he's not using the talent he's given and instead trying to manipulate that talent into sort of his vision. And maybe that's not the smartest play. But if he's going to try to get a player that fits his mold, Yannick Ngakwe was not that. If you get one sack per game and no other pressures, you are not a good pass rusher.

I think people can probably agree on that statement, that you need to do more than splash once a game. That was kind of what Ngakwe was doing in the six games he was here. Man, it was it was brief, wasn't it? It felt like the first two games he was sort of figuring things out. And then he had the Seattle game and the Tennessee game where he was actually pretty good. You know, got to the quarterback a couple of times, ended up being the team's leading sack getter in the year because of just a couple good performances all told though didn't play the run um didn't regularly pressure the

passer like i can see what where the vikings would take a look at that and say let's just call it i mean that he doesn't seem interested in doing our thing it's going to cost a ton of money to keep him and hindsight's 2020. Maybe they'll look back and regret it, but based on everything they saw, not just from Ngakwe, but from their team, from a one-in-five team, I don't think I can fault them for wanting to make that move. And maybe they did think he would be a lot more expensive than he ended up being because he signed for two years $26 million with the Raiders, which they could afford today. Like right now on June 1st, they have enough money to afford a Yannick Ngakwe. And so

I've got a bunch of suspicions with no super clear answers. I mean, one of my suspicions was that Yannick Ngakwe, and this was sort of like a hinted thing by Andre Patterson. Yannick Ngakwe said, this is how I play football. And I'm not going to really change the way I play football because I've had success. And there are guys who are absolutely like this. You think, oh, they listen to their coaches. Like some don't. Star players don't. Not always and sometimes not often.

Well, they're going to play their way where they've had success. And I remember Patterson saying something about, well, he does this cross chop move that rarely works, but when it works, you know, he gets a strip sack or something. And I thought it was a little bit of a passive aggressive sort of, yeah, I don't want him to do that move, but he just does it anyway. But there's also, and get sacks and strip sacks. And you make a good point about the first two games. I mean, he just got here. I don't know how much you can really strip sacks. And you make a good point about the first two games. I mean, he just got here. I don't know how much you can really judge those things. And I'm not saying he's a great player. I think that Jeremiah Searles and I called them trading him away after we saw

him jogging after a running back on a running play and said, Zimmer's just not going to put up with this. But now when you're looking at the defensive end position and you are just breadth of talent and you think like, oh, well, actually a guy who doesn looking at the defensive end position and you are just breadth of talent and you think like, Oh, well, actually a guy who doesn't play the run very well, but, um, gets eight plus sacks every single year, along with several strip sacks might have been okay for you. Maybe they thought it's not a fit. It's not a personality fit with him and Andre Patterson.

They clearly value Andre Patterson's opinion extremely highly and they didn't want to do it. But I guess this is where this connects is they need to find somebody still though. I think when you're looking at Yannick and Gakwe, who in my mind is not, he's not Reggie white. Okay. He's not Derek Thomas. All right, everyone. But you also need something in that range, especially as this Daniil Hunter thing plays out. And look, I mean, the more power we see with players and everything else, and I know that the Vikings will probably sign Hunter at some point, but like, is it totally impossible that Daniil Hunter could sit out games

in the NFL season? I think it is. So if you're going into the year, if this impasse continues and it's a real like rock them, sock them into the season. And we saw, I mean, what would the running back there? What was it? Who's the running back for the Chargers sat out like half the season. So like we see this, I forget. It doesn't matter. Running backs are running backs. Melvin, someone Melvin Gordon. Yeah. jay wayne's buddy yeah that's right melvin yeah melvin gordon sat out like half the year for the chargers one time for the contract thing levion bell sat out a whole year we have seen position players do this and uh i i just

feel like with this extra cap space a trade a big signing with one of these guys left i feel like that is the most plausible thing because even though they swung and missed with Yannick and Gawkway, they still miss Yannick and Gawkway, which is telling. Yes, they, they find themselves in this situation that they didn't fully address his replacement. They kind of half-heartedly addressed it with Steven Weatherly,

a third round pick and a fourth round pick. And that's pretty much it. Like they didn't really, they did, they definitely didn't go out and get an apples to apples Yannick Ngakwe replacement, or someone who could grow into that role. And they led a Fadio Denebo walk who might've been, you know, the, the second best defensive end last year behind in Gakwe. Um, so I, I think you make a good point. I don't know who's like disgruntled enough. I don't know which franchise is sort of this year's Jaguars. That's going to offer that potential. Um, because it seems like a lot of the will be gone franchises that might have been unloading in years past kind of have optimism now with young quarterbacks and we might see

fewer teams tanking this year if you will just because of the way the quarterback situations are working out all over the place everyone kind of either has like a veteran who they trust or a young you know a young quarterback who's kind of on the rise. Maybe Carolina ends up tanking with Darnold. Maybe that's the only, the only one. But now that they're in this situation and they, if they didn't have Hunter for several games and they didn't sign someone else or trade for someone else, it would be Weatherly

and Wanham as your starters? Really? It'd be Weatherly and Wanham. That's the bed that they've made. And Patrick Jones as a backup and Kenny Willekes, Hercules Mata'afa. It's not an inspiring group. So I guess it comes down to like, did they get spooked by the the ngakwe experiment do do they think now that okay you know if we bring in someone who's got an ego even though they're talented is that going to be like too problematic to bring into the locker room and i think it might i think that might legitimately like scare them off from doing the same thing hey everyone anybody who listens to the show knows that sam and i may not be scratch golfers, but we love to have a great time playing golf.

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I'll see you there. Folks, if you are pumped up about how the Vikings did in the draft and now the schedule's out, it is a great time to get yourself a Skull Flag or Bud Grant shirt. And, of course, there's much, much more. If you go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-s-t-i-c-k.com check them all out and if you use the promo code purple insider you can get free shipping on all your original minnesota sports inspired goods and if you're ready for the summer months we're going to have hockey playoffs so you can get your dollar bill krill shirts and if you're a golfer you have to see the minnesota golf hats they are classic

all of soda sticks apparel is screen printed here in minnesota on super soft super comfy shirts and hoodies you will love it follow them soda stick co on twitter go to sodastick.com for your original minnesota sports inspired goods code purple insider for free shipping yeah and even just outside people have not always fit with what they do here in recent years and i'm saying this out loud and trying to think if there's an example where i'm not right about this so like okay they tried even like george iloka Tremaine Brock, Sheldon Richardson. Richardson was good, but they didn't like him for some reason. I think part of it was the run defense, and it kind of is like, man, I get it, but Sheldon Richardson won you a couple games.

He was so good in week one against San Francisco. He was so good the time they played the Packers at U.S. Bank Stadium. He just took over those games as an interior pass rusher. And I think that's a lot more valuable than whatever was lost with the run game, especially when you're talking about beating teams that are great passing attacks that that would have mattered. And yet on his way out the door, there was, ah, you know, we need to be better against the run. So that's why Shamar Stephan will be better. Huh? Like why, like, why are you taking shots at Sheldon? That was a great signing. I mean, for eight million bucks, I didn't get that.

Even John D. Filippo comes in with a different offense from exactly how Mike Zimmer wanted it. That didn't really work out. We've just seen this rotation of different free agents kind of pop in and pop out. And I guess, you know, Rileyiley reef was a fit and a good free agent signing but most of the other ones kind of come and go and and and you could put in gawkway in that bucket too um you know aside from the original ones like captain munderland but even munderland like didn't want to stick around uh but terence newman limbaugh joseph that's kind of the original signings but the since then i can't think of too many who have stuck around and sort of become like staples it's mostly guys that uh they have sort of drafted and developed yeah i mean let's go

position by position wide receiver kendall right michael floyd sharp yeah michael floyd was yeah i should be sharp all these guys performed better like in their other places and then just became complete nothings here. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, they've never really had an outside tight end come in, in, in their time at all. It's always been Kyle Rudolph. And then like the fourth and fifth round pick that they drafted behind him, offensive line, Mike Remmers didn't work out. Alex Boone didn't work out reef. Like you mentioned, one, like you mentioned, one of the best ones. Josh Klein sort of did. Josh Klein, you know, yeah. They released him.

Might have been injury-related there. But no, you're right. You're definitely onto something that there is a – I don't know if it's a culture or like an expectation here that doesn't always jibe with like new acquisitions. And I have a hard time believing that the Vikings are just so cohesive and so sophisticated that, that, that can't be the case. Do you like, do you get that impression? I mean, are they that are, is the technique that demanding here and not elsewhere? I mean,

free agents go around the league and succeed all the time. There's no reason why it shouldn't happen here. And I think we've talked about this before, probably a lot during free agency. The Vikings kind of defeat themselves with a lot of those acquisitions before they really get a chance by either blocking them with a younger player, kind of like clinging too tightly to the incumbent or the player that they drafted and developed. I think that has prevented them from realizing the most in some of those free agents in the past. Even Latavius Murray stayed for two years,

then left and was really great as a number two running back in New Orleans, which they actually used him and used their number two running back in new Orleans, which, you know, they actually used him and use their number two running back. Imagine like doing that. But, uh, I think that they would have kept Latavius Murray if he wanted to stay and he didn't and went and played behind somebody else who was really good. So it wasn't like a starter issue for him. Uh, yeah. So there, I don't know, maybe there is something to it. Um know, I'm sort of thinking about like Stefan Diggs to like a little bit of, you know, to the beat of your own drum kind of guy and wanted his own input instead of this is how we do things here. You're the employee. We're the employer.

You know, we've talked about that with Aaron Rodgers and there's like a connection with Stefan Diggs, too, and treating him that way. And so now he's leading the NFL in catches in Buffalo. And I guess I wonder about that. I wonder if certain guys fit with that just fine, and some guys are used to it because they were brought up in it, like Anthony Barr and Eric Hendricks and Harrison Smith. But maybe there's something to outside guys being like, oh, this is just not how it was done where I was before. And there's just, I don't know, some sort of conflict, not how it was done where I was before. And there's just, I don't know, some sort of conflict or, or maybe it's random. I'm not sure. I think knowing what we know, it's possible that if somebody comes in and says, no, I've got my pass rush moves.

I'm good. I've got a bunch of sacks. I don't really need to take anything from you that they would, that they would throw them out pretty quick. Uh, as opposed to saying, okay, go sack quarterback, man man go prove it and ngakwe did um so that's not to say i think he's a great player or anything it's just it made me wonder because he signed for such a reasonable price uh okay there was something else i wanted to discuss oh okay before we get to nice or minnesota nice um i want to ask you now that the dust has settled uh who do you think the vikings will miss that they moved on from because when we were talking about that cap stuff i i was thinking

about how in 2019 to 2020 we got a lot of rationalizing of well xavier rhodes wasn't that good last year so holton hill will be fine fine. Okay. Uh, or, you know, whoever Everson Griffin was falling off. So whoever a body of Denabo will be fine. There was a lot of that. And there's going to be a lot of that this year with, Oh, Xavier Woods will be fine. Cause Anthony Harris wasn't that good last year. Uh, and, and so forth. So who do you think that they end up missing or not missing that is off the roster from last year to next year? Let's also raise this point on the June 1st deadline. If they had the 5 million earlier, like mid-March, they could have retained one or two of these free agents that we're about to discuss. Keep that in mind too. They intentionally prevented themselves from being able to sign someone like

Eric Wilson, $2.75 million one year, not very expensive. Afadi Odenabo, $2.5 million one year, not very expensive. Anthony Harris, $4 million one year, not very expensive. There's a theme here. I think those are probably the big three. I'm not regretting Rudolph, especially at that price. That's probably the easiest decision they had all offseason, to be honest with you.

And I like Kyle Rudolph, but I felt like the cost was not meeting the production there. Might be Odenabo in light of our discussion I the third linebacker position to me is still not particularly valuable and and I think that um you know Chaz Surratt might be intriguing Nick Vigil can like do the job okay Cameron Smith might actually contribute this year you know he's he's already playing with the ones at OTAs. So they'll be fine in that regard. Um, Xavier Woods is that's interesting. You know, we, we both commented that he looked a lot smaller than, than we kind of like pictured him. And, uh, and Anthony Harris had that like really rangy build. It seemed like he could cover a lot

of ground, even though he wasn't all that fast um so it could be anthony harris because the vikings really appreciate sort of the institutional knowledge at the back end of the secondary i'm waffling between harris and odenabo and i can't am i missing anyone else here uh joe oh jaleel definitely jaleel johnson okay all right hey everyone i want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show,

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check out scoutlogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and over-perform and go the extra mile for your company. Somebody asked me the other day, I was a great Friday mailbag question of, for the website, purpleinsider.substack.com,

written work there. I don't ever mention that on the podcast and I'm sorry, but somebody asked a great question of like, what was the performance by a Viking in a single game where you went like, oh my gosh, this might be the worst performance was the performance by a viking in a single game where you went like oh my gosh this might be the the worst performance i've seen by a player that wasn't like i don't know the time sean manion started week 17 i i just that was not good but uh like a starter just getting destroyed jaleel johnson against new orleans might have been the answer to that

um i picked i picked tj clemmings in 2016 against the Houston Texans. And when Jadavia and Clowney was like at the height of his strengths and just ran over him. And Whitney Merciless had a sack where he slapped his hands out of the way. But Jaleel Johnson against New Orleans when Elvin Kamara was running for five touchdowns. Definitely was my pick. Defensive tackles in general in that game were just assaulted. It was horrible. But I, I forgot about Riley Reif too. I mean, Riley Reif might be a pretty significant loss. I mean, that, that, I guess that's probably the obvious one. If they don't have like that level

of performance from Derrissaw, it's a downgrade and reef was good last year he was legitimately good for the amount he played the pressures that he allowed that was a really good pressure rate so that maybe that's the answer i think the answer is all of them if dot dot dot right like all like you go through every single one and this is this would be the concern a little bit about the roster where you go a lot could go right but uh you know with this whole this whole thing with the turnover in some of these key positions so with riley reef uh you won't miss him if christian derisaw is really good right away you most certainly will if he's not i mean it's going to be a it could be a potentially very big downgrade if there's a massive learning curve for

Christian Darisaw, as there sometimes is for offensive linemen. You will miss Anthony Harris. If Xavier Woods doesn't have full grasp of how to play with Harrison Smith, by the time they get out there for the first couple of weeks, you will miss Eric Wilson. If anybody on the linebacking court gets hurt and all of a sudden Nick vigil is playing like there's, I think there's a little bit of all these, and I wouldn't even discount with the Kyle Rudolph where it's like, you'll miss him. If Irv Smith is a much better move, tight end and number two,

tight end than he is number one, which I don't expect that to happen, but it certainly falls under the same category of, Hey, no one's going to miss Trey Wayne's. He's just an average corner. Well, an average corner is pretty good corner. And so when you have instead Chris Jones playing,

you miss Trey Waynes. And so that, that I think is a storyline that we're going to be watching all the way through OTAs mini camp and into the training camp and regular season is just how much these guys that were left behind that we all kind of shrugged off and went like, Oh, well, no big deal. That guy's gone, whatever, you gone whatever you know no big deal um but could ultimately end up factoring in so let's play this game that i thought of while we were golfing this morning um i was listening to pff's podcast and they went through all 32 teams and said something positive about all 32 teams because anybody who has a show or a Twitter or anything gets called too negative by some fans. So it's a common thing. Not us ever though. Yeah, no, it's never happened to

me. Um, but so that's, it's just sort of like, Oh, you talk about football professionally too negative probably to some people. So anyhow, I want us to go through the positions and you have to either say something nice or Minnesota nice about each position before we wrap up as we go into the second week of OTA. So you could kind of take this in a lot of different directions. So why don't we start with wide receiver, which would be an opportunity. How about we do it this way? You can start and you pick one,

and then I have to do the opposite. So I have to say something. If you start with nice, then I have to say something Minnesota nice and the opposite. So let's start with the wide receiving group. Okay. I like the parameters of the game. You'll be able to tell whether it's nice or Minnesota nice, I think. So I'll just let her rip. Having not prepared for this game at all off the top of the old the old head here. The Vikings receiving core has some quality human beings in their depth ranks. See, I still struggle with passive aggressiveness in the Midwest in general because I grew up in the East and it's just not much of a thing. People are pretty much direct. They honk the horn a heck of a lot more than they did. No one has honked at me. I've lived here for five years. I don't know if anyone's honked at me.

And that would be a daily thing that you would get in the East. So it's a lot more aggressive, but I'm going to guess that that was Minnesota Minnesota nice. So I'll just say this, that Justin Jefferson and what he could do this year, I think a lot of people are sort of cautious to push his numbers higher, which is fair. But I think in terms of his play and how they use him, last year, I think a lot of those numbers happened when they were losing in games. In fact, I know that that's when a lot of those numbers happen because it's on paper this year. I think Justin Jefferson drives the success as opposed to trying to bail you out in the

second half of games. So that's, that's my nice in your Minnesota. Nice. Okay. The, uh, let's go with the offensive line next. All right. Why don't you go first this time? Okay. I'm going to go and say that,

well, you know, look, Dakota Dozier and Rashad Hill starting in OTAs, they know the playbook. That is an important thing is to know the playbook. And that's a good thing that they know it

because then they'll know where to go when the plays happen. Yeah. That's Minnesota nice, right? Yeah, yeah yeah yeah okay sure is yeah all right um I uh I like that um Brian O'Neill is now like the patriarch of the offensive line because I think he is he he kind of he goes about things the right way he like added on weight and still like retained his ability as a player like he's he can say hey guys like let's get bigger and stronger how about that let's pass protect a little bit I think he's a good model for that offensive line and um and I like that they have kind of gone young. I like that they, they can all kind of grow up together. Most of them are pretty cheap right now.

I think it's, it's a well-constructed group with a lot of potential. Let's go Kirk cousins. You fire away. um kirk cousins improved his mobility last year a lot okay that is minnesota nice there's no way that's regular nice no way no way not when you're complimenting a guy from going from like 12 yards rushing to 80 yards rushing no chance uh so i i will say this about kirk cousins when you see kirk cousins out on the practice field and you look at inexperienced players you can see a gargantuan gulf of why this guy is a franchise quarterback there are plenty of things that could be if we weren't doing this game like analyzed fairly and there are plenty of reasons why the win-loss record is what it is um and why they have not you know reached certain points with their quarterback but he is tremendously talented and and and it comes from

his i think from his uh attention to detail and work ethic so there there is your there's your nice thing about kirk cousins and that's and i'm and we're not like messing with you these all had to be true like this is you know so i i greatly respect how much effort he went into to get to the quarterback he is today and so if kellen mond can chase him down then well he's gonna have to be really good to do it. Matthew is so red in the face right now having to say these things. He's just like he's shivering having to utter these truths about Kirk Cousins. This is this is a funny thing, though, is like I've never hated anybody that I covered.

I've never really liked anybody that I covered. We're not friends. Matthew's just just generally ambivalent about people that no the truth is just the truth then you just say it like it's just so funny with this and i know this is getting off on a tangent from where we're going with this but it's just sort of funny where i saw buda baker tweeting today about how pff hates him you're like dude pff doesn't know you and with with her cousins it's like i call ball and strikes balls strikes i was an umpire once it's just it's just like sorry you know it was okay it was fine it wasn't

as bad as it can be um there's a few run-ins with coaches but it's mostly a good experience but it's just this whole idea that everybody who doesn't just praise you all the time or tries to reasonably analyze you as some sort of hater is very frustrating to people whose job it is to critique. So anyway, like all those things are true. And if you go through the website that I don't mention enough, there's articles on Kirk Cousins about these things. And then there's articles that are critical, shocking. It's almost like I don't care. So anyway, let's go with, let's go with the, just the secondary. I will say that the secondary has more experience than it did last year. And with players that other teams didn't want to keep necessarily are the experienced guys. So. Yeah.

I'm finding that it's a lot easier to be Minnesota nice than it is to be genuine. Nice. I, I, I, genuine nice i i um believe that the experience that the secondary has will suit it well in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line yes i agree with that i agree with that i think, yeah, that is a nice thing to say. And it's also true. Okay. Just one more. Let's go with let's go.

The coaching staff will be our last nice or Minnesota. Nice. So you start this one off. The the offense will be run by a Kubiak for a second year in a row, which is objectively true. Oh, man, I am interested. I'm interested, though. Like every person who's asked me about Clint Kubiak has said hey any chance that's going to be different and I will tell you the truth that every time I say no probably not uh but I could be wrong about this there were a lot of things that Gary did last year that worked out super well

I mean they were a efficient passing offense uh he loved the yards per play they were great yards per play some of that's because they were great yards per play some of that's because they were playing from behind but some of that's also they hit on a lot of big plays the play actions largely worked kirk was once again one of the five best quarterbacks this is not me saying something nice it's just like an aside um but uh there were also areas where gary kubiak was clearly i think a little behind and you could tell that he had not been an offensive coordinator and a play caller. And it took him a few weeks to kind of get back in the groove. It took him a few weeks before they started sending people in motion,

you know? And I think that Clint being very close with Kevin Stefanski will kind of circle back to some of those things that Stefanski did effectively. I think this actually is my nice thing. This is my nice thing that I'll say it's, there is a chance, a good chance, a decent chance that Clint Kubiak updates things from where they were last year. And Delvin Cook left the door open for that because when I asked him what was similar or having the similar scheme, he said, well, it's the same last name, but it's not all the same stuff. And so I've mostly said, ah, it's probably the same. Um, but he said that it might not be. So that's going to be my nice thing is that it might not be. And Clint Kubiak might be good at it. And, uh, we've seen this,

this is a thing that comes up all the time. Like all kids of coaches they don't know what they're doing but sometimes they do kyle shanahan knows what he's doing so um yeah we'll see but i think that's a nice thing right that's not i wasn't passive aggressive there i'm still working on it and no that was that was nice and um i i i think that your instinct is generally right, that it's probably going to be the same as last year. But I think last year there were some problems very subtly kind of below the surface with the play sequencing and awareness of down and distance that maybe Clint won't mess up and might have had a kind of a negative effect on last year's offense. So he could be better with some very subtle tweaks. Okay. So feel free to tweet me or email me with your nice in Minnesota.

Nice thing. So because this, this was fun and not preparing you for it also made it more challenging, but I thought you did a great job, Sam. So thank you for your time. And tomorrow we will be out at Oas when we record uh right after that so we'll have like you know hardcore here's what we saw kind of podcast and maybe we'll track down

somebody else to come on the show like we did with will raggetts the other day and it'll be fun so we will go forth here in the off season and um i'm actually going to try to take a little time off right when the packers are going to trade Rogers. So like next week, you're not going on a vacation next week. No way. Next week. And that will be the exact moment.

I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Every single vacation I've ever taken, something happens with the Vikings or like, you know, tangentially related to the bike. So I guarantee that, but that won't be this week. So we will see you tomorrow then. All right. Thanks, Sam.

Thanks caller.