Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What would the Vikings need to do to enter the playoffs as a legit contender? Is Nick Mullens the next Case Keenum? Will the Vikings do anything at center?

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans' questions, from whether Nick Mullens is like Case Keenum at all, how the Vikings might address the center position if they aren't happy at the end of camp, how the Vikings could be a contender by the end of the season and whether Daniel Carlson would have kicked the Vikings into being a better team over the last four years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is a true fans only. That means no press conferences, no breaking news, just only fan questions. And here's how you know that it is truly all of your questions. And I know that I've been a little slow on getting to some, so we're going to try to get to a lot in this episode. But here's how you really know that it is a fans-only podcast. I have the Diet Dr. Pepper is back.

And there it is. And I'm not going to waste any more time. I'm going to jump right into your questions. We got a preseason game on Saturday. Will Raggetts and I will have somewhat of a preview of that game. And hopefully there's something to take away, something to watch in the third preseason game, maybe a little bit more than the second. Although the second preseason game did have an impact on the Minnesota Vikings with the fact

that they decided they no longer were going to try the Kellen Mond experiment. It seemed so there was somewhat of an impact of that game last Saturday, but maybe this one will actually feature some offense, some scoring, some fun. We'll see. Uh, but for now let's go right into your question. So let's start off with Thomas via email says, I know you're sick of quarterback two questions but how does mullen's record and talent compare to case keenum when he arrived in minnesota well case keenum first of all was one of the greatest college quarterbacks in college football history i believe that he when he was done college, he had thrown for more yards or maybe it was a single season.

I remember looking at this. So I did a story in 2017 before the Saints game where I interviewed a bunch of people about what we missed about Case Keenum. And one of the things that people kept coming back to, and of course, you know, since then he didn't have great opportunities in Denver or Washington, did a good job off the bench in Cleveland. Like everybody knows that Case Keenum is not Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes or something, right? But if you go back, I remember listing all of the records that Case Keenum put up in college. He had this unbelievable career in college and threw the ball all over the place. He was the gunslinger that you guys saw in 2017.

So he had the talent to be that type of quarterback, just didn't have the physical gifts. He's not huge and he's not super fast or anything like that. But he did at least have that background of putting up incredible college football numbers. So that matters to this question as well, because Nick Mullins did not. So the other thing is that Case Keenum started out his career 0-8 with a horrific Houston Texans team.

I mean, just like one of the worst teams that's been put on a field in the last 10 years. And he went 0-8, but he had some really big games during that time and had some really down games as well. But after that, he actually went 9-7 in his next 16 starts, 15 touchdowns, 14 picks, 78 quarterback rating, 30 times sacked, which is actually pretty good to only be sacked 30 times over a 16-game season playing with bad teams in Houston, St. Louis, and the Los Angeles Rams. So he was 2-0 in 2014 with Houston, and then with St. Louis, he went 3-2 and then four and five before they decided to put in Jared Goff. And the thing about Keenum was always that if you go and I've got his pro football reference page up here.

And if you look through it and he's close to a 500 quarterback, even with that one Viking season, which is just exactly what you expect from somebody who is a fringe NFL starter. But if you go through and look at his games, there are individual performances from Case Keenum that are mind-blowingly good. So how about this one? I mean, 2017 with the Vikings, but I can even look at ones before that. But 2017 with the Vikings, threw for 369 yards, three touchdowns against Tampa Bay

in what was his second start of the year. Just an incredible showing. But he had other ones. I mean, even in Washington, a game against Philadelphia where he went for 380 and three touchdowns. So he had multiple performances that were really, really impressive before he came in. Just pulling some of these up. When he was a St. Louis Ram, he had a game in 2015 with a perfect 158 quarterback rating. So he was capable of having some of these very good games.

One with the Rams where he lost by three points, but threw for 321, three touchdowns, 126 quarterback rating. Because of the nature of the way Case Keenum plays the gunslinger type of guy. He has it in him that he can have these big games. And with the perfect circumstances, like he had in 2017 and the fact that he had, I think one fumble the whole year, like fumble luck would matter to this too. Case Keenum is on a different level in my mind from Nick Mullins in terms of the talent of the player, the high end of the player, the best type of performances that he can put up versus Mullins is, I mean, he's barely in the

league. Like Case Keenum is one of the most soughtafter backup quarterbacks in the NFL. And Nick Mullins is really one stop away from the USFL. That's just the reality. After you've been with several teams that you go through an entire training camp and they say, no thank you, we're willing to trade you for literally nothing, a conditional seventh to another team, then that probably shows you where you're at. As whereas Keenum, Superl contenders are wanting to say, why don't you come be our backup quarterback? Because we know that you could come in and save our season if our starter goes down.

So not to say that there were a few good performances by Nick Mullins, but nothing like those games from Case Keenum. One game against Oakland in 2018, Mullins went nuts. And I remember this game. I think it was on TV where he went crazy and had a 151 rating, but there are only a couple of starts where Nick Mullins was actually good, like really good and put up big yardage totals and good quarterback ratings and good yards per 10th and things like that. And most of them happened in 2018.

And I think San Francisco had a better version of that team than they did in 2020. I know that somebody sent me some messages about like, hey, it wasn't exactly the same team that went to the Super Bowl or the NFC Championship. There were injuries and stuff like that. And that's totally true. But even in 2020 with Nick Mullins, when he was not playing, they were injuries and stuff like that. And that's totally true. But even in 2020 with Nick Mullins, when he was not playing, they were a 500 team. When he was playing, they were two and six. Like he's the very bottom end of guys who are still remaining in the NFL where Case Keenum, if Josh Allen were to get hurt for eight weeks, you still think that the Buffalo

Bills with being a very good team, with great receivers and great coaching, could easily make the playoffs. And you look at the way Case Keenum just performed the other day in the preseason. At one point, he was like 16 for 18. Like, Keenum is doing in the preseason, and he did it here as well, what a really good backup quarterback should do, which is just light it up. Because he's's yeah. I mean, he was a, he was a solid NFL backup quarterback when he arrived. And remember the Vikings had Sean Hill and they basically said, we've got to do much better the next year. We have to invest in a legitimate

backup who could start if Sam Bradford got hurt. That's why Case Keenum was here because the Vikings believed in him as one of the higher end backup quarterbacks at the time that when they brought him in. And it's kind of the opposite case with Mullins where he's the last ditch effort because they're not happy with the other two guys. So there's a pretty big difference, I think, between Case Keenum and Nick Mullins. And again, I mean, you're just hoping if you're a Vikings fan that Mullins doesn't have to play. And if he does, that he can reasonably work his way through the offense, deliver the ball to a few playmakers. But even then, you sort of are hoping that he doesn't turn the ball over. It's like that game manager thing, but he turns the ball over constantly that in 17 games, he's got 22 picks. And it's like, that's, he just doesn't have, um, I think the talent of, of someone like case Keenum,

where you could really trust him. Uh, all right. On to the next question, this from Matt via the email, is it just me or wasn't there a time when the backup quarterback was a popular guy amongst fans? They were the hope, the future, or just a change up if the starter was struggling. Now it seems that everyone knows they're all pretty bad some cities where people want to believe that the backup quarterback may be the future answer. Maybe Green Bay that, you know, Jordan Love, they think that he could be the answer in the future. Maybe he is. So, yes, the answer is yes. up in the late 80s early 90s or even before that then you went through this for sure where the old saying like the backup quarterback is the most popular guy in the team that does not exist

anymore uh and part of that is because back in the day they used to develop quarterbacks like kellen mond is a really good example of this and my friend patrick royce called me the other day for a column that he was writing. And he was telling me that Rich Gannon, had he been Kellen Mond would have just been out of the league. And he's absolutely right because teams would keep a third quarterback on the field. If I'm not mistaken, there used to be like a rule or something about that third quarterback. And so, you know, they would develop these guys and they would have a chance to kind of stay on the bench for, for a while, for a couple of years, sharpen their craft

and then maybe get a chance. And so there was always this belief that, Hey, maybe this backup quarterback, maybe he could develop. Uh, and then there were so many bad quarterbacks in the league back then that like, you think about the bears it was like what mike tomzak and jim mcmahon for a time so if mcmahon was struggling everyone would want tomzak or i mean even a better example tommy kramer wade wilson if tommy kramer was having a tough time go to wade wilson because someone like wade wilson had been developed and could actually play. That's part of it. And the other part is quarterback play was poor. It just wasn't good.

Like compare it to now. If you have like Tommy Kramer, one of his best seasons ever, I think he has an 86 quarterback rating. If you have an 86 quarterback rating, you're Nick Mullins, but that doesn't mean that Nick Mullins is better than Tommy Kramer for the time. Tommy Kramer was a great quarterback. But quarterback play was so hard. They used to get injured all the time. You could grab the receivers much more.

There was so much going on for the quarterback that it was very difficult. And they would get hurt a lot. So you'd see the backup quarterback quite often. But there was also not this huge gap in athleticism, which there's way more athletes at the quarterback position now. And whenever it was, you know, a really good team, save for the San Francisco 49ers that had two hall of famers, then, you know, you weren't going to see Gary Kubiak being called for when John Elway was struggling. There was just a lot of teams that didn't have good quarterbacks and the backup probably wasn't that different from the starter. So if the starter was struggling,

it would be like, uh, throw in the other guy. But I do remember once upon a time, and this shows you how much it's changed that people were sort of trained to think maybe the backups got something else in them that the starter doesn't that when Jim Kelly did not perform well in a couple of super bowls, there were people in Buffalo when I was growing up who thought maybe they should play Frank Reich in the biggest games because that was a real thing. So like people were trained back in the day to love that backup quarterback. Um, but I don't remember anybody calling for Jason Garrett when, uh, you know, Troy Aikman was there. So it had to do with the fact that there was a lot of situations where it was like Eric Kramer and Steve Walsh or Rodney Pete and Eric Kramer.

Or, right, like you can remember all of these teams that had multiple quarterbacks if you're from that era. So now it's just if the starter goes down, the season's over, we need a guy who can barely get through it because there hasn't been that intrigue over a number of years of a player being developed and, hey, maybe he could be the next guy. But also, there were a lot of quarterbacks in that era who were developed. And even if you're like 28 years old, you still remember like the, probably you remember the like Kurt Warners and the Matt Hasselbacks, these quarterbacks who

weren't the most physically gifted of a certain era. Now that's gone, but back then that's kind of how it was. And I think the game has changed and the pressure on quarterbacks to be great right away has changed. So those things factor in to the backup, no longer being the most popular guy. However, the next person in line that is not Kellen Mond or Sean Mannion. Now that guy is popular, uh, onto the next question. This is from at BD 97 on Twitter. Uh, do you think that we make a trade for a center, sign one off the streets, or wait for cutdowns and then sign one then? I don't think any of those things are going to happen.

We've talked about it a lot. We've looked at all the options. Somebody begged me to not talk about J.C. Tretter anymore, and I think that's fine. Well, really begged other fans not to ask about J.C. Tretter anymore. And I think that's fine at well, really begged fan other fans, not to ask about JC Tretter anymore. If it was going to happen, then it probably would have happened by now. And anybody that you bring in, isn't going to be able to impact the team until at least four weeks into the season. And if someone's being cut by another team,

and this is a, it's a very common question. Who could they pick up? Is there somebody left? Could they make a last second move? But you do have to ask that question that if somebody else is cutting their center, is he going to be better than your center? Who at least has played with Kirk cousins has played in this offense for the entire training camp. I'm not saying that I think it's a good situation and I'm not defending Garrett Bradbury and his inability to pass block. And I think week one and two are really going to be tests for this rebuilt offensive line with Ingram at right guard and then Cleveland developing and, and Christian Darasaw, like they've spent so much draft capital over the last few years. And it's going to be kind of tested right away with all first and second round draft

picks on the offensive line. So I don't think it's going to be a lot better. And I don't think they can really truly scheme around it. Um, but also when you're talking about other options, I think that Chris Reed four to six weeks through the season is the most likely scenario, unless there's a total surprise and someone gets cut and we all go, wow, okay, that player got cut because he got beat out by someone else and his team wants to help him get a job. Now, it did happen with John Sullivan, sort of reverse version, John Sullivan going to the Los Angeles Rams. Not impossible, but it seems unlikely that they could get someone that would improve the center position right now. And you're just kind of going to have to work too, that it does frustrate me sometimes. And it has in previous years where one guy on the offense just takes a beating. And part of that is because they've got a lot of really good guys on offense. I mean, it was Treadwell for a while that was deserved. It was, you know, you go back to Tom Compton, Dakota Dozier. But if you go through the NFL, every team, find me a team that doesn't have a guy who's not good.

Now, I think that they made mistakes there. There should be regrets there. Rick Spielman, and I think we've got a fans-only question about this at some point. Rick Spielman said his biggest regret for players he got rid of was Daniel Carlson. Now, the players he kept would be a great question for Rick Spielman. Which is the player that you kept that you regret the most? And why would it be all of the guards that you tried to put in there? And I think that they galaxy-brained themselves into believing that guard was not a high positional value and

didn't factor in that with Kirk cousins as your quarterback, it actually is. So we do have to give credit. I mean, I criticize the Ingram pick. We'll see how he plays and you know, whatever. We'll move on from the draft. If he's good, he's good. If he's not, he's not, but at least it's like you got a guard with a high draft pick and tried to improve that position. I still think they should have done a little more than Jesse Davis to improve that position. But in the last regime, they really left that thing to die and it bit them over and over. But there just becomes this obsession with one position because all the other positions are so good. So it's like this guy, this guy, this guy, every, every game,

look at him, look at him. It's like a couple of plays a game where he's going to get beat. You have to overcome it to be a good offense. I doubt there's any offense in the league that doesn't have one, one player who's not very good. So, or, and the thing is with Bradbury, he is good at some stuff. It's not like he can't do anything that would be more along the lines of Dozier once you play him four or five games. So they'll, they'll, what they'll have to do here is they're very likely, and I could be wrong. We don't know this new regime. They might have an idea, but very likely they're going to play Bradbury, evaluate him, and then decide if Chris Reed

should take his place. I think that's how they're going to have to do it. Uh, because getting somebody else ready right now, uh, would be almost impossible. Uh, okay. On to our next question. This is a Jeff via the email convinced me that Randy Moss was better than Terrell Owens. You know what? I distinctly remember when I was in college, having an argument with other kids in my sports management class saying my side was Randy Moss is better than Terrell Owens. And part of it for me is the drops. Now we don't have the data from back then that we have now. So we would easily be able to say, uh, Randy Moss dropped far fewer passes than Tara Lowens. I think Tara Lowens dropped a lot of passes. He is one of the

greats of all time and should have been a first, uh, you know, first year hall of famer should have been hands down. No question. Randy Moss completely changed the way the NFL thought about wide receivers. He was far in ahead, not just a generational player, but one of the five to seven best players ever who just takes over the league in an instant. Right. I think that's a slightly different category than clearly one of the great receivers ever. I mean, we are splitting hairs here, but with, with Moss and statistically, they're very close. They're only a couple of hundred yards away from each other. Total. Uh, Owens is third all time. Moss is fourth all time, but Moss was the most unstoppable player. I mean, go through NFL history, Lawrence

Taylor, Gail Sayers, Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice, like these guys are the most unstoppable players. And if you're making the most unstoppable player of all time list, Randy Moss is one of the five to seven first draft picks in NFL history. I don't know that's the case with Terrell Owens, even though he was wonderful, a wonderful player, and had huge seasons and scored a lot of touchdowns and all that. I mean, just his longevity was incredible. He averaged 15 yards a catch for his career. So good. First team All-Pro five times. Easily Hall of Famer. But I don't think you get to quite that level of when you say to someone,

who's the most exciting player you've ever seen? The most unstoppable player you've ever seen? Randy Moss's name is coming up. And that doesn't even have to be in Minnesota. That his name is coming up. So I think that's the best argument. Both are really great. The high-end seasons by Moss were a little better than the high-end seasons by Terrell Owens. Uh, Moss had what, like 23 touchdowns that year with new England. Um, some of the record setting stuff from Moss was better, uh, than Owens really, really, really good seasons and, and Owens

longevity certainly deserves a lot of credit, but I would go Moss on that one. All right, on to our next one here. This one from at cdnvikefan. There's a lot of talk about how great Zedarius Smith looks and how he beat Trent Williams many times in joint practice. Who's the best pass rusher on this roster? Uh, well, I wouldn't put a lot of value in how he performed against Trent Williams because

Trent Williams does not care about joint practices and has no reason to Trent Williams has had, uh, you know, surgeries and injuries and things that he's battled through for a long time. I didn't specifically watch that matchup a whole lot. I was really looking at Nick Bosa versus Christian Derrissaw, which went back and forth, and one bad rep or two bad reps by Christian Derrissaw, and, of course, somebody who's a 49ers fan caught it, and then it looked like, oh, Derrissaw's getting crushed by him, which wasn't really the case.

I was standing fairly close to that matchup and it was very violent. And I was impressed actually most of the time by Christian Derrissaw, but you know, if you get it on video, then it's the truth forever. Uh, so I w I wouldn't think too much about Trent Williams versus Zedaria Smith. Trent Williams, one of the best players in the league. And also Brandon Iuke after the joint practices said he didn't really get a whole lot out of it and didn't really care so it's not like like the coaches are really big into this for evaluating a lot of players but they're not evaluating Trent Williams so anyway that's not to say anything negative against uh Zedarius Smith Zedarius Smith has looked great. I mean, best, absolute best case scenario is the way that Zedarius Smith looks throughout this training camp, that he looks like he's got

great burst. He plays really violently with his hands and he is a big, scary man. And he's lining up all over the field. Like he's, he's everything that they wanted him to be, at least in training camp so far. Now in the games, who knows how that's going to come to fruition with his health. But as far as when he's playing, all the skills are still there. He didn't forget how to be Zedarius Smith. Is he a better pass rusher than Daniil Hunter is a difficult question.

And normally I would want to lean on statistics here, but both of their high ends put them at the top of the NFL, uh, you know, in 2019. So their high ends, their best seasons were basically equal. The reason I might go with a very, very small shade toward Daniil or I'm sorry, towards the Darius Smith being slightly. And I mean, ever so slightly better is that he's had success lining up all over the field. And when he was in green Bay, he was the guy and Daniel Hunter has been sort of paired with, uh, Everson Griffin and Everson Griffin was a little more daunting. And some of the numbers said that teams put a tight end or put a running back on Everson Griffin was a little more daunting. And some of the numbers said that teams put a tight end or put a running back on Everson Griffin more than they did Daniel Hunter.

So Hunter had a little more free run at the quarterback played on the right side, as opposed to the left side. So just, I mean, ever so slightly, they're both incredible NFL players. Maybe the better question is, and I don't mean to hijack your fans only, but who's the third best rusher on this team? It's probably Armond Watts. And Armond Watts had five sacks last year and was 20th in pass rush grade among guys who played regularly at defensive tackle so he does have talent and i and the development of armand watts has been impressive had a good year last year this year he's not going to have to play quite as much against the run he had to do that maybe more

than they wanted him to last year and i had a conversation with armand watts for a story the other day that you could see it's on my Twitter. It's on purple insider. So I enjoyed that talking to him about how the intelligence portion of his game, how much he's learned, how far he's come. The mental part has really helped him become an NFL player. That's valuable for this team. I think he's third though, because I think he's better than Harrison Phillips at rushing the passer. He's better than Delvin Tomlinson. Who's much more of a gap stuffing type of guy, pocket pushing type of guy. Patrick Jones has been out there, uh, shown some flashes for sure,

but I'm not ready to say that he could take over any of those edge roles. And with DJ Wanham, we've kind of been over that where a lot of cleanup sacks last year but his overall pass rushing success was not very high so i think it's arm on watts which maybe should have you go oh right like you really have to hope that daniel hunter and zadaria smith stay healthy and can play all the games because the next best rusher is kind of a rotational former sixth round pick, you know, uh, interior guy that is not supposed to play that much unless it's pass rush situations or maybe some base defense spots. Uh, so I think that, you know, they're lucky to have Zedaria Smith that he fell in their lap after he failed the physical with Baltimore. And if you get 12

to 14 games out of them, you've done extremely well, but anything beyond him and Daniel Hunter, little bit questionable. All right. This one comes from Justin through email. I'm excited for Kevin O'Connell's coaching future, but I also know there will be bumps along the way. I know he was the offensive coordinator for the Rams, but I don't believe he was the primary play caller. Some of our last few OCs, we also had first-time play callers. What is your confidence level in Kevin O'Connell? I thought Stefanski was very good overall. Agreed. Well, Clint Kubiak generally struggled in games after the first drive. I'm sure there are a number of facts to consider. Any insight would be great. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you, Justin. I appreciate that. I don't know. Any insight would be great and I might not be able to give you any. And here's why,

because I don't know how he's going to react to being a play caller. And I didn't know how Kevin Stefanski was going to react to being a play caller or Clint Kubiak. I remember that there was a conversation about like, oh, well, you know, they're going to Clint Kubiak and he's not as experienced and they, they should have got somebody else and so forth. And in hindsight, that's correct. They probably should have gotten someone more experienced, but with Kevin Stefanski, he had sort of followed a similar path to Clint Kubiak, where he had grinded his way up and worked his way up the ladder. And then he turned out to be a terrific play caller. And we also have to consider something too, that Mike Zimmer, whenever he felt like it became the

play caller. And I think that was very hard on Stefanski, but I think it was even harder on Clint Kubiak. Stefanski had been through a lot of coaching staffs, had been with Zimmer a long time, whereas Clint Kubiak was sort of coming here, his first real shot. I think there was a bit of a difference there, maybe even in maturity between those two as coaches. And Stefanski reacted better to it, I think, than Clint Kubiak. And Pat Shermer clearly was very good, but Pat Shermer was an OG, and Gary Kubiak was an OG. So I think those guys got a little more leeway for what they wanted to do

as opposed to Zimmer. But with the younger offensive coordinators, it felt like he was pulling a little more strings with those guys than he should have with Kubiak or with Pat Shermer, who Zimmer, of course, always spoke really highly of. So that means that with O'Connell, it's all him. He's the head guy. He's going to be able to do it exactly the way he's going to do it. The thing for me that I wonder about is when you're the head guy, there's a lot going on. There's injuries happening. There's game management situations. There is this thing called the defense. And I'm

not sure Kevin O'Connell has paid a whole lot of attention to it so far in training camp. And that's okay. There are other coaches like that, but when it comes to handling all those things at once, play caller, game management, issues with players on the sideline, injuries, personnel packages, coaches, all those things, there is just a very hectic world on that sideline for the head coach. And there will be bumps in the road. It's very hard to predict whether someone's going to be able to adapt. But what I do know is, is the way that this actually works. I did an interview with an XFL coach a couple of years ago named AJ Smith. Really, really smart guy. He was on the show at one point and I think he's returning to the XFL, but he's kind of

a, he's kind of a rising guy and I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in the NFL at some point soon. And he explained the way that it works with play calling is that a lot of us think that it's like Madden, where you just go boop boop, and I'm just calling this play because I feel like it. I guess with your play card, you don't go boop boop, but we do that on the game.

You just call whatever play seems to strike you at the time. But that's not how it works in real football. They prepare all these different situations and the place that they're going to use. And every once in a while, they do make a change on the fly, call something that's unexpected. The player's got to be ready. They have to know the playbook and understand. But for the most part, it's okay.

Here's our first in 10 plays that we like. Here's our third and short. Here's our third and long. Here's our first and 10 plays that we like. Here's our third and short. Here's our third and long. Here's whatever. And so they have situationally these things set up to be able to kind of push the button when those situations come up. And then there's got to be a natural feel to it. And somebody told me once, maybe it was, I think it was Steve Berline that I talked to

about Gary Kubiak. He said, Gary was so good at seeing what the defense was doing and reacting to certain plays early in the game and going back later in the game and saying, I saw this reaction, here's how we're going to take advantage of it. And remember how many times with the Gary Kubiak offense, people were wide open down the field, stunningly wide open, Stephon Diggs or Kyle Rudolph know, whoever Adam Thielen.

And, you know, there's a skill to that. There's a real feel and a skill to that. And I think it's one of the top things that we're watching for is when the second half comes, whatever adjustments or whatever plays they've got dialed up to be able to handle how the other team has faced them. That is a skill that you have to have. And it's not that O'Connell is never, did he do it? Some of it in Washington? Maybe not. No, probably not. Right. Maybe he did. Maybe he did. Was he the, I think he was, um, yeah, he was the offensive coordinator for one year. So he, he knows how to push the little button and call a play. It's not that he's never done it before. Uh, but how he's, how he's going to adjust to this situation is different because the year that he was in Washington, they got all those quarterbacks hurt and it was like Mark Sanchez out there. Um, so I don't, it's not a very good sample size to look back and say, well,

they did have one of the worst offenses in the league. Well, that's not really what they're going to be dealing with here, but you just don't know how you're going to react. It's kind of like being in a fight, right? You don't know how you're going to fight until somebody actually fights you. And that's what we're going to see with Kevin O'Connell. I don't think there's a good way to predict it. It's a great question. And I wish I had maybe a little better answer to it, but I think that's kind of a of very much a wait and see. All right. This comes from Tommy via the email. Matthew, love the podcast. Thank you, Tommy. I've been listening to you since the Vikings after the Saints playoff in 2019. Oh, and what a time

in our lives that was. Fans only question for you. I love Drew McGarry's take on fans talking themselves into the best possible outcome, being part of the fun of being a fan. That's my thoughts exactly. In my mind, every year they're going to win the NFC North. So long question short, talk me into this team being a legit Super Bowl contender when we get to Sunday morning of week 18. All right.

Well, I think that if you look at 2019 as an example, I think that's the best case scenario for this team. And maybe as we've gone along, I felt like it could be a likely scenario for this team. I don't think there'll be the 2017 Vikings where they're the number one defense in the league and the offense is very efficient and effective. I mean, I think that that can be part of it. I don't think they're going to be the number one team in the league and the offense is very efficient and effective. I mean, I think that that can be part of it. I don't think they're going to be the number one team in the league though. And you're still going to have those moments with Kirk cousins. Uh, that's been his entire career. You know, it's coming where there's a game that's going to shock you that they lose because he just had a tough game. Like those things will happen, but let's say that you win 11 because your schedule

turns out to be easier than expected some injuries in the nfc are problematic for other teams and you stay healthy and kevin o'connell is good at calling plays okay that's that's very very much in the cards possibility if the defense is healthy. And let's even say that the secondary is a little better than we expect. Cam Bynum is good and the cornerbacks play decently. Jordan Hicks plays really well. They get a lot out of Zedaria Smith and Daniil Hunter. Like all of these things you could see combined with a schedule that just isn't that daunting when you look at it right now. Like Jameis Winston has missed a big portion of camp. I'm not sold on Tua yet. I think he could be better. I liked him in the draft,

but he hasn't ever really shown it. So maybe you could beat Miami and then you've got Jets, you've got Giants. Like these are winnable games. Of course you got Chicago who could go four and 13. Like there are a lot of winnable games on the schedule. So that's a major part of it. And to be considered an actual Superbowl potential contender, I think you have to get to 11, 12 is really more of the threshold to be like, yeah, okay. This team is super legit, but let's say you go into the playoffs and you've got, I don't know, a Rams team that's played a lot of games in the last two years. And Matt Stafford's elbow is sore. You have a team coached by Mike McCarthy who's there.

You have Rodgers who doesn't play as well in the playoffs recently. You have, like, you can see even last year the 10 10 and seven 49ers, 10 and seven 49ers, they end up in the NFC championship game because a blocked punt went their way. So yeah, I mean, I think that that is in the realm of possibility. I am only talking you into it because I'm asked to talk you into it. I think I see maybe a little more of the Vikings get into the playoffs and we're saying it's a long shot as opposed to they're a main contender. But if you were to win the North and you have 11 wins, well, then you're a contender. Then you've got a shot. So, yeah, possible, possible.

But that's what you have to do. If, if there's anybody who goes into week one, the most exciting week of the year until championship weekend and says, you know what? I don't know this team. Who cares? Why watch them? They'll probably win five games. If you're that person and you're not like in Chicago, which it's very, it's very bleak there. If your team is filled with veteran players and has star receivers, good players on defense,

an exciting young coach, and you're the person who's like, yeah, we probably win seven. Like, what are you doing? That's not, that's not fun at all. That's not fun at all. Being irrational about sports is okay. Being irrational about other things, maybe not, but with sports, very acceptable. It's not my way, as you guys know from the show, that's not my job, but I think every fan of every NFL team, except for maybe three or four that really have no chance, should go into the year thinking, hey, if things go our way, the NFL, you never know. That's how you should look at it and have the most fun you can. All right. This comes from at the only who's house hus, one of those things.

Sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your Twitter name. When I was watching the game Sunday, it kind of popped into my head. I didn't feel as dumb as when I saw Eric Eager mentioned something about Chandler and Delvin. I'll preface. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. I'll preface. You mean the first preseason game?

All right. Okay. Let's try this again. So when you were watching the game against the Raiders, you didn't feel as dumb after seeing Eric Eager mentioned something about Ty Chandler and Delvin Cook. Got it. Preface by saying, I know nothing about the salary cap, but with the early returns on guys like seen Asamoah Chandler, heck Smith, Mar said, it seems like we have some good young cheap players to replace some aging, expensive guys

like Kendrick's Smith, Delvin Cook, and Thielen. With those guys' contracts, is it something on the radar for next year or is there dead cap hits? And two, with Jefferson's extension coming sooner than later, do you see that kind of changing of the guard coming soon? I feel like as a Vikings fan, we need to appreciate that this might be the last seasons of some pretty damn legendary players like Smith, Thielen, Kendricks, and Delvin. So yeah, here's the answer to that.

Not really. It would be pretty surprising, although I have no idea how things are going to go for those players. But I think you have two years left of a lot of these guys. When you look at the way that their situations are set up for 2023 with the salary cap, it's not easy to move on from some of these guys. Now, Eric Hendricks, certainly that could be the case because he, you, by cutting Eric Hendricks next year, they could save $9.5 million on the salary cap. That's possibility. It's also possible that they could end up without

Daniil Hunter. I'm not sure exactly how. The contract is more set up for him to sign an extension, but that is possible. Delvin Cook, for sure, if they were to move on from him, that's only $6 million in dead cap. But Thielen, $13 million in dead cap and Harrison Smith 11, that seems pretty unlikely. I suppose it's possible. And I wouldn't quite at this moment, get too excited about some of those guys like Ty Chandler. I don't know. I mean, rock Thomas looks pretty good in preseason. I mean, I wouldn't start saying move on from Delvin Cook because you have Ty Chandler. It's going to depend on how Delvin plays. And if he plays really, really well, he's probably back.

And if he doesn't, then the time bomb has exploded. And yeah, you're probably looking at trying Wong Wu, trying Chandler, looking for maybe a veteran to bring in to fill that void like the next Latavius Murray. Lewis Seen hasn't take first team reps yet. Can't really say anything about that as far as the next wave. Amir Smith-Marset, kind of a wide receiver five at this moment. You don't beat out BC Johnson for a spot. It's kind of hard to say, wow, next wave, he's going to take over for Thielen. So I think that you're right, that there should be appreciation for what could be

the final years of some of these players. I have been impressed by Asamoah. I will not pour cold water on Asamoah. I think he's been very good so far in training camp. At least the way he moves is like lightning. So yeah, I agree with you there. But when you say like the next wave is coming and they're going to push these guys out. I'm a little hesitant to say that for, for this year going into next year, but it's always possible when you talk about this age, you talk about injuries, potential for a massive fall off in play. I mean, even by PFF standards, Kendricks was not as good last year as he was the previous two seasons. So you are very much right. And also the other part of it is that this

regime decided to stick with some of these favorite players of the ownership, but if they don't play well, then you're kind of in one of those Kyle Rudolph situations where it's like, all right, we signed him to the extension, but it didn't work out. And now it's time to call it quits. You could run into some of those spots. So I agree with you. And when we're talking about, Hey, this is why you should sort of get excited for the season. It that's, that is a point that I didn't think of that. This could be the last season for some of these guys. I'd be surprised if Harrison Smith or Adam Thielen were to walk away with those dead

cap hits, but the other guys, it is possible. And then there's a lot of uncertainty because it's not clear at this moment that the next wave is exactly ready to take over for those guys. Okay. One more question here, and there'll be some other fans only questions next week, especially things are kind of light, um, with the team. Let me see. Let me look for one that I really want to answer. Uh, okay. How about this? Oh, and this is a, this is a fun one. This from, uh, at Jubston, uh, Siebert. I don't know if that's on purpose or if it was supposed to be Justin alternate universe question fans only. If the Vikings never cut Daniel Carlson, how differently do you think the Kirk era would play out,

especially the turned into a weapon over the last two seasons for the Raiders? Okay, snap answer. You guys might know what snap answer is. Snap answer is not different. But you know what? I am going to try to find out because I think maybe they win one more game in 2020 because Daniel Bailey, Dan Bailey had such a meltdown there, but last year, the kicking was good after they cut Daniel Carlson.

The kicking was good. 2019. It was good. It was really that one year, but I am still going to try to investigate how many points difference that it was between the Raiders and the Vikings via the field goal. And this, the good folks at a pro football reference are just invaluable. So let's look at field goal attempts from 2018 to 2021. Cause they only gave Carlson a couple regular season, all teams. Let's just see. So I'm going to do some quick math here and, and I won't bore you with how this needs to happen, but here's the numbers. Las Vegas Raiders since 2018 have gone 119 for 136, which is 87%. The Vikings have gone 97 for 121, which is 80%. So it's been a 7% difference in field goals.

Assuming that the Vikings wouldn't have kicked more field goals, like the Raiders have kicked a ton of field goals, 136. So they've kicked 15 more field goals. But assuming that the Vikings would have taken the same attempts and Carlson would have performed exactly the same, it would have resulted in 25 more points from 2018 to present. That's not a whole lot. It just isn't.

It's not a whole lot. I mean, the fact that Greg Joseph was good last year. Now, you could say, well, there was a game winner here, or this game could have been won, but it's not like Daniel Carlson has made every kick, so it's also possible that he would have choked away some other kicks as well or he would have missed one that that joseph made i mean heck daniel carlson one of those misses was actually against the vikings

in a game where it wasn't super close but i think it would have mattered if he would have made it so 25 points is basically the answer here and that's not enough to say that fate would have made it. So 25 points is basically the answer here. And that's not enough to say that fate would have been changed for the Kirk cousins era by Daniel Carlson. However, I respect what you tried to do there. I respect what you tried to do there because remember when we looked back, I looked back in 2020 and found, with the help of a math professor, found that the Vikings actually do give more field goal kickers make field goals in U.S. Bank Stadium and the Metrodome than anywhere else. And that kickers against the Vikings actually do perform better historically. So we did find that. So this would have been the same thing. If it was like 75 points difference, then you could have gone, wow, 75 points might've

really changed a season there. But if you gave the Vikings 25 points over the last four years, it's, it's not a whole lot. If you gave them 25 points, even last year, that's not a whole lot. Like where would it have gotten? Let me take a look here. Where would it have gotten them last year in the standings with a plus 25 point differential, just even in the NFC in the NFC with a plus 25. Well, if we added 25 points, they'd be plus 24. They still would have been behind in point differential. Dallas, Philly, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Arizona, San Francisco, and even Seattle. So 25 points even in a single season isn't a lot.

But I really respect going for it there because that would have been one of the ultimate curse. And every time Daniel Carlson makes one, you know, that Rick Spielman somewhere just has another drink. So if he drinks, I don't know. So anyway, another fun fans, only question fans, only podcast, and we've got another preseason game and we'll get through it folks. And then we've got the real deal. Then it is Vikings Packers. Everything will be about that after final cuts. Of course, we'll have final cut podcasts and all that stuff and, uh, some interesting things to go through, but I'm not sure that there's the, quite the battles that there have been in previous years, but thank you so much for everyone sending questions. If you haven't heard yours yet,

um, I'm still working my way through them, but a lot of really good questions here. Much appreciated. We'll have more fans only next week. So thanks very much for all that. And we will talk again soon.