Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What's Dallas Turner's role going to be?

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Mathew Coller answer a wide range of your Vikings questions, including what Dallas Turner's snap count will look like in 2025, what are reasonable expectations for JJ McCarthy's production this season, and are the Vikings fringe contenders? Plus, much more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Coller here, and this is another fans only episode where I answer your emails, slash direct messages, and so forth. So if you want to jump into one of these shows, Matthew Coller at Gmail is a great way to do it. Also on Twitter, at Matthew Coller, and let me throw out one other way, the newsletter, purpleinsider.football. Every week I do a call out for questions,

so if you want to jump in there, we have game day chats as well that you might wanna get involved with. So purpleinsider.football, and all my written work is housed there as well. So why don't we jump in to some of the great questions that have been sent to me this week? We will start with Jonathan here who says I'm interested in the D line rotation snap counts Assuming that Dallas Turner takes a step forward

What do snap counts look like with the rotations of Turner Andrew Van G Ginkle, Jonathan Grenard, the three defensive tackles, Phillips, Allen and Jonathan, uh, Javon Hargrave, a comparison to pass lines like the Eagles and Seahawks came to mind in addition to the Patriots usage with Turner in the Chandler Jones role. So that's, yeah, no, that's very interesting. I was thinking about maybe Jamie Collins in his role with New England, which was kind of a hybrid outside linebacker pass rusher who could drop back into coverage as well. So I did a little research on this because I had a different example, which involved Brian Flores pop into my mind. And that's when Flores in 2021 was in Miami.

And if you recall, they drafted Jalen Phillips that year. He jumped right into the mix along with Andrew Van Ginkle and Emmanuel Agba. So I looked up those snap counts. I've got them here for you. Uh, those guys split up the snaps fairly evenly. Emmanuel Agba was on the field for 755 snaps, Jalen Phillips, six Oh three and Andrew Van Ginkle 801. So 750 ish, 600 and 800 for those three players. So then I thought, okay, well, where did everybody play? Where did they line up and how did they work this out? Well, Agba mostly lined up on the

left side and Van Ginkle was mostly taking up both spots and Phillips mostly lined up on the left side and Van Ginkle was mostly taking up both spots and Phillips mostly lined up on the right side and it seemed like every time one of them came off the field Van Ginkle would pop onto the field so if you took Agba off on the left side Van Ginkle would go over there if Jalen Phillips was off the field he would go over there and I couldn't quite tell how often they were on the field at the same time with each other from the numbers that I had, but I imagine that on third downs, knowing Brian Flores likes to use the NASCAR packages with multiple defensive ends, sometimes rushing up the middle like we discussed with Jehad Ward last year with his rushing up the middle on third downs downs I could see Dallas Turner doing the same kind of thing now

I still expect Jonathan Grenard to be on the field a little bit more than what those guys were But if you're on the field for 700 to 800 snaps, that's still a lot and so you can rotate Alright Van Ginkle comes off for a play. He's there or Grenard comes off for a play He's over on the other side and we saw him working at mini camp on both sides and then on third downs you have him as a rusher maybe it's in the middle but maybe Van Ginkle is better at rushing up the middle so maybe Van Ginkle moves into the middle and you have Dallas Turner rushing off of the edge and then I also think that on some first downs, you might see all three of them on the field.

If it's a passing situation, if it's second down and long, then it's possible that somebody like Ivan Pace could come off and you could have Dallas Turner in there. So I think that Ivan Pace has earned a lot of playing time as a really good run stopper and a very good blitzer, but Dallas Turner might actually be better in coverage as a linebacker and we know that Andrew Van Ginkle is one of the best coverage linebackers in the NFL.

So if you're looking at something like a second and 13, well, you could have Turner and Van Ginkle on the field and maybe you rush Van Ginkle and drop Turner back from the opposite positions, or maybe you just have Van Ginkle on the field, and maybe you rush Van Ginkle and drop Turner back from the opposite positions, or maybe you just have Van Ginkle play linebacker, or maybe you even have Dallas Turner play linebacker. I think what it's going to be is on a weekly basis, different every single time,

and it's going to be something that we're looking at and trying to track and figure out, okay, who was in on these plays? Where did they line up? What was their roles and what was their jobs? And in an ideal world, all that training last year for Dallas Turner to get him into the more of the mold of being an outside linebacker rather than just

a straight edge rusher will pay dividends this year when they ask him to be more of a versatile type player. So if I was to guess right now, I'd probably go with similar snap counts to that 2021 Dolphins team and they played 16 games. So I guess transfer that over to 17, but you would have something similar where it's maybe 800, 750, and 600, and it's possible that Dallas Turner ends up being the 600 guy, but if he had 600 snaps and seven and a half sacks and a couple of pass breakups, he's good in coverage, maybe gets a pick or two, something like that, I mean that would be a really good year, and also I think that a good amount of this defense does swing on Dallas Turner and his success in this role because last year you have Patrick Jones and you have pace and those guys give you something. But Dallas Turner's talent like there's a reason they made the trade for him that we always talk about all the time.

There's a reason that a lot of the draft analysts had him as a top 10 prospect. He's more gifted than a Patrick Jones or than an Ivan Pace he could just do more than those guys so adding that super dynamic weapon with explosiveness that puts you in the first round and makes him or made him one of the elite pass rushers at Alabama when he was coming out if that's what it looks like in a best case scenario, that to me takes the Vikings front seven to even another level where we are talking about it as one of the truly best front sevens in the entire NFL. And if you want to take it a step a little bit farther and talk about

the interior rotation that I am really interested to see. Because Hargrave and Allen are guys who traditionally have played a lot of snaps for defensive tackles, especially Jonathan Allen has almost always been a three down type of guy. Will they rotate those guys out on first down to get a Jalen Redmond on the field along with Harrison Phillips if it's a running team?

So when you play the Baltimore Ravens, do they end up having a Jalen Redmond, a Taki Tayamani, a Levi Drake Rodriguez, those guys kind of a beefy package there as opposed to having the pass rushers and then the pass rushers come in on second down. But those guys, those backups, they got prove it, that they belong in those spots, but that could help mitigate some of the issues potentially that you're dropping off against the run when you have Allen and Hargreave versus where it was Tillery and Bullard and Jaylen Redmond last year.

So this rotation, I think, has the potential, if everything clicks in to be very very nasty and the other part that I wonder about is just how much the NFL has become segmented to win it runs. Teams do not run on second and longer than like seven they almost exclusively pass. Now that might not be true for the Eagles or the Ravens teams that are willing to run at almost any time but the rest of the Viking slate and we've almost gone a little bit too far with the analytics where if Every single team is looking at the same numbers and saying well, it's inefficient to run on second and eight

Well, if you're Brian Flores, what does that mean? Well, if they pass 80% of the time on second and eight here comes the NASCAR package Like here comes the Dallas Turner Andrew Van Ginkle Grinard Hargrave Allen get every guy that you can get out there And I also think that they could have some downs that are passing where you Harrison Phillips isn't in there and others where? There are passing down but he is and he's moving bodies to run stunts and games like that It is one of the most flexible units and if things work out for Dallas Turner, it can be absolutely nasty. And if he struggles, then it's going to be hard to replace that spot and add that extra little dynamic to it.

They could still do it because they can win one-on-ones now up front. And that's the real important thing is that they don't need to manufacture every single pressure that's coming up the middle as opposed to last year where they had to blitz a Metellus, they had to blitz Pace, they had to blitz Cashman. Now they don't have to do that, they can choose when they want to do that and otherwise leave Alan or Hargrave to themselves and they're going to get in the backfield. I mean, Jayvon Hargrave is one of the quicker players over his career at getting into the backfield.

If he's 100%, if he's good to go, then there's just so many different things that this Vikings D-line can do and Turner is the swing player for that. So that's a great question, but that would be my expectation. 750 to 800 snaps for the edge rushers, and somewhere around 600 for Dallas Turner. Biernt has the next question, says, here's a talk me out of question. Oh yeah, that's interesting. I have talked to our friend Jeremiah Searles

about a talk me into episode, but we've never done a Talk Me Out of episode. That is a good idea, Berndt. So we'll look into that. Why shouldn't we believe that Caleb Williams is the lamello ball of the NFL? And another question I have is why shouldn't the expectation for McCarthy's production next year

be what Bo Nix did? He had a worse offense, was a rookie, and had some games that were utterly terrible, yet still threw for 4,030 touchdowns. So a couple of things, I don't really know enough about LaMelo Ball's career to be able to fully understand the connection, I mean, I know LaMelo Ball was a top draft pick the same year as Anthony Edwards,

and they picked Edwards, and thank goodness for that. I know that LaMelo Ball's been injured a lot and is kind of a highlight reel player. I think this might be what you're getting at is that if you were doing Harlem Globetrotter stuff that you'd want LaMelo Ball, his highlight reel's unbelievable, his playmaking's crazy,

his long shots are awesome to watch, but on a possession by possession basis, he's not that great of an NBA player, and that's the difference between being somebody who's very exciting and fun and actually a winning and efficient player. And that might be what you're saying about Caleb Williams. I also think LaMelo's had those issues with getting injured and not being able to develop, but that Caleb Williams is kind of a trick shot artist who is unbelievable in certain moments, but is not consistent enough

to really be a great winning quarterback. I would say that's absolutely true as of this moment. The question is how true that's going to remain. And that is really up to Caleb Williams, is how true is that going to remain? Because if Caleb Williams locks into Ben Johnson system, we have seen what a system quarterback, which is not a dis it's a compliment to Jared Goff. If you can be a system quarterback, which means if the system is good and the

players around you are good, you compete for super bowls, but a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL have to be that in fact almost everyone does at least 70% of the time even Patrick Mahomes, and I think Caleb Williams was playing in within the system about a Fourth of the time it felt like last year with all the plays where he had to scramble or he didn't have to he chose To scramble or he didn't see the field very well So I think I get that comparison and I could see it. I could see Williams potentially just being disappointing overall because he never really truly figures out how to play within a system.

I think we've already seen that with Justin Fields and Fields is already on his third team and maybe he starts to figure it out a little more. But seeing the field is not something that you can just invent for someone. And of course, if you're the Vikings, Packers and Lions, you are praying that he is the next LaMelo ball because that's, you'd much rather have that than if everything clicks for Caleb Williams,

he can be very, very, very good within the system of Ben Johnson. But that's a lot of drop back hit the foot let the football go It's a lot of play action boot find the guy downfield which should help him and and traditionally He has helped a lot of quarterbacks to be under center it helped Bryce young Last year if you watched him down the stretch a lot of his big throws are from under center running play actions And I think Caleb Williams is going to do a lot more of that. I need to see Caleb Williams with good coaching

for at least a year to have some feeling about where that's going to go. That's not apologizing for what we saw last year, but it was one of the worst coach teams I think in the entire NFL. So I think I get where you're coming from there. As far as the other part about J.J. McCarthy, well, one thing is if you go look at the second half of the season and the teams that Bo Nix played, this is not to take away from Bo Nix and his season, but they had a really easy schedule down the stretch

and the dude dropped four touchdowns on the Kansas City Chiefs when they weren't trying, which really helped his numbers go from, hey, mid-20s touchdowns is pretty good, to whoa, 30 touchdowns for Bo Nicks. And that's just a pre-season game where he stat stuffed. Again, not blaming him, it happened in a real NFL game, but it wasn't really against

Steve Spagnolo's Kansas City Chiefs. But let's throw that part out, throw the caveats out and just say should we expect 30 touchdowns and 4,000 yards from JJ McCarthy? And I think that within the way that the Vikings want to play the answer is probably yes. But if you are a person who projects players, if you're Mike Clay of ESPN who does an amazing job of it, and I had him on the show a few weeks ago, feel free to go check that out. It was great. A great conversation about how to project JJ McCarthy.

You're not going to go, hey, let me project someone who's never played before for 30 touchdowns and 4,000 yards. You just can't because you have no reference point whatsoever if that's what you do. I think with us, where we have seen this offense up close, we've seen the weapons, we've seen how the pieces fit together, we've seen Kevin O'Connell,

we are well aware that he wants to throw the football a lot and this year they could end up in their fair share of shootouts because of the opposing quarterbacks that they have on the schedule. But a lot of things impact those types of numbers and schedule is one of them, the game flow. I mean last year they had a lot of games in the first five that Sam Darnold didn't have to throw for 300 yards.

Well is that going to be the same for J.J. McCarthy or not? I do think you could set the bar extremely high for J.J. McCarthy, but I don't think prognosticators are going to do it. It's sort of like how the Vegas line is 8 1⁄2. I mean, they're doing that because they don't know. And the same thing is with this. It's not like you can look at five years of Kirk Cousins and go, okay, we know that Kirk Cousins is gonna end up with 4200 yards, 34

touchdowns, 12 picks, 100 quarterback rating. You could always predict basically what Kirk Cousins was going to be, and we just don't know that right now. But as far as expectation, I think the answer is yes. That when you move on from Darnold, when you don't sign Aaron Rodgers, that means the expectation is that you're winning, and if they're winning, their numbers are going to look pretty darn good.

The only thing that I would nitpick about it is the 30 touchdowns, because if Jordan Mason scores eight touchdowns and runs the football in, and Aaron Jones scores three or four more, and J.J. McCarthy only ends up with 23 passing touchdowns because they've run 11 of them. Well, I'm not gonna bag on J.J. McCarthy.

I look at it always with quarterback play. What is your offense going to be? And this is why I always give Jared Goff way more credit than other people, because if you can run a number one offense, I don't really care if you did it this way, that way, if it was more exciting, less exciting, more plays out of structure.

It's like, if you have the best offense in the NFL, you got a real chance to compete for a Super Bowl. I think with McCarthy, you're looking at like a top eight offense should be the expectation with everything that's around him and the fact that he has had time in this system, he has had time with these players, he knows what he's doing at this point. He's not a rookie.

And if you get into the top eight offensively overall, then you should be going into the playoffs feeling like you can get into a shootout and win with just about anyone. So there's a difference between prognostication and expectation. To your point expectation should be extremely extremely high for JJ McCarthy, but nobody is going to prognosticate him to go that high just because there's no real model to work off and there is a real world

being that he's never started before where it just doesn't work out at all and You have to factor that into any model. I don't think that's gonna happen based on what I've seen. You don't think that's gonna happen. Kevin O'Connell and Quezira Fomenta who made this decision to go with him, they don't think it's gonna happen based on their information.

And I kind of followed their lead with my opinions of like, okay, if they see him every day and they think this, then I think he's gonna be pretty good too, but you just don't really know. Like there are scenarios where it could play out the wrong way. So if you're one of those people who's looking for fantasy drafts and stuff like that,

you can't really rely on the numbers McCarthy's gonna put up. I hope that makes sense of the difference between those two things. All right, next question comes from Brian. If the NFL goes to 18 games in the future, do you see, even if there were two bye weeks, coaches going even more into load management or monitoring of snap counts more closely? Could you ever see an NFL world where outside of quarterback and kicker, there were coaches who just didn't suit up players for all 18 games, or could you see the NFL allowing the roster size to increase,

just throwing out some random numbers, 55 or 56 to help out. So that last part, yes, that, that last part, absolutely. Yes. I could see the rosters. In fact, I think if you are the NFL players association, you would never go 18 games unless you get bigger rosters in return like that has to be a Sticking point now we know that if the NFL wants to get something done They will get it done and if they want 18 games They're gonna get 18 games and coaches are going to have to think about this But I do not think that

They would start taking players off the field I did have this idea though by the way when it first came up the 18 games my idea was Okay, you can have an 18 game schedule But aside from quarterback kicker punter that everyone can only play 17 games so the quarterbacks can play 18 but nobody else so you have to manage this would add an extra crazy layer to the NFL you have to manage which game every one of your stars sits out so do you sit out stars early do you sit out stars later because adding an 18th game to such a long season to begin with,

I've definitely felt this in recent years since they went to 17 games and then the Vikings make the playoffs. You're like, whoa, that is a really long season. I kind of thought 16 was perfect, but that I think that that's an interesting way to look at it is all right 17, but then they're gonna want you know the 18th game as part of the paychecks as well so maybe that would be sort of a trade-off I don't think they would do it that way I think what would happen is certain players at highly strenuous positions they would try to keep those snap counts down like corner for example is a position where they just run and

run and run and run they would. They would try to rotate more. D-line, we're already seeing this with 17 games, where teams are trying more and more and more to rotate those D-lines. I mean, back in the day, if you were a defensive end as a starter, you just played every single snap. There was no such thing really as rotations. You look at the Vikings with Zimmer,

where it's DeNeil Hunter, Everson, Griffinon Griffin and on third down we see B Robb coming into rush But not taking those guys off the field. They're playing every single snap. That's just not possible If you're going to 18 games, I'm guessing that certain positions that that coaches would focus more on managing that But I don't think that unless they were forced to, like my idea, I don't think they would ever say, oh Harrison Smith, you're just not playing today for load management. They might take a little more time with some injuries,

like hey, if you come back and it's an 18 game season, it's gonna be a long time. I don't need that, I don't want that. It does feel kind of inevitable though, and we'll have to see how the players deal with it But I think the extra roster spot is a good one and it helped already to have bigger practice squads I mean, I remember when we used to have these big debates over who they were cutting coming out of camp and everything Well who and cut down day will still be interesting, but it's a lot less interesting when you can keep so many players.

It's like anybody who showed anything in the preseason camp is staying. How could they cut this guy? Well, they're going to bring him back tomorrow. Anyway, that's been a big thing for the players and a big win for the players and veterans getting on the practice squad. So they might not even need the extra roster positions either. I think that would really come down to each team's individual choice and it might impact where free agents sign for how teams manage their players' snap counts because if I'm a free agent edge rusher I don't want to be

out there for 1100 snaps in the regular season and then try to go play in the playoffs as well. It's a great question and we'll have to see if it ever comes to fruition. Tend to think that it probably will. Next question comes from Steve, also based on JJ McCarthy's potential production. Says, if JJ McCarthy finished the 2025 season with his national championship season stats,

how would you rate JJ's season? So here are his championship stats. 72.3% completion percentage, 9.0 yards per attempt, 2,991 yards, 22 touchdowns, and four interceptions. So if that's what he finished with, then, well, number one, I would say he didn't play 17 games. I mean, that would have had to have been maybe like a 12 or a 13 game season that he put up those numbers.

And if that's how it went, I mean, if he did it over 17 games, that means their running game was unreal. It was like Jaylen Hertz last year with Saquon Barkley. What did Hertz throw for like 2,900 yards? It means that Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason went bananas and then everything play action off of that worked if he was averaging nine yards in a tent. But let's just say that that type of production is more over like 13 games in a season. If he had that was completing 72% at nine yards per attempt. I mean, again, these are crazy type of numbers for efficiency over 13 games or so, 12 games.

That would be an A plus type of season for JJ McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings in those games that he played and they would have to survive the Sam Howell games. But in those games that he played would be a winning football team. If that's the type of numbers you're putting up and it kind of reminded me the numbers you're asking about of Brock Purdy or of Matt Ryan the year that he won MVP you just rarely see

anybody get to nine yards per attempt in the NFL and Brock Purdy did that in 2023 that's really what the Vikings are using as their model here. Quasirafel Mensa was in San Francisco and they had an offense that was high efficiency, it was lower volume and that's really what you know Sam Darnold until the end of the season where he started to throw a lot more but earlier in the season it was high efficiency lower because they were ahead in games it was lower volume and you saw it the succeed and thrive and it was quite a bit different from when Kirk was the quarterback where they went crazy high volume in 2022 because of all those close games, but his yards per attempt went down. you're playing from ahead a lot, you're leaning on your defense a lot, your running game is succeeding, and everything is going right,

if that's his stats from his national championship year. We'll see if it can be. I mean, if I'm trying to figure out what it's gonna look like, I think getting him under center as much as you can, because I would say that, if you average nine yards per attempt, then he's getting under center a lot.

That's a lot of play action type numbers. And if that's what you're doing, it means you've run well enough to set up those play action situations. So it is funny how Steve, that you can take just one little stat line and throw it out there and be like, hey, what do you think of this?

And there's a lot that we can read from that if it were to play out for him. But the high completion percentage, I mean that's really with Michigan. It's a lot of play action, it's a lot of under center is what he was doing and that's how you end up with high efficiency and the high completion percentage but lower volume which is what he had in Michigan.

I'm not sure that he will have that here in Minnesota but I guess we'll see. All right, the next question comes from Bill. Bill says, why do you think so many people are still taking so long to come around on Quacey being good at his job? Is it that he wasn't a football guy, even though he's worked for multiple NFL organizations?

Is it that he's on the younger side and then we traditionally see, or is that he doesn't look like them, or was it a bad draft? Well, I think that each individual person who was maybe not sold on Quasi-Adolfo Mensa had their own reasons. The 2022 draft, it was bold to move all the way back to 32 without getting a first round pick in the following draft. And that's something that we didn't see a lot moving back 20 spots in the first round and then not getting a first rounder for the next year. And to have that immediately blow up the way that it did, there was a first impression there. And then the other part is too, it wasn't just the first impression was a bad the other part is too it wasn't just the first

impression was a bad draft which there is so much obsession about the draft every single fan and look i'm saying this is a great thing for the national football league and a great thing for our conversations and all that but every single fan can play along at home with the nfl draft and honestly you probably have just as good of a chance as a lot of teams do picking which first rounders are going to work out and which aren't because of so much of the randomness of the NFL draft but since we all have so much information about the draft if it goes wrong and you can always go back and say hey I loved the I love Jameson Williams coming out or I love Jordan Davis coming out even though neither one of those guys has really

become some sort of megastar. And there were a ton of busts in that draft. It was not a great overall draft, but they picked the biggest bust in that entire draft in Lewis scene. And then the other picks didn't work out either. It's not a great first impression that by the end of the first year of him as a GM, they have 13 wins with somebody else's players from the Zimmer and Spielman era, and then they have not a lot to work with in the future because every one of those picks

pretty much imploded almost immediately, and I would even say that for Ed Ingram as well. He had such a poor 2022 that you could tell kind of right away. Awesome Wav barely played, and then, you know, the rest of the story, Andrew Booth got hurt right away, which was a major concern coming out, and Lewis Seen did not play at all and then got hurt. I mean, just everything that could go wrong went wrong. I do think that that kind of attempt to hack the draft by trading way back was looked at as okay numbers boy you just there you go you you decided that you were going to show

everybody how smart you were coming in and it didn't work and and look there's still a very big amount of fans who have not really come along with analytics in the NFL. And every time their team goes for it on fourth down, they're like, yeah, I should have punted every single time they fail, things like that, right? I mean, there's still, we shouldn't expect every single Vikings fan to have been reading football as a numbers game, right? My book about the analytics revolution.

So some of these concepts that have happened, I think people are maybe not even paying close enough attention or are just judging the results, which is what we kind of do in football. And the first result that you got from his moves, from something he did that was bold and different, totally blew up. So first impressions are hard to shake, right? He also doesn't talk like a traditional general manager. He uses a lot of terms and a lot of phrases that maybe we would hear in the analytics universe or in the economic universe, which throws people off because for so long from every general manager in the NFL, you've heard the football

speak and the football terminology for these things. And a lot of the NFL, you've heard the football speak and the football terminology for these things. And a lot of the concepts, it's not like he's doing insane trigonometry in front of us in a press conference, but it's just a different way of speaking, which I think that some folks maybe were like, um, does this guy know what he's doing? Because I don't really recognize these ways of putting things that I've heard from successful GMs of the past and I think healthy skepticism is always fine. I mean I don't think we really knew that Kwasiada Fomenta had this under control, is that a way to put it, or like had this direction until they did

not extend Kirk Cousins in that off season between was it 23 and 24? Yeah, that must have been it right or 22 and 23. Yeah, no, 22 and 23 because Daniel Jones got the 40 million dollar contract, which obviously Kirk could not take less than that and they decided they were not going to do it. And then when he started taking down all of the older parts and rebuilding it, we still didn't really, really know until we saw it all kind of coming into light, that competitive rebuild plan. Everybody in the NFL has to prove themselves. And until they do, there are going to be a lot of people who say, like, does this person know what they're doing? And it's only really now that we've seen that picture totally come together. But if you go back to 2023, also think about it from some fans perspective, if you are a big Adam Thielen, Delvin cook, Eric Kendrick's fan, and you had seen all these guys come in and then this general manager takes it all down again,

not every person is playing front office manager every second of the day with this NFL team. You might be like, what is this guy doing? Like, why is he taking down all of the parts that have won so many football games? And that's kind of, I think, part of my job is to understand stuff like that and listen closely when the general manager is speaking and talk to you about it and try to explain it the best I can and evaluate it the best I can, but not everybody listens to Purple Insider. They should, but they don't. So you sound like somebody who probably has been locked into this and understanding and putting yourself in the shoes of the general manager from day one and knew where this was headed But not everybody would have done that and I don't think every fan has to put in that much homework So, you know, I think all those things kind of come together the non-traditional background

The way that he talks is a little bit different and and the first impression wasn't very good But now I think people sort of understand what the plan was all along, that you've seen it come together. And I think it helped Quacey a bit that they have a really good football coach and defensive coordinator who have been able to bring to life a lot of these things that he wanted to do front office wise. And that's why the Wilfs decided they want to go forward with this thing. But yeah, I think, I think all those things probably play into it All right last question comes from robert's going 11 and 6 as you predict would seemingly make the vikings fringe contenders Most likely to maybe win one playoff game before getting bounced. Do you agree with that generally speaking?

And would that seem like a failure of a season if all the chips are pushed here now to the middle of the table in terms of free agency and key guys primes mostly coinciding. Yeah, that's a great question, Robert. Well, the first thing I would say is that when the Rams won their Super Bowl in 2021, I believe did they have 11 wins or was it 12? But I think it might have been 11 and And Tampa Bay, and I know that's Tom Brady, I think they had maybe 11-2. So I don't think that 11 wins precludes you from being a Super Bowl caliber team. Kansas City, if I'm not mistaken, has gotten there with 11 before. It really does get you in the dance, and it depends on how that 11 wins happens. If the Vikings win 11 games and they rank 14th in offense and 9th in defense and Will Reichard is the best kicker who has ever kicked before in the National Football League and they win every game by one point because Will Reichard has made a 58-yard field goal, then yeah you're gonna go to

the playoffs and go all right congrats on your 11-win season but you're gonna go into the playoffs and go, all right, congrats on your 11 win season, but you're not really a Super Bowl contender If they win 11 games And they outscore their opponents by 110 points and they are Seventh in offense and sixth in defense and they go into the playoffs And hey 11 wins in this division with these schedules might win you the division And hey, 11 wins in this division with these schedules might win you the division. If you're a division champ and you're top 10 in offense and defense, and JJ McCarthy's had a great second half of the season, but hey, you lost a couple close games to the Eagles and Ravens and commanders or something,

I'm gonna say you are going in with a chance to compete for a Super Bowl. And I look at these things a little bit different when it comes to the playoffs than maybe other people. I look at a successful season as did you make a legitimate chance as a Super Bowl contender or a legitimate case as a Super Bowl contender. What happened in Los Angeles, against Los Angeles in Glendale last year, blew up the 14-win season, unfortunately, for the Minnesota Vikings and all their fans. But it also was hard to reckon with because during the regular season, they had met most of the markers for me

of a true Super Bowl contender. They'd outscored their opponents by 100. They had won 11 or more games, which is usually the baseline for being a Super Bowl team. And when you're talking about a top 10 offense and top 10 defense, like all those things, all they had met the requirements and they had a quarterback playing top 10 as well going into the playoffs, not against Detroit, but the whole rest of the second half of the season. And I thought, well, I mean, this is a successful season. This is what you play for is to walk into the dance

with a chance to really win. And had they lost by six points to Los Angeles on the last second Matthew Stafford touchdown, we would have said, oh man, tough playoff loss, but what a season. It was really the way that it went down that made it so much worse. But I still look at last year as a lot of success there

because they went in as a team that could potentially compete and win the Super Bowl. Now this year where it's changed is because Kevin O'Connell has not won a playoff game yet, now the expectation does change and it shifts even if it's really hard to figure because Who knows who's gonna be injured what the matchups are if there are wildfires that force you to go to a different state than You were supposed to go to like you never know in the playoffs

But I think if they are playing on divisional is it a Sunday weekend must be a weekend Divisional weekend with JJ McCarthy in his first year as a starter if they have a game on Divisional weekend there is no way we can say it was a failure. It wasn't that great It was just another season or something like that and in part because of the second element of your question about guys being in their primes They will remain in their primes now., okay, we'll see about Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, those two guys specifically. But when we go around the field, Jordan Mason, most of the offensive line outside of Ryan Kelly,

Hockinson, Jefferson, Addison, Cashman, Pace, Grenard, Van Ginkle, Murphy, all these guys that are foundational players are here for several more seasons and at very least will be in their primes through 2026. I know that Jeremy Fowler had said it's a three-year window. I kind of look at it more as a two-year window because of the way the cap is at and they've got players under contract, but they start to get older and it becomes more difficult. I didn't even mention Darasaw very much in his prime as well. If you get two swings at it with this roster with these players, the first one is in the divisional round and say you lose a tight game to somebody really good. I'm going to walk away from that season and say it wasn't what you were looking

for and it wasn't the chips. It wasn't the NFC championship to me, which is the true sign. If you make it there, I mean, there's no arguing that's a great season. Divisional round. I've always thought is the toughest place to lose because you're not a memorable team, but you just want enough to be pretty good. And so what do you do? It's like a purgatory. If you lose in the wild card round, ah, you know, it wasn't that great of a season. And so what do you do? It's like a purgatory. If you lose in the wild card round, ah, you know, it wasn't that great of a season. And if you lose the NFC championship game, hey, what are you going to do? You were one step away from the Superbowl. That's a great season. As we

talk about, you know, even the tragedies of 09 and, you know, those things, sports tragedies of 09 and of 1998, but still no one would ever say that those seasons were not Successful years. It's the one in 2019 where you're a pretty good team You got away with an overtime win and great game against New Orleans Then you lost against San Francisco and we forgot about you immediately So those those are difficult But this one would be different because it would feel like this thing is just starting. This thing can go somewhere else.

If you have a quarterback of that age with that contract situation, rookie contract, young quarterback in this first try ends up in the divisional round with this football team. I mean, you would feel, you would feel like next year you're headed there and. You know, it's always, I know, I know, I hear you would feel you would feel like next year you're headed there and You know, it's always I know I know I hear you it's always next year with this team But but I'm just saying like if you get there with JJ McCarthy in his first try of being a starter at any point It's gonna be really hard to argue that that wasn't a great season for them and O'Connell does need a playoff win He does if you walk away without a playoff win, that's gonna be a much tougher argument.

So there's a lot of caveats and there's a lot of different things that we need to say around an 11 and six season, rather than just, hey, if it's 11 and six, then, you know, whatever. One more thing I wanted to mention before the end of the show, I was gonna start the show with it and totally forgot,

just jumped into your questions, was that Jair Alexander signed with the Baltimore Ravens? My take on that is the Ravens, man. Their secondary is freaking ridiculous. Now, if he's healthy at all, Alexander, Marlon Humphrey, Kyle Hamilton, Melikai Starks, wow, just a secondary that is built to try to shut down the Buffalo Bills lack of a number one wide receiver

in the playoffs or maybe Kansas City. It does seem like Baltimore has gotta break through one of these years and that's a really good move for them because if Alexander doesn't play great or only plays 500 snaps, it works out really well. And they are kind of in a similar position to the Minnesota Vikings where These are the moves you make when it's time to go

You bring in an older guy who might have some risk, but if he works out He's gonna be great a better option remains out there in Jalen Ramsey in my opinion I didn't totally love the idea of Jair Alexander I also think that the most likely scenario is that the Vikings will wait and see how they feel about this secondary once training camp arrives, and then they will go from there.

By the way, we got dates from the National Football League. The Vikings will launch training camp July 22nd. I will be there every single day. I do not plan to miss any practices unless there's unforeseen circumstances and I'll be doing live shows after every single practice. That is right. I'm only just starting because I play golf today to get a little, get a little sun in the face. Still got, you know, it's got to get that farmer's tan going. Oh,

it'll be there for training camp and I cannot wait. So until then we'll start, you know, or continue to count down the most interesting players. We'll have some great guests on, we'll have some porch podcasts, so much to come leading up to, I think the most exciting training camp since I have been here covering this year football team. So thank you all very much for taking the time

to watch and listen, and we'll catch you all again very soon. Football.