Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What's the ceiling for the Vikings offense if the O-line plays well?

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, from whether Harrison Smith will make the Hall of Fame to the O-line's impact on the offense to if TJ Hockenson is a good positional value move for the Vikings to the most bone-headed plays in Vikings games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and hopefully you had a very happy and safe July 4th.

If you're a fireworks person that shot off fireworks, hopefully you were extra safe in the way that you did it, and didn't drive your neighbors crazy. I'm not saying that I had any neighbors personally who may have driven me crazy late into the night when I'm trying to watch a movie or do some work or whatever, but I'm just saying hopefully you were courteous anyway. Just, uh, I'm only half kidding about that, but we have some football to talk about. Lots of great questions that people have asked. And I appreciate

everybody who has held up the show this week with all of your great questions, because as I mentioned, you know, July 4th week is a little bit of a tough one to ask guests to come on. And after we get past this week, then we can start deep diving into positional previews, biggest storylines for training camp and before you know it training camp will be here so i still have a twitter account so you can tweet me at matthew collar or if you want to join the newsletter you can do it for free or support the show on the paid side you get every article that i write sent directly to you the friday mailbag on the written side also goes right to you go to purpleinsider.com do that that is where i'm gathering a lot of my questions because i also started a chat where you can go in chat with me directly

ask questions directly or with other cool vikings fans and uh we'll see how all the rest of the social media world plays out i guess if you're on twitter you understand what i'm talking about how there's all sorts of other uh-like things that are popping up. I don't know which ones I should be on, which ones I shouldn't, or if I should just stay on Twitter. Maybe somebody who's a little more knowledgeable can tell me what I'm supposed to do with all that as a content creator. It's kind of important, actually, to have social media, but I'm not sure what to do. So anyway, I want to start out with our stats focus. And this is also the last week of our Oakley sponsorship.

So we're going to go all out in the stats focus and in honoring our great sponsor, Oakley, for this summer, because I got a couple pairs of awesome sunglasses out of the deal. And hopefully you guys at least took some time to check those out to support the sponsors that support the show so let's kick it right off though with the stats focus i did some research for our more than meets the eye stats focus presented by oakley something that has come up quite often is whether the vikings have a hard schedule or not it's a really interesting question because just anecdotally, based on my experience of covering seasons in the NFL, I have found that it is very difficult to know

whether a team has a hard schedule or not in July. And the biggest reason for that is that quarterbacks get hurt all the time and that there's a lot of volatility, randomness, luck, all the things that we've seen a lot of volatility, randomness, luck, all the things that we've seen over the last couple of years. But last year in particular, about 70 quarterbacks started games in the NFL. So you never actually know as you're going into a season when you're trying to decide, does my team have a difficult schedule or not? If that quarterback is actually going to play that you're probably basing a lot of your schedule strength on right so for example 2019 the Vikings lost to Matt Moore I was there what a time but

they faced Matt Moore rather than facing Patrick Mahomes so going into that season we assumed that they were going to face Patrick Mahomes all All the numbers, all the Vegas lines, they would have said, you're facing Patrick Mahomes. And yet he got hurt, missed the game. It ends up being Matt Moore. So still, they didn't win. And it was a tough game. And it was a good team. But that's a very different opponent than if you're playing Patrick Mahomes.

So if you're breaking down how tough the schedule is, you would have assumed he was there and then he wasn't so very different situation. Similar to last year where it was Mike White, Josh Allen played injured, Andy Dalton played in London as opposed to Jameis Winston. All those things affect the strength of schedule. So with the information we have though, the Vikings schedule does look pretty challenging. So I was looking this up. And if you take every Vegas win total of every opponent, so take all the slates and how many wins they're expected to have by Vegas, the Vikings have the eighth hardest schedule. I was using Warren Sharpe's data for this. And Atlanta and New

Orleans actually have the easiest schedule and new england has the toughest so that's just based on the vegas win totals that's kind of the accepted way to do it as opposed to last year's win totals which you know things change a lot during the offseason so that sounds like a very reasonable process but i decided to go one layer deeper and ask the question how accurate are are Vegas over-unders? If that's what we're basing the Vikings schedule on, well, I want to know, is that a good way to look at it? And the website NumberFire, I'm sure some of you fantasy people have used it, found that two-thirds of the over-unders were off by at least a game and a half by the end of the season. And at least a quarter of them were off by three least a game and a half by the end of the season and at least a quarter of

them were off by three and a half games so one out of every four games or one of every four teams that the Vikings are facing because there's division games uh is going to miss by three and a half and be wildly different than what we expected right now um now of course it's not always going to be four. It could be six one year. It could be two. And that's the point about how difficult it is to say whether the Vikings have a difficult schedule or not.

So anyway, to try to answer the question, though, it can't just be who knows, right? Because there are things that we do know about this year's schedule. And those quarterbacks, assuming that they are healthy and they have good records of health, goes, right? Because there are things that we do know about this year's schedule and those quarterbacks, assuming that they are healthy and they have good records of health, do make a difference. So Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, that's a bunch of quarterbacks that are really good, who play for good teams, that it's pretty projectable. Offense from year to year is a little more sustainable than defenses.

But you also have four games on the schedule against Justin Fields and Jordan Love alone, and we don't know what Russell Wilson's going to be. We don't know if Jimmy G is going to be playing against the Vikings. It's a very confusing problem. And, I mean, defenses, how would you even begin to know whether defenses are going to be good or not? Because I looked at this from 2021 to 2022, only one of the top five defenses was top five again the following season. All the other defenses fell out.

So to answer the question, whether the Vikings have a hard schedule or not, they probably do because of the elite quarterbacks alone and the fact that they have one more road game than home game. It could be rocky, but it is very unpredictable, and it is far from a guarantee. So there you have it. There is my investigation into whether we can say the Vikings have a hard schedule or not. The answer is not really.

We don't really know, but the quarterbacks do make you lean that way. So that is our more than meets the eye stats focus presented by Oakley. Now let's get into your questions. Let's start with Hunter says, I was wondering if you think Harrison Smith will end up in the Hall of Fame. I don't think Harrison Smith will end up in the Hall of Fame, and I don't really think that's Harrison Smith's fault. This is a nuanced discussion that every so often comes up. And what I like to cite on this is the Hall of Fame monitor by pro football reference.

And I'm going to call that up now just to kind of show how difficult it is for a defensive back to get into the Hall of Fame. Right now, Harrison Smith ranks 94th among all defensive backs on the Hall of Fame monitor, which is well below where any Hall of Famer ranks. Okay. So even the lowest Hall of Famers are well above Harrison Smith. And I'll get to this. So don't say, well, your Hall of Fame monitor must be stupid. Hang on. Let me give the whole spiel. So he is kind of in the same ballpark,

at least by the Hall of Fame monitor of guys like Adrian Wilson. You remember him from the Cardinals, Chris Dishman, Malcolm Jenkins, I think is an extremely comparable player. And these guys are all really good. But what the Hall of Fame monitor does is it's not to try to tell you most accurately whether a guy is deserving or not, but rather make a prediction on whether he will be in the Hall of Fame or not. So that's kind of the difference there. And some of the things that they factor are all pros, Pro Bowls, and even Super Bowls, because if you go deep in the playoffs and you are on the national stage

and you get interceptions and you make plays, think about Troy Palomaro here, then you are going to be elevated by the people who vote for the Hall of Fame. You're going to play in a lot of memorable games that those people would have seen. And the All-Pro thing, Harrison Smith only has the one. And if you only have the one, you're probably not making the Hall of Fame. Just to search by All-Pros, the Hall of Famers, the top Hall of Famers, you're Rod Woodson, Deion Sanders, Ronnie Lott, Ed Reed. They have at least five. Darrell Rivas had four. Brian Dawkins had four.

Troy Polamalu, Leroy Butler, who just went in. Charles Woodson has three. Champ Bailey has three. And I know that's a corner. Paul Krause in the Hall of Fame. Aeneas Williams, Rondé Barber. These guys all have at least three. There are some Hall of Famers that have two. three and i know that's a corner uh paul kraus in the hall of fame anias williams ronde barber these guys all have at least three there are some hall of famers that have two like steve atwater john lynch but there are not many who only have one all pro i see uh daryl green is in there a

couple old school guys that's about it normally you have to have multiple all pros or the other way to get there would be to have a major, major role on a Super Bowl team and then a really good career. Otherwise, that's kind of like, you know, John Lynch had that going for him. Steve Atwater, the same sort of thing. I don't know if people at the time during Atwater's career would have said guaranteed Hall of Famer, but he's on great Broncos teams. That helps his case big time. I think as far as what he's meant to the Vikings defense, the combination of sacks, interceptions, the pro football focus data that we have, and I'm sorry if you're watching on YouTube and my eyes are shooting all over the place. I'm just looking at the numbers here, trying to present the whole case here for Harrison Smith. But if you look at his PFF data, he's a guy that I don't know if he's ever said anything about PFF.

He should write them a letter, though, saying thank you, because they have very well highlighted in their numbers how good he's been. One, two, three, four, five seasons of an 80-plus grade, including his best one in 2017 with a 92 grade he has only had one below average season in his career which was 2013 he has been a great player for a really really long time he's a ring of honor guy i don't think there's any doubt about that in a different universe where case keenum doesn't throw an interception in 2017 and maybe the vikings have a different outcome in philadelphia and go to the super bowl and they beat tom brady then maybe harrison smith is getting the attention uh that he deserves so i think that he is put together by his actual performance and by the pff grading system, a borderline Hall of Fame career. I don't want to

say flat out for sure, but he has been a premier player at his position for a long time. I just think that the Hall of Fame monitor tells a story there that, well, we do have better data to work with. Will it be soon accepted in these conversations to say, yeah, this guy has a great case to make the Hall of Fame. Offensive linemen, I think, are getting there. Offensive linemen are definitely getting there because this is the only data that exists. But from a narrative perspective, is he going to have a case? I don't know. I would be very impressed with the Hall of Fame if he got into the conversation because of his PFF grades, which I think over the long term have been proven to be well flawed in some areas for sure. So I'm not saying just

look at a PFF grade and say, oh, it's the truth about how someone played this season. Entirely the truth with no context required, because you'll find an Anthony Harris season or two that says Anthony Harris played like a Hall of Famer. And that's not quite the whole story, even though he was good for a couple seasons. But when you have the accumulation of elite play for someone that matches up with what we see in the eye test of Harrison Smith, and there's data that can point us toward the real answer there. I think that it makes a lot of sense to use that as legitimate evidence. But we might be a little far away from that now with the Hall of Fame voters. I guess we're going to find out because there's a lot of players who are going to start showing up

in Hall of Fame conversations who were around long enough to have big sample sizes of PFF grades. So does that get into that discussion um for harrison smith's sake you should hope so i think as of right now i don't believe he'll make the hall of fame but i think he will make uh he's the he is the definition hall of very good and will be uh in my mind in the ring of honor at some point very soon after he retires all right this comes from john if ezra and ed both take a jump and i think at least ezra will can this offense be top three or will brad buried uh hold the entire thing back well no this offense can't be top three no i'm sorry that's not really that possible because at no point during

Kirk Cousins career, has he ever led a top three office and you cannot expect a better season from Justin Jefferson. You could expect a little better running game, but I don't think that's a difference between being eighth and third. Uh, let me continue my search through the numbers here to just back this idea up of how much better the Vikings would have had to have been on offense last year to be top three. And I think there's a lot of context required, by the way, of even being considered a top 10 offense last year, because in expected points added per drive, expected points based on how many yards per drive they had, how many points per drive, how often they scored, scoring percentage-wise. They were not an elite offense.

And they also, I looked at this for an article, they scored top five touchdowns when they were losing. But if you contextualize it to more even circumstances where it's a close game but so not blowing out either way and not in the fourth quarter they were not one of the more prolific offenses so i don't think they were even a great offense last year i think they were an okay offense that came through at a lot of big times. And if we look at, so the third best team in the league in scoring had 467 points. The Vikings had 424, which sounds like it's close, but it's two games of points added up together that Dallas, the third team was better than the Vikings. Do we think that the little better offensive line play than last year is worth that many points?

I have an answer for you because you're probably saying, well, I think so. If they block better, I have an answer for that. So PFF, Neil Greenberg, a guy who works for Washington Post, looked at PFF's offensive line. This, by the way, is a show for the analytics nerds. You're welcome on July 6th. But so what Neil Greenberg looked at of the Washington Post was how offensive line rankings correlated to expected points added on offense. Very, very deep stuff.

But stay with me here to just try to find out how many points it's worth to have an offense that ranks super high, super low, or in the middle. And the answer was kind of what you would think. If you have a horrible offensive line, awful, atrocious, it's going to cost you a lot of points, like 60 points. And we've seen that. We saw that in 2016. We saw that in 2018. You have a horrible offensive line, it's going to be tough on you.

If you have a great offensive line, it's going to be worth the opposite of that only on the positive side so the top four offensive lines were worth like 50 points above average that's really impressive everything in the middle though hit or miss it was kind of like not that big of a difference between being PFF overall ranked the Vikings 13th last year. That adds run and pass together. They were 19th in pass and toward the top and run. So 13th overall. But if they jumped from 13th to 8th, that might only be worth like 10 points over a season. There's not that big of a difference. So the jump

you're talking about has to be profound, which it could be, but I don't, I mean, that's asking a lot. That's asking Bradbury to repeat his season last year and be better. That's asking huge jumps out of the guards and the tackles to be healthy the whole season, which Brian O'Neill is starting from a little bit behind. And you know, Derrissaw did miss some time last year. It takes a lot to be healthy the whole season, which Brian O'Neill is starting from a little bit behind. And, you know, Derrissaw did miss some time last year. It takes a lot to be a top four or five offensive line. If you can be there, you can be a lot better. Does that take you to being a top three offense? I don't know, because there's still a lot of other questions to be had. I mean, one is, can you ever solve the inconsistency of your quarterback? I tend to think no, considering we have a huge sample size. I also looked at, this is, I'm just flooding your faces with numbers. All receivers who had over 1,700 yards,

historically, none of them ever repeated it. The next year, the next year, there were some repeats later in careers, but none of them ever gained 1700 again in back-to-back seasons. Doesn't mean Jefferson can't be the first, but it's going to be tough to do it two seasons in a row with every defense going after them. How good Jordan Addison could be right away? We'll have to find that out. How good the running game can be? We'll have to find that out how good the running game can be we'll have to find that out uh how much progress kevin o'connell can make how the defenses impact them we're gonna find out uh but top three would be i think some kind of accomplishment for this group and for this quarterback the highest they've ever ranked even in scoring percentage per drive under Kirk Cousins in Minnesota was sixth in 2019. So I don't think top three. I do think they can get back into the top 10 because the score effects had such an

impact on where they ranked last year that I think they actually have to be better as an offense to get the same results for last season. Boy, you got your money's worth of that answer, didn't you, John? Folks, I know that all summer long, you've heard nothing but me saying Oakley sunglasses, this Oakley sunglasses that you know why? That's because I wear my Oakley sunglasses just about everywhere. And I love them. This is the first summer of my life that I have actually worn sunglasses. And I realized, and I probably didn't even know this, that my eyes were pretty sensitive.

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In a bubble, would you call the 2007 New England Patriots season-ending loss soul-crushing? One game, one helmet catch away from an undefeated season is rough. Well, because it's Boston and the success that Boston has had in all sports since the Red Sox won, hard to say. Hard to say there's a whole lot of empathy there. If you're a Minnesotan or say someone who grew up in Buffalo and moved here, not a whole lot of empathy. Let's say it wasn't the New England Patriots and it was the San Diego Chargers instead. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's really close. Not quite. No one's comparing it. That's really close to Gary Anderson. If Tom Brady already didn't have Super Bowls and if they weren't Boston and had all the success that they've had with the Red Sox and the Bruins and all that over the last 20 whatever years, if they did not have all of that backing, then 100 percent, would be one of the most soul-crushing losses in NFL history. And the only reason it's not talked about that way is just because of all the other success that they had.

And absolutely no one in the world is going to cry any tears for the New England Patriots. But if it was you, if it was the Vikings, which could happen, right? Go undefeated and then lose to a team because of a random helmet catch. And then Bostonians claim it was holding for the rest of time. That's probably what you would do as well. Yeah, I think that is completely soul crushing because you're this close away from the greatest season of all time it would be better than the 72 dolphins which the football life on the 72 dolphins really good go watch it i thought i was going to be annoyed but i wasn't it's a super interesting story yeah so you're that close and you are the greatest team of all time. There wouldn't be any debates there because the competition is stiff. And there's so many more football games that you had to play to get there.

So the Patriots had to win more games than the Dolphins to have the undefeated season. They could pop their champagne and that's fine. But the Patriots won as many undefeated games as the Dolphins did. But they had to win more to get all the way to the Super Bowl and win it. So you would have had a great case for this is the best team of all time. It wouldn't even be like the Warriors. It actually ended up being like the Warriors versus the Bulls because the Warriors were beaten by Cleveland.

So, yeah, I think it's rough. I do think it's rough i do think it's rough i that's different between objectively saying wow how soul-crushing is that because of the circumstance and i actually feel bad for them those two different discussions all right this one comes from jesse who was better the 1998 falcons or the 2000 giants and what if we took marcus allen instead of darren nelson all right well the 2000 giants huh okay so i remember the 98 falcons very very well but the 2000 giants i'm going to pull them up here on the internet i don't remember as being an unbelievable team. I remember it as being a weird year where the Vikings decided not to play when they faced the Giants in New York. They did

soundly beat the Eagles. I mean, how many times could you say this for a team that they played two playoff games and won 61 to 10? That's pretty rare. In the regular the regular season though not a special team they had a good defense top five defense and they were 15th offensively in points for Kerry Collins had a good year that year but not an unbelievable year 83 quarterback rating under seven yards an attempt and Tiki Barber went over a thousand yards I forgot that Ron Dane carried the ball 228 times that year it's the 98 falcons the 98 falcons are a behemoth football team how that happened with chris chandler i will never understand but it's the 98 falcons they were 14 and 2 top 5 offense and defense. That was the only team that was going to be able to hang with the Vikings. And they beat an incredible 49ers team the week before.

And how about this? Chris Chandler that year averaged 9.6 yards per pass attempt, which is, is that the best ever? That is insane. That is absolutely insane. So yeah, it's not even close. Not even close. The 98 Falcons were way better.

If the Vikings took Marcus Allen, now we have to remember what era we're talking about with running backs meaning a lot more than they do today. I guess what you're getting at is do they get a Super Bowl? Possibly. Marcus Allen, 1985, 1,700 yards, 440 touches, 2,300 yards from scrimmage. My gosh, 67 catches and 380 runs. That is insanity. And then Al Davis hated him and made him a fullback. Very weird stuff. If it was today, he would have just held out and got traded somewhere. Maybe, maybe they do win a Super Bowl. By 1987, which is the Vikings' best chance, Marcus Allen was still good,

but I don't know if he was as good. He kind of had that late career resurgence with Kansas City after he escaped the Raiders. And he was really excellent for a handful of years, splitting in the backfield. But he did have his huge seasons before 1987. But if it was the Vikings, they would have made him their superstar and there wouldn't have been the conflict with Al Davis and everything else. MVP, Offensive player of the year many pro bowls yeah yeah yeah i don't know if that's what gets them over the top but decent chance it does since they just needed a catch there on the wade wilson pass maybe a better

running game in the 80s they really didn't have like that belkow type of back a herschel walker that's who they really needed they need a herschel walk no no maybe not still too soon okay fun questions though historical questions but i do think if they had marcus allen if they had a running back of that caliber at that time i can't guarantee anything in minnesota sports would have been a championship it would have made them pretty darn dangerous in both 87 and in 88 when they had that team for the full season. This one comes from Never Played Madden, a longtime newsletter subscriber. Again, purpleinsider.com. Go make sure you check it out. Do you think that the Hawkinson extension will be positional value?

I'm trying to think about how to interpret the question. Like, when I think about positional value, I think about it mostly through the perspective of the draft and a little less for veteran players. And okay, so you could say, hey, you shouldn't spend all that money on a guard or something. Although this team would say, no, you should actually spend all the money on the guard. The league in general says, here are the positions you should pay. And tight end has generally not been one of those positions that gets these massive contracts like 30 million dollars a year where wide receivers are so they're not getting the most money in the entire nfl

and what that says to me is you probably shouldn't draft the tight end very high and go back and look at a lot of the first and second round tight ends not a great group tj hawkinson didn't get a second contract with his team even though he's very good for the Vikings. But it's not a great group of players who have been drafted, even in the first couple of rounds. A lot of times, if they do eventually become good, they don't do it until a little later in their career, three, four, sometimes five years into their career. So if you're looking to take advantage of the rookie contract, go back and look at what TJ Hawkinson did for Detroit.

They didn't really get, even as good as he is now for the Vikings, they did not really get the boom for the value or whatever, bang for the buck when it came to where they drafted him in the top 10 to what he did there during his rookie contract. That's kind of the way I think of that positional value question. When I think of it with veteran players and team building, so you want to draft those guys that are highly paid so you get the surplus value, the difference between what you would be paying that guy, Justin Jefferson. If Justin Jefferson's on his next contract, you're paying him 30 million. If you have him for 3 million, that's the surplus is the difference. It's worth

a lot when it comes to aside from quarterback, any other sort of situation of, you know, any position, I think of just making sure you get the best players you can. And if it's Rob Gronkowski, you can win a Super Bowl with him. If it's Harrison Smith, he can lead a number one defense and be the best player on that number one defense. If it's Eric Hendricks becoming an all-pro, he can raise the level of everything that you have on defense. Even though safety, linebacker, tight end are not generally thought of as the most positional value,

I think of that is really more of a draft discussion that you shouldn't put uh draft picks into a rookie tight end in the top 10 because the position or the uh the the value of what he's going to give you over his rookie contract is not that much but what you want on your team is good players so you should keep tj hockinson because he's a good player and if you're trying to build for the future, he's 26 years old. He's going to be a good player for a while. And when you talk about that positional value thing, it's also how replaceable is that? How replaceable is a receiver, a receiving tight end who can get a hundred and whatever targets in a season? That's not easy to replace. Go look how many guys did that last year.

It was him and Travis Kelsey and almost nobody else. I mean, the guys in his range are like Mark Andrews. George Kittle is a better blocker, so he would get extra value there for me for being a great blocker and really tough. Still, there are not many TJ Hawkinsons, and positional value and how hard you are to replace can be pretty close in my mind.

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Is it just me or more undersized players appearing in the first and second round draft pick projections? While I agree size matters, I feel like I've seen the undersized criticism more. This year was weird. It was this year for me that was just strange. And mostly because of the wide receiver position. I don't know if it was the other positions or not. The only other ones I really looked at, I think maybe there were some undersized corners that got into that discussion, but there were also some Joey Porter juniors that were really lanky freak shows. I think it was really mostly about the wide receivers. And when we asked

Quasey at Alphamensa about that, he basically said, I don't know. We're going to have to find out because there's no real numbers to look at guys who are this small and see whether they've had success. Because usually if they're that small, they don't have the pedigree. They aren't first round picks very often or second round picks very often if they're that small. But this year they are with Zay Flowers and with Jordan Addison and so forth. And it is a tricky question. I don't think this is a thing that is some sort of trend where suddenly football players are smaller. But I do think that there's something to weight that players are managing their bodies in certain ways. You might have, just for example, if it's a running back, he might not look to be two 20 and just maintain his quickness because

he knows that his team is going to use them in a receiving role or a scat role or a special teams role or something like that. Linebacker, great example of this. If you are, and this would be another position that has shrunk for sure, because if you're a linebacker, example of this if you are and this would be another position that has shrunk for sure because if you're a linebacker you need to cover and if you can't cover you're not playing in the league in 1994 yeah you probably were playing in the league if you were a good run stuffer that's what they'd say about yeah he's out there to stuff the run and then you know do what he can in uh in the past game and they take them off the field and third down or something, but now everybody's got to cover on all three downs. So that means that instead of going into the weight room with the goal to be 240,

250 pounds, you could be 235 pounds. And that's going to be good for you because you're you're moving quicker you're more agile at that weight um tight end might also be this way i mean tj hockinson is not a huge guy he's tall but he's not super beefed and he's not a jerome wiggins or a jim klein saucer you know why i i mean maybe he just doesn't have the frame to be beefed. And by the way, totally jacked in comparison to like me. So we'll just make that clear. Just not compared to a like Rob Gronkowski, who's absolutely humongous, or a Ben Coates back in the day. Not one of those guys.

And I think a major part of that is that his teams line him up in the slot. And so he wants to be quick. He wants to be agile. He doesn't want to be this big, giant, hulking dude that can't turn. That may be playing into it. Yeah. And we have to adjust as a draft universe when we look at people coming out and to not automatically say, oh, he's small, too small, can't play.

At the same time, there still is history on this. Jordan Addison, if he succeeds, will be one of the smallest receivers to ever have huge success. He's way smaller than most of the guys who have had big seasons, even as small receivers like Stephon Diggs or Antonio Brown. He is 20 pounds lighter than Stefan Diggs. And you know, Stefan Diggs is not a big guy. So that kind of tells you something. There is still in my mind, something to it. The Vikings have drafted a few of these guys. It hasn't really worked out so far. Cam Dantzler, the needle, well, the needle got hurt all the time. And so far, Andrew Booth Jr. has had the same problem. So it's dicey.

It's dicey because flexibility, quickness, those things are so important. But you're also getting hit by really violent people all the time. I think you do have to have some muscle as well. This one comes from Tom. I know he hasn't been considered a pass catching tight end, but in the NFL, do you think that the Josh Oliver signing could be an insurance policy if the Vikings fail to extend TJ Hawkinson? I had that thought myself based on the contract. I definitely had that thought when they signed him because there was a lot of immediate, what are they doing? How much did they give him? And if you go to over thecap.com and you poke in his numbers, you'll see it's really not what his

agent put out there to Adam Schefter. Hate to tell you that does happen sometimes where the agent tells the reporter, oh, it's this for this, and doesn't mention that the team, there is no world where they pay that full contract. And that's the way I look at Josh Oliver. It's more of a two-year deal. His cap hits aren't high until the third year. To put that aside, though, just what I was saying about tight ends and how they develop, this could be what they're looking for with Josh Oliver. If I was a team, if you had me in Kweisi Daffelmense's chair,

it would be an absolute edict to pick up somebody else's tight end who they let go through their rookie contract every year if it was a fifth round draft pick and it didn't work out who did I see the other day in the USFL was it Jay Sternberger I think that was it him I it was somebody who was drafted fairly recently. That's a guy. Pick him up because it's such a hard position being a blocker, being a slot receiver, sometimes an outside receiver, sometimes move to the backfield. You have to know all the blocking, all the route combinations, catch the ball over the middle, which still you take hits there if you're a tight end. It's not an easy position. It takes a long time to develop, and sometimes those guys just click. So I think what they did here was look for a guy that might click.

Worst-case scenario, he just blocks the heck out of people and improves your running game. Best-case scenario, he becomes some sort of weapon for you. And Oliver has said multiple times that he was a pass catching guy coming out. I've seen him run some routes. He is very huge. And I don't think he's ever going to have the quickness of a TJ Hawkinson, but he could be ish sort of a Kyle Rudolph. It just, it takes a lot of knowledge and information and processing to be a Kyle Rudolph. It's not just be huge and have huge hands.

It could be a slight hedge, though. Yeah, I agree with you that it could be a slight hedge. You get a chance to develop him, see if he can be a tight end, number one. This is only if Hawkinson does not sign. I still think that they should kind of move heaven and earth to make sure that happens with Hawkinson. But yeah, if he doesn't sign, then they have somebody else that might have potential that probably played into it and would not be a thing that they would ever want to say in public. So I'll agree with your theory on that one. Okay, this one from Khan TK421. How about the strangest boneheaded plays either by a vikings player or an opponent

so i wrote some down i did some prep on this one normally there's no prep for these questions so i can just give you off the top of the head answers for what i think uh but this one prep and actually i did kind of the offensive line thing. I did kind of look at the numbers on that as well. So I'm only doing since I started covering the team because I can't tell you, even as a watcher of old games, every boneheaded play that happened in 1997, right? Although the Giants onside kick in the playoff game against the Vikings might fall into that category. But since I have covered the Minnesota Vikings, here is my list. Adam Thielen fumbling a punt in 2016 against Dallas. I am not sure why he caught that punt.

It was right back up against the end zone. Cost him the game. May have cost him the playoffs, actually. Sean Payton running at Linval Joseph in the Minneapolis Miracle. Bad idea. Linval Joseph was the best nose tackle in football that year, and you have Drew Brees as your quarterback. You need one yard, and you're running at that guy.

That was just crazy. You could also throw in the wide receiver pass from the Minneapolis Miracle from Sean Payton as well. Actually, you could even throw in when Sean Payton did the skull clap, that that's one of the most boneheaded things I've seen. He was just asking for it, just asking for a Minneapolis miracle to happen after that. Stacey Coley putting the ball down on a kickoff against Green Bay in 2018. I think this rule has changed. I'm sure this rule has changed.

But at the time, if you caught it and just set it down in the end zone then it was a fumble so he almost fumbled away the ball and just by not knowing the rule because i think it must have been different in college i don't remember the exact circumstances that was pretty boneheaded though how about xavier rhodes kicking a flag you guys remember that one uh look this up it's on youtube where he was flagged against the rams and he kicked it and he got flagged again mike zimmer pulled him out of the game for a couple plays that was pretty boneheaded uh this one has been brought up on the show before kirk cousins throwing the ball backward to latavius murray in seattle that one came up recently i also included on my list everything

involved with matt Patricia. Everything. Every game plan, every decision. Just the existence of Matt Patricia, boneheaded. Just included that. The Eagles attempting a pass with their kicker, 2019, at the end of the first half. Not smart. Not a good choice.

How about Dan Bailey against the Bucs? That is the worst kicking performance I've ever seen in my entire life is dan bailey against the bucks 2020 not good uh the time in 2021 that the vikings intern or something pushed a ravens player and got a 15-yard penalty after a first down run. That was boneheaded. The special teams coordinator, Marwin Malouf, kicking to Cordero Patterson, Vikings Bears, and then appearing to try to fight Mike Zimmer on the sideline. Both of those things, bad choices. K.J. Osborne, when he did the through-the-legs punt return,

I don't remember who that was against. Was that in Chicago too? Weird stuff in Chicago always. But he caught the ball and was trying to go the other direction and put the ball through his legs, then got tackled and almost fumbled it. And I would – last one is Jefferson throwing a pass to Kirk Cousins. Not a good choice. Not a good one.

Pretty boneheaded. That's my list. I would love to hear yours. I would love in the comments if people included their list for boneheaded things. You can include from other years that you remember. I just went with ones that I was very familiar with, and that was a fun one to put together. So I appreciate that question very much. So thank you all for listening as always, or watching on YouTube, as always. And the move is creating a very empty space now here for me. And for some reason, my webcam wasn't working. And, you know, our pets heads were falling off and everything's going on here. So that's dumb and dumber. If I if people are just too young to know the reference at this point

just dumb and dumber so anyway all right references have been a problem on the show recently and our friend chuck aoki decided also to own me on twitter about uh the the question the other day and the fans only where i didn't recognize the office reference. And I said, look, I mean, the show is 16 years old. It's not that iconic of a reference. So he did a poll and all of his followers disagreed. Just a big gym guy, just not a big gym helper guy. That's the problem. All right. Thanks, everybody.