Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Which draft pick makes the most impact in 2023? Can we talk about intriguing Vikings UDFAs?

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions following Day 3, from intriguing UDFAs to what's next for the roster... Pre-order Matthew Coller's new book "Football Is A Numbers Game" by clicking here: https://www.amazon.com/Football-Numbers-Game-Data-Driven-Approach/dp/1637272189 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and guess what? I've gotten a ton more Minnesota Viking fan questions that they want answered following the NFL draft and the UDFA period. The Vikings picked up some interesting players, and you guys have questions about that, along with big picture things and many other topics to discuss. So I'm going to run through great Minnesota Vikings fans questions in just a second. But first, a little shameless self-promotion. I just announced that I have written a book. It is about the history of pro football focus, where I spent the last two years deep diving into the history of PFF, what it does for NFL teams and where it fits

in to the analytics revolution. And this book is available wherever you get books. If you want to go to Amazon, if you want to click the link below, if you're listening to this on the podcast feed, I will also include the link there for you guys to pre-order. It is coming out in October. And I just have to apologize on the cover of the book. He is a Philadelphia Eagles player. I am aware of that. There is a reason for that. It ties into the entire story, but I know for Vikings fans, they don't exactly want to see Zach Ertz scoring a touchdown in the Super Bowl. But I promise you the book does not focus around too many Minnesota Viking rivals. In fact, it includes an interview about pro football focus with Vikings general manager

Kwesi Adafo-Mensa. That's in the book. So if you are so inclined and want to check it out, go get it pre-ordered right now. It's coming out in October. I know that's a while, but you've got all summer and then you'll remember part the way into the NFL season. Oh yeah, that's right. I got a cool book. So that's the while, but you've got all summer. And then you'll remember part the way into the NFL season. Oh yeah, that's right. I got a cool book.

So that's the self-promotion. Now let's get to your Vikings fans questions. Let's start off with Dustin5522 on Twitter. He says, what's the deal with everyone's excitement over this Ivan Pace Jr. UDFA pickup? Why is everyone acting like we got Eric Hendricks back? Well, I think part of the reason is that Ivan Pace Jr. has great PFF stats and not just good.

He's great in every area. He put up tremendous numbers for the University of Cincinnati. He could rush the passer. He could play in coverage. He could chase down people in the run game. And I think that when you find a player that didn't get drafted, that has those types of numbers and was projected a lot higher, he didn't go at all, but he was projected to be somewhere between maybe the

120 and 200th pick. So maybe a mid round draft pick that a lot of decent linebackers have come from in years past. So he was somebody that was on a lot of people's draft simulations as they, you know, use the PFF simulator and he would come up as a potential option. You'd look at his numbers and go, wow, all right, this is the type of third or fourth round pick. And to get him in UDFA, an undrafted free agency for a lot of folks is pretty exciting because he was projected higher by a lot of people. Now where I would pour a little cold water on that is just that Ivan Pace Jr. is small. And I don't mean like a little undersized. I mean, S M O L small. He, uh, is I believe five, 10 and 220 something pounds. If he were to enter the NFL now, he would be, I believe the shortest linebacker in the entire NFL. If not very, very close in the

one percentile of height and without, you know, weight to go along with it. It's pretty tough to see. I mean, this guy is essentially as small as a lot of safeties, but there are most safeties are actually bigger than him. And he's a linebacker. Now it is true that the Vikings have undersized linebackers. Eric Kendricks is one of them. And Brian Asamoah by technical terms, an undersized linebacker doesn't weigh that much, but we're not just talking about a little bit on the undersized side and quick. We're talking about below the standards of what you would normally see in the NFL, which

I think is what kept teams away despite his excellent play. Now, my opinion on this is good job. That's a great swing to take. Why not? If you had other plans for your draft picks, which clearly they did, including their seventh round pick, who I think is one of the most lauded picks that they had in Dwayne McBride. I saw Mel Kuyper calling it his favorite Vikings pick. I also saw Benjamin Robinson of Grinding the Mocs post that he was drafted way after expectation. So, you know,

they wanted to spend a seventh on him instead of pace junior. Maybe they knew that they could pick him up in UDFA, but it's a really good swing at someone because there have been undersized linebackers, London Fletcher, one of my favorite players of all time, Sam Mills, very undersized. And sometimes these guys can overcome their height, weight issues to be reasonable players. Even if it's not a starter, maybe it's just a special teams contributor and so forth. But once you make it to undrafted free agency, it is very much just all lottery tickets and extreme odds lottery tickets like the uh i mean of course i know adam phelan came from undrafted free agency and there have been more along the way so it's good idea to take swings like this at guys who statistically played extremely extremely well

in college so at least at one level at a fairly big school in the university of cincinnati he performed excellently i think in my opinion i would rather take guys who are excellent performers than oh this guy had great athleticism but doesn't know how to play football very rarely does that work out production tends to carry over more so it's a good pickup but as far as you know hyping those things up i am always the one that's going to say, Hey, Hey, Hey, let's think about how often these UDFAs end up working out. It's not all that often. And usually that's why usually there's one or two things that keep them away, even if they were excellent players at the division one level. So good, good idea for them to pick them up.

Totally fine. If people want to get excited about his statistics in college but that size issue could be problematic i mean when you think about guards coming through to block these guys i mean that's usually you at least have to have enough girth and enough power to stop those guys in their tracks but maybe he's got to work around for it. Or at very late, look, if you pick someone up in UDFA, I mean, if he becomes a special team or if he becomes your next Chris Boyd, it was a seventh round draft pick. That was a good seventh round draft pick. It was somebody that helped them on special teams.

I would say the same thing here. Also linebacker is one of those positions that I think is hard to project because it is such an instinctual position and an IQ position that picking up linebackers and undrafted free agency, that's where they got Eric Wilson. And what did we say about Eric Wilson? Undersized guy. He was not a star for the Vikings, but filled in admirably a couple of times. I don't think he's had a whole lot of a career since he was with the Vikings, but had a handful of times. I don't think he's had a whole lot of a career since he was with the Vikings, but had a handful of games where he played an important role. If you can get that

from Ivan Pace, then you've done a pretty good job for yourself. But I would not start fitting the championship ring because they got an undrafted free agent. Next question is from Nick. The play data, like PFF coverage grades. I promise I did not do the PFF thing here to start the show because of the book about PFF football is a numbers game. That's the name of the book, by the way. Uh, but anyway, from Nick, the play data like PFF coverage grades, uh, are great for the third round corner Blackman, but his draft grades were low.

Is it just the size and age that would cause the disparity yeah i mean those are pretty big factors 24 years old so there's kind of an assumption there that he's like the high school kid playing against junior high that if he's got that much experience and has been able to develop in college to that point, he probably will be better than a 18 to 20 year olds that he's largely playing against. So that works majorly to his advantage when it comes to understanding football, you know, make a plays on the ball. He had three interceptions. It was hard for opposing teams to complete passes into his coverage. He, you know, but there's also the element of, you know of if he's got good numbers, similar to

what we were just talking about with pace, you definitely want that more than you don't. And when we looked at during the lead up to the draft on cornerbacks, if they didn't have great PFF grades, there was almost no chance they were going to succeed. So at least he gets sort of the barrier of entry in terms of performing really well in college. If you weren't a good corner in college by the numbers, you probably won't be in the NFL. Yes, there are exceptions to that, but not really all that many.

And oftentimes during the draft, because of raw skills, you'll hear people kind of talk themselves into it. But again, you should have good numbers in college if you're going to play well at the NFL level. So that's a good sign for him. That's a check. But when you're also a corner and you're under 200 pounds, that does make it difficult for you to press bigger wide receivers. He's not that tall either. So receivers can go up over him. Is there a question about the tackling? Not in college, but at the NFL level, 175 pounds, you're definitely going to have people ask, wait,

can you actually tackle NFL wide receivers, NFL running backs? But I did think it was interesting and it stood out to me about the way Kweisi Adafo-Mensah talked about Blackman as someone who is going to either play inside or outside depending on what fits for him best. Now he didn't play inside in college but that is something they believe they could develop and that his skill set fits and Kwesi talked about projecting that based on certain snaps that he was taking like say you're the outside corner but it's a condensed split so you have all the wide receivers lined up inside and to see how he kind of reacted there but he said that there is some projection

involved with mckay blackman and thinking that he might be a nickel corner and i think that that's what brian florist probably liked about him is that he made plays on the ball he stayed what they call in phase with wide receivers which just means that he made plays on the ball. He stayed what they call in phase with wide receivers, which just means that he's good at staying on their hip. When they move, you move, right? And he's good at that. He's natural at that for following wide receivers, played in a conference where they throw the football all the time. They have good receivers there. So clearly they saw something they like, and I wouldn't be concerned about what his draft grades were from other people from the outside.

For one, this has been looked at a million times. Draft grades do not actually correlate. We do it because we're judging the process. They do not actually correlate to success. It's been looked at a million times, and there's no better example than the Seattle Seahawks getting blasted for drafting Russell Wilson than to kind of ignore a lot of the draft grades. So if some draft analyst doesn't like your pick, it means nothing. It truly doesn't. We're going to look at, from my perspective, just the process and the thought. What is the thought of drafting

Makai Blackman? It that brian floris saw something he liked and the scouting staff that fit what he wants to do on defense and for me that's good enough and and he played well he had good numbers like so okay so there we go now you're getting him in the third round so that means that there are reasons to have drawbacks or reasons to question what he can be. Somebody who is 175 pounds at 24 years old, this is not likely to become the next Antoine Winfield. But if it becomes what, say, Terrence Newman was out of the slot late in his career, or even Mackenzie Alexander for a year or two as the nickel corner. If it's a solid starting player who understands the defense and how it works, and this goes into it too, that they would know much better,

the player's mental capabilities as well, and how he processes information from all the things that they did in the lead up. So if they checked all those boxes, felt like he has the potential to be a nickel. I mean, think about the domino effect if he can be. If he plays nickel, then you can have Byron Murphy on the outside. And all you need is Andrew Booth Jr. or Caleb Evans to work out, or someone else of Juwan Williams, or I suppose Jay Ward. Their fourth round pick is kind of a long shot to be an outside corner,

but they really just need one of these other guys to work out if they've found their nickel. I know that that's very important in the Brian Flores defense. So I guess I just would not concern myself too much with where this website or that person or that draft analyst who is not specifically looking at the details of the Brian Flores system. So they felt like he was going to be a fit. Does that guarantee it works? Of course not, who knows? But anytime you're in the third round,

we could go through all the mid third round and fourth round picks. Remember, this is the last pick in the third round as well because they traded back. So you're not even talking the very beginning. So let's just say the middle of the third round to the middle of the fourth round, that range, every single player,

you're gonna say, well, this guy's too old. This guy's 40 was too slow. This guy, whatever, this is not Darrell Revis land. So you're looking for good players and usually go one way or the other. You go with this guy has amazing athleticism and we try to project him, or this guy was a great performer in college. And it's very similar to the Ivan Pace thing. He was a great performer in college. So they're going to try to make that work. But I think that's that you nailed the disparity. It's there are some shortcomings there. There is an issue with this guy will not have a huge, huge ceiling in the NFL to become

a superstar. More likely than not, certainly could, but more likely than not, he won't. So they decided to go with someone with maybe a higher floor or that was the better fit instead. But it's a great, it's a great question. And I'm very, very, very skeptical about draft analysts' ability to identify the third round pick and beyond, right? And I was even looking into this and I read what our friend Arif Hasan wrote at Pro Football Network about the consensus board where he analyzed how each team performed against his consensus board.

And one of the things that he notes in the article is that for the first three rounds, there is a pretty strong correlation. If you reach too much against the consensus board, that's not going to be very good for you. But past the third round, and we're talking aboutckay blackman right on the very edge of that past the third round the correlation is much is much less strong and so i don't worry about it in the later rounds if the vikings had drafted mckay blackman in the first round we would go what's happening here what is going on And that was why it was different from Ed Ingram last year and why we did use the consensus board because that was a much higher draft pick. So hopefully that makes sense. This is from Joe. You mentioned on the recap, the chances are 75

to 80% that Delvin Cook gets released and 10 to 15% he gets traded. There was a report that they had a trade offer for him in March. So I'm a little confused. Well, I guess I would put it this way, Joe. If the trade offer was good from March, then they would have made the trade in March. I think, right. They would have known by then what their situation was, and they re-signed Alexander Madison very quickly. So I think at that point that they re-signed Alexander Madison, they were very aware that they were not feeling the idea of bringing back Delvin Cook because it just makes no sense. It makes no sense from Madison's perspective. Why would he wait four years behind another guy only to come back and wait behind him again, as opposed to chasing a starting job somewhere else? So if they thought that that offer was good enough, they would have taken it then. And I think maybe you're implying that they'll take

any offer eventually. And I don't think that that's really the case. I mean, if somebody calls you up and says, we'll swap seventh round picks to take Delvin cook because consider for the other team that taking Delvin cook is a bad idea for another team. It's a flat out bad idea. He's still a good player. He's still average four and a half yards per carry last year. But when you look at his contract, I don't know why any team would do this unless they had so much cap space. Maybe I think Chicago still has a lot of cap space. If you had so much cap space, you desperately had to get to the cap floor, but that's really not happening with any teams. So it's not a good proposition for another team to

take him on as a trade. You would have to take something that really wasn't all that favorable. I don't think that you can trade him for a third or fourth round pick for next season. I think you're looking much more at bad offers from other teams that are honestly not that serious. And if you're the Vikings, would you rather trade one of your best running backs you've ever had in franchise history for a conditional seventh or just release him and move on? I think you'd probably just release him. I know that it doesn't sound logical. It's like take anything, right? Even a conditional seventh is better than absolutely nothing. And it does cap wise. It does work cap wise. But there is an

element of it's going to look pretty weird, right? If you release a player, okay, well, they couldn't come to an agreement, whatever. They couldn't find a trade partner. But even remember when Amari Cooper got traded for a fifth, it does matter, at least inside a lot of buildings, how this stuff kind of looks. So it just felt to me as we were talking about it, like, all right, we got past the biggest and best opportunity to move him for something where a team might be getting desperate. Maybe they missed out on a running back or whatever else.

And so they'll throw a fifth or a fourth at the Vikings. But after that, I just feel like it becomes less likely that anyone's actually going to step to the plate. I could be wrong about that. They might just take whatever offer is thrown their way. Just feels that after June 1st, the cap difference between trade and release isn't that much. They will probably just do that. And it doesn't really hurt them very much in the future to release him after June 1st, but we'll see. We'll see how it plays out. I mean, I'm just leaning that way. That doesn't mean it's any type of guarantee and

maybe that report will come to fruition. I just think if they didn't take it, then what would be the difference now other than, well, there's more of a deadline to move on from him now. But yeah, I don't know. We'll see how it plays out. Either it could definitely go either way. Uh, let's see from, uh, at North stars NHL. I'm sorry, my hockey loving friend for what happened to the wild. Uh, let's see. I'd like to hear about Carter from army. He's being pretty hyped. Well, this is a similar thing to Ivan pace. It's Andre Carter. You're talking about now. This is a guy, um, so to speak in the NFL draft language, boy, you heard that enough. Didn't you over the last couple of days, by the time you get to the third round, it's like the 227th pick. Now here's a guy like, okay. All right. Um, but, uh,

Andre Carter is gigantic. He's like six foot six has an insane wingspan. And in 2021, he racked up an ungodly amount of sacks. I think it was like 15 sacks or something. And he's intriguing. Like he's got an intriguing athletic profile, did really well by relative athletic scores, which we use all the time that looks at the NFL combine scores and things like that. But last year, those numbers dropped a lot. He went from something like 15 sacks to four, right? Sort of dropped off the face of the earth. Now this was a player that was projected similar to pace in the third or fourth round because he had that one incredible season and because he does have this crazy wingspan height and everything else.

But, you know, it probably hurt his draft stock quite a bit because he was being talked about as somebody who could be taken very high in this draft before he had the season where he didn't get a lot of sacks. So I look at it as, once again, this is a good bet to make for the Vikings. An undrafted pass rusher with some really intriguing athletic skills who might be an outside linebacker or interesting piece type in a best case scenario. Yeah, I think that's why people like him because you go look at his stats, just like with Pace Jr.

And you go, oh my gosh, those are some very interesting numbers. And I'm sure for the Vikings, they did the same thing. They probably looked back at his 2021 and said, okay, all right, let's see if we can bring this guy in and maybe there's something there, right? And every UDFA is exactly that. Now, they're not all the same. I mean, there are some guys that they pay $10,000 and some guys they pay $200,000.

Obviously, there's more priority for the UDFAs, but that's kind of his background story. And I think that there's always a chance for somebody like that. We have seen undrafted free agents who are high priority make it before. I don't know if we've seen them really make it and become big time players for the Vikings. But the guy that comes to mind is Tashaun Bauer, who will forever go down as the player who took Brian Robison's job at the end of B-Rob's career through a training camp. And Bauer was still hanging around in the league. Even, I think, in 2021, he was still in the NFL

because he went to, if I'm remembering right, he went to New England and then came back and played a little bit more for the Vikings. So you do see it happen from time to time. You might as well, with all the UDFAs, if they have one interesting thing on paper, pick them up because you have to fill out a practice squad. You're looking for anybody that might be able to develop anything into anything, and Carter certainly could fall into that category.

But with all UDFAs, it just comes with caution of don't fall in love with tweets that tell you that your UDFA is amazing because that means all 32 teams passed at least seven times, but probably more than seven times for a lot of teams with compensatory picks and things like that on this player. So they all looked at him, they all knew who he was and they all decided. And that's another reason, by the way, that as it goes past the third round with the outside evaluators, players like Pace and Carter were loved by the mock draft community. I just don't know if there's the capability there to discern the fourth round

picks from the UDFAs as much as there is to pick out the first and second round picks. I think that's a much easier thing to do from the outside world, but consider that NFL teams have a lot of people who are trained over many years with scouting looking into things like this. So it's not that they're never wrong. And they do find some gems from time to time. There's always some UDFAs who make it for the Vikings, but if they got this far, yeah, don't fall in love. My rule is with UDFAs, I start talking about them when they get second team reps. And this happened for Luigi Villain last year, and he's on the team still. He started getting some second team reps last year in training camp and preseason. We went, oh, okay. All right. Let's have a discussion. He made it last year. Maybe Andre Carter will this year. All right. Next question comes from Mike Corain. How would

you feel about this draft if you knew that Flores was leaving for a head coach job after the season? Love the idea of targeting scheme fits, even if reaching by a consensus. Yeah, I think that this type of defense is just what the NFL is becoming anyway. So if you get someone like Jay Ward, take a look at what Jayron curse has become. I know there's not a ton of hybrid defensive backs, but this is something that the Rams, something like Dallas, they have used quite a bit of. And as offenses get more versatile, you need to match that with defense. So you need a guy who can play safety, who can line up at different spots. You have teams motioning, you have all these different formations, you have condensed

splits, you have, you know, overloaded on one side, there's all sorts of different things. So you're usually asking a player to be versatile anyway. And that's why I really liked the Jay Ward pick, even if some of the analysts did not have him very high. I mean, this is a guy that in college on a weekly basis was forced to learn four different positions. And I think there's something impressive about that and was used all over the field. Doesn't mean he's going to be a huge star, but it does mean that, you know, I think it plays no matter what. And Kweisi Adafomensis said that, you know, he was evaluated by different people as different positions in the NFL. So some evaluators thought, oh, maybe he could be a safety. Some thought he could be a nickel and they thought he had starter potential at, at any of these positions. So, I mean, even if they were to change their scheme, uh, I also think that more likely than not, if he gets a head coaching job, they're probably setting up for someone else in the building to carry on what he does,

because that means he's done well. So they wouldn't want to change it. If Brian Flores does really well and gets hired by another team, they're not going to say, oh, you know what, we got to change our scheme completely. They're probably going to go to the next person in line. An assistant defensive backs coach, Durante Jones has been talked about highly for many years. Somebody like that who can carry over what they do. And I think almost any defensive coach now these days is not going to say what Ed Donatell unfortunately said last year. He's not going to say, hey, just line them up boys. And we'll see what happens. I mean, I think everybody's going to want players who move around. So it wouldn't change my opinion at all if he were to move. And I think that if he does move, that means that probably some of these guys contributed as rookies and found some spots in his scheme because they're going to need

just about everybody with the defensive roster that they have right now it's a good question all right from lfc may delvin's days are obviously numbered what what are uh what are you hearing about uh why he wasn't moved pre-draft any chance that it was intentional for a post june 1 trade uh no i don't think it was intentional that they didn't move him before this because it doesn't make a difference really with trade for the salary cap situation. Not a significant one anyway. And really at this point, if they release him after June 1st or trade him, there is a difference, but it's not gargantuan with how much cap space they could create. So they can just kind of wait this out.

There's really not a deadline on it. So I think that's important. Clearly, you'd want to get it taken care of before training camp. If you're letting him go, you want to give him an opportunity to find another job. If that's what you're doing, you probably want to do it on June 1st, not wait around and then say on July 18th as he's packing up to come to Minnesota for training camp, oh, by the way, Delvin, you're not on the team. You don't want to do that.

And also, after June 1st, other players get released too, so you can look at who you could potentially pick up from other guys, or there are just free agents that kind of linger in free agency that are decent players. And we've seen in past years that some solid players, even Sheldon Richardson, I know Bashad Breeland's not a great example for this, but he was a decent player before he joined the Vikings and he did start most of the year.

It's just, it didn't exactly work out too good. But with Sheldon Richardson, the second time he came around and he kind of got unfairly cast where he had to play defensive end because of injuries in 2021. But that was somebody who was still hanging around, and they were able to pick up in the early summer.

And so I think that that's really the only deadline we're working with. As far as why they didn't move him pre-draft, I think that just there's not a ton of interest for teams wanting to give up anything to get an expensive running back. I mean, there was rumors about Derrick Henry being traded. How about Ezekiel Elliott? I mean, when the contract isn't good, other teams are going to say, how are we supposed to fit that guy under our salary cap or with what we do when we know that you'll probably have to release him at some point. So it's just sort of the reality of the economics of the NFL.

I think that's kind of why we're sitting in the spot that we are sitting. And after June 1st, I would say that's probably the most likely scenario still. And they'll most likely be making phone calls in the weeks before that just to see if anybody wants to come in with a decent offer. If they could trade him for a fourth next year, that would be great. Hey, look, I mean, you could take it into training camp and see if he's the next Chris Herndon. But I think what you want to do, because it blows my mind still to think back when the Vikings traded a fourth for Chris Herndon. But the NFL doesn't make sense

that way. Desperation changes everything. And they were desperate after Irv Smith got hurt to bring in Chris Herndon and that was lighting a pick on fire. But unless somebody comes in with something like that for the Vikings kind of at the last second before June 1st to make sure they get Delvin Cook, we're probably looking at a June 1st cut. Again, no guarantees. If he lines up in the backfield this year, I will be very surprised, but I guess not completely shocked. After all this talk, though, and all the moves they've made,

it just doesn't add up that he would continue to be a Minnesota Viking. From smicola5 on Twitter, with some questions remaining for Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter, how do you see things playing out throughout the offseason? This is hard because I think they would like to have both of them. I think Brian Flores would really like to have both of them. And they did not draft pass rush. Not that if you're drafting pass rush in the third or fourth, it's really a great idea anyway for trying to get a starter. They went out and got Marcus Davenport. I guess Dean Lowry technically is a defensive end, but not really the outside linebacker type. They have been developing some guys, DJ Wanham,

Patrick Jones. So they could look at that and say, all right, well, all young guys on the defensive line trade, Daniil Hunter released at area Smith, which same thing applies. Everything I said about Daniil Hunter or about Delvin cook all applies to Zedaria Smith. If the league thinks this guy needs a new contract or wants a new contract. So we're not going to trade anything for him. Plus he's got a pretty high cap hit, then forget it. Let's just wait until they release him and then we'll sign him then. But I also think the Vikings might just try to wait him out and say like, look, you're under contract. So either play for us or retire. They could do that. I could absolutely see that with Zedaria Smith, but I think that it's probably wise to shop him and then create the cap space by releasing

him and add a couple of players because if they release Delvin Cook and Zedaria Smith after June 1st, that's a nice little chunk of change that they could actually go out and sign somebody with. So they should do that if that's kind of the way they prefer to work this out with those guys, or maybe the only options with those guys. Daniil Hunter is complicated because Daniil Hunter is not playing on the contract that he's got. He will sit, I'm sure of that, but that would be very bad to let him sit because that's an asset sitting there for you. And if he's not going to sign an extension with you, then you have to trade him away. So I imagine that after

the draft, these conversations kick back up with Daniil Hunter. I have always leaned toward the Vikings keep their talent because they always have since I've been here, right? I mean, they've only gotten rid of people who are star players, especially guys that they've drafted after their primes. And it's a good example of what we just saw with Adam Thielen and Eric Hendricks. Both of these guys, they could have moved on from a year ago and they didn't. They chose to rework contracts and keep those guys around. And that went for everybody. It wasn't until Everson Griffin was past his prime.

Xavier Rhodes had had a down year. Otherwise, even take a look at Anthony Barr. He was still in his prime and they gave him way too much money, right? And that's with all respect to a very good player, but they signed him at the top, top of the market and paid him a ton of money to come back. And I think that at the end of the day, they'll want Daniel Hunter to try to be a Viking for life. I think that matters to this organization. You see it with Harrison Smith. He wanted to stay, so they reworked the contract to stay. They extended him a couple of years ago. They want this man to be a Viking, then they're going to pony up the

money. The only thing is, if Hunter feels in any way like he's been disrespected by the team, by the way this whole thing has been handled with his injuries and contract before, then that could get pretty tense. If they still want to sign him, he doesn't want to sign here. He's asking for a trade could get awkward. I mean, this thing could go all the way into training camp with Daniil Hunter. There is no guarantee when that is going to play out. But if I had to bet, I would say that we start, you we start seeing Daniil Hunter at least show up at the facility in May for mandatory mini camp. We're like, oh, okay, that's a pretty good sign. And then it turns out to be the right before training camp, big deal announced, Daniil Hunter,

four years, a hundred million, off we go. That's my guess. Again, it's very similar to Cooks, Darius Smith, Daniel Hunter, because these things seem very much unresolved and it's not the, it's not the easiest to put odds on them. I'm just going by what they've done in the past. And I think it matters to the ownership of this team that they keep star players around. I just don't know what Daniel Hunter's side is thinking. And Daniil Hunter is not a guy who tells you what he's thinking. He has always been very, very quiet about how he's felt about his contract situation. He's not going to hold a big press conference at his locker and tell everybody, all right, I want out. He's not going to do a Rachel Nichols interview like

Jimmy Butler. That is the very much opposite of Dani daniel hunter all right this one comes from at dave whedon do you think malik willis matt corral or a similar young quarterback could become available soon if so should the vikings take a flyer on one uh they did that with josh rosen who i believe is still technically on the team and will start as q, I guess, not a whole lot of belief shown in Josh Rosen by drafting Jaron Hall in the fifth round, but you know, he's technically on the team, I guess. Yeah, I suppose they could. They could. I mean, if Malik Willis loses the second job to Will Levis, which he will in Tennessee, then I don't know. I mean, sure.

I don't know. I don't have a strong take on this. A lot of times you see it. They pick up somebody. And sometimes, you know what? The guy becomes a longtime backup. Like how about Blaine Gabbert, for example. Blaine Gabbert carved out a heck of a nice little career for himself as a backup after

being a top draft pick that busted out you've seen that from a number of different backups and if they think the guy could be a backup i guess but if you're doing it to take a swing to find a future starter i kind of don't see the point now there have been times where this has worked out in the past but you kind of have to go back to the way back past to find actual instances of this happening. Matt Corral, I mean, I guess is kind of interesting from this because he got hurt, never even had a chance to be bad. So I would probably say yes to Matt Corral, but already the fact that those guys were drafted into the third round, it already pretty much says this isn't your franchise quarterback. This is a backup at absolute best. And the idea that you could just,

oh, develop these guys. And then eventually three, four years from now, it just doesn't work that way very often. And most of the time, what we're talking about in the NFL is if you want your future quarterback, draft him high. So could you bring those guys in if they got released sure i don't see any downside to that but not with any real expectation that there's an actual chance they could become a future starter it's more of hey maybe this guy will just be our backup same with picking up josh rosen last year let's see what he's like in the building corral is more interesting than willis to me for this but either way you kind of just go i i don't know if they're really going to have a legitimate chance to make it but at least with corral it was an injury that held him out unlike

what we saw from willis where he just seemed to have no idea how to play nfl football All right. From Beach Club Realty, that must not be in... Well, I guess we have beaches in Minnesota, but not like when I think of the beach. Anyway, seems like most of the NFL draft prospect evaluators love Andre Carter. Is there room for him on the active roster? Worried another team will sign him off the practice squad well i don't think you have to worry about another team signing him off the practice squad i mean how many times i've been covering the team since 2016 and i'm trying to think about how many times someone was actually signed off the practice squad or signed when they were released or either one of those things maybe a handful of times.

Afadia Denebo was signed by Cleveland off the Vikings practice squad. And then he came back to the Vikings. So I guess that happened. And I mean, let's see, Elijah Lee was another one who they released. And I think what you're talking about is probably that when you release somebody and then uh you know to to be signed to the practice squad you waive them rather and through that waiver process someone else picks them up how many times has that happened per year that a team picks up somebody else off somebody else's waivers especially a udfa and you'll hear about it for sure oh we're not

sure we can sneak that guy through but but I think it should be fine. I mean, I have a tough time believing that Andre Carter would be so dominant in preseason and training camp for whatever videos fans took and leaked out or whatever. I don't know, Packers scouts snuck into the stands or something. I just have a tough time thinking he would be so impressive that other teams would be picking him up off waivers because it just happens so rarely. I mean, maybe they wanted him as a UDFA, another team. So they say, we're going to sign him off the waivers. But I also think that when you do that is I'm trying to think of the rules that the Vikings have a chance to like,

keep him or something. I don't know. But like keep him or something i don't know uh but anyway that's i don't know i don't maybe that's not the rule but the point just being you rarely see it it just doesn't happen very much if he shows any promise he could make the 53 to sean bauer i mentioned i remember avian collins was an offensive lineman that made it who i think is still around and i think i remember seeing him in dallas maybe last year so if you make a roster at some point you bounce around but looking at to answer your question looking at what they have as far as the outside linebackers slash pass rusher positions yeah it's certainly possible it really depends on the Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter situations, because if Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter are both not here, then your depth chart goes Davenport, DJ Wanham, Patrick Jones, and then

kind of question marks, Luigi Villain, Benton Whitley, Curtis Weaver. These are guys who are technically on the team right now. So yeah, it becomes totally possible if those guys are moved. If not, you're talking about a practice squad player. But again, that is not something really to worry about until you have to worry about it. The most likely scenario with all undrafted free agents is that they get completely released and we never hear of them again. The second most likely scenario is they end up on the practice squad. And if I had to bet right now, I would say that he probably ends up on the

practice squad because he does have the intriguing size that maybe they think they can work with, but we'll see. We'll see. The practice squads being as big as they are now, definitely opens the door for that. From at smoked grapes. Do you think smoked grapes? Is that a thing you can do? Um, do you think that they could be thinking of using hall as the bridge quarterback for the rookie next year? So you mean like Kirk cousins plays out this year, becomes a free agent next year. They draft someone Jaron hall plays in front of that player that they draft to allow that player to develop okay I won't count that out um that's certainly within the range of outcomes I suppose but my guess would be if they're drafting a quarterback super high that

they will want to play that quarterback right away if they can, if they can. And now, remember, I think it was Nathan Peterman beat out Josh Allen in training camp for the job in Allen's rookie year. And it wasn't one of the first starts that he made when he beat the Vikings. And then, of course, he never gave that job back ever again. So, yeah, I mean, stuff like that does happen. If you take someone who's raw, they struggle. Matt Castle beat out Teddy Bridgewater right in 2014. He started that season. They could also pick up a veteran though. I think if you were putting odds on it, it's probably if that scenario is playing out, they're picking up a veteran like a Ryan Fitzpatrick. And I know he's

retired, but Ryan Fitzpatrick ish, like Baker Mayfield or somebody else that Andy Dalton, a traveling one of these to go with it. Probably not Jaron Hall. It could be, um, Jaron Hall kind of reminds me of a Gardner Minshew a little bit. Uh, I mean, this is after NFL.com pointed that out, but I can see it. Somebody who just threw the ball really, really well, doesn't necessarily have physical attributes to be a superstar starter, but definitely could be one of those kind of plug-in, Case Keenum type he can play. That's how he strikes me right away, but this is a fifth round player. So he might go to training camp and just look totally lost.

We saw this from Kellen Mond, or he might go to training camp and just look totally lost. We saw this from Kellen Mond, or he might go to training camp and look reasonably decent and have a chance to do exactly what you're saying to be that kind of bridge quarterback. But I can't remember an instance of the bridge quarterback thing working aside from when you already had a Alex Smith in place to be in front of Patrick Mahomes. I mean, even think about with Chicago, they had, oh, and how about this example? Mike Glennon to Mitch Trubisky. Remember that? I mean, Mike Glennon was like a third round pick who was very, very average. And I think Chicago picked him up and I mean, average backup or worse. Chicago picked him up with a decent amount of money to start. And then they just immediately gave the job over to Mitch Trubisky after a couple of weeks. And the same thing happened with Andy Dalton playing in front

of Justin Fields. Usually if you draft the guy, he's going to get in to start pretty fast. They could be thinking about that, but the most likely scenario for Jaron Hall is that if the man becomes a case Keenum, if he becomes a backup who could play in games that you believe in and he's that for four years on a rookie deal for you, that's a good draft pick. You need that sometimes. Is that backup quarterback who can fill in? That's what you're looking for. That's the goal. And for a fifth round pick, that's about the best you could do. If there's anything else that's there for Jaron Hall, then that is great. That's big money for them if they were to hit on that. But that's usually the standard is,

could this guy potentially be even just a backup? But it's a scenario that could play out for sure, because if Kirk leaves, they draft a first rounder and Hall outplays him in training camp, they will go with the guy who played the best. I'm just skeptical of how long it would last because it almost never lasts when you pick somebody outside of the backup because they're usually flawed. They usually don't play well. Then everybody wants to see the backup. That's just life in the NFL.

All right, from JTMN Skoll, couple questions. Vikings drafted guys last year with higher relative athletic scores than this year. Thoughts and pick one player not named jordan addison that will be a contributing starter this year yeah i don't know what to make of the lack of raw athleticism that they went for you're certainly right that last year there was a trend there but one of the things is from year to year, the samples are so small on a number of draft picks that it could be just a coincidence. It could be just guys that

their scouts really liked. And there were a lot of draft analysts who really liked Roy as a nose tackle or potentially kind of versatile. Maybe he's a Harrison Phillips type in the middle. He had really poor relative athletic score for somebody like that. I don't know how much that matters for that position. It might be a little more technical if you're not a guy who's like sacking the quarterback all the time and you're more of just a pocket pusher and run stuffer, which, you know, those are valuable. You need those. I didn't totally dislike that pick, but they also talked about upside with him. I don't know if I really see that without the raw athleticism. Usually you need that to have the upside, but I think more

than anything, just kind of a coincidence. I mean, it had their players that they clearly liked. And I think Flores played a huge role in looking for guys that were his type and what they wanted. So maybe they decided, well, we're not going to worry too much about this or that by their data because they have their own version, I'm sure, of relative athletic scores that gives you an idea of where players fit in. I mean, they had that even during Rick Spielman, where they had models that they would create, like this guy has similar wingspan, height, weight, 40, whatever, to their current players and current players in the league, things like that. So I'm sure that they used it

and I'm sure that they considered it, but it just seems to me that they were really looking for something specific and tried to find guys who could do those specific things to fit. And that would outweigh the relative athletic scores. I mean, I don't think they picked a bunch of guys that were so unathletic that they can't possibly make it. And the other thing is too, like Jordan Addison is pretty athletic, but his relative athletic score drops because of his weight. That matters to those athletic scores. And the same thing goes for Blackman.

So they might not consider that as heavily when it comes to that as the website does. I mean, their formula might be a little bit different than it is behind the scenes of the Vikings. And the one player not named Jordan Addison, who could be a contributing starter this year. Well, you probably go with the next guy picked, which is Malik Blackman, because he is experienced. He is on the older side. So he's played a lot of football in his career and it just sounded like they want to give him a chance to become a nickel, but maybe I'll go with, I mean, as far as a starter, I don't know if Dwayne McBride, but it seems like that guy could play and could be part of a running back by committee. It could be Madison,

McBride, and Ty Chandler, depending on how that battle ends up working out. We all decided Chandler was a star, but he only ran the ball about 15 times last year in preseason. It's altogether possible that Dwayne McBride could beat him out. And then I don't mean to name all their picks because there's so few of these guys, but Jay Ward could find a spot somewhere. If he fits in well to any of these positions, he might have more natural skill at the nickel position than somebody else, than Malik Blackman coming out. So yeah, I mean, I know that I just said like half the draft class past the first round, but I'd probably sort of rank it that way where

i think mcbride has the biggest chance to be a significant contributor this year and then after that i would go blackman and then ward but since ward can play different spots kind of ups his odds though safety is not really up for grabs i mean that's that position is is chock full so it's really is outside corner nickel corner the nickel job seems very much up for grabs. I mean, that position is chock full. So it really is outside corner, nickel corner. The nickel job seems very much up for grabs. Also appears that they want Byron Murphy to be on the outside and that they hope one of these other guys becomes a nickel. At least that's how I view it from the fact that they talked a lot about these guys potentially being in the nickel. All right. A couple more questions here from TJ Mammy on

Twitter. I think draft hysteria has set in. The only guy who will likely make any impact this upcoming season is Addison slash Blackman. Any of these other guys play and it's probably tank or QB time. I think that any time after the draft, what we're all going to do is try to project like where this person could fit in who they just added to their team and it's a very reasonable thing to do after the third round though and i know i just mentioned jay ward he wasn't drafted i mean too far back but fourth rounders we've seen become players before but uh even cam bynum you know got an opportunity as a fourth rounder to step in. So we have seen that. So I guess I'll say five through seven.

Five through seven is all just kind of swings and development players. And maybe this guy can have some role that he holds down, even if it's a special team role. And that's just how hard it is to make the league and to be good. Right. But yeah, I mean, I think you're right when it comes to Addison and Blackman and the answer for this year might only be Addison. We saw that last year where every single guy we talked about, well, he's going to play here and he's going to compete for this job and this and that and this and that's going to happen. And ultimately only

Ingram started and it didn't go well. And so that, yeah, it's, it goes, but that's 32 fan bases, 32 medias. Everybody does the same exact thing. Where could these players fit in? What could they do for the team right away when normally it's the year after. And that's why I've been very hesitant to evaluate the 2022 draft because it's the year after that we actually start to find out where these guys fit in. But if you want to have opinions on the draft, well, you have to kind of talk about what the scenarios are. And one of those scenarios is that a few of these guys do contribute more than we expect. So I don't know if it's hysteria more than just excitement from people because they just added new players to their,

to their team. Although the Vikings didn't add a lot of new players. So you can really get to know them. I guess you could get to know them inside and out by the time they get to training camp, because you don't have to remember a lot. This one comes from Kyle Shaner on Twitter, assuming Byron Murphy and Andrew Booth Jr junior are in line to be starters who do you think is the third starting cornerback maybe a pie chart all right well let's see uh caleb evans would be my first guess and would get the most just because he had a year to develop and they've been talking him up for a while he got in in some games last year, flashed a little bit. That would mean Byron Murphy would play the nickel.

I don't know if they want that. So I still will say Byron Murphy, Andrew Booth Jr., and maybe a Caleb Evans plays on the outside and Booth moves to the inside. I don't know that he's ever done that, but that might be something that they would look at. I don't expect it. I think he's more of an outside corner. It's just that the guys with a little more experience,

you're going to put them in line. So I guess I would say 25% to Caleb Evans. Maybe I want to go a little bit higher than that. Why don't we go actually 40% to Caleb Evans, maybe 30% to Blackman, 20% to Jay Ward, and then 10% to anyone else uh could be a udfa could be another signing although you know maybe another signing and this pie chart deserves to be higher than that so i'm being not very definitive here with my pie chart because i i didn't think of that but

other other dude from the outside that's a veteran. They did sign Joe on Williams. I don't know if that's going to happen, but let's just go with that. Let's go with 40% to Evans, 30% to Blackman, 20% to ward. And then the rest to other could be anybody on the roster, anybody who they've developed for a year behind the scenes or something.

But I just, it just feels like those guys are the leaders. And then we'll see what happens from there. Injuries are always a factor though. So third starting corner heading into training camp or heading out of training camp might be two different questions, but that is a position after they've drafted

a couple of guys in the secondary that I don't know if there's necessarily a big need to push for another veteran. They could though, they could. And there's still a big need to push for another veteran. They could, though. They could. And there's still quite a few other corners on the market. So as Mike Zimmer once said, you can never have too many corners. So I want to leave the rest of that open for the possibility of somebody else playing in

that spot. Last question on the show from TheLastKnownG. Break down the chances of us improving on last year's success after this draft and picking up these undrafted free agents. Well, I would not say that the undrafted free agents would influence how I feel about the team. In fact, I don't really think that anything that happened during the draft would influence how I feel about it because I like the Jordan Addison pick. I gave it an A. I advocated for it beforehand. I mock drafted. I simmed it. It was a great day for Purple Insider, for the Vikings to draft Jordan Addison. He was a guy we talked a lot about. He was my favorite

receiver going into this draft class. So, I mean, I have high expectations for him, but that doesn't mean he's a star right away, right? What we saw from Justin Jefferson was so absolutely wild out of this world. You never see it, but you know, there are a lot of receivers who have stepped in and had some good success right away. I still can't at this moment until I see him in training camp, at least say anything definitive about where Jordan Addison will fit in, how much he'll be worth, how much value same goes for, uh, you know, Blackman or Jay Ward or any of these guys, like, where do they fit in? What they, what can they do? How much can they contribute? I can't tell you that these guys have fixed the defensive backfield because normally corners when

their rookies do not fix the defensive backfield. We saw this. They drafted Gladney and Dantzler a couple of years ago. They played them as rookies. It didn't really work. They had Andrew Booth Jr. in line to potentially compete for a starting job. That didn't really work. And so my expectations for the secondary are that it's going to still be a rocky ride there. I wouldn't change anything. I think wherever Las wherever, you know, Las Vegas had them, which I believe was at eight and a half wins at DraftKings, that is not going to change after this draft. They're not going to suddenly shoot up or go down.

And my expectations are lower than the win total that they had last year. So in chances of improving on the success, I mean, improving on 13 regular season wins would be almost impossible for this team considering their schedule is just so much harder improving on a playoff win always possible that's just one game it depends on your opponent where it's getting played what happens in that game good luck bad luck does someone throw past the chains on fourth and eight you know all sorts of different things that tend to play into those or get one key stop at the end. Maybe you could

also throw out that jab as well. But look, I don't think they're a better team now than they were last year. I don't. They lost Patrick Peterson, Adam Thielen and Eric Hendricks. And you could say, well, none of those guys are in their prime, but all of those guys are good NFL players. players right and they're replacing them with a lot of question marks we don't know what brian osmo can do we don't know what jordan addison can do we don't know what lewis seen can do if he's replacing cam bynum so there's all these questions around the roster i don't and and by the way patrick peterson was one of the best corners

of the nfl last year and they still struggled on defense but he was making plays all over the place who's going to do that this year somebody might all these things might click and we might feel like this team has a defense to really build around in the future that's that is within the realm of possibility but until I start to see that training camp and so forth my expectations are going to stay the same, that this is a fringe playoff team, that they're quite a bit behind the Detroit Lions for where they start next season. And then we'll all see how it plays out from there. So I don't think the draft, I kind of have a rule that the draft never changes my outlook for the immediate. It's always kind of for the future. And I would feel that way with this draft as well.

Thanks so much, everybody, for all of the great questions. Keep them coming, purpleinsider.com or at Matthew Collar on Twitter. Feel free to shoot me a DM on there if you want to, and we will get you on the next episode. So really, really appreciate it. Super fun draft week, super fun analysis week coming up with all sorts of guests and backgrounds of guys and analytics and draft scouting and everything. It's not over. We get a whole other week to have fun with the draft after this. So thanks everybody for joining and we'll see you next time.