Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Which position groups will provide most competition at training camp?

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Matthew Coller answers your Vikings and football questions, including which position group will be most competitive at camp this fall, rookie playing time, and biggest GM head scratcher of the offseason. Plus, much more on this FansOnly edition of the podcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of purple insider Matthew collar here. And this is another fans only episode where I answer your questions. Great time of year to get all of your Minnesota Vikings and NFL questions in. Feel free to shoot me an email, Matthew collar at Gmail or on Twitter at Matthew collar. Just fire me a DM and I will get you here on the show. And of course, sign up for that newsletter, purpleinsider.football.

We got training camp coming up in July, so we're not that far away. This would be a good time to get on the written side of Purple Insider if you have not already. So let us dive right in to your questions. We will begin with Mr. Ed315 says, which Vikings position groups will provide the most competition and keen interest during training

camp? Mr. Ed, that's a heck of a question. I will say that this training camp probably has, at this moment, the least amount of competition across the starters and even the second team that I can ever remember and it really tells you a lot about this roster that when you say that when you say, well, what's the position that's going to have the most competition? I'm like, hmm, let's take a second and think about this because it's not super obvious

as in, well, this one position, guard's going to have a big competition or who's going to win wide receiver three or something. If we go through the positions, how many competitions are there really for guys that we expect to be on the field? So the backfield is set. The offensive line is set. The wide receiver first three receivers are set defensive line linebackers Corners safeties everything right now looks like it is in place in the first team and getting into the second team But the depth is where there are a lot of battles going on so the first one that comes to mind because we talked about a lot in the offseason is tight end number three and Tight end three got used last year TJ Hockinson was out for a while and Johnny Munt was that guy The best tight end three in the league as he was declared

But it was actually true Johnny Munt was really good as far as a depth tight end because he could catch the ball He could block and now it's a wide open competition Gavin Bartholomew's the draft pick but Ben And now it's a wide open competition. Gavin Bartholomew's the draft pick, but Ben Urasek, Bryson Nesbit, they brought those guys in as undrafted free agents. So there actually is a fair amount of intrigue in that tight end room. Wide receiver past Jalen Naylor.

I'm really interested to see how that plays out. Rondale Moore, Ty Felton, do we see a Thayer Thomas or Lucky Jackson have that big training camp that takes them the next step after a couple years of working with this team? Then we go to the defensive line where there's depth on this D line, but there's going to be a real battle. Levi Drake Rodriguez, Taki Taimani, Tyreon Ingram Dawkins. How are these guys jockeying for position there?

The outside linebacker group. Is there going to be an emergence of there, the outside linebacker group, is there going to be an emergence of one of the outside linebackers that are currently backup players like a Bo Richter, like a Gabe Murphy, or will we get into camp and they feel like, ah, you know what, maybe they need to make that late free agency addition in the outside linebacker unit. And in the secondary, we've talked a lot about that cornerback group, but I think that remains how much is everybody going to play? Like Isaiah Rogers is pretty locked in, Byron Murphy is locked in, and as of right now, Mackay Blackman is, but can Jeff Okuda force his way onto the field? Can Dwight McClothern force his way onto the field? It's really about how the

depth chart plays out. And then here's one thing that you just never see coming, which is if there's a single injury, all of a sudden you've got yourself a battle. I mean, if there's an injury on the O-line, is it Michael Juergens? Is it Blake Brandle? Or if there's an injury in the secondary, who's stepping in?

Does Jay Ward have a chance to make a case for himself? Who is going to be the player that we didn't expect? That all of a sudden kind of rises to the challenge and then we're going, man, when we got to training camp, we never saw it coming that I'll just throw a guy out there. Like Lucky Jackson was going to be wide receiver four and he was going to be in a regular rotation on the field. I mean, things like that happen at training camp. And I'll give you a good example. When Flores first got here, Josh Mattelis, we thought Josh Mattelis could play. We had seen him play the previous season.

We knew that he was a good special teamer and that the team liked him. But all of a sudden, Josh Mattelis is like the guy in training camp. And I mean, Ivan Pace Jr. is another phenomenal example, but Mattelis had been around for a couple years. Not that we wrote him off, but we didn't think he was going to play a lot. And then all of a sudden he's playing a thousand snaps. So it's one of my favorite parts of training camp that right now we're going to try to

project it. We're going to do a lot of stuff when it comes to previewing training camp. I'm excited to do that. But once we get into it and the practices start happening, you kind of never know where things are going to go from there. So Mr. Ed, I'm very excited to find that out. The next one comes from Twan, T-W-O-N says regarding Josh Mattelis's new contract and offer, how much of this value is tied to Flores's system? IE, if you sign him to a three year deal and flow somehow gets a head coaching position next year, would Mattel is still be as valuable in other systems? Could he become less valuable in his use without flow? Is there something that they would consider for a multi-year contracts with such a unique

position? No, that's, I mean, I think that's a tremendous question, Tuan, because Josh Mattelis is value is very much tied into this system and the way that they play that when you look around the league and go, well, how many hybrid box safeties are there really in the NFL right now? And a couple, I mean, Kyle Hamilton is the one that gets brought up a lot by Vikings fans because the Vikings could have drafted him. But aside from that, how many guys are really doing what Josh Mattel is, is doing where he's playing linebacker, he's playing nickel corner, he's playing deep safety.

And that versatility might even change this year to have him move back to deep safety, even more than he did before now with cam bynum not here so I am very interested to see how his usage changes just with some roster changes and they've got more linebacker depth and you can play Dallas Turner at linebacker or have Van Ginkle bump over which is that gonna take Mattel us off the field or move him back to the deep safety spot and that's something I don't know yet. They probably have a good sense for how they're going to handle that.

But just to answer your question specifically, I do think a lot of his value is tied into Flores. But I also think that Kevin O'Connell is not going to play something different. Yeah. Okay. I mean, Flores is very unique in his own way and it has a great eye for identifying talent and where he's blitzing from and all that sort of stuff. It is unique. He's not the only one of all time though to play an aggressive

system that brings guys up into the box and rushes the quarterback. I mean, when he was in Miami, he was second in the league a couple of times in blitz percentage, not first. So there's other defensive coordinators that do it. And the guy that I have looked at this entire time, if Brian Flores did leave is Dorante Jones, who is their secondary coach. And he has been around in the league for a little while now behind the scenes, not a big name, but I think he did get a defensive coordinator interview this last year. But he came up through the college ranks with Alabama and actually worked for Mike Zimmer and then worked for, I think, Ed Donatell and Brian Flores, which tells you a lot about his prowess as a secondary coach,

that he's been through multiple regimes. He has the highest level of respect from Harrison Smith. I've talked with Harrison about that before. So this is a guy who could take the system that they're using and carry it over. But I also think that once you've seen a player have a lot of success like this in the league, that the chances that if you change defensive coordinators, he suddenly can't play are pretty low because he emerged when he was playing for at Donatelle and he made some plays under Donatelle that caught Brian Flores his eye. So I think that even if they changed unless it was a massive crazy change that they made where they were asking safeties

to do something totally different, I'd be really surprised by that. Josh Mattel is just a good football player and if you're going to have him as a captain on your team, if you have guys who can make plays on the football, tackle really well, great leaders, super highly intelligent, I think Mattelis is one of the most football intelligent players that they have, and probably just one of the most straight up intelligent players that they have on the roster. Like that's somebody that a new defensive coordinator is not going to come in and be like, I don't know, I don't see it. I mean, he's just got so many things that he does well. You're right that his value may be at his maximum right now, but I don't think from a front office

perspective, you can really do that unless there's some very foreseeable change. And just over the last couple of years, when it comes to the coach searches, I know that he did have some interviews last year, but it doesn't feel like anything is really materializing when it comes to Brian Flores and the head coaching positions. It seems like the NFL has kind of moved on from that. And maybe again, maybe they'll go to the playoffs and the NFC championship and Flores will get a head coaching job. I don't know. It just doesn't see, I mean, look, there's a collusion thing that is happening

with Lamar Jackson and his contract. These owners, they do stuff like that. They did it with Kaepernick. They did it with Lamar Jackson and the lawsuit against the league, I think has always prevented Brian Flores. Well, important for sure. Important for him to take a stand the way that he did. But I also think that it is going to prevent him from getting another opportunity. So I don't think they'll have to worry about it necessarily for him getting another job. But I also think that Mattel has gone far enough where this is a guy you want in your organization. The hard part is just finding comparables.

And I mentioned Trayvon Morag is one of them, but I don't have a lot of them. When you try to look for guys who have similar numbers, similar PFF grades, similar snap counts, similar, they've lined up here, they're everywhere else and then our captains, you get down to not having too many players to work with. But I think that both sides know this is the best place for Josh Mattel. And for the Vikings, they don't want Josh Mattelis to play for another football team. And they will ultimately get this thing worked out the way they have with pretty much everybody else, including the general manager and the head coach.

This one is a little more dicey, a little more difficult to figure out a comp for. But I don't think that it will factor in that there's a possibility that at some point Brian Flores goes. Great question though. I mean, it's an interesting thought because I've always, this reminds me actually of something that Zach Lowe once talked about with Draymond Green for you basketball people. He asked like, is Draymond Green in the hall of fame? Cause he'll be a hall of fame or no doubt about it. Is he in the hall of fame if he doesn't play for the Golden State Warriors? Like if he had gone to the Detroit

Pistons and he doesn't play with Steph Curry or Klay Thompson or Kevin Durant, is he in the Hall of Fame? And the answer is probably not, but that's not how this thing works, right? Like they know what he does well and they put him in the right position and Green is still a really effective player in the NBA now even though that team is turned over and I think that Mattelis would continue to be a really effective player but it is always a hard thing to separate with the system and we do this with quarterbacks but we don't often think of it as much for wide receivers, defensive backs, linebackers, edge rushers but it really matters for every single position, not just quarterback, the system that you're playing in, the teammates that you have. I mean, it is one of the most fun

things about football is you have so many people on the field trying to pick a part. Who's driving? Who's the reason for the success or why are they succeeding or failing? And a lot of times it goes the other way where people will say, well, this guy only failed because of the system and that kind of thing. So anyway, again, one of my favorite subjects to talk about. So thanks for that question. Folks, as you know, over the last five years I've built up Purple Insider into my own small business.

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What 2025 rookie outside of Donovan Jackson do you think plays the most snaps this year? Ingram Dawkins is a great pick for this. There's also not a lot of rookies to work with, my friend. I only got a couple choices here. Maybe undrafted free agents? Someone will emerge as being that guy, and it'll be a UDFA that plays the most snaps. my friend, I only got a couple choices here. Maybe undrafted free agents, someone will emerge as being that guy and it'll be a UDFA that plays the most snaps like it was with Ivan Pace Jr. a couple years ago that we will have to find out. But just when it comes to

the actual draft class outside of Donovan Jackson, I think my answer would be Ty Rian, Ingram Dawkins. And the major question with him is, can you take this raw physical talent that he has that blew away the NFL combine? I was just doing a little more research on this the other day. There were only 13 guys in the database on relative athletic scores that had a better score than Tyreon Ingram Dawkins. And there was only one guy in this draft at Defensive Tackle that NFL.com gave a better athleticism score too. So think about that. I mean, he's one of the top guys in the entire database, which I think goes back to the 80s,

for relative athletic score. And then you have the NFL with their own metric, and they both match up and say, elite in terms of athleticism. Intelligence is high, but production, I don't want to say there wasn't any because he had 19 pressures, he had three sacks in a limited amount of actual play. It was only 576 snaps, but it's not like he had 15 sacks or something like that. And he did have a lot of tackles for loss. And if you guys remember, this was kind of the Daniel Hunter story, not that experience, a lot of tackles for loss. And if you guys remember, this was kind of the Daniel Hunter story, not that experience, a lot of tackles for loss.

So it's not that there was nothing on his stat sheet to show that he could play, but he only had one real season of actually playing a lot at Georgia, which makes you wonder, could he fit in a role right away? Or is it going to be a little bit too much to ask for someone like Tyreon Ingram Dawkins to play in real games right away because you mentioned Jahad Ward and I agree that there's that 270 pound type who hey, he could line up over multiple spots and Brian Flores pointed out, I asked Flores about, I was like, hey, you know, Ward didn't really line up over the middle, in the middle very often. He said, well, maybe he didn't go back far enough in his career, and lo and behold,

he had to go back five or six years to find what Brian Flores was asking him to do, which just gives you kind of a sense for what a madman Flores really is, where he took something he liked from a player from five years ago and then decided to do it last year. Ingram Dawkins, with that athleticism, the size, speed, power, maybe

there is an interior rusher type of thing. He played mostly on the outside, but over a hundred snaps inside. And maybe we'll see that a little bit. I think more likely than not though, uh, Ingram Dawkins is going to be a developmental type project who is trying to become the next Jonathan Allen or Javon Hargrave, trying to look at their pass rush moves, how they've turned their athleticism into stardom, and develop for a year or two to try to be that guy. It kind of reminds me of what we talked about with Levi Drake Rodriguez last year. Three names, but with Levi Drake Rodriguez, we were saying, well look at this guy's athleticism, he's a really cool story, like this is great, we want to watch him, he's this guy's athleticism. He's a really cool story.

Like, this is great. We want to watch him. He's got some first team reps. Oh my gosh. I think he played like three snaps in the entire season, but now year two and we don't have a lot of patience anymore. We see these guys, they get drafted, you get excited about them and then, oh wait, I got to wait two years for them to emerge. But when they do, a lot of times they've had real development behind the scenes. So I guess I would say Ingram Dawkins just because there's a chance he's kind of next man up at one of those positions if he really shines in training camp. But there's not a whole lot of competition otherwise outside of Donovan Jackson for rookies that are going to start this year. At burner or or not, I'm going to go Burner if

that's your name, says how many catches will Jordan Mason have over in 18 games? Maybe 17? Or do you think there's going to be, or do you mean in 18 with the bye? I have no idea where to set the over under. I don't think it's going to be a lot with Jordan Mason, although I am really fascinated in the NFL today. The running back catching the ball, like the scat back. You guys remember the scat back? They used to, I don't know what they call them now. Do they call them like a third down back? Maybe that's what they used to call them when I was growing up where you would have and kind of David Palmer was like this, you remember Amp Lee if you go back a long time, where it would be a guy who could kind of catch the ball

out of the backfield and they would throw to him a lot. If you look around the NFL, I'm sure fantasy players know this, outside of Christian McCaffrey, there's just not a lot of guys who catch a ton of passes in the NFL anymore. They throw screens and that's really it. They, every once in

a while, check downs, swing passes, time to time, but it's just not something that the NFL has been focused on the way that it used to. Former Minnesota Viking Roger Craig, if I'm going way back, Roger Craig was used as a legitimate receiver option when he was in San Francisco and caught a ton of passes. Teams used to throw passes to the fullback too, but it seems like now it's wide receivers down the field and maybe a check down, maybe a screen, maybe a swing pass, which makes me think that two things, Aaron Jones is an edge, an advantage because Aaron Jones can do something that not the rather that many players in the rest of the league can actually do, which is he can line up at receiver and run a route. When he ran a crossing route last year and caught it for a touchdown, it's like, whoa.

And look, I know that Aaron Jones with the Packers was really prolific at catching the ball, but several routes, actually several times running real crossing routes and making plays at full speed, you just don't see running backs doing that all that often. So that's an advantage for the Vikings to be able to lean in with J.J. McCarthy. But with someone like Mason, unless you can do that, you're probably just talking about a handful of swing passes, maybe a screen here or there. I think if he caught one pass a game, that would be about what I'd expect.

Even trying to put an attempts number on Jordan Mason is a little tricky because what I had forgotten is I kind of thought of him in my brain. When they acquired him, I looked at last year and really only looked at last year, but he had had two previous years with at least 40 runs where he also averaged over five yards to carry. Like this guy has been a beast in his career so far,

still surprised that the Vikings were able to get their hands on him. So does he become a one in one a kind of situation? Is it still more Aaron Jones or are we going to be talking about Jordan Mason running for 800, 900 yards next season, as opposed to my initial thought was a 650, seven yards, 700 yards. That would be pretty good as you know a back and forth with Aaron Jones But I don't know it's altogether possible that he is just good enough and dangerous enough of a runner That he gets more than that so if he's on the field more often or Jones gets banged up Then suddenly that number for receptions is going to go up. But I don't think of him as that type of guy who could do a lot more

than just catch a short little swing pass from time to time. Next one comes from Nick, says, knowing everything you know now, what would have been your preferred outcome for the 2024 draft? Make the trade for May, trade even more for Daniels, move up slightly for Pennex, take Nix, or have it stay the same. So I brought this up before when it comes to like Caleb Williams, would you rather have Caleb Williams or JJ McCarthy? It's like, well, look, I mean, if I said Caleb Williams, then the comment section would explode and the same kind of thing. Now, if I said, hey, well, yeah, sure. I'd trade up a few spots for Michael Pennex. Going with the known versus the unknown is pretty tricky. I think we can all clearly agree though that

on a few facts, let's agree on a few facts and then I'll try to be more definitive than I want to be on the answer. A few facts is I would trade just about anything for Jaden Daniels. Jaden Daniels looks to me like an MVP and he looks to me like Lamar Jackson of the NFC and he went to the NFC championship with a kind of a mediocre team in his first year. We all agree on that, right? That that level of quarterback, it exists in the AFC. And I think now it exists in the NFC. You could say it's a small sample size,

but he also did this in college. Like that's who he is. He's the modern quarterback. He's a great leader, seems to have complete command of that football team. I mean, instant superstar. Yeah. Anybody in their right mind would swap out

a complete unknown for someone who is in the NFC championship and is a prime MVP candidate right away. I think we all agree on that. Drake may with the trade up is a little bit harder to do because we've seen such a small sample of may and it was with the Patriots. Drake may with this team would probably be really good. And does it factor in the Dallas Turner hasn't done anything yet with the other first round draft pick? I don't know, because I still think Turner's going to be a really good player, but does that factor in what we know so far about him? I think Drake May along with Kevin O'Connell would have been a pretty freakish combination. That said, I think that the actual skill sets of May and JJ McCarthy were much

closer than they were made to seem around draft time. Around draft time, you would have thought, well, okay, one guy is the next Matthew Stafford and another guy is the next Matt Hasselback. But instead, I think that McCarthy's arm and his arm talent and his ability to learn the offense and how he has commanded things confidently in practice gives you a lot more confidence that he can be that guy. So I think right now I would not make that trade that required a bunch of extra draft capital to move up and Drake May is every bit as unknown or almost every bit as unknown as JJ McCarthy. A couple spots for Pennex. Here's the thing about Pennex. If you watch the way he played last year for Atlanta and you didn't see KOC all over it, throwing down

field into tight windows, I mean, come on, we all saw that. I think they would have been very, very happy to have drafted Michael Pennex with his arm, his maturity, his leadership. I think they would have been good with that. It's that's still, though, a very small sample and an unknown as well. So I think you're comfortable with it being McCarthy instead of Pennex. But we were all thinking that when you see it, the highlight reel of Pennex throws, right? OK, if he was playing for KOC and throw into Jefferson, this would have worked out. So I think the real answer, and look, Nix had a great season. I don't know that he's got a ceiling that's much higher than what just happened.

Maybe I'll be wrong about that. And if the Vikings had drafted Nix and they would have given him Jefferson and Addison as opposed to Sutton and Mims, I guess, I think he would have done even better for the Minnesota Vikings last year than he did for the Denver Broncos, and we all would have been saying, wow, they had a home run with Bo Nicks. The reality of the 2024 draft is it looks like everybody crushed it, and we just don't know totally what Caleb Williams is going to be.

Not 100% sure that's going to work out. Aside from that, though, who's unhappy? Is anybody unhappy? The Vikings just said goodbye to a quarterback that threw 35 touchdowns for them because they're so happy with JJ McCarthy. So no, I'm not going to say, wouldn't change a thing, guys, because that would be dishonest.

Jade and Daniels, we all know that those quarterbacks, if you get one, it is worth its weight in gold and even if you have to pay them, they paid Jackson, look where they were last year, they paid Allen, they paid Mahomes, those are the guys who can transcend the rookie quarterback contract thing. I think Daniels is one of them, but that's the only one that I would clearly say, all right, you'd swap that out because that guy has already proven what his ceiling can be and it is unreal. But aside from that, I think you're good with JJ McCarthy otherwise versus any of those other quarterbacks. It's just the fact of the matter that it was a crazy good draft and it worked out for everybody

and I think it will continue to work out with the Vikings and McCarthy. But, long way to go, long way to go. What I like to always add is the caveat here is that, I mean, quarterbacks, man, we debate them when they've been in the league for 10 years. People were still debating Kirk going into last year, and he had been around forever. So, will we ever have the definitive clear-cut list of the 2024 draft? Probably not, but it will always make for a fun conversation. This next one comes from Mansfield Goon, says,

my hot take is that we could have signed Sam Darnold for the same or cheaper contract as the Seahawks, 33 million, traded McCarthy for the number two pick and picked Travis Hunter, getting an upgrade at wide receiver three and huge upgrade at corner. Cap wise, we still could have signed all the players and maybe had to force the GM to pick one of the older defensive tackles and sign them instead. If you were able to revert time and control the outcome, would you? So I don't think that that is all true. I do not believe

that Sam Darnold would have, I mean, if they were going to trade McCarthy, I think he would have agreed to a contract with the Vikings. But if they were not going to trade McCarthy, then he wouldn't have. But in your scenario, okay, in your scenario, they're trading McCarthy and you're bringing back Sam Darnold. I was always comfortable with the idea of bringing back Sam Darnold. I thought that it's unfair and historically just wrong to judge a quarterback on his first and only time ever in the playoffs.

It's a high bar to set at being a top 10 quarterback in the league across the board, whether it's PFF or yards or touchdowns or yards per attempt or whatever, having a top 10 quarterback is difficult to find. And if they had brought back Sam Darnold for a contract, short-term contract, and let McCarthy develop, took another shot at it, I would have been good with that. That would have been an OK plan to me.

I found a good plan considering that they could upgrade a lot of the rest of the roster. Now, where the plan goes a little bit awry is talking about trading up to number two for Travis Hunter. I don't know if that was going to happen if a team was going to trade knowing nothing about JJ McCarthy, the number two overall pick. Wasn't it? Didn't the Browns trade back with the Jaguars? So would the Browns have done it? I mean, it's a very interesting scenario when you talk about, would the Browns have traded for McCarthy and the Vikings pick Travis Hunter?

Is that better if they keep Sam Darnold than what they'll be with JJ McCarthy? It might be. I mean, it might be a better scenario because you're right. You get somebody that at their absolute best becomes the modern version of Deion Sanders, a wide receiver three to go along with Jefferson and Addison long term. Even if he doesn't work out as a receiver, he could end up being an elite cornerback, which is hard to deny. So yeah, I mean, I think actually if they were able now you're saying like, I think they could have done it. That's where I get

a little held up. I'm not so sure that all the moving pieces of this scenario could have actually worked out. That doesn't mean that they should be unhappy with what they ended up with, which is JJ McCarthy on the rookie contract, where you might be balancing out what you would get from the Travis Hunter acquisition with all the money that you were able to spend. But it's not just people have to remember with the rookie contract with McCarthy. It's not just the spending this off season, which was all over the place, all over the roster and tried to fix every single position. But you also have to go back to last off season, Blake Cashman, Andrew Van Ginkle, Jonathan Grenard. These guys are signed because of JJ McCarthy.

And if you look at any of those contracts, you could see that they were very, very cheap to slide underneath the salary cap last year and the first year, and then they go up and up and up while McCarthy is on his rookie deal. So it would have been an all in play for really this year, because then it would have gotten really difficult with all the contracts they signed to keep Sam Darnold over multiple years. But with the roster they have and the coaching they have, one of the things about these hypothetical scenarios is it's pretty hard to find one where I'd be like, oh, no way, it just wouldn't work. It's so dumb. It's so crazy. You're insane. Like that's not insane. The idea that, okay, if they had had Sam Darnold and I

mean, even saying like getting Travis Hunter seems pretty wild, but okay, if they had somehow pulled that off to get Travis Hunter and Sam Darnold and then ran out the rest of this roster, is anybody thinking that they're not going to be right there in the NFC North? I think it would have been a little short sighted, though, because what McCarthy represents is a franchise quarterback and I know this is a long way down the road, but a franchise quarterback for more than just a year or two, more than just a short little three year contract, it's actually two and it's somebody else's twenty seven, twenty eight

year old quarterback. What McCarthy represents is the quarterback the Vikings have been missing since Dante Culpepper and two years of Teddy Bridgewater that made you think he was going to be that guy. And instead, you know, if you're signing Darnold, again, it's great. And he's got a great team and they could seriously compete for a championship. I wouldn't have been against it. But McCarthy is something so much more that I think probably 95% of the audience is like rather have McCarthy, even though you haven't seen anything of McCarthy, what he represents is that person to build around, then tear it down, then build around again,

then tear it down and build around again somebody you can take many shots at it over many years as opposed to, hey, right now we've got this short term thing. And there's no guarantee that Travis Hunter is great either. So we'll see. I like Hunter a lot. I'm just saying, but love that scenario Mansfield Goon. Good job folks for weeks. Now I've been using tempo meals to cut down on the amount of times that I go out for fast food and as you guys know for me that is quite an accomplishment but it's worked I feel like I'm in better shape and big time saving a lot of money from going out to eat constantly tempo is a weekly delivery service that delivers chef crafted meals from a dietitian approved menu fresh to your door. I do nothing and they show up.

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you've become, you know what you've become, you've become fat and happy with your offensive line now. You've got a good offensive line. You're like, dude, look at these other teams. What are they thinking? But remember once upon a time, the Minnesota Vikings were making moves just like that. I mean, picking up Mike Remmers, picking up Dakota Dozier, Tom Compton, and just being like, hopefully it'll work because there's just not that many good offensive linemen

out there in the entire NFL. And it's hard to find them. Like, well, why didn't they get the better ones? Who was available? Who was willing to sign there? Right? So I mean, trading away Laramie Tunsel is pretty rough. Sounds like it was a bad situation there with him. I'm not saying they got it right. I'm just saying I can sympathize from all the years of covering the Vikings getting it wrong that it's not that easy.

Otherwise, the crazy thing about the Texans, otherwise the roster is pretty stacked. They did the right thing drafting wide receivers. They've got a really good defense. I'm trying to go hot take maybe a little bit and picking the Jaguars to win that division just for the heck of it. But I think we all know the Texans are the favorite for that and should be. But you're right. This could be another year where C.J. Stroud is struggling a lot more with the offensive line. And then we're talking about, well, is C.J. Stroud really the guy for the Houston Texans? But a lot of it does come back to, can you actually protect him?

So that's a great question. I was perplexed by a couple of things. Number one, the 49ers, the way that they handled the draft, just can't really understand it. They picked run stuffing nose tackles. And hey, who doesn't picked run stuffing nose tackles and hey, who doesn't love run stuffing nose tackles? But remember last year when the Vikings picked up Jonathan Bullard and Jerry Tillery and were the top run defense in the league? Yeah, you can do that.

I mean, run stuffing nose tackles are wonderful people, but they're not hard to find in the NFL. And yet they drafted two of them. They also took an edge rusher that was pretty highly questionable in terms of his production if I'm not mistaken. I think he was kind of one of those athletic freaks that didn't necessarily have the numbers. I again don't really get it when you lose a Debo Samuel and then you don't replace them but instead you go out and get more defensive linemen. Okay that was a little weird to me. The Packers only spending money on Aaron Banks and Nate Hobbs. I totally expected them to be players. In a Debo Samuel, in a DK Metcalf, I thought they would do something bold.

Nothing bold. And probably the most perplexing, two of them, two of them most perplexing come from the same division. That would be the Cleveland Browns drafting two quarterbacks and having Flacco and Kenny Pickett be their answer. Okay. Do any of those answers sound like they're going to work? I mean, it's going to take a miracle for them to even be competitive in that division with that type of quarterback play. And then in

Pittsburgh, why they never went after Sam Darnold. And there was a story that was out that Tom Brady didn't want Darnold with the Raiders and instead they get Gino Smith. And I'm like, for those fans of the office, it's the same picture. It's got a what? How is this any different? How is Gino Smith any different? I mean, he knows Pete Carroll, so I guess that helps, but how is he any different from Sam Darnold except for Darnold's a lot younger than Gino Smith? And if you're Pittsburgh, what? Aaron Rodgers at 41 years old over Sam Darnold, who just won 14 last year? I mean, imagine Sam Darnold, who just won 14 last year. I mean, imagine Sam Darnold season.

If the Steelers had that in any of the last five years when they had great defenses and they were able to make the playoffs or be above 500 with random quarterbacks, with Mason Rudolph, with Kenny Pickett, with Duck Hodges, if they had a Sam Darnold in any one of those seasons, they would have been great. And they're like, nah, don't need him.

Just kind of puzzling there. I sort of understood it in New York, because we all know they're on the hot seat, that they would go out and get Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. OK, I guess that's fine. They're just in a really tough spot. But I think some of these other teams

had better choices in Sam Darnold, and they didn't even seem to pursue him. So there's a couple of them that were really, I mean, even how about even Gino Smith to Pittsburgh? Like if Gino Smith became available, why wouldn't you try to do everything you could to get him to Pittsburgh to just have some sort of decent quarterback play? I don't know. That whole situation has always been pretty odd to me.

Next question comes from Never played men and says, cornerback is often cited as a weakness on this team. Are we under appreciating Mackay Blackman? Is his injury or regression a major concern? His rookie PFF grade was over 70 while both Gilmore and Griffin were below 65. Last year, it seems like he, if he is cornerback two or gets beat out for cornerback two, he still sets a solid standard. He might even be one of the league's best cornerback threes if it comes to that. And I do think, and this actually, I don't think this, KOC said this at some point. I think that they do want to, and then I said, I think again, KOC told us,

KOC told us that they want Byron Murphy to play in the nickel more often, which sounds to me like Mackay Blackman will be on the field in a lot of those situations where you have two outside corners and one nickel corner, and Blackman will be playing a ton. They like him a lot and he played really well at the end of 2023. But when we're talking about small sample sizes, I am old enough to remember, Hey, Cam Dancelers the next Xavier Rhodes,

because he had a couple of really good games in 2020, that crazy Jags game where he had, I think a pick and a fumble forced in the same game. And then what happened there, right? There was injuries, there was inconsistencies didn't fit with the system. Corner is one of the hardest ones to project of anything, and 400 snaps really doesn't tell a big story with Blackman. And comparing those PFF grades, they are two very

different things because Gilmore and Griffin played the whole season as starters and they ended up with a little above average PFF grades or somewhere in that range which was good enough to get them into a top five defense but that's playing all the snaps or a huge number of snaps over an entire season not just a sample of 400 something that ends up looking pretty decent but it's only a handful of times target we need a much bigger sample that that said I like where Mackay Blackman was at when he was done with 2023. It's just now you got to pick up after an ACL and we'll see. Their belief in him tells us a lot. It does tell us how they felt about him before and it tells us how they feel about him now. It doesn't

seem like there's any rush for them to go out and try to get another corner, which again tells us a lot. I think I've said this before. There's signal in the fact that the Vikings went with McCarthy and not Darnold. It was proven. There's signal in the fact that they're going with Mackay Blackman and not somebody else from free agency. And Flores said, like this guy really attacked his rehab in an incredible way and impressed, I think, everybody that you're seeing behind the scenes and not something that we're seeing, but the coaches are, the staff is, and it says a lot about just how he's going to come back. So yeah, I think what the cornerback group has is a range of outcomes.

If Isaiah Rogers is as good as I think he can be, and it's based on Minicamp and their love for him, but he's got some unique traits, if he can be really good and Blackman can even be what they think he's going to be, then suddenly you have a really good unit. But if those don't go that way, if Rogers is inconsistent, if Blackman isn't fully back or isn't ready to handle

a bigger workload then you're not talking about as predictable. In a very unpredictable situation, if you had a corner who had been around in the league for a long time, we could at least say, even as Stefan Gilmore, we can at least say, I've got a pretty good idea of what he's going to be. Whereas with these two guys, I have less of an idea. I think that's what it is. You can see the upside, there's just less of an idea. This one comes from, next one comes from The Dude, says, saw your podcast with Steve Palazzolo.

He seems really high on Jalen Redmond. Do you get a reason why he is so excited? I did not ask him why he was so excited. I didn't follow up. He was kind of on a roll when he mentioned that. And I was like, Oh, okay. But when you go back and look at Redmond, now remember Steve Palazzolo is formerly of PFF and the small sample size PFF grade on Jalen Redmond last year was really good. He was a guy that we were asking Flores about. Flores is telling stories about how Ryan Grigson

saw him playing in the UFL and loved him and they called him up and he almost quit football at one point and all that sort of stuff. But the one thing I noticed from him is that he got into the backfield. On run plays a lot of times, I don't know how many pressures he had. It was a couple, but it wasn't a ton of pressures. But on run plays, he was able to knife into the backfield, kind of make himself small or be really quick. And the undersized DT is kind of a thing that's working. I mean, Aaron Donald is the all time example, but it's kind of a thing that's working because it's, you got to, the job is to get in the backfield. However you do it is however you do it, whether it's being huge

and powerful or smaller and quick. And Redmond, he's not tiny, but he's not the biggest guy. And I think that he's just got this explosiveness to him where he can get in the backfield and make plays. And if I was making out the depth chart right now at Defensive Tackle, of course I would have Jonathan Allen, Harrison Phillips, Javon Hargrave, and then right after that would be Redmond before anybody else because he really showed that he could make an impact at this level. So I think that's really what it's based on, a small sample size, and that's really the word of the day, words of the day with a lot of different situations here on this Vikings team that you do make bets or you do set expectations based on a couple hundred snaps.

But when somebody gets in real NFL games and suddenly starts making plays, you go, okay, I mean, this is real. This is something that can happen. It's just at what level, how consistently we have been fooled a couple of times before Armand Watts, maybe a Foddy Adenovo defensive tackle. But I think Redmond's got a little more juice. So I would say that's the main reason. Last question comes from Matt. I met Matt at the Lynx game. I was very happy to do so. Appreciate that. Had a nice little chat. Do you have any favorite 90s sports movies like Sandlot, Cool Runnings, a league of their own? That's three great ones you just named. You should have just ended the question that do you have any favorite sports movies and not given me three of my favorites. I will say so cool runnings was based on a real story. So was a league

of their own and both of those are great movies. I tend to like though. And so I put those aside. I tend to like movies that were not based on anything real and are just totally made up and kind of ridiculous or just nice. I'll give you an example. Not that long ago, the wife and I watched Little Giants back. And I wondered as we were putting it on, like, am I going to think Little Giants is really dumb? Now, after, you know, the last time I watched it was 25 years ago.

And the answer was no, actually time I watched it was 25 years ago, and the answer was no. Actually, I thought it was great. I thought it actually held up a lot better than I would have expected. And that may be a true sign of a really great sports movie, but it held up really well. And it was a very, very fun movie to go back and watch. I forget, is it the Annexation of Puerto Rico? Is that the play that they call? But if you have a chance, go back and watch Little Giants again, because I laughed the whole time. I enjoyed it. And one of my favorite all-time ones is Major League. This is not going off the

board very far, but I can't get enough of Major League. I like the comedies. I like having fun and be funny and ridiculous. The Replacements, I think has some moments that don't hold up very well. In the Replacements, this is another one, we were on a little bit of kick of these old sports movies. In the Replacements, there's a time where the cheerleaders start acting inappropriately to try to throw off the other team. And you're like, I don't think so. I just know that's maybe should have cut that scene out for the TV version that was being played on TNT or whatever. But aside from that, I mean, the replacement has a lot of classic scenes, really fun moments. So I do like the even all even go as far as baseball for those types of movies. What I'm not so much into

and like you're gonna you guys are this is why I saved this for 45 minutes into this. I don't really remember the Titans just doesn't do it for me. And I know that that's like sacrilegious and probably changed a lot of your lives. I just okay. You know, same with Rudy. It's nice. It's I just... okay. You know, same with Rudy. It's nice. It's not really what happened, but okay. Like, that's good. I kind of like the ones that are more fun and funny for me. It's just a personal preference. If, look, if you quote, remember the Titans and that you deserve a neck roll, it's a very football-y movie. Just, just not mine. So anyway. All right. Thanks for the great questions. Always open to anything for the fans only questions feel free to shoot me an email Matthew collar at gmail or send me a tweet

little DM at Matthew collar and for the newsletter each week I call out for Friday mailbag questions on a sub stack so purple insider dot football so remember to do that thanks everybody for your time as always. We'll catch you later. Football.