Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Which Vikings players need to be lowkey MVPs if they're going to have a great season? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, from which Viking would have to be the underrated MVP of the offense and defense if they are going deep in the playoffs to how Mac Jones would have performed last year if the Vikings had selected him in the first round to whether the Wilfs would allow Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to rebuild if this year doesn't turn out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is another fans only episode. After the other day I mentioned that my fans only file was empty and all of you came through with so many more great questions to keep the fans only podcast coming. So I greatly appreciate that and I will not waste any time talking about what I'm drinking while I'm doing this episode, but, uh, I will just open up the diet, Dr. Pepper and just remind everyone. So I take a sip purple insider.com contact us is a great way to send an email to get on the show. Uh, or you can just tweet at me or send me a direct message at Matthew collar. Those are the easiest ways to get your fans only question read.

And I have so many of them that I want to get to here. So let's just get rolling. All right. This comes from Sean via the email. Remember Sean sent four questions. So I've spread them out. They're all good questions, but I've spread them out to different episodes. And you can do the same if you want. If you send a hundred, then maybe I won't be able to get to all of them. But if you send a couple, I'll spread them out through multiple episodes. I'm trying to be accommodating to all of those who participate because you guys are so wonderful. Let's start with this one. We know football is a game of inches and there's such high parity in the league outside of the top and the bottom three or

four teams it feels like everyone is at least a marginal playoff contender who are the offensive and defensive mvp of the vikings if they make a deep playoff run and to make that question more fun no quarterback or edge players well naturally yeah if they make a deep playoff run then right yeah the quarterback would be the obvious answer but i also think there's another obvious answer in justin jefferson on the offensive side so maybe i can try to come up with somebody that isn't that clear but i mean mean, if Justin Jefferson even performs the same way as he did the last couple of years, then he's the offensive MVP anyway, because, uh, he put up such rare numbers in those first few years. So the maybe low key MVP would have to be whom? Um, I mean, I think that probably someone has to emerge as another weapon and that would

include Irv Smith jr. Uh, so, I mean, it could be another receiver. It could be a BC Johnson or a, uh, Amir Smith, Marset. Those are less likely, but you know, the one thing that they got last year that they haven't had in many years was that additional receiver in KJ Osborne. And they got decent play from Tyler Conklin, very respectable play from Tyler Conklin. But the reason they drafted Irv Smith Jr. in the second round and that they've been a high on him is because the ceiling is higher than what Tyler Conklin, a former fifth rounder is able to bring. So if Irv Smith Jr. went from somebody who we looked at as, all right, he's Kyle Rudolph's number two, they can line them up in some different spots. And

you know, everybody likes what Irv Smith has brought to the table and somebody who showed even more potential last year in training camp of being tight end number one well if he blows up and he's got 75 80 catches he's going over a thousand yards he's a deep threat he's a yards after catch threat he's somebody that the defense has to account for leaving other openings for other players i mean all of those things could add up to him being the offensive MVP, not named Kirk Cousins or Justin Jefferson. And part of that also is the amount of blocking assignments that the guy is going to have to take on. Anytime you're a tight end, regardless of what kind of offense you're in or how much you line up in the slot, you are going to have to deal with being a part of the run game. And that's why someone like George Kittle for the 49ers,

when he's healthy, he's so valuable for them because he's a big yards after catch threat, and he's a very, very good blocker. Now, I don't know that the ceiling on Irv Smith Jr. is quite as high as someone like George K know, George Kittle or Travis Kelsey, but maybe even if it's in that ballpark, he could be incredibly valuable to them. And of all the things that are the same, you know, that's one thing that is different from last year is that Irv Smith presumably will be healthy this year. Um looks good from him coming back through minicamp. His health is good. And he's got an opportunity to take a step into the limelight

as one of the better tight ends in the NFL based on his talent, based on the opportunity that he's going to get. And the fact that the Vikings are going to run three wide receivers, but they're also going to spread things out with their tight end and use him in a lot of those ways. And they can use motions and all sorts of things. And then if you add that with run blocking ability, if it's even decent, uh, then you're talking about someone who might be one of the most valuable players that they have. So I guess I would pick him.

Maybe, maybe the answer is like Chris Reed or something, or Jesse Davis. If one of those guys blocks the interior better than we've seen in the past, and they do everything else the same, except for cousins is less pressured up the middle. Well, then, uh, you would deserve the underrated MVP, but, uh, on the defensive side is a good question. If you can't use the Darius Smith or Daniel Hunter, because those are super obvious. Eric Hendricks comes to mind. Harrison Smith comes to mind. You kind of know what you're going to get from them.

So maybe I won't say those guys either, just because you know, they're great players. They're all pro caliber players and they're probably going to be themselves. Assuming that the, you know the reaper doesn't come for either one with their age they're probably going to be very similar players to what they've been in the past so who has to be the mvp in order for the defense to be

better than it was the last few years when you saw harrison smith still play really well and Eric Hendricks still play really well. And yet the rest of the defense around them fell apart. Why was that? That was a lot, the cornerback position. And you could pretty much pick any guy here and you would have a good selection. If Cam Dantzler plays the whole season and is really good, then he's probably your most valuable player. If Patrick Peterson even plays as well as he did last year, but plays the whole year and gets some help around him with improved play by the other corners, maybe he's not the most valuable, but he's pretty darn valuable to you.

The low-key one is, can you say that a first-round pick is low-key? But I think on a defense with star players, it probably is. Louis Seen would be the guy that, if he steps right in and becomes an instant impact player, if he's making splash plays, if he's blowing up runs, even though they're going to run this too-deep safety thing that a lot of teams like to run against, if he's able to come up into the box and make plays or play the deep safety when he's asked to and do what Anthony Harris did a couple

of years ago, which is get a number of interceptions. If Louis seen as that guy, if he plays as well in the deep safety role as he does, and then better in the box safety role and coming up to the line of scrimmage and blowing up plays as he did so often in Georgia he he was going forward a lot at Georgia and making plays and blowing up runs and blowing up screens if that's what Lewis seen does that's a little different I mean Anderson Dayo had some element of that it's a little different from what Anthony Harris brought. Harris was much more of a deep guy, but that gives them then two guys who can do that same thing where they can play multiple different positions. They can blitz, they can make a play deep. They can go up against a slot receiver one-on-one and not have it feel like it's a mismatch. They can blow up a screen or,

you know, whatever, like that type of player. They've had very good performances out of their guys next to Harrison Smith. I thought Xavier Woods was solid for most of the season last year. They've never had someone with this caliber of talent. In fact, when you look at where they came from, it's undrafted free agents. It's late round draft pick. I mean, it's, it's not guys who were stars before were top talents who were brought here. So Louis scene is a first for that. Now his adjustment period, that's what we're going to have to see. But if he immediately stepped in and was marvelous, well, then he's got a chance to be the real difference maker in the swing man for the defense, uh, that could help get them over the top. So even if it's not MVP, as in he had the most interceptions or something like that, he could still be that guy who was the linchpin

from them going from a bad defense last the last two years to a good defense this year, which I think it's going to take in order for this team to go deep. So thank you for that question, Sean. I'll get to a couple of your other questions in the future. Okay, this one comes from Jackie via the email. She says, do you think Minnesota sports fans have this perceived negativity around players with accused and convicted with violence against women without fan pressure. Do you think that the NFL will take actual steps to protect women,

especially their employees? We know that Dan Snyder has a lot of negative narratives about him, but he likely isn't the only one. I know women make up a larger demographic of NFL fans now, but since the sport is primarily controlled by men, is, uh, is this a cause that they will tackle, especially with the NFL's history of if a player plays well, then it can cover up all of his sins. Um, like, you know, Delvin cook versus a second stringer. And that's certainly true that if Delvin cook was not Delvin cook, then last year, there's a pretty good chance. He's taken off the field. Although they, you know, did at one point have to suspend Adrian Peterson for the season. Um, although that was, you know, kind of a different case and

it really came right on the heels of Ray rice and the NFL didn't want to be perceived as then being soft on Adrian Peterson. And I think that that's the most frustrating thing is that the rules seem to change all the time with the NFL that, you know, Kareem hunt gets eight games for this, but then Delvin cook doesn't get suspended for that. And, you know, it just seems like there's a very big lack of consistency and certainly no willingness to step up and force teams to pay attention to issues like this rather than just trying to kind of do the bare minimum and not look as bad as they can look right. Like how Daniel Snyder is still in the NFL as an owner with the culture that he created

there is completely beyond my comprehension. Like, how is this man still involved with the league? Like you look at what the NBA did with, um, you know, Donald Sterling, where he was just instantly out and it was a great decision for the NBA. And they got a better owner in Los Angeles instantly because there are more billionaires who can buy teams. So why they've tolerated this from some players and not others, why they've tolerated this type of culture to be created within one and probably many more of their franchises.

I, I re I truly don't know because there is a model and it's not that the NBA is perfect, but this is studied. I remember reading this a while back that every year there is a study that is done by, I forget it's, it's a call. It might be like Harvard or something that does a study on how well leagues handle issues of diversity. And that includes creating, you know, comfortable work environments for women as well. And the NBA is always far in ahead. The WNBA is always far in ahead. Why in the world can't the NFL be on par with leagues that are smaller than them? I mean, it seems like it should be very, and maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but it just seems like it should be very easy for them to move out.

Anybody who's creating toxic cultures like Daniel Snyder. I mean, when you're using your cheerleaders essentially as strippers, like, come on, I mean, this should be easy to just remove him as an owner. And again, I don't know. I've never looked into this of like what it takes to remove an owner, but I don't understand why it's so hard in a league where you can replace them with some other billionaire who's going to be willing to buy the team. I don't understand that at all.

But as far as, you know, as far as the league goes, I do think that, you know, what Major League Baseball did with Trevor Bauer will matter. But I've always also thought that it's a really hard balance when it comes to suspending players and with fans asking them, hey, you know, you should pressure your team not to have this player or that player. Like, I think that it's a really, really tight rope to walk when we're talking about what players do off the field and suspending them for games and things like that, that they've always struggled with. And I've never had a perfect answer for. Now, with Deshaun Watson, especially since it seems like the Houston Texans, another team whose owners could be booted out of the league anytime, by the way, who seemed to have no idea what they're doing. But, you know, the Houston Texans, it appears, knew what Deshaun Watson was doing.

And I mean, that should just be easy, right? Like you, you cannot keep people in the league who act like this. And I think if you set a standard of like, we will kick you out of owning your NFL team. If you act this way, if your team is run this way, if Congress is asking you to talk in front of them because of the way you treated women, you shouldn't be an owner there. It's, it's like anything else, right? It's like half measures just don't really work. And, you know, the same thing for if Deshaun Watson, and I don't know how it's going to play out. If Deshaun Watson only ends up with a few games suspension, it's certainly not going to look like, Hey, everybody else, you know, act, act accordingly, right? Like if you treat people this way, there will be, you know,

repercussions. If they give them a few games, it certainly doesn't feel that way. Right. And it certainly doesn't feel like all the PSAs that they did after Ray Rice, uh, talking about, you know, all these things about domestic violence. Like it seems like it was all just for nothing. Right. So that, which is sort of typical of the Roger Goodell era. It's like the NFL has exploded during Roger Goodell. That's why he's the commissioner. It's become incredibly more popular and more successful financially under Roger Goodell during his era.

But it's a, there's a couple of big black eyes. And I think that this is one of them, uh, for sure. So, I mean, I don't know that that like perfectly answers your question. Um, you know, do I think that Minnesota sports fans have a perceived negativity around players accused, uh, and, and convicted with violence against women? You know, I think that every fan base kind of ends up being in the same spot with that. Sorry, I didn't answer that part of the question first, but every fanbase ends up in the same spot with this, which is half the fans do not want to hear about it and just want to cheer for their player. The other half wants to

pressure the team or doesn't want to cheer for that player or wants that player gone. And then there's everybody else kind of stuck in the middle saying, are you guys going to do anything? And like, what's going to happen here? But I think it's, it's always, I mean, I don't know the exact percentage, but it's always like a big portion of the fan base just does not want to hear about it. And I, and I guess I get it. I I'm obviously not that person. I guess I get it where some people are like, I just want to watch a team play on Sunday. Okay. Leave me alone. Uh, I don't want to worry about this person's off field personal problems if they're not put in jail. Right. But I also think

that's such an extremely callous view of the world. And it just kind of makes me wonder about you, right? Like, okay. So you don't, you don't care at all about this? Like that this player is in your community and this is somebody that your team is endorsing and, you know, tweeting out their highlights and, you know, bringing them, you know, to community events and talking them up and all these things. And it's like, but this is what, this is what, uh, you know, they're being accused of off the field. Like, I don't know.

That's always, I've always been very uncomfortable with that. But I don't think that like Minnesota sports fans are in any different spot than all of fan bases. And I also don't think we'll ever be in a spot with the NFL or pro sports where there's going to be so much pressure on a team that they just get rid of someone. I think that what teams have realized, especially recently is if we want to keep the guy, we're going to keep them and we'll just deal with whatever problems come. And I mean, Antonio Brown is a great example of this. Like

Tampa Bay brought him there. He helped him win the Superbowl. He went completely off his rocker last year and they just said, okay, thanks for your help winning the Superbowl. We don't care. Right. Um, new England did cut Antonio Brown after there were new accusations against him and they probably regretted it because he still ended up being allowed to play and still helped the team. And there's always been benefits to picking up those players for cheap prices and saying, well, you know, it's a risk. And it feels like weird to say, but there's always been an advantage. And Jerry Jones took advantage of it for a long time. An advantage to picking up players who other teams were pressured to cut, like Kareem Hunt. So I think that teams have probably largely started to say, we're just not going to do that. And Cleveland basically said, we don't care. Like we're just going to deal with whatever backlash there is and move on. So thank you so much for that question, Jackie. I know it's a very difficult issue, but one that the NFL certainly deals with all the time. Okay. Onto the next question. This is from a.hong via the email. Hey Matthew, thanks for

answering all these fans only questions. It's been great to hear your take on some of these and makes my day go a little faster listening at work. Well, thank you for that. I know you were high on Mac Jones, but do you think he would have worked out as well in our system if we drafted him, especially at the time with the first time offensive coordinator like Clint Kubiak and head coach like Mike Zimmer? Also, where do you think the Vikings rank in drafting quarterbacks to the rest of the league? As you know, Tavares Jackson, Christian Ponder didn't work out. Teddy Bridgewater seemed like he might, but he got hurt. The Browns before Baker were really bad at drafting quarterbacks while the Packers and Patriots have been really lucky. All right. First things first.

I think that the Vikings situation is very easy to play in for a system that they were using. And my evidence is Gary Kubiak's entire career., I know it was Clint, but this system designed by Mike Shanahan and Clint Kubiak is to give the quarterback the easiest possible spot where he can run play actions, create open wide receivers running over the middle of the field, and running first does set up the pass. This is a thing that you can find in the data that you can move linebackers.

You can see it, but you can see it in the data as well that with Delvin Cook, linebackers move for him and they care about Delvin Cook because of his reputation and his success. So, and also the play designs, of course, that have worked for a very long time for Matt Schaub or Brian Greasy or a number of other quarterbacks that, you know, obviously John Elway, that Gary Kubiak and Mike Shanahan system

have helped succeed. It helped Baker Mayfield in Cleveland. It helped Jimmy Garoppolo in San Francisco. I mean, there's a specific type of system and, and Jared Goff in Los Angeles. It's a little bit different, but it's some of the same principles. Uh, those things are very helpful to quarterbacks. So I think that Mac Jones would have been stepping into a good situation. And then you add the fact that they have Justin Jefferson, which will help absolutely anybody that's way better than anyone. Mac Jones had in new England, Adam feeling, uh, now Irv Smith got hurt, but you know, you still have a good running game.

I know they didn't have a great offensive line last year, but, uh, one of the things that Mac Jones did incredibly well as a rookie has got rid of the football, which is not always something that Kirk cousins has done. And let's factor this in as well. If we talk about Mike Zimmer ruining quarterbacks, it it's never added up for me because Teddy Bridgewater succeeded and won a division under Zimmer. Sam Bradford changed the complete narrative about his whole career while he was here in a short time under Mike Zimmer. Kirk Cousins has career numbers. Case Keenum goes to an NFC championship. And yet we say this guy is terrible for quarterbacks.

Like it just doesn't, it's, that's just not the case. Like he and Cousins did not get along with each other. And Zimmer was very frustrated by one big thing. And I know this one big thing. It was that he did not feel like Kirk Cousins was a leader. It didn't feel like he had command in the way that a lot of the great quarterbacks do. Now we've all seen it right in action. That's one thing Mac Jones has been praised for and his composure for last year.

Now I do want to say something. So I think that if they had done that, you're talking about having your franchise quarterback this year, and you're talking about having spent oodles of money in free agency and having a team that's looking like it's on the right path. But I do want to say that when you say I was high on Mac Jones, there's a little bit of a difference between I was high on the idea of drafting Mac Jones and like Mac Jones in general, because I had the same questions as everybody else. Like, is he athletic enough? You know, is he going to go off schedule and be a playmaker? And I think that's yet to be seen of how much of an impact that will have. Now he had a great

season last year and I could see him continuing to succeed, but at the same time, like he doesn't have the skillset of a Trey Lance or a Justin Fields. So I felt a lot of the same way from watching him in college as everybody else. And him as a prospect, my point was that when that guy's there on the board and you don't have to spend an extra pick, I mean, it's right there for you. Uh, you, you don't have to trade up your entire franchise. And if he busts, oh, well, he was a mid first round pick. You've had other guys bust. You didn't even have a draft pick in 2017. I mean, right. So like you can, you can overcome that if he doesn't work out. And also you're not super, super locked in, in the same way that Denver wasn't to Paxton Lynch or something,

right? Like, well, the guy's not good. We didn't spend that high of a pick on him. We move on with our franchise. He doesn't have to be the franchise guy. When I was in Buffalo's this way with EJ manual, EJ, they traded down and took EJ manual. The bills did. And then like two years they gave them. And the third year they just said we're benching you you're not good we're moving on and like there you go and they still ended up down a path that resulted in josh allen so that was more of my thinking it was not oh i have this scouting eye that nobody else has and i spotted mac jones it's just the logic of if someone's a first round talent that you should take them, even

if you don't believe in them. And I think that bared out pretty quickly. I mean, that said Christian Darasaw looks like he's pretty good. Um, but I do think that the Vikings have one of the best setups in the entire NFL between their system and Jefferson, uh, and Thielen for a quarterback to step into. And I think that really bared out that having a receiving tandem of two elite players makes a huge difference for all the quarterbacks who have come in here. What was the other part of the question?

Oh, where do the Vikings rank as far as drafting quarterbacks? Well, that's an interesting question because they drafted Dante Culpepper and he darn near won an MVP and he took them to an NFC championship. So Dante was a heck of a draft pick. It didn't work out because of an injury. Teddy was a good draft pick. 32nd overall.

And you end up with a division championship and maybe you're a field goal away from who knows where they go. So if he doesn't get hurt, that might end up turning out to be a great pick. So I don't think that the Vikings are any different than most teams, but, but there's outliers on both sides, you know, both sides, uh, of the extreme Indianapolis Colts, where you got Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, or green Bay Packers, as you mentioned with Favre, although they didn't draft farve they traded for farve and then drafted aaron rogers they also drafted brian braum so this is kind of my point is that like the packers aren't good at drafting quarterbacks they drafted one great quarterback

and then got to keep them forever look look at the steelers they drafted mason rudolph and josh dobbs and like who knows what kenny pickett be. But they drafted one great one and got to keep him forever. So I don't think that the Vikings have the worst record of drafting quarterbacks. But one thing you notice is they have not drafted one super high. And that often can make a difference too. Hey, I mean the Patriots, right? They got Jimmy Garoppolo and Tom Brady. But also they drafted Kevin O'Connell, who's now a coach.

They drafted a bunch of quarterbacks. Jacoby Brissett, who's a backup. I don't think that any team is better at it. It's just that there's been some really bad luck. And with the Browns, no surprise that the guy who won them 11 games in a season was the first pick. The other guys were like the 20th pick Brandon Whedon and, uh, you know, Johnny Manziel. And it's like, if you're going to pick guys there, well, you're taking a little more of a risk probably. So I, yeah, I don't know that any team, I mean, historically, I'm sure we could go through

every team and compare all their draft picks, but what you're probably going to find is outside of the ones who landed your Andrew Luck and your Aaron Rodgers. I mean, most of them are kind of like this, that some of them have worked out and a lot of them have not worked out. Thank you so much for that question. Let me grab a quick sip of Dr. Pepper here. We'll move on. Okay. uh comes from jamie in kansas city via the email how can we know that the wilfs will give quesi adafo menta enough latitude to go for it even if it means the team will be really bad for a season or more so i assume you mean like after this year, because obviously there was no going for it this year. But yeah, in the future, I think that really there's a train and it's on tracks and there's one of those train nuts will have to tell me what this is. There's like a switchy thing where you can go this way or you can go that way.

And that's how this works. I don't think that there's a million different ways and paths and all these things. I do not think that it is some complicated maze of, if you do this, then you go there like a choose your own adventure. I don't think there's that to this. I think there is a train that either goes east or west and east takes you toward next year. They end up trying to fill the gaps and compete in the final year of Kirk cousins or the final year of a lot of the star players who are in their thirties and their contracts set up for that. It either goes that way, which probably means they had a good year this year, or it goes the other way where after 2023, you end up with a complete rebuild.

Like those are the only ways you really go. That you're mediocre and you end up running it all the way to the end of those guys' time here in. And you just move on. If they're really, really bad this year, it's still hard to see how they would completely tear it apart with the way that they've set up their contracts. Like you can't get out of Harrison Smith. You can't get out of Adam Thielen. Not easily, not without big penalty.

Let me look this up because I was poking around this the other day and I had forgotten already since it was a while back that they extended Harrison Smith that yeah, it's not easy. So in 2023, if they wanted to cut Harrison Smith, that would still come along with $12 million in dead cap space. You don't want that. So they have really set it up to have a two-year window. And then it's either going East or West after that. If they are very poor this year, I think it would have to be horrific. It would have to be like super bad to tear it all apart.

But they, but the train is headed for a decision on Cousins at the end of this year. So if they were a six-win team, if you call that blowing it up, moving on from Cousins, that doesn't necessarily mean they explode the whole roster and change everything. It could just mean that they trade him away and draft someone and still have a transition year and still end up in that same spot where they're losing those veterans after 2023. And then at some point you're having to rebuild pretty much this whole roster. Or at least a lot. I mean, think about the defense alone. Patrick Peterson is not a long-term player. Neither is Jordan Hicks, Eric Kendricks, Harrison Smith, Zedaria Smith. I mean, Daniil Hunter, I would say pretty much is, but not, uh, you know, um, Delvin Tomlinson. I don't know that Shandon Sullivan

is. So that's like seven players on this defense who are not super likely to be here by 2024. So the, the train is headed that way and you can kind of either succeed and keep, try to keep the window open or you can do rebuilding or competitive rebuilding, I guess is in the middle of that. But I mean, are we going to keep doing this every year? Probably not eventually going to run to a point where you can't. And the last regime certainly found that out. Now, that's not really your question. Your question is, do we know if the Wilfs will allow them the latitude or allow Kweisi Adafomense the latitude? Yeah, that is an interesting question, but I think that they're just going to have to

at some point. I don't think there's really any other option than either they've succeeded and they're going to keep the train on the tracks going toward we're staying competitive or they have not succeeded and then they have to blow it all up. But I do think there is a pretty serious aversion from the Wilfs to being very bad. Like that that is like their biggest fear is having a season that goes way down and you win three games and then, you know, you have to make all sorts of different moves. So I think the evidence shows you that that is the case. But if you end up in a spot where these older players all fall off the edge of the cliff after 2023, their contracts all come up.

Like what's the other option. And you're not going to stick with cousins at that point. You've got to get another quarterback at some point. So I think it's going there regardless. Um, but you know, also the other thing too, is I think over the years, the Wilfs built up a lot of trust for Rick Spielman. And then that trust was kind of broken by the end. And so if they do that with Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and he ultimately needs to blow up the roster, I think that that can work if they build that relationship and that trust between them, that they will believe Kweisi Adafo- Mensah when he says we have to go this way. I get why they didn't want to do that though, because if you fire your coach and then you

move on from everybody and you bring in a new coach, but he's got a coach, you know, Marcus Mariota and Kenny Pickett or something, and they win four games, you know, maybe you feel like you're going to look ridiculous, right? Like why'd you fire the coach if you were going to fall off and Kevin O'Connell doesn't know what he's doing and all these, right. Would be kind of the national narrative, which I do think that they care about. So yeah, I think that that trust has to be built up, but no, I'm not confident that at some point they will say, let's do it.

Let's really rebuild this thing. And they might not have to completely do that. I mean, with Jefferson, if Louis scene works out, this offensive line is young and has a lot of draft capital put into it. They may not ever have to be that team that completely goes to the bottom. Um, I mean, even just the scenario we were talking about had they drafted mac jones they could have been in a competitive rebuild where they're just building around this young quarterback i think that's probably the closest thing to what their plan is so great question uh all right let me see let's get uh one more question here since i have been very long-winded today and i apologize for that uh at is this a fantasy six timberwolves made a huge

trade roughly five firsts and three of their top eight players as far as minutes played last season for rudy gobert how could you explain this in football terms to someone who doesn't follow the nba what would be the nfl version of this what would that look like if it's not a quarterback? I assume a quarterback comp would be similar to Russ in Denver, Russell Wilson. I think this is like the Tyreek Hill trade. It's a lot, and it's also a new contract. See, the NBA, I don't know how their CBA works and how their salary cap works or anything like that. If I covered the NBA, I would, but I don't. So I don't. Um, but,

uh, you know, it seems like any trade you want to make, you just like get the players. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there are NBA salary cap nerds who would be like wrong, but it just seems like the salary cap that doesn't really exist is that one the nfl's absolutely does and you can push things back but eventually the bill comes i don't know that that's the case for the nba it seems like it's pretty soft with the salary cap and you can work around it in a lot of ways um so when you trade for someone and you give up say a first and a fourth or something like that, or two firsts and whatever. And then you have to sign that player to a massive contract. That's the equivalent in my mind of giving up all those draft picks. Plus with the salary cap being as strong as it is, you really need to hit on those

draft picks. Like if you have a great quarterback and he's been paid, we've seen it here. We, you also saw it in new Orleans, new orleans was not a great team for a couple seasons and then hit on a few draft picks and all of a sudden drew breeze has this second you know renaissance of his career where he's getting them deep into the playoffs or you know losing on a minneapolis miracle or something but how did they do that they hit on marshall latimore they hit on michael thomas you know they hit on Ryan Ramchick. All of a sudden, Elvin Kamara, they've got a bunch of great players, all that had to come through the draft. So you can't really trade away that many draft picks in the NFL because of how bad you need those. Um, the Rams are the only example that you can

really find of teams saying bleep them picks, but the Rams already had Aaron Donald and they already had, like, they already had this setup, the bones of a team that could win a championship. And so they went all in for the final pieces in Matt Stafford and Jalen Ramsey. Had they missed though, like, think about that. Like they won the super bowl. They get to hang that flag forever and they get to celebrate had they missed had they won 10 games instead of 12 and lost in the first round or even lost to tampa bay and blown that game think about what we would say about the rams they are in trouble

now because of all the things that they did for their future if it didn't work out it did so it's great and good for them but like that's the risk you take when you do this. And the same thing goes for the Wolves, it seems, is if you go all in on somebody and it doesn't work, boy, you are in trouble. Seattle is a great example. Seattle went all in for Jamal Adams. He's just not that good.

There's a lot of good safeties in the league. I'm not sure he's even one of the 10 best, and they traded two first round picks for him that's probably also your equivalent and then they signed him oh my goodness and and look what shape that they're in they need draft picks they need young players they need to be rebuilding their team and they have this albatross of a player that they gave up the farm for so it has to work is kind of how the rules go. But if a lot of teams go all in, there's a lot of teams it's not going to work for.

But that's an interesting question. It does seem, and I don't know any other time in the NFL it was like this, that the NFL is following the NBA much more in this way though. And I would not be surprised at all. If teams ultra focus on their winning windows, ultra focus and end up saying, all right, it's this two year window. Let's trade everything. Let's go all in. Let's go crazy. And if it blows up, then we'll deal with it later. I think that, um, especially with teams who have tanked bouncing back pretty quickly,

like there's a lot of incentive to do that. I mean, Miami right now is a very competitive roster and, and has won a lot of games last couple of years, even without great quarterback play after completely blowing it up. Like knowing that because of the salary cap, there's always players available in free agency that you can buy to restock your roster. Like there's a pretty good case for going all in. The problem is with somebody like the Vikings,

they didn't admit when it was over. So they went all in and you can justify that in 2018 and 2019. But once it was over, they had to admit it was over and they didn't. And then they extended this window of mediocrity. So, um, yeah, that's, it's really interesting to think about like how it's similar or how it's becoming more similar to the NBA with the way the teams are starting to trade a

lot of their draft picks. And I think this year, I mean, we even saw that from Philly where they traded for AJ Brown or Arizona trading for Hollywood Brown. I mean, those are teams kind of pushing the chips into the middle of the table saying we need these players right now to kind of go for it. So good question. And what a trade to get Rudy Gobert. I'm a little skeptical, but it should be fun anyway. That's my hot basketball take. Okay, one more, one more, one more. This comes from Bobby via email.

I've been a Vikings fan all my life from Tennessee and have never been to Minnesota. I am wanting to come up to US Bank Stadium and watch my first game. Which one would you choose? And looking at the Thanksgiving day game, or would an open practice where I meet up with players be a better idea? Uh, that is probably not a better idea. Coming to an open practice for training camp versus going to a game at us bank stadium is probably not a great idea. Even if you were talking about preseason, the preseason games, I'm not saying you shouldn't go to them because if you have kids, they're great.

Like if you got three kids and it costs a lot of money, you can get cheap preseason tickets. You can come see the Vikings. It's, it's a grand time, but those things, if you're like a real big football fan looking to live your dream and see your team in person, don't come to a preseason game. I wouldn't say come to a practice because they're boring. Like this is the thing about covering training camp. It's like, I'm looking for a lot of stuff. I'm out there working. I'm taking notes. I'm keeping track of stuff, but it's not like the most exciting thing in the world. It's cool to come see a couple times or come with your kids again, show them the Vikings.

You're not going to like meet the players. You're going to get like in an autograph line where you can get an autograph. They might only do it for kids still too with the autograph situation. It's not like the old days where you stand at the fence and then all the players come over and sign a bunch of autographs. So it's not like you have any where you stand at the fence and then all the players come over and sign a bunch of autographs. So it's not like you have any access to the players at all. So there's also that I would suggest entirely coming to a game. My, my one would be opening day versus green Bay.

I mean, if you want to hear the place be the loudest, it's going to be with the most excitement there's going to be. That one would be number one on my list. Um, green Bay last year was not super loud because there was just a lot of frustration and misery. Uh, and they had lost to Detroit and you know, it was just not a good, not a good spot that they were in, but opening day, new coach, new era, all that stuff. I mean, it's, it's going to be crazy in week one against Green Bay. So that's the one that I would suggest. Or with the night games, and this is where the Vikings deserve a ton of credit. I mean, they put together their entertainment, the Vikings

entertainment people who put together the intro videos and all that stuff, like the game experience for any of the night games is really amazing. I think it's probably always good, but like the night games have this extra energy that they always bring. They're on national TV. They're really showing it off. I would suggest those way over coming to a practice or something. You know, it's cool to see them up close, but in comparison to going to a real game where that roof is about to blow off against the Green Bay Packers.

I mean, if you're doing it once, you've never seen them before. I don't know what your financial situation is like because it's going to be more expensive to go to a Packers game. But like, that's the one. If you're just picking one, that's the one. So thank you all for more great questions in this episode of fans only and there will be plenty more since i've gotten a lot of questions so if you haven't heard yours yet be patient um and uh i will continue to run down the list and i will someday be a little shorter with my answers, but I try to give you all that

you paid for here. When you reach out and you're kind enough to ask a question, I always want to give you a thorough answer. So thanks so much everybody for listening and we will catch you later.