Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Which will adapt faster, the Vikings' offense or defense? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans' questions, from whether the Vikings can follow a similar path of the Buffalo Bills in turning things around with a new coach, whether the Vikings could realistically win 11 games and make the NFC Championship and which side of the ball will have a tougher time adapting to new schemes. 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 a fans-only question. I am absolutely loaded with questions, so more episodes will be on your way where I answer all of your questions. And a reminder, if you're just listening and catching up on what the fans-only podcasts are, that is where you either tweet me or email me a question and I will answer it on the show. It's very straightforward. So if you go to purpleinsider.com, the contact us, fire away your question there, or go to Twitter, send me a direct message. I always

get them, or you can just send me a regular app message and I will see it there. So those are the best ways to contact me for the fans only podcasts. And I think it was very effective in the last episode to try to limit myself. So I do not ramble. And before I get started here and open the diet, Dr. Pepper, if I could ask for one small favor, just a small favor, I was told that the more five-star reviews that we get, the more people will be able to find the show. And as we go into training camp, it seems like about that time of year where people will start to Google search and things like that, search on

their podcast apps for Vikings podcasts. So if you could do me that small favor of going in, give a five-star review, you don't even have to write anything nice. Just say I listened or whatever, or ask a question there and I'll see it. Uh, but, uh, if you could do that, give a five-star review that helps other people find the show. That would be super great of you. If you enjoy this, if you listen to it all the time, then, um, that is a way to give me a little bit of a hand and help boost the show. So let's open the die, Dr. Pepper. I've got the fans only Google doc open and I have my timer here ready as well. Okay. So I will stick to trying to stay somewhere in the ballpark of five minutes for each question

so I can get to more of your questions. So, all right, let's get going. First question comes from Sean via the email. You're from Buffalo, so I know you follow the Bills a little. Talk about the impact Sean McDermott had with their turnaround and could a surprise fall off happen with day ball leaving. I seem to remember a time where a day ball was considered a subpar coordinator who was

getting a buy on his connections. So I'm not going to die on that hot take cross. Okay, Sean. Uh, yeah, I think that it's really something with narratives about coaches and things like that, that usually someone turning around a franchise also has to do with just so happening to land on the right quarterback. So we have to say that first. But if you think about really best case scenarios for Kevin O'Connell, isn't it a hundred percent

Sean McDermott? Like the first year that Sean McDermott was there, he came in and tried to do what he tried to get the franchise back on track after Rex Ryan had pretty much made a mess of things and the culture was kind of a disaster. And so he had to kind of clean up, uh, the mess that Rex Ryan had left behind. And they didn't immediately tear all the pieces apart. Limb for limb. They kept Tyrod Taylor, which if you guys think that Tyrod Taylor is massively different than Kirk cousins, and I'm sure that some of you just went, huh, what? But at the time that Rex Ryan was there, Tyrod Taylor was going about 500 and he was getting debated constantly. Trust me. I was there

every single day. There was the Tyrod Taylor debates. Is he good enough? Is he not good enough? And they played it out. They, I believe made the playoffs, but still decided,

you know what? Paying Tyrod Taylor a huge salary. They would have had to have signed him to a contract or something like that. I can't remember the exact details, but I think there was contract involved. So giving him a big raise or whatever it would have been and locking themselves into Tyrod Taylor long term would have been a mistake. Instead, they decided to move on from Tyrod Taylor, take a step back with Josh Allen, draft the quarterback. They moved on from their expensive players like Sammy Watkins, Ronald Darby, and so forth. And then they started to rebuild everything around Josh Allen. And it was certainly rocky at

first. If you remember, Josh Allen didn't even win the job right off the bat. And I think it was Nathan Peterman out there throwing 10 interceptions a game. And it looked like Sean McDermott might have no idea what he was doing. And then Josh Allen starts to grow and starts to build. And it looked like Sean McDermott might have no idea what he was doing. And then Josh Allen starts to grow and starts to build. And the thing with McDermott too, is he is an absolutely phenomenal defensive coordinator. So even though he has had an exciting offense with Brian Dayball that seemed to empower Josh Allen, his defensive coordinating, if you look at their defense over the last few years, the way they built up their secondary, they drafted Trey White. They got Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, two absolutely phenomenal secondary pieces there.

And they were able to build up and start there. And they're the team that really focuses on defensive backfield first and then will fill in and work around the pass rushers and scheme the pass rush. So that's an interesting strategy that they've gone with that has worked really well from them. And then they took a lot of really good shots. I mean, they knew when it was their time for Josh Allen and made the trade for Stefan Diggs. They built up their offensive line by taking a lot of swings at offensive linemen that fit how they wanted to play. And then they decided to just go all in and throw all the time with Brian Dable, which gets me to your point that I do think that Brian Dable was a big part of Josh Allen's success. However, they've already laid the groundwork of that, right?

So they already, it's sort of like, you know, Kevin Stefanski leaving and Gary Kubiak taking over, like they already had implemented this offense. And as far as I know, I don't think that they're just throwing out the entire day bowl offense and putting in an entire new offense for Josh Allen. That would be a big mistake. So once it's implemented and everybody's got it, then it's gotta be be the same play caller or play calling caliber and good play calling. But I'm not ready to say that Brian Dable was the only guy who could call plays for Josh Allen because so much of his success was due to the fact that he could go off schedule that when plays broke down, he could run around and avoid getting sacks. Actually,

his record of not getting sacked is truly incredible. They have great wide receivers still for their new offensive coordinator to work with. So I think that a big part of it is Sean McDermott and his ability to create a very, very good defense there that it wasn't just, Oh, their offense and Josh Allen as great as Josh Allen has been over the last couple of years, but I think their defense has been extremely valuable for them. That comes back to McDermott. The culture that they set up there goes back to McDermott.

And even our friend Jeremiah Searles talked about he was there briefly, and he talked about how it was a very positive atmosphere for players when he was there. And I think that ties back to Sean McDermott as well. So nobody ever succeeds unless they get really good quarterback play. Otherwise you're just out of the league, no matter how good you are with defense and culture. Maybe Vic Fangio on the defensive side shows us that, that Denver in recent years didn't get good defensive play and he, or I'm sorry, didn't get good quarterback play, but got good defensive play and yet still ends up losing his

job. But I, yeah, I think that the entire leaning into Josh Allen throwing all the time and all that is probably a combination of McDermott and Brian Dable. and then executing that has a lot to do with, I mean, not that, not that I'm saying Dable won't be better in New York that than Joe judge, but you trade for Stefan digs and you have a quarterback with that skillset. I mean, I don't know that it was completely genius to throw the ball all the time when they didn't have a good running back at any point. Anyway, it's like, yeah, I mean, I give him credit because that offense took huge steps forward, but I don't think it was Bill Walsh innovation to say, put Josh Allen back there, have him make plays, throw to Stefan Diggs constantly,

you know, get receivers that could be opened on quick routes and things like that for Allen to get easy completions and then use the rocket arm when you get a chance, let him do the rest. Like I, I think that there are probably other people in the league who can also execute that. I'm not sure that there's a ton of coaches who can get their organization in line after where it was with Rex Ryan, and then go through some Rocky moments. There are some down moments, some people questioning Josh Allen. I mean, including myself, I was not sure that he would ever become the quarterback that he has become to work your way through that and then build a defense at the same time. I think Sean McDermott deserves a ton of credit. And that's, again, that's sort of your, your, your best case scenario when you change

coaches is that you get a guy like Sean McDermott, who not only can create that atmosphere that players want to be there, but also get the most out of the quarterback and on his side of the ball, you know, I know O'Connell's offensive, but on his side of the ball, really maximize everything that they had to build a good defense there. So ton of credit. I don't think that they're falling off, but I think that the AFC is just harder. So I wouldn't be shocked if somebody surprised them or they didn't get as many wins as Vegas thinks where they didn't end up in the Superbowl because the AFC is so challenging. But, uh, I think what they've built there is enduring for Sean McDermott and we'll,

uh, you know, carry on past Brian Dable leaving. So that's a good question. Uh, all right. On to the next one. This from at you like that I'll call him a friend of the show. He is, uh, let's see a question for the pod. You mentioned that many players have professional chefs. Have you ever met these chefs or know how one becomes an athlete's professional chef? I listened to a lot of food and cooking podcasts with chefs, but I know nothing about cooking in sports. I wish I could give you a better answer for this. I know nothing about cooking in sports either,

and I don't listen to any podcasts, and I've never asked anybody. Now, that is a good question. You know, it tends to be from just my vague understanding, and maybe there's been a handful of articles and it's possible you could give it a Google search and see like how each player met their individual chef or was it a company or was it, you know, somebody local or somebody that they knew, uh, or other players turned somebody on to, Hey, this guy's been great for me. And that kind of thing.

I'm sure that there's no one size fits all type of answer. It's probably that you get a reputation as somebody who understands the science of food and cooking for athletes and things like that. And, and what's going to help you maximize your performance. And that also might have to do with who they train with because athletes now, they have their own trainers in the off season. So you get done playing in the league for your season and you go on your cruise or whatever. You go to Mexico for three weeks with your family and you spend some time away, but then you get right back to it and you start working with whatever

trainer you're working with whatever trainer you're working with. I remember from Instagram seeing just like Anthony Barr and Eric Hendricks working with somebody in L.A. Well, I'm sure it's not hard to find a food specialist in L.A. where a lot of these guys will live in Florida, Los Angeles, where there's just a lot of those type of people around. Now, I don't know if that means that they come with them during the season or if that's

an offseason type of thing or if there's somebody in Minnesota. I I don't know if that means that they come with them during the season or if that's an off season type of thing, or if there's somebody in Minnesota, I really don't know. I don't think there's one size that fits all with that, but it's just one of those developments that is very modern football. It's not like back in the day where the guys would decide to start getting themselves in shape the week before training camp and then play themselves into shape, uh, through, you know, those two a days or whatever. This is actually, it does tie into part of the reason why Kevin O'Connell is not pushing these guys. And you know, what's funny is I have seen from Vikings fans, zero pushback, zero questioning of Kevin O'Connell, taking it easier on mini camp and OTAs and not maximizing like every second by pushing these guys as hard as you can, because I think everyone gets it now. Everyone understands that these players are in shape all year round and they

have strategies to make sure that they don't wear themselves out. But if you're the coach, like you're not trying to work somebody back into playing shape, they're already at that shape a hundred percent of the time. And then you get them in, you know, that's why they don't have to play the preseason games. You get them into the training camp and everything else. And everybody's pretty much ready to go from day one because of stuff like this. So, uh, maybe there's a way you can find a little more about some of these people who do the training and who cook the meals and things like that. Um, maybe some of them have podcasts that you can listen to, but I don't, I haven't met anyone in particular who does that.

Maybe there's a feature story there at some point. So I appreciate that question. All right. Onto the next one. This from N Jackson 23. Hey, Matthew, love the show. Thank you for the fans. Only talk me into the Vikings winning 11 games, winning the division, getting a home wildcard game, getting to the NFC championship. The NFC is very top heavy with LA and Tampa at the top, and I believe the Packers will take a step back. Could we get as high as the four seed? All right, let me get a sip of Diet Dr. P here.

Okay, 11 games is not a crazy one to talk you into. You're sort of asking for levels here. 11 games goes to look at their quarterback schedule is how you win 11 games. Let me pull this up. But the Vikings schedule does not feature many quarterbacks that you're afraid of. If we go through them, I mean, of course, Aaron Rodgers, but you can beat Aaron Rodgers once a year out of two. I mean, we'll see.

I guess Mike Zimmer was usually capable of that, but you've got Aaron Rodgers. Jalen Hurts is beatable. Jared Goff is beatable. Jameis Winston, Justin Fields. Like stop me when you hear somebody you're afraid of. Tua, Kyler Murray will get DeAndre Hopkins back. I believe by the time they play the Vikings, that's concerning. Carson Wentz, Josh Allen's a big problem. Dak Prescott could be a big problem. Mac Jones. We'll see Zach Wilson at the moment. You're not afraid of golf again, Matt Ryan, Daniel Jones, and then you have Aaron Rogers and Justin Fields. So you go through that and you think, well, how many of those quarterbacks are better than Kirk Cousins straight up? And the answer is only a couple. You could see Matt Ryan having a little bit of a resurgence. You could see Tua having his dangerous weapons. That game is also at home. London, it could get

weird. Jalen Hurts has some better weapons now. So, you know, it's not, it's not crazy to say some of these games are closer to 50 50 because of circumstances, uh, having to go to London. Plus James Winston can always have 400 yards and four touchdowns as much as he could have four interceptions. Um, you know, Carson Wentz is kind of the same way where he's capable of good games, but has more bad games than good. I guess I would say though, that 11 of those games is not nuts. When you think about, you got four of them against the lions and bears, and if they do not restore the roar and the lions are just mediocre, you could take two from them. You could take two from the bears.

That's not impossible at all. And then in terms of the other games outside of the division, you know, can you get one of these that you're not supposed to win and you probably get to 11? Like, can you get the Cowboys game? That's at home, by the way. So you could get, you know, can you get that one? You get to play a, probably a good Patriots team or decent Patriots team at home. So those are two tough opponents, but they have to come here. And then, you know, the jets is the same thing where it's like Zach Wilson may improve, but he's got to come here. So I don't think that 11 wins is crazy. I mean, I think I picked them to win nine and it wouldn't shock me at all. If they,

they won two more, if a lot of the things we've talked about throughout the off season went right now, where it gets harder to talk you into it is as you go along in this. Like winning the division, if you win 11, is possible if Aaron Rodgers hits the wall that everybody hits eventually, except somehow Tom Brady. But if Aaron Rodgers does not get on the same page with his receivers and they have some defensive injuries, that's where they could win 10 instead of 11. The Packers are still a very, very strong team. So that one's a little tougher to say that the Packers are going to go from 13 to like

nine. Maybe they go from 13 to 10 if they do not play that well on defense. And then Rodgers falls off without Devante Adams. And then if the Vikings get one out of two or two out of two against Green Bay, and I think it's favorable for the Vikings to play them in week one, but it's certainly unfavorable to play them all the way at the end of the season. Maybe if Rogers, I don't know, gets COVID like two more times or gets injured or something like that, then it becomes in the realm of possibility to win the division with 11 games.

Now, as you talk about the NFC championship, this is where it's a little harder because yeah, I think you described the NFC properly to say it is top heavy, but the top heavy, at least at this moment, and a lot can change between now and then is pretty darn heavy. I mean, the Los Angeles Rams did not lose players. I mean, they, they lose Robert Woods and they haven't picked up Odell Beckham again, but I wouldn't be surprised if he returns there. Tampa Bay is really, really good. Dallas should be very good again. Green Bay should be very good again. Like it's that's tough. The whole just get in thing. We've talked about that before where it's like, eh, you know, 11 is much on the borderline of it's possible for you to get to the Superbowl. 12 gives you a much better chance.

And that's where it's pushing it a little bit. Now, if Brady falls off, if the Rams are gassed from last year for having to play all the way through the playoffs that they had to play the four games, and we don't see teams repeat trips to the Superbowl that often. And then if Rogers gets hurt or their defense falls off in green Bay and they don't win the division, and then Rogers hasn't been as good in the playoffs. But the other thing that it is, it's not just that part. It's also that nobody else can jump up either. No one, the 49ers, like you can't count them out entirely because we've seen quarterbacks

do the year two thing. The Cardinals can't come back stronger than we expect. You can't have say the giants or the Eagles or Washington, like none of those teams can surprise us and be very, very good or Dallas get back to where they were last year. So we think that we know who's going to be there at the end, but sometimes there's that surprise team. And in order to get there, you kind of have to be the only surprise team. Uh, and then you have to have, I think in order to get to the NFC championship opponents with weak defenses to where Kirk cousins can thrive in

those games. Because what we know about cousins is when he faces off with very strong defenses, they cover well, and that attack the quarterback. That's where you get that San Francisco game on the road. So it's not totally impossible, but I would say if you were asking me, what's the likelihood that they could win 11, I might say like, I don't know, 20, 25% chance that they win 11. Um, if you're sort of distributing like 25% chance, they win 11, maybe 40% chance they win 10 or something. You know what I mean? Like it's not quite a pie chart, but let's say that it just, it's distributed like that. If we're talking NFC championship, that means a couple of playoff wins for cousins. That means beating a couple of very good teams. And until that happens, I think that the chances of that

are pretty low, but if I'm talking you into it, the best I could do is favorable matchups in the playoffs. That if they got into the playoffs against teams that thrived with offense but didn't have very good defenses, and I don't know who that's going to be in January, then I would say they have a chance. Because I think they can beat teams in a shootout. I don't think they can beat teams in a grindout. I don't think they can beat teams in a, in a grind fest where your offense gets pretty well shut down. I don't think that's really favorable to them. But fun,

fun question. Like it's, you know, I'm not going to sit here in July and say that there's no chance of any of this happening. That one's just a little harder to talk you into. But I appreciate that question very much. On to the next one.

From Peter Philip O.A. Ty Matthew, fans only question for you. From the token Brits in the show's following. Oh, Philip, there are more Brits than you know, man. I'm always impressed. We end up on the charts sometimes. There's like these iTunes charts and as one of the top, I don't know, a hundred or 150 shows about football in great

Britain. So there are more like you, you should find them. And my friend, Peter Carline, who writes for the daily mail over there and comes on the show. Sometimes he's going to be out at training camp. He's flying across the pond. So yeah, there's a, there's a nice little following of UK Brit fans, um, or of, uh, UK Viking fans. I should say, of course you're a fan of Britain. Anyway, here's a back to Peter training camp coming up. And we know that both the offense and defense have new schemes to take on board, which is a huge thing when you're used to playing in a different way with previous coaching ideas. So a two-part question to consider.

Firstly, which side of the ball is going to find it harder to learn and adapt to a new way of working? Second, we know that one unit or the other is going to have a better camp, which will make the other not look as good, given that how many days into camp before the chicken littles appear, whether fans or media, and declare that the season is done because the defense cannot stop the offense or the new offensive scheme is not working.

Prediction, I'll say the whining will start after the second padded practice and wishing we still had Spielman and Zimmer. Well, sir, I would say that you probably maybe spend too much time on Twitter with that. I'll answer the second part first. I think if the offense is crushing, that that's totally fine and nobody will be sky is falling. If the defense is crushing, that's much more concerning because the whole deal is they're putting together a defense that can hold it down, but this is not 85 bears. This is not a Mike Zimmer, 2017 defense by talent.

So you're hoping that it's a good defense. It does not have the makings of a number one defense, unless something goes absolutely crazy or all those quarterbacks that we named earlier all play terribly, but unlikely it's more of like mid-pack talent defense, but the offense by the playmakers and by the price of the quarterback and by the quarterback's previous statistics and by the fact that they decided they were going all in again on this quarterback for at least another year or maybe two and did not rip it apart and did not make the moves to rebuild or anything like that, you want to see the offense look pretty good right away.

Now, to answer the first part of your question, I would say that the defense has it much harder than the offense when it comes to adjusting because the defense requires a lot of communication. And even though playing at home naturally should be better for your defense, communicating at home at U.S. Bank Stadium to a lot of new players that are just learning this system for the first time, I think will be challenging. And what Mike Zimmer had the benefit of over the years

was he had all the same players pretty much from 2015 to 2019. I remember having this statistic and I don't know, you know, whatever, maybe it was an article or something that from 2015 to 2019, all the players on the 2019 that started the playoff game against San Francisco on defense, all of them were on the team in 2015. I mean, that is absolute mastery over a defensive system. When you come into this year, you have Zedarius Smith is new. He has some familiarity with some of the coaches, but it's a new system for him. It's a new system for Daniil Hunter. That's going to be a little bit different. You've got Harrison Phillips coming in here for the first time, Jordan Hicks, Louis seen as a rookie, you know, Patrick Peterson returns, but to a different

system, Cam Dantzler has only known one system in his career and all of them have to master it versus all the different looks that they're going to get. And the green Bay Packers are no joke on offense. And neither are the Philadelphia Eagles. Like these two teams, they can be pretty creative, especially the Packers and Matt LaFleur, where they're going to have a lot of time to scheme and prepare and try to figure out this defense. And also they have a lot of familiarity with it themselves because a lot of the roots of this defense are played in green Bay. So they also understand strengths and weaknesses of it. So right off the bat, just as it was last year where there were some tough times for the Vikings defense, especially against Arizona in Week 2,

I wouldn't be surprised if we have that same trouble for this defense trying to get all those adaptations correct. And if they stay healthy, maybe you're talking Week 3, week three, week four, week five, where they start to really get it. But where they've had problems in the past is when you overhaul a bunch of new guys and you say, all right, everybody learn the defense. But then there's an injury or two. And then those miscommunications or those little issues, they just get exacerbated and kind of blown up to where they cause bigger problems so that to me is the more concerning than the offense where everybody's played together before and kirk cousin said this and i agree with him that having a bunch of reps already figured out with justin jefferson and with

adam feeling i mean you've got years of work with those guys that you should be able to all figure that out together. Delvin cook, Garrett Bradbury staying as the center. So he's worked with Bradbury now for several years. I think they should be in good shape there, but, um, the, the, you know, the sky is falling bit usually comes, I think a little later than you're talking about. Um, if there's reports that they're having a bad offensive day, I'm not sure everybody's going to

freak out just yet I think where they'll go nuts is the preseason game because that's where everyone gets a look at it when you have the preseason game and you know you if you struggle on offense if they even play their starters so they see this is all different these are all adjustments but if they play starters in the say first half of the game because they want to get some of the new system down and they score zero and Kirk gets sacked a couple times, like that's where you're going to find that people will start to get upset. But if they don't play them, it would have to be late in camp that the offense was struggling. Like I remember 2018, we were late in camp and some offensive linemen were hurt and they were having a very

tough time day after day. I remember one particular day it was raining out there and they had to move Brian O'Neill to guard because they had lost a bunch of guys from injuries. And I think we all said to each other as the writers, like this doesn't look right. This looks like there's some problems here, uh, right away with what's going on with this offense. And those problems didn't necessarily show up in week one, but the game against the Bills was majorly problematic. They bounced back, but then later in the season, they have some issues with the offense. It never seemed like they were truly comfortable with a lot of things that they were asked to do. So we'll be looking at that. Um, but I don't know that it's going to happen as fast as the padded practice. And I also

think that with a new coach, there's a lot more leeway than if it looks bad, say with like Clint Kubiak, where people were already skeptical. All right. On to our next question. Let me get another sip here. It's hot. Very, very hot. All right. What is that? Is that Ron Burgundy? So hot diet. Dr. Pepper was a great choice. Okay. Uh, this from a dingo Donnie one on Twitter. How would an early two thousands Dante call pepper be in the O'Connell McVay system? Well, I don't know that they would run it the same way they ran it with say Jared Goff, but I think that the way that they did with Matt Stafford is kind of like what Dante used to do, which was at Stafford was doing a lot of shotgun stuff, stand back there, fired all over

the yard, but where things are really different now than they were back in the day is I think like pushing it down the field was just the way you played quarterback in the NFL. And now the short passes are just, they've, they've really changed the way that everybody plays quarterback. Um, the, the amount of quick throws where you're just taking the snap and you're throwing an underneath route, you're throwing a slant, you're throwing a, you know, quick out or something, throwing to the running backs. I think that they've really advanced that stuff to make it way easier on quarterbacks. And, uh, Dante would have gotten a lot of easier completions. I also think that teams, and I don't know that they didn't do this because he had such great success. But one of the things with teams from back in the day was it was kind of like you play our offense.

Like that's how you do it. You're the quarterback. You play our offense. And now I think that they really tailor their offenses very, very specifically to quarterbacks, just more so. I'm not saying that was invented recently. They've done that, youbacks, just more so. I'm not saying that was invented recently. They've done that in the past. But even more so, how does my quarterback process information and what can we do to help him understand better what he's got to do out there,

what defense he's got to read, and which throws are he the best at? And they've got data for all that stuff too. So by Dante's second year, they could have, or third year, they could have had really good data on here's where he's best at throwing the football. And this is like in the absolute maximum of McVay type of peak level, you know, performance, the motions would have been helpful. The play actions would have been helpful though. I don't know that, you know, Dante is a quarterback you're running a million play actions with, but those motions to get reads on the defense, like one of the things with Dante that I think

was a weakness was probably reading defenses or he was talked about that way. Um, and so a lot of times it would kind of be like, make a play for Dante. If you don't see what's there, take off or just throw it deep to Moss or something. But I think with more coverage indicators and that sort of thing, it probably would have, it probably would have helped him out quite a bit. And just to make my point. So yards per completion back in 2000, I pulled this up as we were talking on average was 11.6 yards and the Vikings with Dante were over 13 yards per completion now I'm going to pull this up for last year but I'm pretty sure that those numbers are way higher than they used to than they are now so by the league it's it's shorter now by the league but

where were the Vikings last year the The Vikings were at 11.2. So that's, in fact, the Vikings in 2000 would have been number one in the league last year. Um, in, in 2000 at 13 plus yards of completion. So it really tells you about the downfield passing in the league and it's gone down as a whole from 11.6 to 11. Um, but there's a lot more quick pass offenses that I think maybe that's, there's probably a little better way to demonstrate it, but that was kind of the best thing I could come up with quickly.

So I think that, yeah, that would certainly have helped Dante. Now, would he have put up like better numbers? I mean, I don't know, but maybe there wouldn't have been the volatility of, you know, he's getting sacked as much as he is play action. I think helps guys avoid getting sacked. I think reading the defense helps you getting sacked. So the years where he was kind of up and down, where he had more interceptions and things like that, like maybe they would have been able to mitigate some of that and help him out. But I do think that he played in an era that was very challenging for quarterbacks. It was kind of the Peyton Manning. The reason Manning was the best

it was because he was the best at like executing the offense and reading the defense and finding the open guy and things like that with a great arm back in the day. Um, but if you gave Dante things a little easier than, you know, especially too with maybe a team that wouldn't have been cheap and was owned by the Wilfs probably would have helped Dante a bit there too. But that's a really fun question. I wonder how many more quarterbacks maybe would have succeeded instead of failed quickly that were drafted. And that was also an era where you had some Matt Hasselbacks and you had some, you know, Trent Dilfer's kind of play well, rich Gannon. It was like very much the, you know, can this guy read the defense? Kurt Warner's another guy who didn't have like an unbelievably strong arm, but just

mastered his offense. Um, so now I think you have offenses that, that maximize a player's physical gifts, and it would have been much more tailored to Culpepper. So, fun question. Folks, want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER for 15% off your purchase. It is summertime. It's baseball season. They have all sorts of great Minnesota baseball gear.

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All right. Let's see. Let's see. I think I've done a good job at keeping them around five minutes, but I lost track of my stopwatch a few minutes ago. I got too excited about these questions. All right. This one comes from Pete E sunshine. Not sure if you want this one for fans only, but if you have a quick take, what's your guess on the fate of CJ Ham in the new scheme? Can't really remember Rams fullbacks over the years. So the Rams were not huge fans of fullbacks. That is true. But one of the things about the fullback in the national football league is that there's just not many human beings who can do it. Uh, the reason that offensive coordinator after offensive coordinator talk about this, and it's actually, this is so funny that this is still a topic because one of the

first things I ever talked to Kevin Stefanski about in 2016, when he was the running back coach, I think for the Vikings was CJ ham and the fullback position. And we talked about how, you know, it was kind of, he compared it in that interview. I remember to like having a traditional big man in the NBA where everybody's wanting these like stretch fours and these fives who can shoot threes. But if you've got the guy who can really pound it down in the paint, there's not too many people who can shoot threes. But if you've got the guy who can really pound it down in the paint, there's not too many people who can defend against that. And yeah, I thought that was a really interesting point because there's only about four teams that deploy the fullback as much as the

Vikings do. And opponents don't really know what to do with those. Like when you only have a couple days to game plan, there isn't a ton different that you can do with your defense. I mean, I do think this was like a Belichick hack was getting really smart players that they could adapt their defense week to week, but how, how many teams can really do that? Usually what they do is they mostly play their schemes. And if their schemes are all built to stop 11 personnel, three wide receivers out there, one tight end, and you throw them three receivers in a fullback or you throw them a tight end in a fullback and the fullback lines up outside at wide receiver.

Like, what are you doing there? It's just throwing you off. And I think that this has always worked for the Vikings offense, that it's a mismatch to have CJ Ham out there. And Kevin O'Connell has talked highly of CJ Ham. I think they'll keep him on the team, especially since he's a great special teamer, plays all the special teams.

But if you're not using that 15, 20% of the snaps, I think you're making a mistake. I think people get annoyed at CJ Ham because he was sort of this sign of the Zimmer era of like, oh, look, typical Zim. They got a full back back there plowing away. But think about it this way as defenses want to get lighter and defenses want to use more defensive backs. You have this guy who can plow those people, those lighter linebackers, those lighter defensive backs. And not only that, but when he's out there and the opposing team is expecting a run, you can do play action. Or when the team is expecting him to be

lined up in the backfield and then he motions out, somebody has to go with him or there has to be some sort of reaction. And if there isn't any, then you know it's his own defense. And that's one of the major pluses of motioning know, motioning running backs, but you don't always want to be motioning Delvin cook around because then they're going to know you're not running the football. So if you're having another running back back there and he motions, you know, that can leave Delvin cook. You could still run the ball. You can motion CJ ham out, use them as part of the run blocking scheme. There's a lot of things you can do with that versatile player. I don't think he's going anywhere.

And I also don't think that Kevin O'Connell is just copy and pasting Sean McVay's offense. I think that it's his job to put his own touch on this offense. It's his job to say, Hey, we got this guy who's a little different than anyone we ever had in LA. Let's use him. Let's use him that way. I mean, is KJ Osborne like somebody in LA is Justin Jefferson like Cooper cup. I think they're different. Um, you know, is Adam Thielen like Robert Woods, like maybe some similarities there,

but are they exactly the same? Probably not. Are all the offensive linemen the same? I think that maybe Christian Derrissaw and Brian O'Neill can move better than Andrew Whitworth. So he needs to look at every individual player and say, here's the bones of my offense that are influenced by McVay, but here's how I'm going to adapt them to these players that I have. And I think that that will involve CJ Hamm. But also this podcast is very fullback bias folks. So, um, maybe I'm just rooting for it. No, no.

I really do have a great respect for what CJ ham has done. And I sort of like, I don't, you know, get annoyed necessarily when people make jokes about checking down to CJ ham, but it's like, well, CJ, that's not CJ ham's fault. It's if, if, if they're checking down short of the sticks on third down to cj ham which probably only happened like twice or something last season but if that's what's going on like that's not his fault like that's probably not how the play was designed that would be the quarterback's fault and the rest of the stuff i think for cj ham is very positive especially since it's one or two plays a year where the guy rips off a 20 yard game. Um, so you can always

use that. Okay. Let's go for one more question here. And thank you guys all for listening as always. Uh, let's see. This comes from Chris via email. I've been pining for a pie chart lately. And while it would be great if you could do one with Courtney aka the pie chart princess uh I'd take a fans only one if you're willing specifically put percentage on a star player out for most or all of the season due to injury a star player elevating their game to new levels of greatness a star player completely falling off the cliff and a rookie becoming a game-changing force and where the kicking game falls, you know, in relation to these other teams. Okay, well, the kicking game part is hard to fit in the pie chart,

so let me work with the other ones. I realize this is quite a list, so feel free to add or make two pie charts or subtract. Okay, so let's just say that I think the kicking game will be fine because, you know, it's always fine with the Vikings, right? No, I'm just kidding. But no, actually I think Greg Joseph's a good kicker. I wouldn't rely on Greg Joseph to be Justin Tucker and kick you 60 yard field goals. But I think that as far as other teams go comparatively, he's probably in the middle

of the league, maybe like the 10th or 12th best kicker. I don't know why people are making quarterback lists and not kicker lists all over the internet. I you'd get more clicks with the kicker lists, I think, but no, Greg Joseph is fine. I think, um, there's no even reason based on what he did last year to have much of a competition. They brought in somebody else. He wasn't very good. So, um, you know, we'll see if there's another kicker at some point, but he should be okay now to your other pie chart. So if we just take those four things, a star player gets hurt, that one's really hard to predict star player elevates star player

completely falls off the cliff and a rookie becomes a game changing force. Um, I think that maybe it's easier to put like exact percentages on these things happening, but we'll try to work it into a pie chart. I think that when you're talking about a star player being out for most of the season, predicting injuries is, I mean, almost impossible. You know, I mean, Daniil Hunter is one of the healthiest players in the league. And Mike Zimmer comes out and says he's not at practice because he tweaked his neck. And we're like, oh, okay, well, he'll be back tomorrow then. And he missed the whole year. That was completely shocking. There have been plenty of times where you have, I mean,

Delvin cook, this great player who starts out his 2017 season, just blowing it up. And then he tears an ACL who would have ever seen it coming like nobody. So that's, but you know, that happens that a star player usually gets hurt on every team every year, almost. So I'll just say that that one, um, you know, I, I think that that's probably like a 60% chance. Somebody gets significantly hurt. That doesn't really go to the pie chart though of, um, of possibilities, but this is a little hard to pie chart, which would have been fun to give to Courtney because she struggles so much. Um, a star player elevating their new game to greatness. Now trying to figure out who that would be as hard because a lot of the star players that they have are already at the maximum of who they're going to be.

So, Justin Jefferson will not get better at football by a lot this year. He's not, I mean, I don't see this massive jump. He might have more receptions and he might have, you know, a little bit more on the yardage. I mean, he's already done incredibly with the yardage. But is he jumping to a completely different level? Is he going from a hundred catches and 1500 yards at 15 yards a catch to like 200 catches or something like that? No, I don't know about that. And the rest are veterans. I mean, Adam Thielen's not getting better. Harrison Smith, Eric Kendricks, Daniel Hunter, Zedaria Smith. You're really hoping that they stay the same. The only player I would say that could elevate, I guess is probably falls into

your next one. You're saying a rookie, but the guy in his second year is Christian Derrissaw. That if there's one player that could elevate to greatness and he's a first round pick, so we can kind of call him a star and he's the only one I can think of so i would only say that there's about a 20 chance that anybody elevates to a next level of greatness a star completely falling off a cliff is probably another 60 70 chance any one of these guys in their 30s you just never know i couldn't tell you today who it would be uh if harrison sm off a little, I think he's still really effective. Eric Hendricks though, linebacker in the thirties. I would throw Adam Thielen into this mix, Delvin Cook into this mix, and also Kirk Cousins

that when you're talking about a 34 year old quarterback, if he drifts off even a little physically because he's in his mid thirties, then he's going to, he's going to have a tough time executing the offense in the same way that he did before. So yeah, I think that there's probably a 60 or 70% chance that one of their best players is not what they were at their peak. And let's see a rookie becoming a game changing force. I will say that's probably 40% chance. Uh, and you know, the rookie,

it's either Andrew Booth jr. Or, uh, Louis scene and either one of those guys becoming a game changing force scene has a better chance, but that's always hard for rookies to do. I think rookie safety is a more manageable position than corner. Can he be a game changing force? Like that's the guy who would be able to do it. And if paired with Harrison Smith, he can go crazy and run all over the field. However, he wants to, to just see ball, get ball. Um, yeah, I mean, he could become a game changing force, but you can't bet on it necessarily.

I think 40% might even be a little bit high. So even though this doesn't fit exactly in a pie chart, I think that those are decent percentages. And by the way, if you're missing Courtney, she'll be back. She'll be back. She's been spending most of the summer on TV doing first take and things like that. And I am always super jacked to see her on there. We know how great of a friend Courtney courtney is and how great she was

at reporting on the vikings so very proud to see her on espn but she's been a little busy to do the pod she'll be back during the season very soon so thank you again for this fans only pod we got a ton of questions in there and i'm really appreciative of all of you who sent them and just do me that small favor of going in, give a little five-star review, help other Vikings fans find the pod. If you know other Vikings fans in your life who are getting ramped up for football, feel free to pass them along to the show.

And thank you all so much for listening as always.