Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Who else should the Vikings sign in free agency?

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Should the Vikings sign more free agents? Sure. But where should they spend whatever cap space they can muster? Sam makes the case for the offensive line while Matthew talks about an option along the D-line that would actually change the Vikings' chances on defense. Plus popular baby names and how we felt on draft night in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here along with Sam Ekstrom. And it has been quite a while, but it is by request that we bring back the what now sam game so i'm just gonna start out and throw it out there to you sam what now what now for the minnesota vikings we've hit this little lull that we end up in pretty much every year where free agency quiets down and we haven't quite got to the draft yet. And there's all sorts of rumors and things that could happen, but usually it's a little bit of a dead time. Although we did get a trade today that was bizarre, honestly, between the Philadelphia Eagles and the new Orleans saints, where they just

swapped a bunch of draft picks. So I guess Howie Roseman is trying to hack the draft system and trading with the Saints who seem to want to get, you know, draft picks to help them right away in their competitive rebuild, if you will. So what now for the Minnesota Vikings? Yeah, it does feel like, you know, you get sort of in those three weeks before the draft and, you know, all the players that are still available just kind of have to sit there until after the draft and you know all all the players that are still available just kind of have to sit there until after the draft i mean you you want to be signed if you're a free agent before the draft because that's when teams can fill out those rosters make you much more expendable and i think teams like the vikings would be happy to do that and lower some prices on

people because i think they still have a couple areas where they need more help. I would love to see another veteran cornerback. I would love to see center help, another wide receiver perhaps, another tight end. I think that there are bodies out there that could help this Vikings team and they've got very limited resources to spend. But at some point, we're going to have to pivot to saying, all right, can we find any contributors this year in this draft? Hasn't been all that successful for the Vikings in recent years. You had Justin Jefferson, obviously. You had Christian Derrissaw second half of the year. You had Ezra Cleveland second half of the year.

This team doesn't get a lot of draft picks come out of nowhere now was that a product of drafting or is that a product of mike zimmer bringing guys along to slowly not trusting his young players i think that'll be interesting to see like how kevin o'connell trusts particularly on offense some younger players because i mean it's not as if rookies can't play. You see it all over the league. Like, there are contributors week one all the time. It happens. It's not, like, common, but it happens. So I want to see how aggressive this coaching staff is with attempting to fill actual spots with these rookies. And at the same time, you know, not feeling attached to filling needs and still going to get talent. Because you really aren't.

You really can't go wrong if you go best player available at 12. And as you've listed out, Matthew, some pretty good hits and the number 12 draft spot over the years. Right. We do talk about pretty often that there aren't many draft picks who step in right away and make a huge impact. But last year, the 12th overall pick was one of the best players in the NFL in Micah Parsons. And two years ago, the Vikings draft pick Justin Jefferson right away, a top player, Jamar Chase, same thing for the Cincinnati Bengals. It's not that it's impossible, especially if you're drafting a higher in the first round to get that guy. It's always just that when you're trying to project what a team is going to be, your reasonable projection for Justin Jefferson

would not have been, oh yes, he will be the best receiver the Vikings have had since Randy Moss. And they've had some really good wide receivers, including Sway, one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, one of the highest graded PFF receivers in the NFL and the statistics where he's threatening Randy Moss records. I mean, that's, that is so unusual, but like you said, it's not impossible to get somebody who comes in right away. It's just that if you're trying to win, then you don't draft that person to start and hope. And that was the case with Garrett Bradbury. That was the case with Jeff Gladney. Like, oh, we've got to get this outside zone system cooking, Gary. Like, all right, great. Well, what if he isn't good? You know, and the same thing actually went for 2016 with Laquan Treadwell, where it was, okay, he's going to neither the number one, two, or three wide receiver that season, but that was the expectation, and if Diggs and Thielen don't explode in 2016, then where would

they have been left? If Diggs had been just average or not that great, they would have been left with not a whole lot in the receiver room, but instead, you know, Thielen gets Thielen gets, what was it, 70 catches that year and Diggs ends up sort of emerging as a star. But that almost came back to bite them by hoping that Treadwell would have been that guy. So it's an interesting discussion of how many of these spots that are left should you fill knowing that they're going to try to win and also knowing that the number 12 overall pick does sometimes have immediate success. What is it? What is the answer? I mean, there's not a whole lot of cap space, but it's not zero. So if you wait it out now for the next few weeks and then

everybody's desperate, I mean, there was just some argument on Twitter between Mike Florio and Bobby Wagner about how much money Bobby Wagner was actually going to make as opposed to what his contract said. And you won't be surprised to know the answer is not that much money compared to what it said, just like Zedaria Smith, not that much money compared to what the initial numbers were reported. And I think that if you're going down this path, you might as well spend every dollar you have to bring in whoever you can and hope that it works so if you were given uh yourself sam the let's say quacey called you up and said i'm gonna let one person one media member covering this team make this decision for who else

we should sign and sam that's you because i like the cut of your jib. So who is it? Who should we bring in to fill out the rest of this roster? Who would you tell, Mr. Adafo Mensah? Was cut of your jib a reference to something like Seinfeld? I feel like I missed that. I thought that was a good reference, but I feel like it means more than I'm understanding. I don't know.

It's just like a really old saying, I think. Isn't that something that, I don't know, people from a a really old saying like i think is that something that i don't know people from a long time ago have said our grandfathers would have said okay i just want to know if it was from a a popular sitcom that i hadn't seen i i don't think so but uh i mean i'm sure that it's used in sitcoms but i think that it's just like one of those like it shows up on dictionary.com cut of one's jib meaning so i'm not sure exactly what it means it's just one of those like really old sayings yeah someone knows where it comes from then let me know yeah no uh yeah tweet at us i i think that if i'm using the final i don't know we don't know the chris reed

terms necessarily yet but probably four four million dollars or so you have before you have to sign your draft class as well. I would look at the Ben Jones contract that he got with the Tennessee Titans, and I would see how they structured it. I think it was three years with a void a year, and the year one cap hit was $3 million. Now, Ben Jones is a great center in this league. JC Tretter is probably even a better center than Ben Jones. So maybe a little more costly, but he's unsigned. You could upgrade that position massively and you could maybe even have someone for next year because Garrett Bradbury is probably not going to be around then either. I just think that your ability to improve that spot, literally going from

one of the worst pass blocking offensive linemen in the NFL the last three years to one of the best in JC Tretter, who was basically cut to create room for Deshaun Watson, not because of a drop off in play. That to me is the obvious move. And it's clear to me that, that he's waiting to get what he wants financially. Well, maybe the Vikings could give him that and stay cap compliant by just continuing to abuse the void years. I, uh, I question every time they do it, but that obviously has been a decided philosophy that they've wanted to adopt is how can we save a buck now and push it down the road? They're clearly okay with that. I think I'd be calling Treader right away. Just gauge it out and see what you can negotiate and

try to bring him in. So I like this plan naturally. And the other day, Paul and I talked about how Kirk Cousins is responsible in part, not at all fully responsible, but his playing style is responsible in part for why it's been so difficult for the interior offensive lineman because he doesn't escape and playing style of the quarterback matters for how your offensive lineman perform. So sometimes you could put in someone mediocre at right guard. If you have say Patrick Mahomes, who often escapes right or left, but if you have say Patrick Mahomes who often escapes right or left but if you have someone who steps up in the pocket or someone who doesn't move at all in the pocket then it's just a target for teams to rush up the middle and we saw everyone

figure this out over the years with Kirk Cousins and Rick Spielman essentially do nothing to fix it and at this moment they've really done very little to fix it. I like Chris Reed as a player who could potentially be average, but you have to project whoever you bring in to be less than what you want or what they have been. They had ideas of moving Mike Remmers to guard. Well, that didn't work out because every time that guy gets beat, you're going to realize it because your quarterback doesn't move. And so for this reason,

JC Tretter, who has been one of the best pass blockers in the league, like you said, if you've already gone down this path, you've already gone past go and you've already hurt yourself long-term with the cap and made it pretty challenging down the road to deal with some of the dead cap hit and things that are really inescapable at this point, unless you give cousins another extension. If you end up losing Daniel Hunter, those void years will end up hurting you as well. I mean, you've already done this. Like what's one more, I guess, if you saw, did you see the viral video with the football players who were dropping a little bit of water into a cup? Did you see that? No enlighten me. Okay. It was amazing. So they had a cup and they had another cup full of the

cup is like almost full of water and three or four guys are playing where they have to dribble a little bit of water into the cup. That's almost full and whoever the last one is where it runneth over that person loses and gets thrown in the pool and so it was as dramatic as any sport you'll ever see it was just like the guy's shaking and he's trying to drop just enough water in but not so much that it goes over and eventually the cup runs over and he gets thrown by the offensive lineman into the pool. And I forget exactly why I started talking about this, but it feels like if you've already dripped in the void years and everything else into the cup, you might as well just keep going as far as you possibly can until the meniscus just blows up and your cap situation is terrible again someday.

That was the point. And so if JC Treader wants to make X number of dollars in cash, what we do know about the Wilfs is they have cash and they will give it to you if you're halfway decent at football. Why not? Now, the other idea would be if Kevin O'Connell believes in Garrett Bradbury. Actually, before I give you my other idea, can I just ask you this? If Kevin O'Connell told you, if he dropped by, if he logged on to this StreamYard cast right now, and he said, you know what? You know what, Samuel? Here's what I think. I think Garrett Bradbury is a great football player, and you guys are too hard on him. Would you be worried about him?

I mean, like, would you, would you say like, Kevin, how much do you believe in yourself? Because we think you're probably pretty good at this. That's our guess offensively. But if you think that you are going to change the stripes of the zebra of Garrett Bradbury, where he's not going to get plowed by Kenny Clark, then I think you're being a little naive. And so I guess if they're not chasing after JC Treader or still looking for an improvement or at least competition at center, then I think they're being naive about their own powers to enhance players abilities. So I guess that that's what I think if they don't do your plan and chase one more

interior offensive line. Yeah, I'm with you. And this would be thematic with what their approach seems to be for Kirk cousins, where they, they seem to think that their influence will elicit a different result after we've seen seven results that have kind of gone the same way with Washington and Minnesota. I agree with you. I mean, I think that to see how closely, you know, that the teams often will kind of listen to PFF. I mean, I know that's kind of the stats. We keep going back to that well is he's the lowest rated pass blocker three consecutive years and there's no way so that's where it matches up with the scores is what

you're saying yeah exactly there's a correlation there he is was not playing well analytically uh that meshed with the eye test and the coaching staff acted accordingly. Garrett Bradbury is 28 years old now. There's not a lot of physical maturation that's going to happen. Um, and I don't see how you can seriously, seriously say that you're trying to, you know, improve this offense, get it into the top 10, top five without more, uh, thorough changes on this offensive line. Um, so this point it's pretty much stop gaps. Um, I haven't seen anyone come across the wire who I believe is going to be a multi-year starter yet. Davis Reed Schlottman, whoever, and Garrett Bradbury might be in a contract year, probably is in a contract year. So not only is it not really equipped for this year, but it's not really equipped long term either.

Even though you do have a couple pieces that you're hopeful about on the left side, with this quarterback, I think you need to fortify it more thoroughly for me to feel really confident about it. Assuming that they don't pick up his fifth year option, which they would have to have been hit in the head very hard the day before in order to do. I mean, at this point with the results that he's had and, you know, I guess the, the point about PFF matching up to the Vikings moves, they almost always have. I mean, the only one I could think of that didn't was Brett Jones, but Brett Jones was just not in shape to play 17 or 16 games. He was just, he was just not a guy who you could play for that long.

I think that was always the issue is they felt like for a couple of games, he could go out there, but not somebody who could do it for a whole season. And I know that Spielman has mentioned qualifying players that way. So I think that that's probably how they felt. But aside from that, go through what people graded and then what moves they made. TJ Clemmings put up some of the worst pass, you know, pass rush or pass protection, and they moved on from him pretty quickly along the offensive line. It is matched up for who they've moved on from and who they kept, like Riley Reif and wanting to keep Riley Reif. He graded out pretty well.

So we've always, there are things that are not so reliable and they'll admit that. Like linebacker stats, for example, Eric Hendricks had a tough year by their metrics last year against the run. I don't think that means he forgot how to stop the run. Well, I don't think that means he forgot how to stop the run. I think that means that they were really struggling assignment wise or something upfront injuries, whatever it was and guards and centers were getting out to be able to block him. So there there's always context, but when it comes to the line, there's huge samples. And if someone's not good even if it's, you know, whoever it is grading, it is going to notice. So that's the point on Garrett Bradbury that you can notice with your eyeballs or somebody else grading everything or the scout inside the team or whatever it is. So I think it would be foolish to at least not have competition.

And that's the biggest thing is when with Laquan Treadwell, they would bring in Kendall Wright or Jordan Taylor or Tajay Sharp. This isn't competition. These are just bodies. And so don't do the same thing here. People have asked if Chris Reid can play center. He may have done it in a preseason game, but he definitely did not do it in a regular season game.

So I wouldn't put any eggs in that basket. And that sounds very similar to old Vikings of like, well, you know, I think he could play a different position than he plays. Please don't stop. My idea though, for the spending, assuming that, you know, they get some sort of competition for Bradbury, but if it was not Treader where they would have to spend some real money and, you know, work it out with the contract would be to acquire dudes on the defensive line that everyone thinks is washed and no one wants to pay. And there's actually three of them that why not get all three?

How about Calais Campbell, Jerry Hughes, and Melvin Ingram? All of them pop to me as guys who there's nothing on paper that says they can't still help a team all of them had good pressure numbers last year all of them are not thousand snap players but if it's a 500 snap player and if there was one thing that i believed could truly turn around this defense because right now I think it's about the same. I think you lost players who helped you and you've gained some players who will help you, but probably net zero at this point, like Zedaria Smith will help, but losing Xavier Woods might not help and losing Anthony Barr. We don't know if Jordan Hicks is going to be good or not.

Anthony Barr actually played pretty well last year. Like all these things. I can't, I can't give it, you know, you're losing Pierce who in a small sample was good Everson Griffin who was excellent and you're bringing in there so I can't make uh one way or the other if they added two more dudes who were in their 30s thought to be kind of washed up no one really wants to pay them especially someone like Jerry Hughes, who has long been good. I would start to project them to be a little better because I think that if there's one way you can even out the fact that you're just not going to have great cornerback play, that's it. That's the one and only way is just that you get after the passer by rushing four and not doing what the Vikings had to do last year, which was if you want to get pressure on the quarterback,

you got to blitz people. And that costs them in several big situations where Zimmer was just dialing it up. And even Patrick Peterson criticized Mike Zimmer a couple of times for getting too quote aggressive, but that's what you had to do. So if they could sign a couple of more guys on the D line, Sheldon Richardson's of sorts from last year, and hope for a little better results,

I think you can actually talk about tangible improvement there. Yeah, and what have we seen the last couple of years? Injuries are very possible. The Vikings went from Hunter, Griffin, to Wanham and Eddie Yarbrough, more or less. And they had Sheldon Richardson playing on the edge. So if you want to just have a big, bad rotation of veterans, several of whom will be one-year guys, yeah, I think that's fine. Look at what the Chiefs did with Ingram.

I mean, the Chiefs basically rented him for the second half of the season. It was like a baseball trade where they just, you know, they picked up an expiring and they squeezed every bit out of him and he was really effective. There are some big veteran names out there that could have high upside and maybe not that pricey if you wait them out long enough. What if the Vikings got a Keem Hicks to play as one of those down three guys in the three-four? I mean, can you imagine having that guy on your team? I'm sure he's going to go for way more than the Vikings can afford, but just, I mean, theoretically, someone who has had high

level success in this league and could tap into that just for one season uh yeah that'd be great because right now the defensive line i would say is average um the linebacking core is pretty average one pretty good player and that's you know kind of about it um traditional linebackers i should say we're done i mean i'm not differentiating between outside edge rusher you know hybrids and then you've got a rookie at safety or a former rookie at safety in camp binum you've got a rookie at safety or a former rookie at safety in Camp Bynum. You've got a shallow cornerback group. So the defense still has holes, but you could at least have that one killer strength like the 49ers did, you know, a couple of years ago where they just had backups that could play at a pro bowl level. That's what the Vikings could aspire to.

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Because it's one of those things where if you sign Hicks and he's had his injuries recently and Z'Darrius Smith has had his injuries and Daniil Hunter, same story. Then like if all of them play all the games, wow, this defensive line is really good. But what are the odds that all of them play all the games, wow, this defensive line is really good, but what are the odds that all of them play all the games? But that's the, that's the, I mean, that's the tight rope that you're walking anyway, when you're signing Zedarius Smith and hoping coming off back surgery, or you're bringing back to Neil Hunter and paying him his roster bonus and hoping, um, there have been people that will, you know, tweet me and say look this injury that daniel hunter had it's not that big of a deal and people come back from it all the time and well that's

okay i mean i believe you about that particular injury the neck injury was two years ago and now we got another one and plus we got eight years of playing on the man's back like these things start to add up after a while and take their toll. And so you would question about whether they could stay healthy. But I think that the lead up from training camp to what's this defensive line going to look like with one or two more beasts up front that they've loaded up on would start to be pretty interesting to how much they could use them and how much better they could actually be. Because that, as we sort of go through and parse through what can be different, that would be different is having a parachute is that that was the, one of the biggest criticisms

we had. And of course it always goes back to the contracts they gave out to, you know, Kirk cousins, Anthony bar, Delvin cook, and so forth, uh uh that you almost never had backup options anywhere sheldon richardson was supposed to be that and was last year but more than one player uh got hurt or had to leave the team like everson griffin and then you're left with kenny willikas playing and well that you know willikas might develop but that's he wasn't ready ready to take that on. So, you know, I think our, what now say, I guess I have to yell it. What now, Sam? That was good. Thank you. I think that it's pretty much like you, you shouldn't be done in free agency, but you don't have to do it today because as you were mentioning,

like these guys should be worth more. And usually there's a reason why they're not being picked up as we've discovered in the past. But there are sometimes every once in a while, that guy who just no one will pay. Jadavion Clowney, like no one will pay for whatever reason. And you end up getting a pretty good deal. Let me do you have any other ideas on that? And because I have another thing i wanted to ask i mean i'm just looking at their defensive line room right now they've got so many bodies in

there um and none of them are that inspiring caller but if you could just get one player to sort of rise above their draft status and surprise someone the vikings just haven't had a lot of surprises in the past couple of years. They relied for so long on kind of finding some diamonds in the rough with Harris and Wilson, and Joe Berger was definitely a diamond in the rough. KG Osborne was a nice story last year for sure, but on the defensive line, you've got James Lynch,

T.Y. McGill, Jordan Scott, T.J. Smith. These are all rostered players. Kenny Willekes, Jalen Twyman will be back next year. Can you just get one person to give you something? Because it's pretty easy to write all of them off. I mean, just looking at the roster, you kind of say, nope, nope, nope, nope, no impact. Can one person just kind of rise from the rubble and help them out when they don't expect it? That's what, I mean, all great teams need that. You need to have some help. You can't just manufacture, you know, these, all these signings to fill out your starting lineup. Occasionally you're going to need someone to be a complimentary

player when you didn't expect it, You know, the next man up mentality. Yeah, that's something that has not happened too often in recent years where an Anthony Harris develops out of nowhere and then becomes a very good player for them. I have a important draft, two important draft questions for you. And then I wanted to look back at the last few years and talk about which ones of our takes on draft night

blew up spectacularly and which ones of our takes on draft night blew up spectacularly and which ones turned out to be absolutely right. But there's two players that have really caught my eye for draft S Z N that have been the draft seasoniest of the draft season. And that is cave on Thibodeau and Kyle Hamilton. Kayvon Thibodeau under my impression for most of the college season was that he was going to be the number one overall draft pick and as the year went on Aiden Hutchinson certainly earned that. I mean he was in the Heisman running spectacular and the game against Ohio State was pure insanity. Okay Aiden Hutchinson beast great but I assumed Kayvon Thibodeau was going to go in the top three or four.

And then now everyone's worried that cave on Thibodeau has a personality and that he wants money. And now I usually am quick to dismiss such matters because people like money. And if they're playing for it, that's fine. That's what people do jobs for. Uh, and I've never found players who are really money focused first to not succeed, like for, for that reason. But I would say that there were some things about Josh Rosen's personality and maybe Baker Mayfield's like that were concerns coming into the draft. And there have been others like this and sometimes they're right sometimes that is the downfall of the player um so we don't really know what cave on tibido said to teams that may be causing his draft stock to drop and that brings me to do you want to pick him at 12 and i will say the same thing for kyle hamilton where daniel jeremiah tweets he ran a 4-7 and that's

just like accepted as fact, even though I don't know if like I saw it or timed it or who timed it or what scout said it or whatever it might be. Or if a scout who wants Kyle Hamilton said that he ran a four seven, he ran a four, five, nine at the combine. And what's Harrison Smith run these days? Probably, I mean, probably like a four, seven, four, eight. He can't be asked. I don't know that that's a blazing speed position safety, but same question for cave on Tibidone, Kyle Hamilton, Tibidone's personality, Hamilton's 40 time. Would you want either if they dropped to number 12 in the draft? Definitely. Definitely. I would, um particularly tibidow i don't put any stock in like personality smearing at this stage to me it's it's much ado about nothing um kind of you know

dirty pool teams are going to do that they're going to try to to leak stuff and maybe there's an ounce of truth to all rumors as our friend stefan once said but i wouldn't put any stock in in that unless there was something uh tangible um so i would 100 take tibideau pff though mocked him number two to the lions yesterday so i don't know if they still believe that he's gonna go um pretty highly that being said there are enough edge rushers high in this draft where i mean i could see a team deciding oh you know george karloftis in our grading is pretty much the same as tibidell so if there's any threat of him having you know diva mentality maybe we'll go with george um or maybe we'll go with jermaine johnson the second from florida state uh so there are some good edge rushers that I guess could threaten to pass him

as that number two edge off the board, but I would for sure take Thibodeau. And talk about stacking up athletes on that defensive line, that would be enormous. And then to find the next Notre Dame safety, I think that's a big pickup. I mean, safety play is strangely valuable when it comes to war. It does, when you have elite safeties, elite safeties can correlate to defensive improvement.

Average safety is not so much. But I think that safety, like you said, is not necessarily incumbent on speed. It's a little more on instincts. So if he's not going to run a four or five i'm okay with that um i just want him to know how to like diagnose stuff and have harrison teach him how to like move in and out of the box that to me is is the real value that viking safety has brought in recent years and we've seen some really good safety play

and uh very few of those good safeties have been lickety split fast. So I'm good with either one. Yeah. And same with Anthony Harris, who played really, really well for about a year and a half. And then 2020, I don't know if anybody actually played well on the defense. Quick question about George Karolafdis. I just looked up the top hundred baby names for boys and George, unsurprisingly, is not on it. I think it's a name that will always be passed down through the years, but is not in the top hundred anymore of baby names. Now, in 1747, I bet it was by far number one. I want to know real quick if you can guess the top five boy names for 2021.

You had to do this twice. You had to name kids. And I've probably looked at that exact list in the last 14 months. Okay. Top five. I'm trying to think of boys that I, boys that my, my friends have had recently.

Cooper. Okay. Let's see where Cooper is. I know that's on here somewhere. Cooper is 76th. Hey, Jace is 75th. I wonder if our friend Jace will be upset about that. My wife doesn't want anyone to have her name. She has a very unique name and she would prefer that you not name her, your kids kids her name so i'm not going to tell it to you most of you probably know it um cooper's good guess though don't give any hints um is it is easton on there let's see uh easton is 62 so you're getting warmer okay all right this is it's family feud i'm working my way up the board it's funny 60 is whalen is there a lot of there's a lot of Waylon's out there.

Okay. Interesting. But like W a Y not as in Lindsay Waylon. Strange. Um, this is really hard when you're trying to think in the moment. Like I, I understand why people do embarrassing things at,

at game shows. Um, okay. Give me like, give me like a first letter. So I don't have to stammer. Okay. Hints are hard.

Uh, L is the first letter so i don't have to stammer okay hints are hard uh l is the first letter of number one okay latavius no i don't uh okay i'll get i'll give them to you i figured this game would be absurdly hard so uh liam is number one number two starts with an n yeah and um i can't even think of one one n name at all like animals two by two noah yeah noah yep noah noah is really i wouldn't actually wouldn't have guessed that um let's see okay i'll just tell them to you so So it's Liam, Noah, Oliver, Elijah, and Lucas are your top five baby names of 2021. And on the girl's side, if anyone's wondering Olivia, Emma, Amelia, what Ava and Sophia, Sophia, little golden girls reference there. Okay. I would say that there's probably a little bit of 90s nostalgia that's

creeping into naming a little bit older names are coming back into style i can i can confirm that so after george carol aftis becomes the greatest edge rusher in vikings history which is hard to do with chris dolman and jared allen and carl eller uh then can you name an active george in league right now is there there is an active george um and now that i look at it i don't actually see one okay he needs to be the first the only george i know is george jahuri our friend from pff there is an executive named george okay george paid um let's move on from this because neither one of us are good at names, apparently. And let's talk about a little talk about nostalgia. Let's talk about draft night nostalgia, because one of my favorite things about draft night

is attempting to give takes on something that we don't really know and won't know. And it's impossible to know for everyone how it's going to turn out. So what you do is you give your best guess. You talk about why it made sense that they picked them or didn't, and then talk about how it could work and how it could not work. And that's really all you can do on draft night, but we have a grand time doing it. So let's go back to 2018.

They take Mike Hughes in the first round. Let's just talk first rounds only. And then we can talk about some other ones if you want. When they took Mike Hughes in the first round. Let's just talk first rounds only. And then we can talk about some other ones if you want. When they took my cues in the first round, I think I was on board with all the people who said a corner. What are you doing? You need offensive line help and you need it now. It's 2018.

You're going for it. Super bowl or bust my friend. Why are you picking a corner corner a corner is for the future and you need a guard for the now connor williams or will hernandez should have been the answer both turned out to be not all that good right away uh brayden smith did turn out to be actually really good so you could have hit on that one uh that's how i remember feeling in in 2018 and i think i did a show the next day, basically saying that, like, I don't really get it. And then in the second round, they drafted

a tackle. And my feeling was, Oh, a guy who weighs 280 pounds who won't be able to play this year. And then we saw him and we were like, he doesn't even weigh 280 pounds. He's not going to play this year. And Brian O'Neill proved us wrong. Mike Hughes, though, did not turn out to be a very good draft pick. What do you recall about your take that night? Yeah. So, I mean, if you give me like lump in the first two days where you had him take Hughes, you had him take O'Neill. I feel like a part of me set agreed with the notion that, all right, Terrence Newman is

not going to be around forever um and this is a super high positional value spot and i respected it because it was a little bit contrary to the vikings usual uh draft for need philosophy and it did however sort of fly in the face of what zimmer had preached years before that he didn't love short corners um and Mike Hughes was pretty short he was fast but he was a pretty short player um but then getting getting O'Neill I felt like his athleticism was a good fit for what they wanted to do offensively and I hadn't really grown tired of you know sort the, the mobile offensive line rhetoric yet. So I was probably a little more of an apologist for at least those first couple of picks than, uh, than others were.

Oh, Hey, Mason Cole got drafted that year, by the way, and Harrison Phillips. Crazy. How exciting. Uh, very exciting. Yeah. And then, so who got their third round pick that year? The Vikings. Yeah. They didn't pick in the third round oh oh well i mean if we're trying to figure out is that one of the ones where they traded out they might yeah they traded with the bucks it looks like yes they traded out so they could take jalen holmes the next day what a time to be alive i mean jalen holmes was one of the most immediately oh come on now draft pick because he had like no sacks at ohio state if you're going to play at ohio state on the defensive line and you sack no one going to be a little concerned about that

uh and traded down to do it it's not the first time uh we'll get to another pick in the next draft i think where they traded down also and it was just completely insane 2019 garrett bradbury well you know look uh that was one where it was still in, you got to fill immediate needs mode. And the way that people had talked about Garrett Bradbury was that he was going to come in and be the best reach blocker that anyone had ever reached block. Daniel Jeremiah called him the grim reacher. Okay, great. Uh, all right i guess gary's gonna run and or wait not gary um no yeah was it gary stefanski uh would have been stefanski right so okay stefanski's gonna reach block and are gonna zone run or whatever and they're gonna use a shanahan system and this guy's gonna be

super valuable my feeling was that if they believe this guy was a first round pick, he is going to be fantastic. That was my assessment. This guy is going to just be incredible because nobody drafts first round centers unless they're incredible prospects. And then it just didn't materialize. And it was pretty clear right away, even in training camp, that this thing wasn't what they were looking for. And, uh, you know, it was one of those deals where you go, Oh no. Oh, okay. And the same thing with the size of the guy was just, that's him. That's the offensive lineman they picked, huh? Uh, but you know, where, where I questioned it quite a bit was two areas and one was extremely, extremely right.

And the other one was extremely wrong. That's how it goes. I thought they should have picked Andre Dillard and plan to move on from Riley reef. That was like half, right. Uh, but Dillard has not become a great player or I thought they should pick Debo Samuel, which would have just been freaking insane if they had drafted Debo samuel um and going with a center as opposed to a tackle or a receiver it was the positional value thing that if they draft debo samuel this could be nuts because i watched you know some of him thinking they could pick him and it looked like it looks in the nfl in college it's just like breaking tackles everywhere and everything like that was him it's not like he shockingly became something it was like you knew that that was him and you went with a center i think it's one of the most first

guessable mistakes where you could say on draft night yeah this i yeah i don't know i i i think that that one was one where we were questioning the positional value and that ultimately came to fruition it stings a lot when you look at who did get picked middle to late in that round, because there actually was quite a bit of talent. Jeffrey Simmons would have been unbelievable. I mean, that would have solved your defensive tackle problems that you've had drafting. And Simmons was hurt at the time. So you probably were a little bit concerned that, well, is he going to be okay i think he was coming off a knee injury turned out to be great um but you know noah fant you you ended up taking irv

smith um the next round noah fant was there um brian burns won a couple picks before that there were there were a lot of coveting or coveted prospects i would say in that first round and the vikings they got a guy who'd won the remington and that usually correlates pretty well um but he was also 24 and i and i remember spielman like really really kind of sarcastically blowing that idea off being like oh that doesn't make any difference like it doesn't that he's like a grown man that he can almost rent a car really yeah um it's also weird to think that some of these guys can't rent cars um because they're just like so rich and justin

jefferson you he can't they would turn him down justin jefferson has like years until he can rent a car but um like yeah i mean our friend arif hassan he's really smart about this stuff and he like he awards kind of those adjusted like prospect scores based on age in large measure. Like Young is good. And in the first round, Young is really like you. You want to have five years of that first round pick, then be able to extend them and still be in their prime. Garrett Bradbury is going to be, you know, sort of on the backside of his best physical years after the first four years of his deal. Um, so that it was really, uh, meant to be an immediate fix. Um, it was not. And then they had to watch like Chris Lindstrom

be really good. And I want to say there was another Elton Jenkins was unbelievable for green pay and AJ Brown got taken later. I mean, this was one where there was just aton Jenkins was unbelievable for green Bay. And AJ Brown got taken later. I mean, this was one where there was just a lot of guys who turned out to be great. Oh, small correction from earlier. I forgot Bradbury's 27 going into this year,

not 28, but that was my mistake. I don't know if you made it too, but I, I may have, but yeah, that was just a fixing that. But still,

I mean, it's still like you're at, you're getting out of your first contract and you're going to be 27 without even the fifth year option. I mean, that's a it's a great point. The other thing is, too, like that's one of the reasons they hit on Daniel Hunter and why we question so many times a body of Danabo. They picked him after Hunter like the next year and he was older than Hunter like already

Hunter had played a year in the league. And that was part of why Daniel, I think um, maybe under the radar because he was so young and was still able to, uh, create a bunch of tackles for loss. It just wasn't the sacks, whatever. Anyway. So let's go to, well, can we ask a quick question first? And I'm getting sidetracked on baby names and like random questions, uh, real quick. I just, I think we both agree on this. Trading all the way to the back of the third round to take a running back to replace Latavius Murray is one of the most freaking preposterous things

that any team has done in the draft in the last five years. Just totally ludicrous. It made zero sense at the moment. Nothing against Alexander Madison, but he ran a 4-7. No one was picking him at all. And they were like, Oh yeah, this is our guy. Let's trade back and draft him when we have Dalvin cook. What? So there's that. But the question I had is, is Irv Smith a successful draft pick? No, not yet. I don't think he can be, I don't think you can rest on his potential after three years.

Sorry. I think he's very talented, but probably a little underutilized and injury prone last year. I mean, it doesn't take much to sort of derail the start to your career. He was sharing snaps. He was in a tight end position That was asked to block a lot And he was pretty good at it But he also wasn't getting as many targets As he should have So I don't put that all on him

But I think if he doesn't have a big year You're really looking back And saying what the heck happened Because And we could have arguably said the same about dalvin you know after two after two years i can't remember when he blew probably third year he kind of blew up um at that point too you knew there was talent but you just hadn't seen it for a large enough sample size and there are plenty of talented guys that have been bad draft and mike hughes could

have been a better draft pick if he'd been healthier and if he'd been able to start more games and he couldn't do either of those so i don't think irv is there yet i think he's got a lot of potential but i just can't that can't be the deciding factor it's i mean the thing of also positional value and trying to replace kyle rudolph that was the whole deal is well we're trying to replace Kyle Rudolph eventually and two years in Kyle Rudolph was still there so it didn't really add up and they used the two tight end thing but 66 receptions over three seasons I know his injury was a really bad break and he was having a great camp you don't get awarded a banner for having a great camp and so I feel bad for him. Like he was really good and everyone felt terrible that he got hurt and everything else.

But when we're assessing was a draft pick a success, 66 receptions in two years is a total bust. And as the number two tight end. So he, this year has to explode. And then you have to pay him if he does explode or he's going to leave, which makes this even more of not a great draft pick. Even if he's good, he suddenly becomes very expensive. I mean, this is, you know, drafting tight ends. Also, you might as well draft them in the fifth round because they're so hard to predict. A lot of them. Um, Tyler Conklin was good last year.

I mean, so the 2020, i wanted to go to 2020 and then quick to 2021 because the story's not really written there but 2020 2020 is fun because um roger goodell was in his basement and that was super weird justin jefferson though the minute he was taken i think everybody knew the vikings knew we, how did you get your hands on Justin Jefferson? Because of what he had just done at LSU and, you know, Hey, maybe he wouldn't have turned out to be that great in other,

in another world. I don't know, but this guy was annihilating people at LSU. He had been projected to be in the top 10, top 12, and he ends up dropping into the twenties. It was absurd. 22nd overall, totally absurd that that happened. And from the minute it happened, top 12, and he ends up dropping into the 20s. It was absurd. 22nd overall, totally absurd that that happened.

And from the minute it happened, you went, wow, this is crazy. That one, I was immediately on of this was going to be great. And Jeff Gladney, I really felt like, I don't know what they're doing here. I don't know why they're outsmarting themselves. I don't know why they're not just picking Antoine Winfield Jr. who is right there and they need him. And they, you know, had eventually franchise tagged. They hadn't already, but franchise tagged, um, Anthony Harris, which made no sense at all. And the rest of the draft,

the Ezra Cleveland and Cam Dantzler, I mean, after the fourth round, who knows, but the Cam Dantzler I thought was a tremendous pick because of his value. And Ezra Cleveland, we felt like that's the tackle of the future and he's never been allowed to try tackle even. So I don't know. This is how hard it is to predict the draft on draft night. But I remember being very puzzled at the Jeff Gladney pick because it just felt like, are you guys just out like out to outsmart yourselves or out to be like, no, everyone wants us to pick Winfield jr. So we're not going to do it.

Like it never really made a whole lot of sense. And it's kind of bared out that way. Yeah. The Vikings have kind of always gone out of their way to not take the hometown angle, which I guess you can't let it blind you. And it's not a college program program but I'll be honest with you my favorite receiver was Ayuk in that draft yep Ayuk was my guy and he ended up having the second best pff grade in his rookie year so I wasn't totally off on that Ayuk is really good I think

but he's not Jefferson I had and I hate to admit it I had a little skepticism about just the, the LSU dynamic where everyone was so unbelievable on that team i just didn't think that they're that i thought there was going to be regression going into the nfl when you didn't quite when you weren't that much better than your opponent all the time totally wrong 100 wrong um i think the i mean now that we know what we know the justin jefferson jamar chase tandem at lsu talk about that could be one of the great college tandems of all time um so i i i feel bad that i was so like not on the jefferson train right away would have sounded a lot smarter if i was but um i think it worked out for the vikings and the eagles must just like have a lump in their throat all day when they see that guy's highlights. Cause Jalen Rager. Yeah.

I don't know. Yeah. Not so good. Not so good. I'm trying to find if there was a draft night tweet for me about Justin Jefferson, because you always got to keep your receipts. And then if your takes are wrong, you just delete the tweet.

And then you go, I don't know what you can't you, you can't prove that I liked this guy or didn't, um, no with, with Jefferson though. Part of it for me was I, I remember listening to a podcast with, um, Matt Harmon of Yahoo and Matt Waldman, who kind of does his own thing like we do. And I remember Matt Waldman and Matt Harmon talking about receivers and talking about how like the slot thing was actually good. Like if a guy's played a lot in the slot, that usually is good. It means he can move around a ton and they use guys in the slot in the NFL. And so that was the main criticism of Jefferson.

And then he had a 97th percentile combine. It was just, you know, he ran a four, four and everything else. So look, the guy we've studied this enough to know the guy who drops it, that really doesn't change the odds that much. It's the guy that you reach on that usually is the one that's the problem. So, uh, last thing I wanted to say, but you know, everyone remembers the Mac Jones thing from last year. But, um, I think that where, you know, I remember what I said about Wyatt Davis. I gave it an A plus.

Great pick. Fantastic. Well done. I mean, just great job. This is a guy who could be a good guard for you. And he was projected higher and he was the one who dropped and just very wrong. The Kellen Mond skepticism, I think, is bared out correctly. And Christian Derrissaw being a good deal for them for what his position

was, was also my take. And we don't really know yet how this is going to work out, but draft day. I also, I also liked Cam Bynum. And if that one plays out, you know, we'll see. Cam Bynum just came across so, so well on our draft call, which, you know, doesn't always correlate, but I remember being like, Oh, is this, is this Anthony Harris Bynum? Like just real smart guy. And, um, you know, that's kind of played out so far. We'll see how it works. Yeah. I remember being very mystified how the Vikings could make that trade down and then have three or I'm sorry, four, they're on picks and not somehow wind up in the second round. I thought that was, I thought that was pretty bad because there was a ton, a ton of depth in

that second round and they capitalized on none of it. And the guys that they got all were pretty underwhelming in year one. So that, that I think was a, and I'm sure they tried, but that was a pretty big mistake. Okay. Well, that that is uh that is our recent draft history and we'll have uh many more memories to create on draft night this year as we lead up into it we'll have uh lots of you know great guests and fun games and everything else but i thought taking a little trip down memory lane while we have a deep breath to take here would be pretty fun and there's uh gonna continue the fans only podcast also there's a lot of good guests that we're gonna have later on this week.

Courtney Cronin's popping in. Eric Eager is traveling to Hungary and promised that he would call from the airport. So that's supposedly going to happen. And we will we will carry on and talk to you all later. So thanks for listening.