Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Why Randy Moss belongs on Monday Night Football

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

Matthew and Will also talk about reasonable expectations for the Vikings and which player is hardest to set expectations for.  Follow Matthew's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com Fill out the Blue Wire survey for a chance to win air pods. https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=BugBBZdAw0aNFUvtuGkgyhnTao1hdWxOjJwTA2fwHGJUN0hUNEhaSExWN0RRRFdCV1ZOTkdHR1IwOCQlQCN0PWcu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to The Compound. Check it out. Subscribe. The Compound on the Blue Wire Podcast Network. All right. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And joining me on the show is Will Raggetts. He covers the Minnesota Vikings for Sports Illustrated. What is up, Will?

Not much. Thanks for having me on the show. Will, you just started covering the team last year. I moved here in 2016 to start covering the team, and in my first year, Mike Zimmer had an eyeball issue and Teddy Bridgewater's knee exploded. And by the end of the season, there was also a protester hanging from the top of the stadium in Week 17. What was the weirdest Minnesota Viking thing that you covered in your first year?

That's a good question. It was certainly an interesting season last year. I would say one that jumps out is just the whole Stephon Diggs situation following that week four loss in Chicago, which I was able to be at. Bears do not have the best press box in the NFL, by the way. And also Adam Thielen kind of speaking out after that game. That's one that sticks out. I'm sure there were some others,

but I don't think it got quite to the craziness level that you experienced back in 2016. No, 2016 was maybe not the most crazy Viking season of all time. The old school beat reporters tell me 2010 and the sex boat usually leave that list. But 2016 was pretty wild. Last year, that press conference is my Twitter picture, is me standing there during that press conference of Stefan Diggs saying there's truth to all rumors.

And you know what? It did actually turn out that there were truth to rumors of Stefan Diggs' trade. I got a lot of things that I want to get to with you, Will, starting with a piece that you wrote about Randy Moss and why he should be the next color analyst on Monday Night Football. I also want to get to Reasonable Expectations Week, is what I've been doing at purpleinsider.com, and also Delvin Cook and his situation. But let's start with Randy Moss, the analyst.

I just am a little bit mind blown having grown up watching Randy Moss's entire career and the reputation that Randy Moss had during that career, which was pretty, pretty volatile a lot of the time. And now he is kind of just considered one of the smartest and most entertaining analysts out there after getting his job with ESPN. And I love the idea of Randy Moss during live broadcast because, A, he's an incredibly smart analyst and was a highly intelligent player that we only really learned about that intelligence later on after his career because he was so closed up. But all of his teammates that I've ever talked to talk about how smart he was about

the game. Bill Belichick said that he was one of the most players who most challenged him when he was coaching him in New England, and I think if you take that big football brain along with the moxie and just natural entertainment value of Randy Moss, it's the perfect guy to be in the booth. Yeah, and it's interesting you mention that. I think Moss' reputation has kind of done a 180 since his playing career ended. He's gone from this controversial figure who stirred up a lot of different emotions in people to a guy that people are looking back on his career and just realizing how entertaining he is. And I think his role on TV, first with Fox Sports and now with ESPN for the last

four years has been a big factor in that and people can see his personality and they don't have to worry about if he's torching their favorite team anymore. But yeah, like you mentioned, he's got really all of the components I think that would make him successful in the boot. People would root for him to succeed. They wouldn't kind of go in looking to tarnish him like they might with Booger McFarlane and Jason Witten the last couple years. And then he's got the experience, he's got the resume, and he's a really smart player. He would be able to make the broadcast entertaining just with his

charisma and his enthusiasm. And I also think he would able to to analyze the game at a high level it's a question of if he would want to do it because going from that that studio analyst role to actually being in the booth comes with a little bit more preparation and the weekly meetings and all that but I think it's a logical step for him I think it's something he could have a lot of fun with. It almost speaks to just what we want from our person in the booth these days, where maybe back in the day what broadcast networks were looking for is someone who could, yeah, be entertaining to some extent, but it was mostly like break down the football in a way that people could understand. And I always thought that John Madden pushed the limits on both of those things,

breaking down football at a level that people had not ever seen before when he first started broadcasting. But then he was also entertaining and funny, and he and Pat Summerall played off each other really well. And we're seeing a lot of the same thing for the praise of Tony Romo, that the thing that gets talked about the most with Tony Romo is when he predicts a play and then it's right. But he only does that a handful

of times per game. Usually what you're getting out of Tony Romo is just really smart commentary and enthusiasm that is through the roof. And I think he's reined it in a little bit to not be interrupting Jim Nance constantly. But Jim Nance being the straight man, but also playing along enough has made that the number one booth. I think if you found the right straight man to go with Randy Moss, you can bring that entertainment value that goes along with it. But I think that people are just looking for a little more when it comes to their color analysts than what we traditionally thought of that position. Yeah, absolutely.

And one of the main names that's been rumored for that play-by-play role to replace Joe Testator has been Steve Levy, and I think that would be a good pairing with Moss. And I will say this wasn't an original idea of mine. It's Frank Schwab of Yahoo sports wrote something about this a couple of weeks ago. I was kind of expanding on it and, and throwing my support behind it. But he made the comparison in his article actually of kind of Mike Mayock

and Tony Romo, or Mike Mayock is a guy who obviously knows the X's and O's as well as anybody, and he was really good at breaking down the game, but there wasn't a certain enthusiasm there, and that was kind of the reason he didn't really resonate with the audience as much as Tony Romo is. And Tony has the X's and O's, obviously, but he also has the enthusiasm and he has just kind of the overall energy level that you need to keep that

booth entertaining and keep it flowing. And I think if you are a lot of fun to listen to, people will forgive a lot because the previous booth just seemed like it was kind of forced. And I have a lot of respect for Booger McFarlane and how challenging that job actually is to analyze X's and O's on the fly. I mean, even the team doesn't do that. The team goes back and looks at the tape a million different ways before it decides what happens. But we expect this guy up in the booth,

something that's happening in five seconds or less, and it's going really fast, and there's a million things going a million different ways and you're supposed to pick out the coverage or which guy blocked this way or whatever else that's a really difficult thing to do but if it's someone who seems like they're having a lot of fun doing it and it's very natural at doing it I think there is a little more forgiveness from the audience of that guy well he got he got it wrong, but who cares? Randy Moss is having a great time in there. And I agree that he is one of the people that I would put at the very top of the list. And the other thing too, is that Randy Moss is just forever interesting.

You know, they put out a 10 part documentary on Michael Jordan and I thought, well, okay, what football player would come to mind that I'd want to see a 10 part documentary on? And the first one that comes to mind is Randy Moss because he just has an amazing backstory, and you know how smart he is. You know how talented he was. He changed the game when he was on the field, but also even embracing the You Got Moss thing and the little fun bits that they do to see his personality grow like that.

I just think that you always want to hear what he's got to say. And I was lucky enough to be at one press conference from Randy Moss when they were putting him in the ring of honor. And someone asked him a question about Denny Green, and he opened up like I've never seen him open up before. And I think that there's a lot that's been bottled up there for years and years that he would love to say, whether even it's just his own personal experiences on the field

or the things that he saw that he wouldn't ever tell reporters, but guys inside the locker room knew what he was capable of in terms of looking at the game. Yeah, he would absolutely have so many stories to fill kind of gaps in the broadcast, whether it's coming out of a commercial break or late in the blowout. He would be able to just give so many little insights that I think would be really cool to hear, some of which we've probably never heard before.

And like you mentioned, he's been entertaining, one of the most entertaining people in football for the past three decades now almost. He just was one of the top mic'd up guys ever. I think NFL.com ranked him third on that, just the straight cash homie. And any time he's speaking, any time he's just saying something in that classic Randy Moss accent, you want to hear what he has to say. And I think that there's no doubt in my mind that he would be entertaining in the booth.

How quickly he would be able to kind of pick up the nuances of the job is another thing, but I think fans would kind of give him that leeway to maybe take a little bit of time and get into the flow with it. Well, and you would love to see Monday Night Football just in general get back to succeeding. I thought they actually had some good matchups last year. For a little while there, the matchups on Thursday night were better than they were on Monday night football but I feel like last year it sort of came back but I love to go back and watch old YouTube games and Frank and Al and Dan were the crew when I was growing up and I'll still go back and watch those guys and it was just the perfect booth and they've

been since then just fighting to find anything that fits. They had John Madden in there for a little while with Al Michaels. They did the, what was the comedian, Dennis Miller, they did for a little while. That was a complete disaster for maybe, I think, one year. And the same thing with Booger McFarlane and Joe Tessitore, where Tessitore just strikes me more as a guy who you'd hear on Saturdays calling college football. And, you know, Booger McFarlane, I think, is much better in a studio setting you'd hear on Saturdays calling college football and you know Booger

McFarlane I think is much better in a studio setting where he's on with they like get up or something like that I always found him to be very very insightful with that but having to do it on the fly was really tough for him so maybe someday soon we will see ESPN bring back Monday Night Football to what it once was uh I want to get into reasonable expectations week, because that's what I've been writing about at purpleinsider.com. And for today's, as we record this, I wrote about reasonable expectations for the Vikings defense. Why don't you just give me your broad view on what is reasonable to expect

for the Vikings defense? Yeah, it's going to be really interesting. I'll just start by saying that. And I think anytime you're talking about a Mike Zimmer defense, the expectations are that this is going to be a top-half defense in the NFL, if not top ten or top five. I don't think it's going to be a top-five defense just because of all of the personnel replacements

that are happening here, especially at the cornerback position. But it's an interesting defense to me because you've got so many really elite players. You've got the two safeties, and they were able to franchise tag Anthony Harris. You've got Eric Kendricks, who blossomed into one of the best middle linebackers in football last year. You've got Daniel Hunter, who I think could have something like 18, 19 sacks this year. I just, I don't doubt anything with that guy. And then you've got the two rookie cornerbacks they brought in. You've got Mike Hughes, Holton Hill there, all the corners are 23 or younger. So that's going to be interesting,

especially because they haven't gotten onto the field with those rookies yet. The competition at three technique is also going to be fascinating to me. They really could use a replacement for Shamar Stephan there, somebody who can generate some interior pressure, whether that's Armand Watts or James Lynch or who knows, Hercules Mata'afa. But I think if Mike Zimmer is able to put together a top-ten defense here, given all of the moving pieces and all of the young guys and the unknowns, I think that would be one of his more impressive coaching feats.

But I think reasonable expectations are probably somewhere in the 10 to 15 range, whatever metric you want to go on, points, yards allowed, DVOA, whatever that is. You know, it really dives into the philosophy or how we think defense works. Because you mentioned the superstar talent, and Harrison Smith, Daniil Hunter, and Eric Hendricks, you would put them up against the levels of any other defense in the NFL. Take your best defensive lineman, your best linebacker, and your best player in the secondary,

and these three would match up against almost anyone. But I also think that with defense, there's a lot to be said for having average players at every position and then a couple of superstars that can carry you because if you have a weakness we saw this last year from Xavier Rhodes opponents will just take advantage of that repeatedly they were completing 80 plus percent of passes when throwing at Xavier Rhodes so guess what they did every week threw at Xavier Rhodes constantly and the Vikings defense was able to survive it to some extent, but not as well as they had in the past when even they had players like Captain Munnerlin or Terrence Newman filling these positions. Even Mackenzie Alexander

playing solid football is going to be really valuable for you, and we just can't predict what's going to happen at the cornerback position. I would say it probably can't be worse than what Xavier Rhodes gave them last year. And Trey Wayans went under the radar for not having a good season at all just because Rhodes was getting toasted all the time. So I kind of go back and forth there. But the biggest loss for me, Will, the hardest one to replace is Everson Griffin. I think Michael Pierce can do what Linval Joseph was doing last year for them in the last two years. Maybe not peak Linval Joseph, but you can fill that spot and you can

improve at the three technique spot. Your linebackers are still the same. Your safeties are still the same. And even if your corners struggle, they're probably going to give you a similar performance to what you got last year. But Afadi Adenabo, as much as I like him, and I know that you guys went to the same college, so maybe you have Adenabo bias here, but I like him a lot. I really like him a lot. It's a great story. It's a guy who was cut a couple of times out of camp and then comes back last year in a great situational passer role,

makes some great plays. What happened in Los Angeles, returning the fumble for a touchdown, seven and a half sacks, all good. But replacing Daniel Hunter is, I'm sorry, Everson Griffin is not any kind of easy task because this is a guy who was consistently in the top 10 and 15 in the league and pressures going all the way back to when Mike Zimmer got here. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's not, I think some Vikings fans see the seven sacks and are super optimistic and think, oh, Afadi can just slide in and give you almost all of what Griffin's giving you. I think that is probably not realistic. And I've written about this a couple times. Afadi Odenabo hasn't played a three-down roll since high school. I mean, going back to – I covered him at Northwestern. He could never really get in the coach's complete good graces

and earn that every down roll because they were constantly kind of wanting more from him in run defense. So he was that third down pass rush specialist guy, and he still managed to rack up 23 and a half sacks over three or four years doing that, including 10 as a senior. I was covering a game at Iowa where he had four sacks one game, and I was like, okay, this guy can't be blocked by Big Ten tackles here, and Iowa's got some pretty good ones. But so the talent is there.

It's a question of now in his third year, can he put it all together, and can he kind of earn that three-down roll for the first time and he's obviously been working with Andre Patterson a lot. He's got the work ethic, he's got the size but that's a really nuanced position where you can't, what he was doing last year was just pinning his ears back

and going after the passer and a lot of times they moved him inside and he was able to rush against guards which I think is a little bit easier especially for kind of a big power guy like him. But when you're playing on first and second down and you're on the edge, you can't just go crazy off the edge and think that quarterback's going to be back. You might have a run going through your gap that's now going for 15 yards. So you've got to be smart and you've got to play with good leverage.

And that was something that I think Everson Griffin was kind of underrated at, just being an all-around player at that defensive end position. That's a great point because Everson Griffin was a 900 to 1,000 snap a year type of player where he was going to be in there for every single play for every game. And sometimes we would be saying, why is Everson Griffin still out there? Like when he got hurt in London in 2017, it was on the last play of every game. And sometimes we would be saying, why is Everson Griffin still out there? Like when he got hurt in London in 2017, it was on the last play of the game. Why is Everson Griffin out there on the last play of the game? But that is how he was able to play. And there are very few players anywhere in the NFL who can play that complete role, not just rushing the

passer, but shutting down the run and rushing the passer for four quarters and still being good in the fourth quarter, that is a totally different level of durability that's required. I'm not saying Ifadi Adenabo is going to be out of shape. I'm saying that if you've never done that before, that's got to be like climbing a mountain every single week to be rushing over and over and over and over again and going up against left tackles.

I mean, consistently, like you mentioned, moving him around. And I wrote a piece that I think they should still move him around, and they should find other players too. Maybe it's DJ Wanham, or maybe you mentioned on Twitter Jalen Holmes the other day that he hasn't proven anything yet so far, but maybe you try him back at defensive end where he played in college. I don't think it's a great idea to just say, hey, Afadi Adenbo, that job's yours. Play every single snap.

Be Everson Griffin. Have fun. I don't think that's a good idea. Yeah, and I don't think they're going to do that. I think they'll give him a chance to earn a big role, and certainly the majority of the snaps there, I don't see anybody pushing him for that. But they have some interesting pieces.

I mean, Anthony Zettel is a guy who maybe didn't wow a lot of people when they brought him in on a one-year, one-million deal this offseason. But 2017, when he was with the Lions, he had six and a half sacks and played really well against the Vikings especially. He had, like, sacked Case Keenum, like, three times that year. So he could be an interesting guy, kind of a power guy, kind of a hybrid tackle end option. So it'll be interesting to see who emerges there, but I think Afadi Odenabo, overall, he's going to be given that chance, especially on third down still. He's going to

be a guy who could maybe push for for for double digit sacks that would be the optimistic view and i think continuing to move him around and give him those as advantageous of a matchup uh on a play-to-play basis as you can would be a good move i don't i don't know are they going to keep daniel hunter on his same side or would they move him over to to rush against left tackles now that griffin's gone that's something that I haven't really thought about too much. Before we get back to the conversation, got to take a second to thank our sponsors, SodaStick. Go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. If you have not seen yet the Can't Stop the Feelin' hat, you got to check it out.

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Discount automatically applied at checkout. Deal ends June 20th. Yeah, I haven't either. I mean, I think he's capable of doing both, but he's had so much success from rushing from that side. Why change it? I mean, it's kind of like the Brian O'Neill thing, where you can move him to left tackle,

but you don't want to mess with a good thing necessarily. Right, exactly. And, I mean, there is a difference, but how much is the difference in today's game where teams are passing 60% of the time? If you're getting rush from the right or the left, I think that they're both really valuable. And we also don't see, like back in the day, there used to be strip sacks all the time. And yeah, you still see it from time to time on the blind side of the quarterback. But what we've really figured out in today's game, when quarterbacks

are getting the ball out quickly, is that pressure is the thing. And you see quarterback ratings drop by 20, 30, 40 points when quarterbacks are pressured. So if they're getting pressure in their face from Daniil Hunter off the right side, where he's a big mismatch against right tackles, or if it's from the blind side, I'm going to take that either way. So I think that they should keep him where he is. I want you to pick another player, whatever player you want, to tell me who the hardest one to figure out reasonable expectations are. You know, I think figuring out what a reasonable expectation for, say, Kirk Cousins is very easy, even though I'm going to write about it. It's not a huge challenge to say this is what you expect out of your very expensive quarterback. But who would be the hardest player to determine what we should have for reasonable expectations?

Yeah, there are a lot of them that I think are kind of difficult. But I'll stick on the defensive side of the ball here. I'll just go with Mike Hughes because I think he's kind of an enigma to me. I mean, we've seen a little bit of his potential over the past two years, but he's also had the injuries, and he's had some struggles at times. The Dallas game, he was matched up with Amari Cooper a lot, and that didn't go particularly well, which is forgivable. But they really kind of need him to step up and be that guy,

be the number one corner. And at just 23 with however many NFL games he's played in so far, that's kind of a big ask, especially for an undersized guy who it seems like they may ask to play outside. I would guess that Jeff Gladney starts more in the nickel just because that might be slightly more suited for him and also with the lack of experience from the shortened offseason. So for me, Mike Hughes is a really fascinating guy.

Can he kind of break out in year three? And the Vikings would certainly like to see him do that. That would make any decisions on his future a lot easier going forward. Yeah, I was thinking about it the opposite way with Jeff Gladney, that they would probably have Mike Hughes inside because he's the only guy with any real experience of even practicing inside. He didn't play much inside in the NFL, but the last two training camps he had been competing there or working in snaps there with Mackenzie Alexander. So there's no one else, but, but Jeff Gladney fits the mold. It fits the size of someone who you would expect to be a nickel corner.

That's going to be a really hard one to figure out. And especially if training camp is altered. And even there was a report that there's only going to be two preseason games likely. I mean, this makes it extremely difficult for them to even figure out who should be playing. I know Dantzler and Holton Hill are definitely outside corners only, so you know that. But Hughes' flexibility might help them out a little if he can stay healthy. And speaking of a guy who has not entirely stayed healthy,

I want to ask your opinion about Delvin Cook and his current contract strife. It seems to me from people that I have talked to that there is a pretty wide gap between where the Vikings stand and what Delvin Cook wants. And I wonder if you think that Delvin Cook is overplaying his hand here, or if the Vikings are being unreasonable to play very hardball, it seems like from the offers that have been out there and reported that they don't even want to reach $10 million a year with Delvin Cook. So to me, that's playing pretty hardball on the Vikings side. What is your take on this situation?

My take is that both teams kind of have defensible stances here and are taking approaches that probably make the most sense from their perspective. Dalvin Cook, this is his chance to get paid. He doesn't want to be the 46th highest paid running back like he's going to be in the last year of his rookie deal. He feels like he's earned a big extension, and it's kind of hard to argue against that when you look at the numbers he put up last year, and especially in the first 10 games of the season, he was on pace for almost 2,300 yards from scrimmage. But the Vikings, at the same time, all of the analytics and a lot of the data points, and there are a lot of reasons for them

to be skeptical and a little hesitant about giving Cook that $13 million a year if that's what he wants. I think they certainly are playing pretty hardball, especially if they're offering $8 million a year like is rumored. I think Cook is probably worth a little more than Melvin Gordon money considering what he brings to this team specifically and his all-around talent. There are people who will say that the Vikings would be crazy to go over $10 million. I think PFF would probably support that line of thinking.

But, I mean, for me, Dalvin Cook does so much for this offense. And in Gary Kubiak's run-heavy offense, I think there would be a real drop-off if you went to Alexander Madison and Mike Boone and expected them to give you the same production. So it'll be a question of can they meet somewhere in the middle? How much are the Vikings going to kind of use goodwill here with Dalvin Cook? Because we know Rick Spielman likes to kind of cultivate that culture where they're rewarding these talented homegrown players.

But Dalvin Cook doesn't have a ton of leverage. There's the CBA implications with this. If he actually does hold out, he's going to get fined a lot of money, and he's going to get fined over that 1.3 mil pretty quickly if he holds out for a while. And then he wouldn't get the accrued season and it wouldn't be an unrestricted free agent. So I, the Vikings have more leverage here, but they do kind of, they don't need Dalvin Cook, but, but they kind of need Dalvin Cook if, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. This is kind of like a gotta hear both sides type of situation. You know, usually when it comes to this i can just stand on one side and say like look this is my take this is how it should be and so forth but with this one yeah you totally get it for why delvin cook would want to get paid now and even his own injury history is probably part of it i mean you know if you're looking at playing a year on the final year of your contract like you mentioned where you're making, I forget what it is in cash, just over a million bucks that he's going to be bringing in, that's not the life-changing money.

That's not set for life. That's not protected if you have a career-ending injury type of money. So he thinks and his side thinks, well, he's earned enough to get that benefit of being someone who is protected by their contract if he does get hurt in the future. But the team is saying, look, we went to the NFC Championship with Latavius Murray and Jarek McKinnon after your guy got hurt. So we can find a way to work with these other running backs. And you mentioned Boone and Alexander Madison and as much as I totally agree that Delvin Cook is better than both of those guys is he better than the sum of both of them plus whoever you might be able to pick up there's still running backs on the free

agent market there are undrafted guys who emerge as being way better than you thought every single year there's somebody else who's ready to step into that position and in Los Angeles that was Austin Eckler where nobody knew that Austin Eckler was that good and then he gets his opportunity and boom he's that good so Delvin Cook's side is also taking the risk Pittsburgh too with James Conner they're taking the risk of somebody else just showing that they are also very good and maybe that is Alexander Madison but at the same time if you are in a situation where you can win the NFC North this year and look toward 2021 as being a potentially really really good team if some of these guys Justin Jefferson Jeff Gladney Ezra Cleveland if some of those guys hit and you still have your superstars in their prime like Daniil Hunter and Eric Hendricks you're

talking about being a legit Super Bowl contender in a year, and I think you want to have as many great players as you can have. And with the Vikings, they've done this a number of times before where it's looked like they've been playing hardball, and ultimately they found a middle ground. So that's how I think this will play out, and it sounds like you agree, Will, that they will find a way to figure this out. Yeah, I think that's the most likely outcome. It makes sense, at least to a certain degree, for both sides. And I agree with you. I know people will want to hear us take one side here and really argue that, but it's tough for me to do because I see the logic.

I see the rationale from both sides. I can see a situation where they're handing out a nice contract extension and taking photos and stuff right before training camp, and I can also see a world where that doesn't happen and things start to get maybe not ugly but at least interesting as we head into training camp and into the season. It's tough because the running back position is certainly replaceable. And you mentioned Austin Eckler, and the Chargers are now going to be using him.

And I'll give a shout-out to a former Northwestern guy, Justin Jackson, who was a seventh-round pick there. And he had better efficiency numbers than Melvin Gordon. Like, you can get these guys. Phillip Lindsey was an undrafted free agent. It's just a question of how much do you value having one of those top five guys and how much of a difference does that still make in this modern game? And I'd argue that that Cook makes a little bit more of a difference on this

team and with his all around skillset than maybe like a Derrick Henry even does with his just run first profile. Although Derrick Henry even does with his just run first profile, although Derrick Henry is extremely good. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you that there is no shortage of action going on right now at our exclusive partners at betonline.ag. Sports are slowly making their way back, and BetOnline is leading the way with the best odds and lines for all UFC, NASCAR, boxing, and soccer matches.

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When you're talking about a guy who's going to touch the ball as much as Delvin Cook does, it makes more sense than if it was a pass-first offense and they were going to hand it off 150 times to him. Then it wouldn't make as much sense to pay him. But since everything seems to start with him on the offense, he's got a case to make there, but then, you know, the Vikings might come back and say, well, we'll just start the offense with Alexander Madison and see how that works out. But, you know, I think that the organization, one part of it that's a wild card is that the organization really likes him you know i think that they want to pay him and rick

spielman said at the combine we want to keep our skilled players it's also a feather in their cap it makes them look good from drafting him in the second round and taking that risk to then you know ending up signing him to a second contract it It looks like, hey, we as the front office nailed it. But also, if they want in the ballpark of McCaffrey or higher, you just can't do it. I mean, it's just something that the Vikings could not justify or even afford, especially if there is a chance that the salary cap goes down after this year. Yeah, and I saw a lot of people freaking out about when that rumor, that report came out that his camp opened by asking for McCaffrey money. And realistically,

they have to know that he's not getting $16 million a year. He's not getting Zeke money with $15. $13 is, I think, the absolute upper limit. And I think if they do reach a deal, it's going to be less than $13. I think it's going to be somewhere in the 10 to 12 range probably, just because of the injury history. And nobody has the receiving production of McCaffrey. That's kind of an outlier case with his 1,000-1,000 season last year. Another factor for me is you mentioned the Vikings organization likes Cook. And just having Mike Zimmer as your head coach. I mean, we know how much Mike Zimmer loves running the football. He's a defensive guy, but he, he views his offensive philosophy. He wants to, wants to

center around running the ball. And that's why, why John DiFilippo didn't, didn't last very long in Minnesota because he tried to get a little too pass happy and that he loves what Gary Kubiak did with the offense last year and will continue to do so both of those elements would lead me to be a little bit optimistic that they are going to get something done and they're going to work something out but I don't think it's a sure thing at this point yeah no I definitely don't think it's a sure thing at this point. Yeah, no, I definitely don't think it's a sure thing. And I go back to the combine where I talked to a number of people who were concerned that this situation was going to be problematic,

and here we are. It is because the Vikings can't look at this position and say, oh, yeah, let's just give them what we gave Adrian Peterson back in the day, give him this gigantic contract because the NFL has just changed in regards to the running back position. All right, before I let you go, Will, this has been great. I'm glad we could do it. This is the first time we've gotten together on any sort of broadcast network. I want you to do something that I regularly ask guests to do, or at least I decided the other day that I'm going to regularly ask guests to do, which is to irrationally defend a player from your childhood that you loved. Like I'll give you an example.

Rami Makhlov the other day was on the podcast, and he said that Jay Cutler should have been a Hall of Famer if the Bears had gotten him more receivers, which is ridiculous and preposterous. But Rami loves Jay Cutler, and he thinks Jay Cutler was great. So a player from your childhood that you can irrationally defend or give hot takes about. Huh, that's interesting because I don't know if – I mean, people may not know, but I'm young.

I'm only 22. So I – my main childhood watching memories with the Vikings, I grew up here in Minneapolis, started kind of the mid to late 2000s. I think the first season I really, really got locked into – I was always watching, but I really got locked into that 09 team. And there are a lot of people from from that that team and from some of the the following years that that I loved uh a guy I really like was was Vasanti Shanko I don't know if I have any hot takes about him but I always thought that they should have utilized him a little more I

thought he was a really uh really athletic player at tight end kind of ahead of his time in that regard. And I just remember I was at a Vikings against the Cardinals, I believe, where Brett Favre found Shanko in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown late in that game where Favre had like 450 passing yards. And I just remember, I don't know, that's maybe not the best answer, but that's a guy that I remember always having an irrational kind of dream that he was going to break out and be this huge, like, Kellen Winslow, Shannon Sharp, like, superstar tight end. Well, so here's how you spin that.

Here's how you spin that to irrational. Okay. You say, look, if Favre had been their quarterback for longer, then Asante Shanko would have been thought of as one of the truly elite tight ends in the NFL. And he would have. Okay. Yeah. You're better than me at this.

I like, I like that a lot. I should have, I should have gone with that. I'll give you another one from that team in particular that I irrationally defend, which is Antoine Winfield senior. Yeah.

I think Antoine Winfield senior is one of the best corners of that entire decade and is a borderline, if not a hall of Fame level player. But because he played a lot in the slot and he was undersized, he didn't get the attention. And because people didn't give as much attention to the PFF numbers, if there were PFF numbers for his targets and quarterback ratings throwing against him, PFF grades, and his tackling, of course, which is legendary.

If we had all those things in his entire career, then we would probably look at him as having a case for the Hall of Fame. There's my irrational defense of Antoine Winfield's team. I like it. I like it. Yeah, he was awesome. I mean, just if they had the advanced metrics for how many tackles he missed, which I would estimate was pretty close to zero,

I think that certainly would have made him look even better to a national audience. But, yeah, those teams, the Chile era was definitely interesting. But I'll go with my Vasante-Schenko take that he should have been unleashed and could have been a legend. And a guy who is remembered best maybe for having part of him unleashed on TV accidentally, I think, right? Yeah. Maybe what he was known best for. We won't go into any more detail about that.

If you don't remember it, then you can Google it. Will, awesome job. I'm glad to have you on the beat as well as on the show. Give us your Twitter handle because I don't know it off the top of my head. Yeah. Thanks for having me on the show. It is at Will Raggetts, just my name, Will, R-A-G-A-T-Z. All right.

Perfect. Well, we'll do it again soon, and hopefully we're seeing each other at training camp. Yeah. Everything's super weird, but hopefully. That would be nice. All right. We'll talk to you. Again, thanks for listening to this episode of Purple Insider.