Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will Vikings camp madness impact their 2021 season?

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom get together to talk about the recent drama surrounding the Minnesota Vikings will matter toward the 2021 season. Will Jeff Gladney's absence make a difference? Which cornerback will matter most now that Gladney is out? How will it impact the long term? Will the offensive line issues be problematic or will they come together? How will Mike Zimmer's comments about Kirk Cousins impact the locker room dynamic? And what are the best things at camp so far? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to our bring me the news purple insider live stream here where we talk all Minnesota Vikings Vikings Live is what we call it. Matthew Collar here, Sam Ekstrom. What is up this morning, Sam? How are you? Doing well. Doing well. Let's have a better day than yesterday.

We had to write about indictments, you know, first-round picks getting cut, more tension around the vaccine issue. There's just a lot of non-football headlines, unfortunately, right now. Well, that's exactly where I want to start, Sam, is I want to know your opinion. And we're going to go one by one here on the crazy things that have happened so far. How much each one of these things is going to impact the Minnesota Vikings long-term because I was thinking yesterday, gosh, we're only a day six and we've already had so many big events like earthquakes that have happened to this team. Now it isn't quite the Indianapolis Colts who have had their quarterback

and their superstar guard already go down for multiple weeks. So it isn't like that, but it's sort of other stuff that's happening that is outside the realm of just who's going to play on the football field. Although, you know, I guess you could say the COVID things may affect that down, down the road, but they don't affect week one as of right now. So let's just begin with Jeff Gladney. He's indicted and he is released almost instantly by the Minnesota Vikings. How much will Jeff Gladney not being a part of this team impact the Minnesota Vikings in 2021? I don't think very much in 2021.

I think the Vikings took precautions against this. I think Bashad Breeland was sort of the final straw. Like, all right, we're not counting on Jeff this year. We need to get somebody else. And they brought in Bashad Breeland, who is honestly probably a better player than Jeff Gladney was. And Gladney's potential may never be realized. But that's a consequence of the situation that he's in. I think that the ripple effects will be felt down the road. 2021, this team has done a nice job of rounding out their cornerback depth. They're much deeper, much more seasoned this year. But, you know, when you kind of pile this on with Mike Hughes no longer being on the team,

you've got two corners that you expected to be franchise staples that are no longer with the team, you know, from the last four drafts. So the 2022 group is still a complete crapshoot. It's Dantzler. And I don't know after that, you hope that you've developed Harrison Hand and Chris Boyd well enough to step into a role if need be. But it feels like they'll have to undergo another reconstruction if they can't re-sign all of these pending free agents. And we saw this two years ago. They had three free agents. They all left. Xavier Rhodes, Trey Waynes, Mackenzie Alexander, they all left because other teams could give them more and give them what they wanted. So I think that the Jeff Gladney thing will be felt next year, probably more than it will be this year.

We always talk about the impact of quarterback rookie contracts, but that's not the only position where it can be super helpful. I mean, cornerback is a position that gets paid very highly a lot of the time. I mean, this year, the Vikings were able to bring in Patrick Peterson at a reasonable price and Bashad Breeland and Mackenzie Alexander at reasonable prices. But one of the reasons they were able to do that is because of odd circumstances in which a lot of players were looking for one-year contracts so they could get their big deals next year because the cap went down this offseason. I guess we're having to sort of like go back to, Hey, remember when the cap went down and that's why all of this happened. That probably will not happen again, that there will be so many

players who are looking for one year contracts. So if Patrick Peterson plays really well, or if Bashad Breeland plays really well, or if Mackenzie Alexander plays really well, or all three of them are a great unit and the Vikings have a top five defense, then you're talking about those guys either going out on the open market and saying, Hey, I was part of a top five defense time to pay me or coming back to the Vikings and saying, Hey, how about a multi-year deal for me, Patrick Peterson into my thirties, right? So it can have long-term implications for sure. But right away, they sort of made sure that they were ready for this. Or I think Mike Zimmer sort of tipped his hand a little bit when he said, I kind of know what's going on, but I

can't really say. And I think what that meant was we're going to cut him if he gets indicted for this and that he was. But now you go back and you look at the first round draft picks recently for the Vikings. I mean, even go back a couple of years. I mean, you're talking about 2016. They draft Laquan Treadwell. 2017, they don't have a first round pick. 2018 is Mike Hughes. This is hard to overcome. And this year, they had an opportunity to sign a couple of guys to bring in to fill those

spots with one-year contracts. But down the road, I don't think it's going to be that easy. You're going to have to spend, I think, a lot more money than you did this year to get the same results. And not hitting on Jeff Gladney is sort of a part of that bigger picture of missing a lot on first-round draft picks. Yeah, I think that Mike Zimmer feels most comfortable when he's got veterans grooming the young guys, because that's how they formed that good secondary of a few years ago is, you know, they had Munderland that they brought in. They brought in Terrence Newman, and that allowed Xavier Rhodes, Trey Waynes, Mackenzie Alexander to sort of come up at more of an organic pace instead of

thrusting them into duty before they were ready. Like Cam Dantzler and Jeff Gladney last year, I think they were ill-prepared. Now that's one way to go about developing a player is to throw them into the fire and they might be better for it, but you're going to take your lumps and you're going to lose. And I don't think Mike Zimmer is patient enough to sit through sort of the on-field learning process of his cornerbacks. So that's why he's, you know, and we're going to write about this for the website tomorrow. They've got like a very good group of veterans that I think are all pretty interested. Even Mackenzie Alexander, who you might not have expected this from, they all seem pretty interested in teaching the young guys um they want to you know Patrick Peterson's talked about kind of leaving you know he can't take his

legacy can be like teaching younger guys you know that knowledge that he wants to impart on on people before he leaves the league I think that's a real thing so um the the cornerback dynamic is really interesting this year and I think Mike Zimmer's pretty pumped about it. He said it's just a different vibe this year. And ironically, he was excited last year. He said he was energized by all the youth. And then he got really aggravated by it. And I think this year he's legitimately excited about the veterans.

And I think that'll stick for a little bit longer. I think instantly the relationship between Patrick Peterson and Mike Zimmer is a very good one. And after hearing Patrick Peterson talk, I was even more convinced of that. Now, how much Patrick Peterson has left in the tank is sort of another topic. And that's where it could play out to having it matter in 2021. If one of these guys does not live up to what the Vikings want them to do this year if Bashad Breeland struggles if Mackenzie Alexander isn't the same guy as a couple years ago and the most likely one to be a problem would be Patrick Peterson if he is not uh 100 percent of Patrick

Peterson for what he was a couple of years ago and he plays like he did last year you will miss the guy that you drafted in the first round and you were projecting to take a step forward. And especially I would say the other two guys with Mackenzie Alexander, he's kind of a proven nickel player, but could you have had an above average nickel player with Jeff Gladney if you signed the two outside guys? So I think that's where it could have had an impact, but I was just never really impressed by Jeff Gladney last year. I don't know how you felt about him, but somebody asked this on Twitter and I didn't have a good answer for it. They said, what if he was defensive rookie of the year, then would they have cut him? Because I think there was this other part of it that always has to exist in these conversations about the football element

like Deshaun Watson is still on the Houston Texans because he's Deshaun Watson he's really valuable uh I think that they were pretty safe in saying Jeff Gladney just didn't show a whole lot last year that would have indicated that he was going to take some huge step and be a great player and I also wondered about his attitude and how he gelled with Mike Zimmer anyway, after an issue early in the season with Jeff Gladney sort of blowing off Zimmer as he came off the field. And then the times we talked to him,

I was kind of like, what, what is this guy's deal? You know? I mean, he seemed to have, he seemed to kind of had an attitude toward even the reporters as we were. I mean,

it's over Zoom, so I understand that. But I just didn't. When you talk with Patrick Peterson, you're just so impressed. Like this guy is mature and smart and knowledgeable and all these things. I did not get that impression really ever from Jeff Gladney, and he didn't get better as the season went along. He was bad to start. He was bad to finish last year. And so I was not confident. I don't know if you felt differently. I was not confident that he was going to take some magical second step. No, I'm 100% with you. And before the, the, you know, assault allegations in April, even I was saying that I didn't think Jeff Gladney was guaranteed

anything on this team because of the guys they brought in. And, you know, obviously we'll never find out where he would have slotted in. But I felt like there was kind of a Mackenzie Alexander parallel in that there was a little bit of bite back. And Mike Zimmer, it's kind of a blessing and a curse, I think, because he likes those really assertive corners because he'd rather say, whoa, then go. He doesn't want to have to coax them to be more aggressive. That was a little bit what Trey Wayne's dealt with. So he's kind of gone in the other direction where he wants to get really aggressive guys and then he tries to reel them in a little bit. And sometimes you'll get players that aren't willing to be coachable. And we don't know the, you know, we were kind of kept at arm's length last year

because of the pandemic. We didn't see as much up close as we would have liked to. So it was tough to get a feel for that dynamic, but you did get the sense that Gladney was probably going through the same things McKenzie Alexander went through, which was, you know, I, I want to be an outside guy. I want to do this and that, like I was really good in college. And then suddenly you're not as good and you're getting criticized and you have to answer questions to the media and you're going to get surly. And, you know, I didn't feel like Mackenzie Alexander, like really had turned that corner until like this year when I talked to him and this is his sixth year. So, you know, Gladney, I think dealt with some of that as a rookie and his play on the field was very average and he was surrounded by a lot of below average.

Dantzler was clearly the better corner and, you know, they went into week one last year, trusting Dantzler much more than Gladney. So like he started out, they didn't want him as a starter. And then he was forced to start 15 games because everyone else got hurt. Otherwise, who knows? We might Dantzler, which is really interesting here. And I remember there sort of being this like, could Dantzler be better? And it was like, I don't know. I mean, he's just not as good of an athlete. But the mental part of this whole thing is a big deal. Not that we're anointing Dantzler, seeing that they brought in corners to start over him as we've seen with Bashad Breeland. Now I've got Joe Nelson on the watch for fan questions. So he's sending me some. Andre asks, is it time to call the dolphins about Xavier and Howard?

I just don't think that there's anything else this team can really do in terms of adding other players. Like there are a couple of guys who are on the trade block, but after taking some dead cap hit now from Jeff Gladney, they're going to, I think, still sign Brian O'Neill at some point to a contract extension. I don't see a whole lot of extra flexibility. I think they had already covered themselves for this Jeff Gladney situation. Yeah, I agree with you. And Howard is super, super expensive. If you're talking about trading for someone who's still on a rookie deal and renting him for a year,

I guess I could see where that would make some sense. But like you said, I think they already anticipated this and planned for it. And I frankly kind of like their depth. I like that they've got a really good fourth guy, whether it's Dantzler or Breland. I think that's someone that's, I don't think a lot of teams have that level of fourth corner. And I think that Harrison Hand

is like improving a lot and could actually be pretty valuable if he was asked to play this year. Like I think across the board, one through six, if you compare those spots this year to those spots last year, I think it's better across the board. So I like the strides that the Vikings have taken. And it is easy to maybe buy into some of the hype and some of the names and the pedigrees. And then it could go badly in the regular season on some fronts. And we'll probably see some growing pains early because chemistry is a real thing. And, like, you know, cohesiveness is a real thing.

So there's going to be some hiccups. It's not going to be perfect, but I think it's going to be way better than last year. OK, so Patrick also asks if there is cap relief. Now, the episode we did yesterday of the Purple Insider podcast broke this down with Brad Spielberger, who is the cap expert from Pro Football Focus. But I'll just simplify it to this. It's going to be a while before that gets figured out. Like the Vikings are going to try to recoup some of their signing bonuses. And I'm just not really sure. Like we're going to have to find out as we go along because there's going to be a grievance filed probably. And then that's going to fight its way out. And so this probably won't be figured out until down the road. As of right now,

over the cap lists this at a $1.3 million dead cap hit for Jeff Gladney. So it's not devastating at all to cut him right now. And we'll have to see how that plays out in the future and sort of keep an eye on it. Okay. Now here's the other thing that there's a couple of things that I'm asking you how much they'll affect the 2021 Viking season that have happened so far in training camp. Thing number two is the head coach calling out the quarterback more or less dunking on Kirk Cousins over and over for not getting vaccinated in multiple press conferences, of which Mike Zimmer is being Mike Zimmer and expressing his mind and telling us what he thinks. But do you think that Zimmer calling out Cousins in press conferences and all the unvaccinated players will have an impact on the 2021 season and the relationship between Zimmer and his

quarterback and several more of his star players? So to clarify, you're asking about the relationship between Zimmer and his quarterback and several more of his star players. So to clarify, you're asking about the relationships, not about the vaccinations themselves. And those are two different things. Yes. You know, I don't see it becoming whatever happened with Philadelphia last year, where apparently Carson Wentz and Doug Peterson like didn't talk. Like, I don't think I don't think that's going to happen just because and if it did happen it wouldn't be as devastating because um Kirk Cousins does not functionally need Mike Zimmer necessarily to do his job um you know it'd be nice to have his support I think you know but uh I don't think that Kirk Cousins will struggle if Mike Zimmer is like bristly toward him necessarily. I think that he's got, you know, he's got Andrew Janoko to lean on, Clint Kubiak to lean on.

Now, I think that it could be an issue just sort of in the locker room as a whole. I apologize for the dog noises because it's not just cousins right it's um you know as of spring it was Harrison Smith it was Adam Thielen it was Sheldon Richardson you know a couple of those guys on defense where Mike Zimmer does devote a lot of his time and it's it's got to be a strain on Zimmer because I'm sure he had a fantastic relationship with Harrison Smith. And this is probably like the first time there's ever been like maybe any kind of rift between them. And I think that there's going to be tension because I feel it already. And if I feel it, like in what's being kind of like transmitted to the media. It probably exists in the building if it's leaked out this far.

So I think it's an issue. It's hard to say like kind of player by player, how it might affect them, but I think it affects the roster as a whole. I think, you know, like, and maybe this is a bad comparison.

The twins had similar issues early in their season last year. They had to miss a bunch of games early and they never really recovered from that. And there's other reasons why, too. Like, I'm not just saying it's because some players weren't vaccinated, but I think it plays a part. I think it's part of the equation. I think football is a really complex team sport and this will be a part of that. Like good teams are usually pretty cohesive and if this is going to affect that cohesiveness where you have you know your star

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I've never really felt like, boy, those two are just inseparable. Old Mike Zimmer and Kirk cousins hanging out. And, you know, I don't know, going for long walks on the beach together. That is just never been the vibe at all that we've gotten from Zimmer and Kirk cousins. It's always sort of been, all right, look, I'm doing defense. You go do your offensive thing with Gary Kubiak over there. But at the same time, I do think it's important for the head coach and the quarterback to be on the same page. They have largely been two ships passing in the night

since Kirk Cousins arrived here. And I think that that won't be super different, but it's also incredibly uncomfortable to have the head coach be just like generally in a state of being upset with his quarterback and the way that he's decided to handle this vaccination issue. And what I wonder is if Mike Zimmer has decided here with this, and I don't even think it's just Mike Zimmer. I mean, Rick Spielman, Mark Wilf, Ziggy Wilf.

If they've decided, look, Kirk's vaccination decision means we can't really trust him as our long-term quarterback. So this is going to have to be the last year then Mike Zimmer's gloves are coming off right like I think Mike Zimmer has bit his lip a million times and said okay I won't say it I won't say it when it comes to being frustrated with the quarterback when it comes to no shows in big games and things like that. Now, I have to wonder if Mike Zimmer just says, I'm not holding back anymore. If this guy has a bad game, I'm just going to come out and say it because we've seen this with other players before where Zimmer was sort of like, all right, I'm not, I'm not going to bring it up. I'm going to sort of be kind of positive, like Laquan Treadwell, for example. And I know that this is different, but Laquan Treadwell, he was like, eh, he's got to work on some things, got to work out some things. You could see the sort of frustration. And then eventually he just went, Laquan Treadwell's got

to stop running stadium steps and start working on the things that matter. He's just like, he just snapped. And I think he did that with John D Filippo too. Like you just got to freaking run the ball. Come on. And, uh, I, if you get a couple of those typical Kirk games where he no-shows and throws for 137 yards on 40 passes, I think you're going to get that same sort of thing from Mike Zimmer now. And that could make things very uncomfortable with the other players. I kind of go back to 2016 where Zimmer made some comments about Shree Floyd. He made some comments about Anthony Barr that really rubbed people the wrong way inside the locker room. And by the end of that season, the cornerbacks were not following along with Mike Zimmer's

directions. And there was the, I mean, I don't know how many people even remember it, but the corners deciding to kind of do their own thing against Green Bay and going against Zimmer. And we thought, man, maybe Zimmer's going to be on the hot seat. And of course, the next season he goes 13 and three. But this relationship between Zimmer and players, because of his bluntness, has always been a thing that we've kept an eye on. And now this year, it's just cranked up to 11.

And I think it could potentially be an issue because if they do lose a player and they do lose a game, you could see Zimmer coming out and just saying, yeah, well, maybe if that guy got the vaccination and then you're creating a pretty, pretty awkward situation. I think it already is, then this wouldn't have happened. I think that he will probably link the two together, whether that's accurate or not. I just think this is going to be in the back of his mind. Or if a player misses a game and some practice time, you know, like that's going to be another big one where and it's almost unavoidable, Matthew, with protocols the way they are, because I think we're going to see a tightening. And I said this a couple of shows ago, like they are not being as cautious, I guess, as they were last year, you know, because of vaccinations. But because of breakthrough possibilities, breakthrough cases,

we could see that where like a player is, you know, vaccinated, but still gets tested positive because they weren't wearing masks because they didn't think they had to because that's not the protocol. So I think Mike Zimmer's going to get frustrated by this, but I could see protocols kind of tightening up again. And maybe teams like the Vikings that don't have a good vaccination rate need to take their own precautions, even if the league doesn't mandate it um it's it's super

fluid right now as i've said before and i we'll see how my like you've written about mike zimmer's adaptability how he seems to be a little more adaptable now we'll see how well he adapts this year because he's going to get some stuff thrown at him from like a uh coach player relationship standpoint from a logistics standpoint that he's never dealt with before yeah i agree with that last year maybe helps a little bit for constantly changing things uh the building when they couldn't be in the building when you know all that sort of stuff what they could do on the road all that seemed to be ever changing who which teams had some fans in the stands which teams didn't but i agree with you that the way that this thing is going and then i saw today there's a delta variant plus

i'm like oh great that's no yeah no i saw that so great great this sounds fantastic um but just sort of i mean bottom lining it uh i think that the way zimmer has handled this has sort of set the stage for um some headbutting and even more headbutting. And we're hearing from players of like, no, it's cool. Like, well, we're just, you know, doing our thing inside the locker room. Like, yeah, right. But how can you say that? How can you say that something that is so divisive and the head coach is out here making his stance extremely clear is not having any impact on how the players interact with each other. I mean, it just seems impossible and how they even view Kirk Cousins, the players

who are vaccinated and saying, Kirk Cousins, you're not here. You're not practicing with us. It's good that Jake Browning has kept the train on the tracks, but you're missing a week of your starting quarterback. That's kind of a big deal in an off season that everybody gets the full off season. Aaron Rodgers gets the full offseason, and he's at practice every day. So now you're already behind where they are in Green Bay. So you've got to think of it a little bit that way too, and I can see why it drives Mike Zimmer crazy. Now, if none of this had happened, if there was no Jeff Gladney being cut and indicted,

no Rick Dennison issue, no Kirk Cousins COVID issue, the biggest thing that we would be talking about from Vikings training camp is, do you got to guess where I'm going with this? It's the offensive line. Nailed it. Nailed it. So Christian Derrissaw and Wyatt Davis not practicing yesterday. Derrissaw has not stepped on the field yet.

These two guys were projected to be the starting offensive linemen on the day that they were drafted. How much is this going to impact the 2021 season that you have once again injuries and shuffling on the offensive line? It's going to affect the season a lot, maybe more than the other two topics that we've addressed, because this is going to be every down um this is going to be Kirk Cousins trying to get protected by maybe some combination of rookies who've barely had any time in training camp or veterans who have shown that it might be a struggle um I think that you need to start or fans need to start adjusting their expectation for Rashad Hill to be the left tackle in week one.

And then it sort of plays out maybe as a Brian O'Neill situation where Hill is going to be the guy until either he struggles for a couple of games in a row or Christian Derrissad just starts like tearing it up in practice. And get to know the name Ole Udo. I mean, I'm not locking it in yet.

I'm not going to write this in pen, but I'm willing to get my pencil out and just sort of lightly shade in Ole Udo's name. We talked to him yesterday. He seems like he's got a pretty good handle on this, and maybe they're grooming him just to be their sixth man, to be a tackle, guard, flexible, four-position hybrid player. But if it's him or Dozier, I think I'd rather have Udo. Wyatt Davis is not making any progress when he's hurt uh mike zimmer said he wanted him to lose weight like a lot some of the signs around wyatt davis aren't encouraging he hasn't taken first team snaps at all so just get to know the name oliudo because it might become like a thing

and i guess the grass can be greener like because we haven't seen oliudo be bad he could be really good um it doesn't always work that way but, but that is some fresh blood that I think would be more hopeful than having Dakota Dozier trotted out there again. All of it to say, Matthew, I'm concerned. The fact that we're kind of like tossing out Ole Udo's name in all of this just means that not everything's going right, and this team didn't create a lot of depth, particularly in the veteran ranks. I mean, they've got plenty of bodies,

but none of them have track records of success in this league at all. So I'm very concerned about the state of that line. This is the thing. I made a joke earlier this off season that if you were talking about only Udo at guard, it was sort of like someone who is, you know,

starving, looking for, you know, whatever to drink the ocean water. I think it was, if you're, you're, you're so desperate for water,

you drink the ocean water. Right. And I still feel that way. I still feel like if you're moving a guy at the last minute from tackle to guard with the desperate hope that a sixth round draft pick, who's been developing for a couple of years can suddenly and quickly master a new position that is really desperate. And when you talk about Dakota Dozier, and this is one of those, you know how people say, I remember where I was when whatever happened, like we remember where we were when

they signed Dakota Dozier. We were at birdie golf and we were recording our podcast and we looked at our phones and said, wait a minute, they're bringing back Dakota Dozier. Come on now. And then Austin Blythe signed, I think with Kansas city, like minutes later. And it was just a bad moment for Vikings fans with the offensive line. But the thing about Dakota Dozier is he knows the offense. He knows all the positions. He knows everything he's supposed to do. He's not very good when he's asked to play for 16 games, but we've seen this in the past that that's going to matter the most. And if Ole Udo goes into the preseason games and doesn't get certain details right, he won't be starting. And I'm still not convinced that he will be starting over Dakota Dozier.

Where it goes back to is you draft two linemen and you sort of assume that it's fixed. And then you spend all this money on the defensive side, which is good. And you needed to do that. There was a lot of open holes on the defensive side. But to not even bring in a single veteran guard. I mean, Mason Cole is a center and we haven't seen him at guard at all. So to not bring in a single other veteran guard to compete with Dakota Dozier and just assume that it's fixed. I mean, that is one where you can first guess it. The moment they bring back Dakota Dozier, we're saying, okay. If he's a backup, that's fine. I think Dakota Dozier

is a quality NFL backup, but if he's asked to play 16 games, 17 games, that's too much. And I feel like if you're asking a tackle in only Udo to just suddenly move into guard, I mean, that sort of has Mike Remmers written all over it of going, well, you know, Mike Remmers, I'm sure he could play guard or Pat Elfline. I'm sure he could play guard. You just move them all from center and everything will be fine. I mean, they have such an incredibly bad track record of doing these things that

it's hard to sit here and say, oh yeah, only Udo. I'm sure he's the answer. Maybe he is. He seems like a really bright kid from when we talked to him, soft-spoken, but smart. And he's huge, that's for sure. But being huge and playing guard doesn't always work out because of the pad level football. And the quickness that the interior rushers have, they can get underneath those guys' pads pretty quickly. And I struggle to think like, oh oh yeah it'll just be fine because it wasn't fine

with Mike Remmers who had been in the NFL for a while and had been a quality tackle like Ole Udo couldn't even get on the field and wasn't even active last year and now you're saying oh well he'll be a quality guard that is a very big stretch for me you would love to see it from a story perspective it would be a really good story someone drafted in the sixth and developed but this is a major issue and it's one where you can't really criticize the vikings for kirk cousins vaccination status you can't really criticize them for jeff gladney making some seriously bad off-field decisions you can't criticize them for not getting someone who has played guard in the nfl before as a halfway decent starter from free agency. Yeah, it's mystifying to me that this team had a really good defense

for a lot of years, right? Like Mike Zimmer's entire tenure, good, good, good, good, good, bad. Then it was really bad. And what do they do? They go out and they spend a fortune to fix it that was one year of a bad defense so now you look at the offensive line history bad bad adequate okay bad bad and they they they never pour the resources into that group that they do on the defensive side. And that is a head scratcher that you can't even find like a balance to say,

okay, we're, we're, we're not going to give the line all the attention, but we're going to make one splash. You know, we're going to get one solid player just to fortify the interior, because I don't think you look at the interior and you have a lot of confidence in any of them completely. You really, really hope Garrett Bradbury is kind of that foundation. And the fact that they've given him a third year, which they didn't with Pat Elfline, because I think they know he has it in him. Like, his run blocking is awesome. His command of the offense, as Clint Kubiak said, is awesome. It's just a matter of can he pass block more effectively.

He talked yesterday, said he's gotten a lot better, or a lot bigger, I mean, and stronger. Same with Ezra Cleveland. So they're trying to get bigger. They're trying to do things with the players they have instead of bringing in new talent. And that hasn't necessarily worked for them in the past to assume that in-house they have all the solutions. I can't think of many times really when, you know, they had Nick

Easton stored away for a while and then he started one it, it didn't go very well. You know, like sometimes these, uh, it's better to look outside the box like they did at cornerback. Why couldn't they have taken that approach, uh, on the offensive line where there were players available for pretty reasonable numbers and the Vikings didn't really play ball, uh, at all in free agency. It just feels like they've said, Hey Kirk, we paid you all this money. So we're just going to kind of draft some linemen, but we're not going to spend the money there because we already spent the money on you. So deal with it kind of thing. And I think he's going to be dealing with another offensive line that on a

week to week basis has a lot of struggles. Now I want to turn completely one 80 from this because I feel like the last few days have been very much like our pets' heads are falling off. It's just been the sun is collapsing out of the sky, and we haven't even played a preseason game yet. And I think it's okay to feel that way when you have so many things going sideways early on but you know the team still exists and we assume Kirk Cousins will be coming back later this week and most of the team outside of those couple of offensive linemen is healthy so I wanted to ask you about the best things that we have seen at training camp so far just because I feel myself

like getting too tense okay Okay. Let's, let's take a deep breath. You're not allowed to say KJ Osborne because everyone knows how you feel about that. But you also wrote a great article, by the way, purpleinsider.substack.com about KJ Osborne. You talked to him one-on-one. So people should go find that. But let's talk about the best things that we've seen at training camps so far outside of that. I'm going to start with this. Adam Thielen looks great. And this is a question that I get all the time on like fantasy channels and stuff like that. When I go on is is Adam Thielen going to like hit an age curve or something?

Is he going to fall off or whatever and uh he has dominated in practice and made terrific catches including one yesterday down the sideline when he jumped over Patrick Peterson to set up a 52 yard field goal which Greg Joseph made by the way uh you know in one of those like final drive type of drills so that's that's where I'm gonna start you take it whatever way you want, but I think if you were wondering, Hey, you know, is Adam Thielen going to start sort of taking a turn toward the second half of his career, at least in training camp, he has been fantastic. Yep. I agree with that. And while you're mentioning it, Greg Joseph has also been good in practice. But I'm not ready to invest in that yet because we've seen good training camps from a lot of kickers in the past and they can fall apart fast so i'm gonna i'm

gonna pump the brakes on greg joseph i think irv smith jr has been excellent um and you know if you're wondering who's gonna be the red zone threat with Kyle Rudolph gone. Irv Smith yesterday, two touchdowns and red zone drills, including a like Rudolph patented one handed catch with players draped on him. It was really impressive. He's been catching everything. I mean, he's and Jake Browning hasn't always delivered accurate balls, but he's going airborne to catch them. He's making adjustments. And he seems like he's gotten bigger without losing any athleticism. And I think that's probably going to help him as a blocker.

So this team should be able to trust Irv Smith to be on the field 80% of the time, 90% of the time, and not have to think, gosh, I mean, we're exchanging like good pass catching for bad blocking. I don't think that's going to be the case. I think he's going to be pretty well-rounded. And I think I expected more of a breakout last year, but sometimes it's hard to break out when you're still not the number one tight end. I think this year it's going to be real. I think Irv Smith is going to be good. And last year after week four or so, the first couple of weeks were very odd without him getting very many targets last season. But after that, he was graded really well by pro football focus. He was among the top in the NFL in terms of yards per

reception for tight ends. And we've even seen him moving around a little bit in terms of like lining up in the slot, which weirdly Kyle Rudolph did do in terms of like lining up in the slot which weirdly Kyle Rudolph did do in 2017 he lined up in the slot quite a bit and then they just bailed on that in recent years and I think that frustrated Kyle Rudolph that he wasn't getting opportunities to line up elsewhere but we're gonna see that I think with Clint Kubiak and with Irv Smith Jr. and I mean I just couldn't agree more that he has been like, if you were naming the winner of training camp so far, I think that Irv Smith Jr. is the winner. And this is another reason to circle back and say,

this is why Mike is so upset with his quarterback, because his weapons look great. Jefferson, Thielen, Irv Smith, they all look like they are ready for huge years. And so it's also the reason to sort of criticize, maybe tack on a little bit more to that offensive line. But again, I said I wanted to say the best things in camp. So Greg Joseph did have a good day yesterday.

So I was going to sort of facetiously say Greg Joseph. I would say Delvin Tomlinson looks gigantic and looks like he could be a big difference maker on the defensive line. Now, they just started practicing with pads yesterday, so I don't want to go too far in saying this, but he's looked like the player I expected him to look like. I didn't expect to see him in the backfield all the time sacking Jake Browning, but he just is a lot to handle for the interior offensive lineman. And I don't really buy the iron sharpens iron too much. They say that all the time. Hey, I'm getting better because of this or that, but Garrett Bradbury going up against Delvin Tomlinson, that defensive line, him and Sheldon Richardson,

they just look like they're going to be good. Yeah, I'm with you on that. And I think it's curious that Armand Watts has been elevated to play in Michael Pierce's spot. That tells me that the Vikings are so intent on being big up the middle that they would kind of bring up. I think probably a lesser, less established player than Sheldon Richardson to fill Michael Pierce's spot instead of, you know, moving Tomlinson over to nose. They just want to be big in there. And they like the athleticism they have on the edges. They like the girth they have on the inside. It's going to be interesting for sure.

Cause it's so different. Like a lot of teams are trying to get kind of smaller like smaller faster you know using these small three techs on the inside and the Vikings on a lot of downs are going to have just two brutes at tackle which is just a unique dynamic so I can't wait to see it one other player that I like on the defensive side I decided to watch Xavier Woods for like 10 reps in a row the other day. I just think he's got really good instincts against the run. I think he gets downhill really well, and I think he's going to be a really nice compliment to Harrison Smith.

And a lot of their acquisitions this year were kind of built around strengthening the run defense. And I think that Xavier Woods, who struggled last year in kind of a different role for Dallas, they moved him around a little bit more. I think he can be a bit more of a pure free safety this year. Harrison Smith can roam the box. And I think Xavier Woods has potential to be really helpful. I'll give you I agree with you and I'll give you one more to wrap up this very fun. Bring me the news live stream. Cam Smith. It's not just a good story. I did a Q&A with Cam Smith, interviewed him after practice the other day and wrote it for the website.

And I'll try to tack it on if I remember remember to tack it onto this podcast to podcast version, my interview with Cam Smith, cause it was really good. But he's getting first team reps down by the goal line. And he looks like he should be on this team as of right now. And I think we will probably do what maybe we'll do like a post scrimmage, 53 man roster or something. And I think he's going to be on it for me, for somebody who can play a role and be very good on special teams. And last year, this guy was having heart surgery at this point. And I'll be honest, I didn't think a guy who has heart surgery is ever going to come back and play again, especially somebody who was kind of fringy before and now for him to be back. And the other guy that I talked to the other day was Kenny Willekes, who is also coming back. And I see him after practice every day,

taking extra reps and things like that. I haven't watched him super close to see how he's looked in the live 11 on 11s. And honestly, the third team guys don't get a whole lot of them. But as we get into the scrimmage, as we get into the preseason games, it's going to be interesting,

I think to watch Kenny Willekes. So that's my last one. This has been good, Sam. I've enjoyed it. We're going to do it every Tuesday. Sorry about sort of the time change, but, you know, training camp practices sort of flip things around. But we're going to do it every Tuesday, a live stream with Bring Me the News. One more question.

One more question. This comes from Kim. Uh, what new addition to the roster will make the biggest impact this year? Say Greg Joseph. Yeah. Well, Hey, it might be actually, cause he's just so singular in his position. He's the only one who can do it. Wins over the guy from last year, right? Like if he's even an average kicker in the NFL, then he's giving you way more points than Dan Bailey did yeah they probably make the playoffs with an average kicker last year uh we mentioned a few already when we've talked about Peterson we've talked about uh Tomlinson and Xavier Woods it sadly I can't even like think of an offensive edition really that is going to be health because they just didn't add to the offense and the ones they did are hurt so um i i think number one is probably probably dalvin

honestly like dalvin's gonna make a huge you know what i'm gonna back off that it's gotta be one of the corners it's just a more important position uh so i'll switch it to Peterson just because he has to be good. If he's not, then that's a pretty big investment in a player that isn't going to be productive. So it's, it's Peterson. Yeah. He's their biggest signing and it makes the most sense to say, I was going to say Dalvin Tomlinson, because I just think that the interior is, it's like valuable in ways that are sometimes hard to put a finger on in terms of what the offense can just do to you. And we really saw that last year where Shamar Stephan and Jaleel Johnson just got trucked. And when you're getting trucked and it's second and three, because you're giving up seven

yard runs every time on the first play, there's just so much the offense can do to you after that happens. And with Delvin Tomlinson in there, even if Michael Pierce was not a part of this, I would say he would have a big sort of domino effect for the rest of the defense. But yeah, it's hard not to say the corners. I wonder if the answer is maybe even more Mackenzie Alexander, because who else can play nickel? I don't know that anybody else played. Bashad Breeland is not a nickel corner and neither is Patrick Peterson. So there's a lot of pressure on Mackenzie Alexander.

But now we're just naming every player that they brought in. So there's your answer. It's all of them. And there's truth to that because I think they all have to work out in order for this to be as good as it can be. Sam Ekstrom, follow him at Sam Ekstrom on Twitter. Great work on your KJ Osborne piece.

You got more coming on the cornerbacks very soon. I have an article on Jake Browning coming out and how he's kept the train on the track. So check it out. Purple insider.substack.com. If you are watching us on the live stream and want more of this, the purple insider podcast is daily from training camp. So you get all sorts of coverage from different reporters, outside perspectives as well. Make sure you go check it out.

And thanks to Bring Me the News for hosting us here on their live stream. And we'll catch you next time.