Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will we get a Brian O'Neill extension soon? How's the Vikings' cornerback group shaping up?

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Matthew Coller and Will Ragatz, who covers the Vikings for Sports Illustrated, sit down at TCO Performance Center to talk about how the Vikings' first day of training camp practice went and what's happening with the cornerback group. Do we think that Harrison Hand is ahead of Kris Boyd and what did Patrick Peterson tell us about his early interactions with the younger cornerbacks. Plus Brian O'Neill and Harrison Smith have not yet been signed to extensions -- will those be on the way soon? And, is the kicker on the current 90-man roster? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here inside TCO Performance Center as we await the Vikings coming on the field and us going out there and sweating profusely for several straight hours. I am here with Will Raggetts, covers the Vikings for Sports Illustrated, a regular guest on the show. And Will, I see at least for the first day you avoided severe sunburn. So congratulations. Yeah, I was a little worried about that when I saw it was going to be like 95 and sunny, but I ended up having a nice cloud cover, a little breeze, so it wasn't too bad. There's a lot of camp left, though, so I can't get cocky. I got to stay humble and respect the sun.

Yeah, respect the process of the sun, really. I have been highly critical of how you have dressed yourself at times throughout the year, the early year, but it is early indeed. And yesterday you went full bucket hat and I can do nothing but respect it because you and I, we both have a thing that happens to dudes where you don't have quite as much hair as maybe you did as a younger man. So I go with the hat, just the traditional baseball cap, but you went bucket hat. And I mean, that covers a little bit of the neck, gets the ears better. I have to like slather on the ears. So you're, you're quickly becoming a veteran in this game. Yeah. And I've, I've been a veteran of, of the sun game for a while and

I've tried the baseball hat, but I have the snapback. So either you got to wear it forward or I like to wear them backward, but then there's a little like semi-circle in there that gets, gets burnt. I've had that happen to me. So we're going full bucket hat um this isn't a time for appearances or anything it's just pure protection i think you said it yesterday to me it's just survival mode we got 14 days of camp a couple will be or at least one will be in in u.s bank stadium so that'll be nice but uh yeah you just gotta stay stay not burnt any way you can get get through this right without being burnt to a crisp and you're pretty good and you just have to uh fight through the wall of exhaustion camp exhaustion as we go forward because day one that we covered

yesterday well i mean we're all jacked up our camp camp takeaways are 4,000 words long. We're rolling. And then as we get into the deep, into the thick of training camp, I mean, thank goodness for preseason games because they stand from the very start. I touched on some with Courtney Cronin, but maybe even specifically through the eyes of certain players and whether we should be paying attention to them closely or if they're not really going to be a thing. So give me your opinion on the man who made the most waves in day one, which was Ole Udo. I said on the show yesterday, I think this is a thing they do it's very common to see them with a player they're not really sure about for his future to start shuffling around positions and even giving first team reps we saw that with Aviant Collins last year so this is one we're going to have to watch as we go along slowly but I wanted

your take on that were you only Uodo look at that were you that guy well this is a good kind of concept and a way to discuss these players because yeah a training camp is just a time where everybody sees one thing or one little tweet or one quote and just kind of runs with it and we had like Alexander Hollins jumps to mind last year and you mentioned Avion Collins the the offensive line in particular is always going to be be like this because vikings fans and the team is just so starved for competency especially at the guard position of late so you say oh ollie udo super athletic big uh long arms he's in there at guard like if there's a quote or two hyping him up people are just going to run with that and

they have and and he got some first-team reps yesterday. I will say I think it's just entirely too early to really judge whether that's a real thing or not. I mean, it's a real thing in the sense that he got some first-team reps. And Wyatt Davis, as we know, is going to have to earn his way up. But, yeah, I don't know. I just think we've got to see this happen for a few days in a row. He's got to stack some good practices together. We'll try to pay attention to maybe the one-on-one periods when he's going against good defensive tackles, not going against ends

anymore. And we'll see how he does. And we'll see if it's a real thing. We'll check back in in about a week. But I think there's a possibility that, week but I think there's a possibility that well I think there's a strong possibility that he's better than Dakota Dozier at right guard we know it can always get worse for the Vikings I don't think that would get worse but I don't know if it would get much better so we'll have to find that out yeah and I feel the same way that it's just going to have to play itself out to decide whether it's a thing or not And we'll grade that on how he performs on a daily basis. If this was just a brief run at right guard, or if he's there every single day, if he starts getting the majority of the reps, it wouldn't be the biggest shock in the world. If someone sort

of came out of nowhere and was good, we've seen this before with Anthony Harris, even Joe Berger was a backup. And then he ultimately becomes very good. Not a guy who was highly drafted. And I think he was brought in as a free agent purely as a backup, same as what they've done with Mason Cole or Nick Easton was kind of this way. So it wouldn't be the craziest thing ever. It's just when someone is inactive for pretty much the whole last season that now they're moving positions. I'm just, call me skeptical on this one and we'll take some time to figure it out. Now, on the cornerback group, Chris Boyd was getting some run

from Mike Zimmer and Patrick Peterson talking about Chris Boyd watching Patrick Peterson be coached and how he's learning things and getting, quote, nuggets from Patrick Peterson. And I really enjoy listening to Patrick Peterson talk because he is very intelligent, a veteran player who's sort of not afraid to say whatever he wants to say. But Chris Boyd is an on the bubble guy for me big time. I'm looking at this cornerback group and saying Chris Boyd or Harrison Hand, one of you can stay and one of you might have to go and I think Harrison Hand in my mind is a slight edge ahead of him but how do you feel

about the back end of the cornerback group yeah well you talk about Chris Boyd and he he was brought up a couple times just at these press conferences earlier today and I didn't really view it so much as he's getting hyped up with praise. I kind of viewed it as he's a guy that gets picked on a little bit because he's known for making mistakes. And he's known as a guy who I think they see some upside in, but he just can't put it together consistently. And we've seen that whether it's defensively, he got some run at cornerback last year with all the injuries or on special teams, he'll make just these bizarre errors. So to me, it's Zim and Patrick Peterson talking like,

all right, Chris Boyd's here. He's trying to learn from us. And when I'm coaching Patrick Peterson, he's trying to learn. He's still got a long way to go. And like you said, Harrison Hand was one of the stories of OTAs in minicamp with Dantzler and Breeland. Well, Breeland wasn't here yet, but Dantzler wasn't practicing. And Harrison Hand stood out.

To me, I think Hand is pretty firmly the number five guy there. And I think the sixth spot might come down to Chris Boyd against a Ty Smith, who they brought in from the Titans and has some experience and has graded pretty well from PFF in limited snaps. So I don't even necessarily look at Hand versus Boyd as a competition I think Hand is is firmly ahead of him and I could be wrong of course but um I think Boyd is just scrapping to to stay on the roster at this point uh in his third season funny about how sometimes going into a year we hear oh this guy is coming along and he's really going to show us this year Chris Boyd was that

guy last year where I believe Marwin Malouf former special teams coordinator was talking about oh he's great on special teams and he does all these things for us and he's really intense and he's a great tackler but then it turned out he couldn't cover anyone and not only that but he committed the same penalty three different times and I think I ran this that he's got like eight special teams penalties in two years which is crazy like if you commit two over two years it's too many well there was the one last year where they would have had a trick play on fourth down like nobody lined up in front of him britain colgate was gonna throw it to him and he like freaked out and like did some move before like a legal shift right before the snap and it's like what are you doing like and then there's like three straight games or something where he had

a special team's penalty that not that might not be right but that's what it felt like at least so um yeah he he's an interesting guy for sure but he's got to show that consistency he's got to stack good good error-free practices together to be able to stick around on this team okay let's talk about someone who matters a little more and that's uh cam danzler coming off of a very injured first season mike zimmer pretty much kind of called him out in the press conference today he was like you got to stay on the field you can't be coming off the field all the time one of his injuries was a freak injury but for a guy who is listed at 188 pounds it's possible he weighs that much now after quote bulking up but he came into the league at a very unusual weight

for someone who plays in the NFL as a starting outside corner he got pushed around a little I mean Julio Jones pushing him away from a touchdown catch was really something to see a physical specimen just work him like that and then he had great some great games against Chicago and against Jacksonville where he showed he could be a real playmaker are you buying that Cameron Dantzler will be the starter over Bashad Breeland to start the season yeah it's a really interesting situation because both today and a couple days ago in his first press conference, Zimmer has mentioned Dantzler and kind of, like you said, called him out. Today he said, you know, you take a couple hits, you got to stay out there on the field.

I don't think anybody is saying that that hit he took against Green Bay, he should stay out there. But little things like when you get banged up, you got to be able to play through that. And part of that is getting size. But what he said on Tuesday was interesting to me. He said Cam Dantzler needs to get a little more belief in himself and I don't know exactly what that means but maybe he's playing with Zimmer doesn't think he's playing with quite enough confidence so he has to do that he has to stay healthy but if he's able to do that I mean the talent is there we saw those two games you mentioned Chicago Jacksonville and get a pick in each graded like 90 plus on PFF. His length, his

stickiness in coverage, which we saw even in college against Jamar Chase, he's got all the tools to, I think, be a really good corner. But he's going to be pushed by Bashad Breeland, who's a veteran, he's 29 years old, been in the league, been a productive player. So that's one of the most interesting battles to me, is for that cornerback spot on the outside opposite of Patrick Peterson and even in talking about Dantzler Mike Zimmer sort of circled back to he said well I'm not talking about him specifically but also special teams and it made me think like I don't believe you have that first team locked in as Breland comes along from his shoulder surgery I'm gonna give Breland the edge right now and Dantzler will have to prove it and that's okay because there were other guys who they drafted higher than Dantzler who ultimately

became very good starting outside corners but I think that they were right to add one more guy with the Jeff Gladney situation going on with Dantzler with the injuries that he had last year that I think Zimmer has every sort of right to be leaning toward veteran players when it comes to this. I also want to ask you with his general disposition toward the corners and even toward just these first couple of press conferences, it has been about as excited of Mike Zimmer as I've seen since I got here in 2016. But of course, you know, they've gone through a lot through that time. But even in 2017, where I think we got the sense the team was going to be quite good, I don't remember him being this giddy

when he was talking about some of the things. I felt at one point like Zimmer was coaching us up. And it's interesting to me to see a joyful Zim. And I don't think that's just because we're back in person, even though he said it was good to see us. I was just wondering about your impression of that, because his disposition has almost taken me aback a little bit, how excited he seems to be about the way that his defense looks. Yeah, I've only been covering the team since 2019, but this is by far the happiest, the most kind of relaxed and excited that I've seen him.

And I think he said today it's just a different vibe. And he feels like he has good players now, which they've had really good players on defense for most of his tenure as the coach outside of last year. But I think last year was just such a shock to the system and just so stressful for him. And he said after last year looking at the roster, he was down in the dumps looking at the depth chart and some of the guys that he had to play all year. And now the front office did a great job of going out and getting so many guys on defense to reload.

You've got the guys coming back from injury and opt out. And then they go out and get like a Bashad Breland who doesn't even necessarily have a clear starting role you were penciling in Dantzler there but but Breland coming in he's going to push him he's going to be the veterans to say okay Dantzler this job isn't this is a coaching staff thing this job isn't going to be handed to you you have to go out and earn this you have to show us that that you can put it together consistently the same thing with Sheldon Richardson. I mean, he's not exactly pushing Pierce or Tomlinson for their job because he's a different kind of player, but just bringing in depth guys who aren't even going to start

but are going to give you that depth if someone gets hurt and just a rotation where they have like 13 guys who they can bring in on defense and feel confident about. So I think Zimmer is really enjoying the weapons that he has at his disposal I agree on a scale from one to whatever we saw from Zimmer today like where are you at with this because Zimmer is on a 10 right now and maybe by day like four that will change or they're one injury away from that changing and him not being as excited but this seems to be a guy that I don't want to say reinvigorated because he always loves football or they're one injury away from that changing and him not being as excited.

But this seems to be a guy that I don't want to say reinvigorated because he always loves football, and Camp Zim is always a little more jacked up and excited about the season and trying to coach everybody up. They haven't lost any games yet. Right. I mean, he's in his element when he's doing this. I really think that Zimmer's favorite time of year is right now when he's coaching him

up and he's putting everything in and the pressures of the season haven't quite really set in yet and we haven't criticized him for anything yet which he clearly takes note of since he keeps making fun of us for making fun of him for calling Daniil Hunter's injury a tweak but where should the meter be between very very skeptical and Zim excitement level yeah I would say I think it the pendulum has maybe swung a little bit too much last year the defense was brutal and the special teams are brutal and there were some great things that happen on offense this year I think people are just assuming that hey the defense will get significantly better which I think it will. And the special teams maybe will get better.

And the offense will just stay the same, which you can't necessarily count on that. I think this team is much, much better than the 2020 version and has a chance if things fall in place and certain guys step up and certain guys can, like Justin Jefferson, can do it again, that they can be really good. But I will caution that the offensive line is still a question mark. The pass rush is still a question mark. Daniil Hunter and Sheldon Richardson do not make a complete pass rush, and they don't have anybody else who is a proven guy in the NFL to get after the quarterback. Stephen Weatherly did not do very much last year in Carolina when he got his chance to be a starter. So there's young guys on the offensive line.

There's young guys in the pass rush, but those are unknown. So I think it's – I'm not going to ever criticize any Vikings fans for having optimism during training game. That's what it's about, especially now that they can come out here and be here and look ahead to the season. And, yeah, Zimmer's feeling optimistic and and he has every right to but I would just caution a little bit that let's see them prove it first before you start uh booking your your Super Bowl plane tickets I think I'm dead on a five like I'm I'm not I might be like a six or seven but

but six I'll say I think that's where you should be like let's let's see it at least in a preseason game first of kind of how it looks let's see if they stay healthy throughout all of training camp when you look throughout the roster I think the biggest thing you'd say you're concerned about is that Michael Pierce isn't practicing on day one Rashad Breland isn't 100% D.D. Westbrook who they just brought, isn't 100%. Christian Derrissaw has not been practicing really at all, which is concerning since he's got to earn that job. I mean, I was actually thinking earlier when we were talking about Ole Udo, Rashad Hill is a guy who I know you've written about

as someone who's improved pretty steadily throughout his career. So Derrissaw needs to get on the field if he's going to win that job. Yeah, exactly. And that's even with the defense the fact that you're bringing in uh you know several guys off injury even who are mainstays of this team i mean both linebackers coming off injury daniel hunter is the next one that i want to talk about here um but there's a lot of players when you start adding them up this injury this injury this injury and i know it football, but are they all going to come back

right away? Because I think when you look at the schedule, especially now that Rogers is back, you really need to get off to a great start, which means you really need to get off to a healthy start. Now, Christian Derrissaw is not a huge part of that, whether you win week one or not, because Rashad Hill can hold his own. And we even were, you know, subjected to tackle wins last year. If you remember that when Mike Zimmer saying, uh, that in games Rashad played, they were whatever and whatever. But, uh, one sign, I think if you were going to push the meter up from my five, let's see how it plays out to six or seven is the fact that Daniil Hunter looked pretty darn freakish yesterday. He didn't take all of the reps first team live, but he took enough to where you could say,

okay, that Daniil Hunter looks pretty darn Daniil Hunter-y. Yeah, and he had some one-on-one reps against Brian O'Neal where it looks like he's maybe going 80% and he's still winning that pretty easily. And Brian O'Neal is a very good tackle in this league. And obviously, I don't know. Brian O'Neal is going 100% in those either. But yeah, first of all, I think it's cool. We get to be kind of closer up to the action than we did in OTAs and minicamp this year

or training camp last year, which was my first training camp here. So we get to be kind of down on the sidelines and up close. And Daniil Hunter walks by and you just remember, like, this dude is massive. And we're not the only ones who think that. I mean, talk to Patrick Peterson. And he said, yeah, this dude is just, he is a freak of nature. He looks like a young Javon Curse, which is a nice throwback reference there. But, yeah, he looked good. We'll see if he starts slowly ramping up into doing more in the live 11-on-11 periods. But, yeah, I don't think there's really any reason right now to be too concerned

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They're very, very big. And you're right. When the other players marvel at how someone looks, then you know. How about Amir Abdullah getting the second reps with the running backs, third reps with the running backs, Kene Wongwu working in behind him, and it just seems to be kind of everybody in and out. Is Amir Abdullah on this team for you, and what do you think Kene Wongwu has to show for him to kind of matter here, especially since they talked about, oh, well, we've got our kick returner, we've got our punt returner, Amir Smith-Marset might be in the mix here and that sort of thing and then now they're talking

about that with dd westbrook as well and bringing him in uh which i think complicates things for like even if kenny wongwu is a part of this or even if amir abdullah is a part of this yeah so last year i didn't think amir abdullah would a roster spot, and he just managed to stick around. So I'm hesitant to predict that he won't make it this year because there's just certain kind of intangible things, his experience, his leadership, that they seem to value and the versatility brings. But in theory, the roster really has no need for his skill set anymore,

at least in theory. And if you look at places where you can kind of open up a spot on 53 to maybe get another offensive lineman in there or get another receiver or something like that, another tight end, I don't think they need to keep Amir Abdul around from an on-the-field perspective. If Nwongu can show that he's more than just a speed guy and he can make the right kind of reads and cuts and show some vision in terms of running between the tackles and then can show that he's going to be a legit option at kicker Turner along with Smith-Marset. I mean, Abdullah's skills in both those areas are pretty replaceable. He's been a solid kicker Turner for much of his career,

but he didn't do anything in that area last year I mean nobody did anything as returner for the Vikings I think they're gonna have entirely new guys at DD Westbrook returning punts and then I think it'll be one of the rookies returning kicks so yeah I mean it'll be interesting Abdullah can catch the ball out of the backfield and he he's been a running back in the league for six years or whatever he knows what's expected but I think they'd probably like to see Kenny Nwongu develop enough that they don't need to keep Amir Abdul around. There's always the part of me that says they like to keep their veterans around. And part of it might be because when they cut B-Rob and Terrence Newman in 2018, that hurt them. And they did it for, I think it was to Sean Bauer and Mike Hughes then towards ACL

like a couple weeks into the season and and all of a sudden it was I think we saw J Ron curse playing in the nickel in like week one or whatever or whatever week it was that he was playing in the nickel uh because Mackenzie Alexander got hurt early in that season too and so the minute you cut Terrence Newman is when you needed Terrence Newman to at least be average or okay and the same thing went for with B-Rob where Everson Griffin was lost early in that season and they had to put in Weatherly who was you know admirable but you didn't have another veteran there so I wonder if that sticks with Mike Zimmer who talked today about how he's always trying to

adapt but they still do a lot of the same things I do and and you can always trace something they do to a thing that happened like 2016 Chad Greenway gets beat pretty badly as sort of the run stuffing linebacker against the Indianapolis Colts and then Ben Gideon was very limited in how much they could use him. So then all of a sudden they start drafting these like linebackers that weigh 220 pounds. Yeah. It's you know what I mean? Like you can always see like, oh, that didn't go right. So now they're going to go with this thing. And I wonder if that changes here or if they still want the veteran presence of Amir Abdullah and if he's still able to beat people out for the

kick return job. Let me ask you about something a little more important than that, because if that matters, it's maybe a problem. Yeah. Brian O'Neill did not have anything to say about his contract for about the fourth time we've asked him. He is up for an extension. This would be the time to do it. A bunch of right tackles have just gotten paid a bunch of money,

so it makes a lot of sense to do it um what day of training camp would it have to be for you to start saying oh this is kind of a this is something we should keep our eye on because usually it's early yeah and it's early right now and there's nothing to announce yet yeah if we start getting towards the end of next week this is kind of like a half a week here, I would expect that maybe something gets announced late this week or early next week. If we start getting towards like a week from now, next Thursday,

and there's nothing, you're starting to get in the back half of training camp, I think then that becomes kind of something you start to look at and say, okay, is this going to get done? And there's probably some complications there. I don't think the Vikings front office is thrilled looking at the money that's being doled out. I mean, Ryan Ramchick was always going to get a ton of money. He's just a stud, but Taylor Moten and Braden Smith getting like 15 million per year on their new contract. I don't know if the Vikings want to give Brian O'Neill 15 million per year until he shows that he can really like pass protect at an elite level which I don't think we've quite seen yet some people like

get caught up on the zero sacks allowed as a rookie or whatever stat but he still has some developing to do and they've said that today the coaches so it yeah I don't know when this will get done, but I do think that the context of the offensive line that he's in gives him some leverage. Like, he can go, or his agents at least, can go to the front office, Rick Spielman, Rob Brzezinski, whoever, and say, okay, you don't want to pay what we want. You're going to just lose your one offensive lineman that you can rely on week in and week out.

So I think they kind of have to pay him. But at the same time, it's a process that will play out. They're going to try to make it as team-friendly as possible while still getting it done. I always lean toward them paying everyone because, once again, historically, they just pay everyone. They just do it, yeah. But looking at Taylor Moten's deal, and he's better than Brian O'Neal by your PFF marks, and I don't watch enough Taylor Moten to fight against that notion,

so I'll just say he's a little bit better. And the league reflects that with how much they've paid Taylor Moten. But he's going to have some cap hits of $19 and $20 million going forward. That is a lot for a right tackle. And if you arerian o'neill's agent you are certainly saying hey we're right up there with that guy look at the sack numbers like you said look at how durable he's been how many games he's started and also look at all these quotes of a million people saying right tackle is now just as important as left tackle which is probably getting closer to true than it ever has been before with the number of guys who move around from each side of the defensive line

but 20 million dollars is a lot and that cap hit uh the salary cap in general is not going to really go way up until two years from now i think next year i think it'll be kind of similar to where it is right now and then two years from now then the TV money kicks in and everything else so it's a little bit dicey but they just love to hit home runs on the guys that they draft and be able to have that press conference and be able to lock someone in who has been decidedly their best offensive lineman for a while now so that one for me would have to be like end of camp because we even saw that with Delvin Cook how long that went on last year yeah and and the thing is with Brian O'Neill like yes he has more

to prove I think but they can afford to pay him and I think he's shown a good basis of he's got room to grow and he's got room to grow into being an even better player he's just such a good athlete he's a smart guy he seems like a like a high character guy. He's going to work hard. He's going to improve. So the thing that gives them the ability to pay him a lot of money is you've got so many guys elsewhere on that offensive line who are on their rookie deals. You're going to have a left tackle. Assuming Christian Derrissaw becomes that starting left tackle, he's going to be on his rookie deal for four or five years before any extension talks. Garrett Bradbury is still on his rookie deal. I mean, he needs to start playing well if he's going to get a second contract. But Ezra Cleveland's on his rookie deal, Wyatt Davis. So I know they have a lot of money tied up into guys elsewhere, the guy behind the

offensive line, to name the biggest one, Kirk Cousins. But they've also got a lot of guys on the defensive side of the ball on one-year deals. So they're going to have some cap flexibility going forward. I think they'll be able to extend both O'Neal and Harrison Smith, who we haven't talked about. I was just about to bring up Harrison Smith. I am 92% that they are going to extend Brian O'Neal, and that happens. Harrison Smith, I'm more like 60-40 that they will.

Well, because I could put myself in Harrison Smith, I'm more like 60, 40 that they will. Yeah. Well, because I could put myself in Harrison Smith's shoes and I could say, what if I can go trophy chasing next year? And someone will absolutely pay me money for that. He's making a lot of money right now. If he becomes a free agent, someone is signing him to a three-year deal worth like $15 million per year if he's even the regular version of Harrison Smith everyone knows how good he is the Eric Weddle thing the Ed Reed even thing of playing for one more team after you've been legendary with it with one franchise I could see it again we always lean toward they're going to keep their players

they seem to have that tendency but the one thing that would be a hold up is imagine this doesn't go the way you want it to go let's say they go eight and nine and then we're talking about the potential for a coaching change a quarterback change maybe if that has happened that means breland didn't work out or pierce or tomlinson or whoever they signed that That means people didn't work out. Peterson's only staying for one. All of a sudden, you could be looking at another revamp with someone else in charge. If I'm Harrison Smith, I wonder if I want that. And you can decide at any time because you know they'll have you.

So you don't have to decide right now to sign a three-year extension. You could wait till the end of the year. If you're Harrison Smith, there's always the risk you take that you get hurt but even then a hurt harrison smith someone will pay you to be harrison smith next year i think it's a good point yeah i mean if you're if you're harrison smith but you look around and on the defense and say what who are the guys who are long-term guys i know are going to be here are under contract because daniel hunter isn't i mean he they did they redid his contract so that that's a decision that they basically just kicked down down the line a year um i mean it's basically eric kendrick's uh anthony barr isn't dalvin tomlinson has two

years on his deal but i think bar could be a huge deal in that because yeah because him and smith are close yeah that's that's a good point um bar is another guy who he's he they have they added the void year so this this could easily be his last year with the Vikings. I didn't really think about it that way, that Smith could basically say they could be quite good this year, but we also need to see it happen first. And, and last year was so rough that he might be thinking, all right, if, if we do go,

yeah, eight, nine, nine and eight, um, maybe he'll, he'll want to look for somewhere else to, to play his,

his, his, the last couple of years of his prime. Hey everyone. I want to tell you about our friends. It's scout logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends, They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do.

Scout Logistics is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads. And if you're wondering what that means exactly, well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America. And we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out scoutlogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. Okay, quick, quick question.

And then a fun question to finish uh got a question from nick who is a regular listener of the show is this year's kicker on the 90 man roster right now that is a good question i i think this year's kicker until further notice is greg. Because they said he made lots of kicks in OTAs and minicamp or whatever that's worth. And the thing is, it's not like there's just some magical other option out there. I was actually, when I was writing about the special teams, I was looking like who's a free agent kicker they could bring in. And it's like there's just guys who have been good in the past.

Like Steven Gostkowski is still out there, but he was horrendous for the Titans the last couple years, except for, of course, the one game they played at US Bank Stadium. Like Zane Gonzalez, Brett Maher. Dan Bailey is still out there. But, no, if you're a free agent kicker, you're a free agent kicker for a reason because you've been bad recently. And I think they like Greg Joseph's chances of at least being solid there so i i it would surprise me if he wasn't

the kicker uh at least to start the season i mean riley patterson could work into the mix but he's a rookie and undrafted i don't i don't know about that he's not even practicing right now but i will say the kicker for the start of the season is Greg Joseph is the kicker for week 12 on the roster right now I'm not sure we'll see how Greg Joseph does this is not the fun question but what else in life is like trying to pick a kicker like let's say when you go to a restaurant and whether it's busy or not like you have no idea you can sort of guess by the hours whether you're going to be waiting or whether a lot of people come in at that time. But you never really know and you just have to hope.

And when it works out for you, it's great. Front of the line, you can sit wherever you want. And when it's bad for you, sorry, we got a 45-minute wait for a table. And you're like, well, come on, but I thought this restaurant was never busy at this time. It's like for the kickers. But I thought Dan Bailey kicked 90% last year, and now he's the worst kicker in the league. It's like Gostkowski, Gonzalez, Joseph, Riley, whoever.

I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Yeah, I'll leave the metaphors and analogies to you, but, yeah, it's just an absurd thing where these coaches are such like incredible football minds and schemes and offense, defense protections, blitzes, coverages, like all these things that just work together. And, and then it oftentimes just comes down to one guy kicking a ball through some uprights and where it could be an entirely like a mental thing. Like I think what happened to dan bailey and and like you play this game for 60 minutes and it just comes down to

all right your long snapper and your holder and uh the conditions of of the kick and and it's just it's just a kind of a ridiculous thing it's like shootouts in uh in soccer um i was watching the euro cup this this summer um and it seems to always just come down to shootouts and it's like this just not seem like the best way to decide this game like in in theory the best way to decide an nfl game would be to like run some plays from the 10 or like do something like that but hey kicking's part of it it adds excitement i can't say it's not it's not dramatic so uh yeah i have no idea what to expect from the kickers but i think the safe assumption is that it'll be a pain in the ass for mike zimmer that's what's so funny is they're

so good at evaluating everything yeah if you look at the best players are always drafted at the very top and then after that they're the second best players and after that and the fifth rounders are nowhere close to the first round first rounders and all like they're so good at that the viking i can't think of a single player the vikings have cut in training camp who became a star elsewhere like think about how good you have to be at evaluating to never have that happen and yet the kickers no one has a clue no one has the slightest clue uh okay daniel carlson in the right round and and then he's good and all the best kickers are like undrafted or seventh-round picks. Right.

Another one of the kickers I saw that's available is Roberto Aguayo, who was, like, a fourth-round pick or fifth-round pick or something. But there's a reason for that. Do you know what it is? No. The reason that undrafted kickers are better than drafted kickers is they have to earn it. Like, the drafted guy, well, you drafted him,

so he's going to win the job, even if he's not that good. They just feel obligated to give the draft pick the job because that was their initial evaluation if Riley Patterson earns it as the undrafted guy that means he had to be really good so odds are he is actually better funny little thing about that okay last question A.A. Ron Rogers told the Packers, I'll come back if I can get out of this, and you give me Randall Cobb. If you were in Aaron Rodgers' position for the Vikings, what random guy would you die on the hill for them bringing back? Like, if you don't bring back, and this does not have to be a player who's still in the league,

but if you don't bring back this guy, third tier player i am out like what hill would you die on of a like average slot receiver that's funny yeah so so say you're like kirk cousins is an mvp player with the contract holdout and he has to he's he's calling the shots to get somebody i don't know like aldrick robinson maybe that's a good one it's a good one if you don't bring back the guy who caught like five touchdowns in 2017, I'm not coming back. I don't know what another one, maybe some like terrible offensive lineman who he was like friends with or something, but like bring Tom Compton back.

I don't know. Those are the names that jump to mind for me. But, yeah, that's such an incredible thing that they took on Randall Cobb, who has a bad contract, traded a sixth round pick, but paying him a lot of money to just be washed so that their quarterback will be happy because they made him very mad. It's a I am the captain now situation. Yeah, I think if people have been listening to the show long enough they can guess who i'm going to say and that's jarius right because jarius right was good and for whatever reason in 2017 as great as that season went they played laquan treadwell and then they let jarius

right go he did fine in carolina was a good receiver for them and they tried michael floyd in 2017 that was a disaster then it was aldrick robinson josh doxon treadwell again like all all these people it is still going it's a dd westbrook on a one-year deal when he's coming off a leg injury last year tajay sharp he of an average depth of target of 50 yards on two targets. And zero catches. Zero catches, two bombs. And that's your whole Viking career. And here's, you know, well, Jarius Wright's not in the league now.

He's retired or doesn't. Now we're getting K.J. Osborne hype talk. Right. That's what I mean. It's like, yeah, you know what? I'll stick around. If you bring me back, Jarius Wright. All right.

Will Raggetts, you are a must-follow on Twitter. So give me a second while I call up your Twitter name. It's just at Will Raggetts, just my name. R-A-G-A-T-Z. A-T-Z. But, yeah, this is fun. Let's go watch some practice. All right.

Off we go. Thanks for your time, buddy. Make sure you follow him on Twitter and his work at Sports Illustrated. And we will catch you tomorrow from Vikings training camp.