Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will we judge the Vikings' GM on how this rookie class performs? (A Fans Only pod)

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans questions, starting with whether Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's success as an evaluator will be tested by the draft picks where he went against the consensus draft board. and whether it's a good idea to trade a bunch of draft picks in the future for a QB. Also what does a typical gameday look like for a Vikings reporter and which away games will Purple Insider be covering this year? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And this is once again a fans only because we've got a lot of really great questions to talk about for this next episode. And I'm going to do my best to get through all the questions I have, all the pre-training camp questions I have to make space for all of the camp questions as we begin next Tuesday or the opening press conferences Wednesday. We're out there for an actual practice, and then we'll get all hyped up, first practice, and then they'll be in shorts and just kind of going through a glorified walkthrough,

and then we'll talk about the pads popping, and once that happens, it'll be the night practice pre-season games and storylines will be abound who's getting first team reps how everybody looks what they're saying about the new coaching staff and systems folks i am very very excited for all this to happen but i love the questions that i have and i want to answer them now, but I also have to add this, uh, an episode or two ago, I said, Hey, if you guys want to kind of return the favor, if I answer your question, or if you're enjoying the fans only episodes, one way to do it is to leave a five-star review on iTunes that that helps kind of boost the algorithm and help people find

the show. And I was fiddling around today and I opened up the comments on iTunes and there were a lot of them. And I just wanted to say how much that means to me that you guys would leave so many nice comments and five-star reviews. And I am really touched by that. And I greatly, greatly appreciate all the people who listen, who, you know, are listening on their walk or listening on their drive to work. Some people talk about, you know, just being more engaged and interested in the team and things like that because they listen to the show. And I just cannot tell you how much that means to me. I try to dial up every episode thinking about what does everybody want to hear about, uh, with the Minnesota Vikings and how can I make this fun and how can I make this interesting and to read your comments, um, from so many of you, I just, uh, I just can't say thank you enough. So if you want to do that, if you haven't yet, uh, go there, give a five-star review. I greatly, greatly appreciate it. And again, cannot thank

you all enough for doing that. So with that all said, let us open the Diet Dr. Pepper and answer some Viking fan questions. All right. Here we go. We're going to start with disagreements with the first question. So this comes from R E via email says, since I agree with 95% of what you say, let me focus on two points of possible disagreement and ask your comment on them. First, you've been quite critical of two of Casey's draft selections,

Ingram at 59 and Evans at 118, because they were allegedly reaches because they did not align with where they were on the consensus board. Being that his other picks are generally aligned with the consensus, why instead of knocking the picks as bad because they were outliers, don't you see the picks as a great opportunity to assess Kwesi's talent as an evaluator? Well, let me answer this one first, and then we'll get to your second disagreement. Well, first, I don't believe in the idea of judging an evaluator based on whether one or two picks hits or misses. I know that that certainly is what we do.

If you drafted this guy in the first round, then we say, what were you thinking if the guy's a bust? Or, well, this general manager must have been genius for picking this guy. But a lot of times it's just random of whether that player succeeds or not, that every pick carries along with it percentage chances of things happening. So when you look at the player's athleticism, that's a percentage. When you look at a player versus the consensus board, that's a percentage. When you look at the circumstances, the opportunity, that's a percentage. What they did in college, what the data says about that. Did they put up

big stats? Did they not put up big stats? And what you're trying to do is you're trying to get as close to a high percentage of success as you possibly can. And so when you draft against the consensus board, that doesn't make me think like, oh, well, if you think you're smarter than the consensus board, then we'll see. That's not really how I look at it. I look at it as these two players could certainly become really good in the NFL. And I'm not sure how critical I was of a Caleb Evans and that draft pick. I know it went against the consensus board, but a fourth round corner, I don't remember.

And maybe you've got the draft night takes and you have me ranting about something on tape, which is possible because I've done a lot of podcasts, but I don't remember having a problem so much with taking a fourth round corner. I think any defensive back from the second to fourth round is usually a good pick because you see a lot of those guys develop. I know it was against the consensus board, but I remember having a conversation with Arif Hassan who invented the consensus board where I kind of said like, meh, you know, I don't really care that he went against the consensus board in the fourth round. The second round was more than just the consensus board, him being against that.

It was off field things, of course. And it was also that the consensus board had him as like a fourth or fifth rounder, and he goes in the second. That's not small. That's big. But I would not say that if the second round guard hits, oh, man, well, Kweisi must be really smart, and that's how we'll judge it. Or if it's a bust, I'm also not going to say, wow, they're just really dumb

and don't know how to evaluate anything. I think using that as a barometer is relying too much or drawing too much of a conclusion off of things that are random. I mean, even if something has a small percentage chance of hitting, it can still hit. I'll give you an example. I remember saying when they traded Stefan Diggs, good luck finding another Stefan Diggs. And they got Justin Jefferson. Now, what were the odds that they would get someone as good or better than Stefan Diggs? He was already one of the best wide receivers in the NFL,

and they got somebody as good or better. I mean, that is just so unlikely. And the same thing with like the 2015 draft where what are the odds of getting a superstar receiver in the fifth and a superstar pass rusher in the third round? Very, very low, but, but it worked out, right? I mean, sometimes these things happen. Uh, it's not very good odds of getting a superstar quarterback in the third round, but Russell Wilson became that or the fourth round with Dak Prescott. But I usually say, hey, if you're drafting Kellen Mond in the third, your odds are very

low. And yeah, there's one Dak Prescott, but that's like a 3% chance of happening. But when it's a 3% chance, that means it does happen. So I don't know. I guess I look at it and say, what I expected was to see Kweisi Adafo Mensah focus more in the draft on positions that are carrying the most value. And you can look at that very simply by just saying, well, who's getting paid the most? What positions are getting paid the most? That means if you draft

one of those guys and you get them on a rookie contract and they succeed then you get a ton of value out of that versus what you'd have to pay a star veteran and you're seeing that from justin jefferson like they i mean if they had to pay jefferson right now if his cap hit was 25 million dollars uh they wouldn't be able to afford anybody else, but they were able to do some things this off season in part because their best player is a guy who is on a rookie contract. That's the golden scenario. Like that's what you're looking for. And they drafted a safety, not one of the higher positions in terms of pay a guard. Again, not one of the higher positions. Corners are pretty pretty pretty high up

there not quite as much as edge rushers receivers quarterbacks but okay a corner in the second round and that's why the fourth round corner is good because if you hit on either one of those two guys then you've got you know some serious value there those are value positions corners defensive ends wide receivers that are getting paid the most in the NFL. So, I mean, I don't think that drafting those two guys means that they are totally going against the ideas that we thought Kwesi would have. It's a whole front office. Lots of people are making decisions. So I'm not going to, if they fail, I'm not going to say, oh, well, look,

look, you know, Kwesi doesn't know how to evaluate a guard, right? Like it's just too small of a sample size. Every situation is different. I think we make an assessment on day one and then we evaluate beyond that. So I didn't really like the pick of the second round guard. And if it turns out great, then we're going to say, why did it turn out great? You know, we're going to say, did it turn out great because he developed and had no off-field issues and was a huge difference maker for this team? Or are we going to say it failed because what got in the way? And all of those conversations to

me are interesting and it's it's fascinating to look into why draft picks succeed or fail but if they succeed on one or fail on another i really want to judge the process of that but not make a huge judgment overall like like the process of trading down for lewis scene if jameson williams becomes a star we could say back on day one we kind of looked at that process and wondered was that really a good idea to pass up on a potential star wide receiver right so i think we're always kind of going back and forth and looking why did it succeed what was the process what did we think at first and then judging from there and if these two picks end up going bust,

then we can say, Hey, maybe there was some process issues here. And if they succeed, we'll say, Hey, despite questions about the process, they ended up hitting and ended up turning out to be good players because of X, Y, and Z. And we'll talk about it either way. But I'm not going to say that I like the pick just because it's a test case, because I can't really see it in the same way as you're looking at it as a test case. The other thing you disagree on, let's see, you keep endorsing the strategy of the Vikings have another disappointing season of trading multiple first round picks to get up in the draft or to draft a potential franchise player to

replace Kirk Cousins. Instead, isn't it more prudent to trade Cousins and other veterans first tank for 23 and then get a very high pick without mortgaging the future. This approach delays the clock by a year on a rookie deal and allows the Vikings to do a full rebuild. Um, yeah, I think that, I don't think it's insane to trade draft picks up, but I don't, I would not say that I fully endorse that idea. I have always been of the mind that you wait until if you have a high enough draft pick, uh, say in the middle of the first round, even that now there are so many good quarterback prospects and it's so hard save for last year. And it's so hard save for last year. And it's so hard to figure out which one will succeed. So if there's five or if there's six,

one or two might become good. You can use the 2018 draft as an example of that. So you had five first round quarterbacks to have become good. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield can play and got his team 11 wins. And the other guys were really bad. And so like, there's your distribution, right? So let's say that there's five in this year's draft class. Two will probably be good and one will probably be okay. And the other two will be terrible. And we don't know which one is which. So you might as well just take whoever lands at your pick. If the Vikings were to have a mediocre year and they're drafting 13th, don't, unless you absolutely have to trade everything, just take the quarterback at 13th.

That's the strategy I would endorse. Now, when you're talking about a full teardown, one of the issues with tanking in 2023 is, A, if you already had one bad year and then you tank, uh, pressure is way on your head coach, Kevin O'Connell to very quickly get back to the top. The other issue is that they did not structure contracts for guys like Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen to make it really easy to move on at the quarterback position. They really do have to competitive rebuild. Plus you can't just tank with Justin Jefferson. Like he's going to win you

games unless you play a punter at quarterback. Like he's probably going to help you. Um, if you have anybody reasonably decent there, if they had, this was part of my case, if you had Marcus Mariota, you could still probably win seven or eight games and you didn't have to tank and you could get the ball to Justin Jefferson and so forth. Uh, but he's very good and he's going to still help you. And plus, you know, you've drafted Darisaw, you've paid Brian O'Neill. These are players. You can't just pull off the team and lose every game. There's too much talent. That's going to be here. It is under contract to just say tank in 2023. So they're more in a position to play out this year, try to get to the playoffs, try

to win 12 games. I mean, that should really be your goal. And if you don't do that, then plan to draft a quarterback, play it out with Kirk or trade Kirk, depending on where that situation is at and what you could get in return and draft the guy who falls to you or who is just there at your position. Because Lamar Jackson went 32nd. Patrick Mahomes wasn't the first quarterback off the board. Like I think that teams understand the first round talents, but have no idea who's going

to succeed. So hopefully I cleared those two things up for you. But I always like that and, and feel free anybody, when it comes to these questions, if there's something that you want clarified or something that is an opinion of mine that you disagree with I'm happy to have a little back and forth here if you want to do it that way, as far as your questions. So thank you very much RE for that. Let's go to our next question here. This is from Zach via the email as a reporter. What is the best type of season to cover winning drama,

losing, et cetera. Um, let's see, can I pie chart this one? Uh, maybe not. Um, winning seasons are the best to cover because everyone wants to read everything that you got to say and wants to listen to the shows and everything else. The excitement of a fan base, as you head down the stretch with a chance to really win, there's nothing like it as far as coverage goes, because everyone cares about what you have to say and everything matters. The worst is when you get to a point where nothing matters. And we have been there and we have felt that, I think. I mean, think about this. I've probably said this on the show before, but you know, purple insider started in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. And I have not covered a Vikings game where they were over 500. There's a lot of times in there, like right from the very

start starts in May, 2020, the first two games, they lose in absolutely miserable fashion. And it was just like, well, what do we talk about now? I mean, right. Like we're already, you know, at a point where this team is looking nothing like a real contender. And this is just going to be a long slog of a season where we hope that, you know, there, there are some interesting storylines and drama and so forth to discuss because that's the number one thing you want when you're in my shoes is just interesting stuff to talk about. And when the team is really good, when you're going down the stretch and we had this in 2017, uh, I mean, one players are usually happier, which helps you get more insight and understanding

into football and how the team operates. It's easier to talk with players when they've just won three games in a row to stop somebody at their locker and say, Hey, can you explain route running to me? Like I asked Terrence Newman one time and he was happy to do it. If they had lost five games in a row, I'm not sure Terrence Newman would have been so thrilled to explain, you know, receivers and route running and what makes receivers difficult to cover. Probably not. Now, I used to feel like dramatic seasons were the best because it's just wild.

And if I'm not doing the living and dying with every win and loss, I'm just going, this is crazy. Everyone. Do you see how nuts this is? But where I've changed on that is the last few seasons have been up and down and they've been super dramatic. And I think it's, it just, eventually it just sort of wears on everybody. Right. And there's so much tension and so much frustration that, uh, and, and a lot of people will also check out during those seasons too, as far as fans go. I think that, you know, when it's dramatic, but the team doesn't seem like a real contender, you get what you get last year where the fans are showing up and they're not as loud

and they kind of are ready to boo or ready to be unhappy with the team. And as much as that is fine to cover, as far as my work goes, and I'm going to do the best I can with what I have. And I'm going to enjoy those conversations a lot when it's super dramatic, there is a point you reach where you're just like, man, I, I feel like the fans have checked out on this, or I feel like the fans aren't reading stuff or aren't as interested because they're just frustrated with this team. That's where we've been a lot. And I guess I'm ready to cover a winning season again, where if you're writing about, I remember

writing an article about like David Morgan's blocking and it got huge numbers on our website at the time. It's like, man, everybody wants to read everything about this team. Even David Morgan's blocking. And also shout out to all of you guys for being nuts and wanting to read about stuff like that. But that's the best. It's when everyone's talking about the team all the time

and fans want to hear everything and want to talk about everything. Yeah, that's probably number one. But from my own personal perspective, you know, drama can be very fun. Losing is fine. Like, I'll cover it because we're not here just for good times. We're here for all of the times to cover it. And a lot of things come out of losing. Like, you get coaching changes and you get developing

players who get chances when they wouldn't before, when teams are horrible, that sort of emerge and surprise you. Uh, I dealt with a lot of these when I covered the Buffalo Sabres and the Buffalo bills. Um, you get a lot of tension, which creates a lot of people taking shots at each other. And we get to go, Ooh, what does that mean? And what's this? So there's never a time for me covering it where I'm like, I just can't deal with this. Uh, but I think it's more about if you guys are enjoying it, if fans are enjoying it, then it's easier to create conversations that, you know, people are going to like, because there's only so many times. And this is why I like, we got to the end of the Zimmer era. And I was thinking to myself, if they don't make a coaching change, I don't know what to talk about

anymore because I'm just going to be saying the same things about Mike Zimmer running on second and 10. And I'm not sure any of us can take it anymore. Um, so that's the worst. That's the dead worst dead last I'll cover all the other. Dead last is the monotony. And, and after going through these last few years, I have definitely felt that. And I think you guys have to that monotony, the same thing over and over where it's not good enough. That's the most frustrating thing to cover. And it's the most frustrating thing I'm sure for you guys to watch as your team. Um, so this year, I guess, you know, we'll see what happens, but at very least we'll have a lot of different things to talk about, uh, because of a new coach and new general manager and all those things. So thank you

very much for that question. Let's go to at Chrissy snazza 84, I believe is how it's pronounced. Chrissy, you follow me on Twitter. So if,'s not the way I pronounce it, please let me know. Fans only podcast question here. Two part question. What does a typical game day look for you? And if you're traveling this year, which away game are you look forward to the most? All right. So let me answer the second one first.

There's a few things with the Purple Insider travel schedule. I always go to Chicago and Green Bay, and those trips this year are in the dead of winter. I'm not super thrilled about the scheduling of that. I don't know how many times now I've gone down to Green Bay in January, and you park in this field. I'm sure a lot of you know this. You park in this field and have to walk kind of a long way into the stadium when it's minus three. That is not my favorite thing in the world to do. I'm sure a lot of you guys have done it before, but there is something about Lambo January. Uh, maybe it'll be a game that matters that we can really hype up and there's a lot of

drama and you know, that sort of thing. And hopefully nobody gets COVID and has to miss the game. Not that that would ever happen that scenario, but yeah, those two are always great to go to though. I love the city of Chicago and green Bay. I know nobody wants to hear this because it's a Viking show, but when you pull up to Lambeau field, come on, like, don't you just like have a vision of Vince Lombardi there? And you just hear like, like the, you know, NFL films or something. And you hear John, we all turn into John Madden. Oh, you, you know, you got to Brett Favre here and boom and whatever. Like it's just so football and it's Vikings. And there's like, you know, cold breath coming out and everything. And the tundra is frozen, you know, whatever it's there's something about that. That's really cool. So I'll be going to those games as always, uh, going to Philly, which is not the most fun because the stadium is nowhere really near

the downtown. And I've been to the stadium now a few times, one memorable time in 2017, where, uh, I could not fly back because my flight got delayed. So I had to just stay there. And a ton of Vikings fans were stuck after the NFC championship in Philadelphia and then had to ride back. So there's all sorts of purple gear and everything else. And just one sad flight back to Minneapolis. So it's not really about enjoying Philly necessarily because I stay at the airport and then just go to the stadium.

But I think that's a really about enjoying Philly necessarily because I stay at the airport and then just go to the stadium. But I think that's a really big game. They play Green Bay at home and then go to Philly. It's like you have a chance maybe to go to 2-0 against Philly, a team that's supposed to be good. Also a team that looks like it could be competing with you for a playoff spot. There's like vibes with Philly still since of 2017 of kind of a rivalry there, even though a lot of the faces have changed. Cousins had one of his best performances as a Viking against Philadelphia in 2018, where he really made some throws in that game. And at that point, I actually thought this team could be very good. And then, you know, things went wrong, but you know, it's,

it's, it's been a matchup that cousins has done really well. So I, I wanted to go there for that one, but what I'm actually most excited about, I don't know how many of you guys know who Jonathan Harrison is, but he does a great job with social media and does video editing and a lot of things to help me out. And he produced my old show, uh, when it was on 1500. And, uh, so Jonathan is a huge soccer fan. So I asked him if he wanted to go to England to cover the Saints game. So I'm sending Jonathan to England to cover the Saints game. And I'm actually most excited about that because he's such a big soccer fan.

So he's going to go over there, go to some soccer games, cover the game for you guys, do appearances on the show. And Jonathan is just the best. So I'm really excited about him doing that. Aside from those, I haven't decided. I'm going to Buffalo, obviously, because it's my hometown. My parents would be very offended and my friends in Buffalo if I said, you know, I don't know about this one, guys. I think they're going to lose.

I'm not going. And then other than that, we'll see. Brian Murphy is going to go to Florida or to Miami Miami and he's going to cover that one for us. So kind of the, the purple insider squad will be efforting to cover a lot of the road games. Yeah. Uh, and as far as your first question, what does a typical game day look like? Um, yeah, that's, you know, it's really not, um, it's really not all that glamorous. Uh, I show up at the stadium. If it's a home game, maybe 10, 10 30, I get settled in my seat, get some breakfast, a solid breakfast bar, shout out to us bank stadium for that, that they make sure everybody eats well there. So, you know, I get some breakfast, get settled in my seat, get the laptop set up. And then I watch the game like

everybody else. But you know, during the game is a, it's a lot different than if you're watching it in the stands or if you're watching it, um, you know, at home, people will say, well, you get to, you know, go to the games for free. It's like, well, yes, but I'm also really working. Like, you know, you have like a sheet open. I do everything in Google docs, just like fans only. And I just have this sheet open where I am just writing sentences a lot of times about what happened or thoughts that I have, or a one liner that, you know, whatever I want to write for the post game reaction. And then when it gets to the second half, I'm really taking every break between snaps and every commercial break, every after touchdown, whatever to write my article, because I like to have an instant reaction for

fans to read right when I'm done. So I'm really like plowing through trying to write, trying to read. How about last year, all those crazy games, how many times did I have to delete and change and do everything else? So I'm scrambling kind of as the game is going on in the second half, trying to make sure you don't miss anything. I've got Judd next to me. I'm going to really miss Courtney next to me as well in the press box. So we're always talking about, Hey, did you see that? Or is that player out there on the field? Or, you know, if somebody got hurt or what's going on, look at, you know, check the TV replay. So it's a little bit hectic up there throughout the game.

And then after the game ends, they walk off. We go down an elevator or the stairs, actually at US Bank Stadium. I take the stairs. We go all the way down to the bottom where they like bring in the trucks and the equipment and all those things. And the locker room is down there. So you kind of walk in to the press conference room or the locker room. Players are all just, you know, around, uh, you go, you interview people,

you get in, in scrums with a bunch of reporters with somebody, uh, who had a big game is talking or something like that. You go to the coaches press conference and then it's back upstairs, uh upstairs where everybody's gone, the empty stadium and all that. So then I do my postgame podcast reaction and do another article reacting to what everybody said that's going to run the next morning. And then we eat some pizza and then we go home. Like, that's it. That's a game day. Usually it's kind of probably getting home around eight o'clock, right. Right. As Sunday night football is starting. So,

you know, it's a, it's a what, 10 hour day or so, but I mean, you know, that's why you do the job, right? Like that it's a, it's a long day and there's a lot of concentration. And once you're done, it's like, whew, okay. Uh, that was a lot, you know, and so many things happen and everything else throughout a game that like everything changes that week. So I'm trying to like catch up on everything and see if there's anything I missed for my article when I get home. And, uh, usually, you know, talk to Brian Murphy and whoever else is writing for the site that week and everything. And that's kind of how it goes. So it's a, it is, it is absolutely a fun time, but it could also be like really intense when something happens. Like, remember when the

person hung from the stadium roof, it's like, what do we do with this? I thought I was covering an easy week, you know, 17 game. And then, you know, this happens, or if somebody gets hurt, like, you know, uh, Delvin cook tears his ACL and like things get pretty hectic pretty quickly. And you're trying to like get information out to fans, tweet quotes, and then also organize your thoughts to do a reaction and all those things. So, um, yeah, kind of a lot going on there, but you know, it's a, it's a good time. Uh, so thank you for that question. That's kind of a day in the reporting life. Um, okay. Next question. Oh, so this is actually, you know, it's actually funny. The first sentence of this,

this comes from Sarah. I'm pretty jealous that you live in Minnesota and get to attend Vikings games. Cause that's, we were just talking about, uh, two questions. What's the most memorable Vikings game you have been to mine is, uh, being with my dad, taking me to a game at Lambeau Field. Again, that's something we were just talking about in December, beating the Packers and trying to coexist with the Cheesehead. Do reporters have a special space at the games where they sit? Oh, well, the second one. Yes, we have the there's a press box, which not only includes the media that covers the Vikings and

local media, but also, uh, the away media is on the other side and you have the entire staff of like PR people and website writers and things like that, that work for the Vikings. And next to us is, is where the coaches box are. So you have this kind of long press box area where we all just have kind of our little assigned areas and things like that. Just a small desk space basically. And then right next to that are coaching booths where you have the offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, those guys in one of them. You have the radio booth with Paul Allen is over there. And that's where we do like post game podcast, post game videos and stuff like that. So that's kind of our special little assigned place. As far as the most memorable game,

I mean, it's just, it's not a hot take here. I mean, it's the Minneapolis miracle. There's nothing close. Uh, I feel like I have visions of every second of that game. And when I wrote my book about it, uh, you know, it kind of even brought back even more of like, Oh, you know what? I forgot that Zimmer kicked a field goal at the five yard line or whatever it was to go up 17 to three, instead of play for a touchdown there. Or, you know, I forgot this tipped ball where Everson Griffin pressured drew breeze, or, you know, there was, uh, so many things that happened. That was a lifetime of a game. And, you know, Judd Zolgat is one of the best human beings I know.

And, uh, one of my best friends. And so sitting next to him for the Minneapolis miracle and having digs run down the sideline and Judd and I looking at each other, just like what just happened, uh happened is easily the most memorable. And not only that, but Drew Brees playing quarterback in the second half of that game, leading them back was just, you're talking about one of the greatest players in NFL history. And you're watching him operate under the hardest circumstances that anyone could play. Number one defense, number one stadium in terms of noise at its absolute peak. And he's making plays. I mean,

that was just, you know, from a person who's loved football my entire life watching that's like, wow, that was really something. And then, you know, of course, uh, the final play and watching it all develop because of where we sit, we're way up there. So, you know, we're below the highest level, I think, but we're pretty high up. But you could see the whole play develop. You could see the ball traveling in the air, where Diggs was coming from, the safety. And I remember looking back at the defender to see how far downfield he was and seeing the whole thing, watching the defender miss Diggs.

Yeah, I mean, that's got to be number one. I'm sure that I could rank a list of ones that were, that were crazy along the way. And there's been many since I got here in 2016. I think my other one that was a favorite was just my first game because it was the game that opened us bank stadium. Sam Bradford was fantastic. The Vikings beat the Packers in that game. Trey Waynes, I think wraps it up with an interception. You know, Sam Bradford hits digs The Vikings beat the Packers in that game. Trey Waynes, I think, wraps it up with an interception.

Sam Bradford hits digs in a big play. I mean, you know, so it is a heck of a place to watch a game and to cover games. And we're very lucky to be able to do so at U.S. Bank Stadium. And, I mean, these years of covering this team, I mean, there's a lot that's happened. There's just a lot that's happened over these years. So many, many memorable games to talk about. All right, this next question comes from VF10281. Mailbag question.

What are your thoughts on Colin Cowherd being so high on the Vikings this year? Well, I could say that you're breaking news to me that Colin Cowherd is high on the Vikings this year. Well, I could say that you're breaking news to me that Colin Cowherd is high on the Vikings. I have no issue with Colin Cowherd whatsoever. He's extremely successful in our industry. So I respect his success, but I can't say, see the, the podcasts and things that I listened to are more of like the PFF guys. I like our Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks, you know, Steve Palazzolo, Sam Monson, Eric Eager, George Shahuri. Like I like the extremely in-depth football stuff, Robert Mays and Nate Tice, those guys.

And so kind of mainstream talk shows. I haven't listened a whole lot to them like your espn your fox sports and stuff like that your debate shows um if you like them that's awesome and if you're a huge fan of colin coward totally cool it's just not really my thing because i'm always trying to like listen for things that i can learn or use uh and so know, it's cool that Colin Coward is high on the Vikings. I mean, that's all I've got though. It, uh, you know, this sort of reminds me of Chris Sims is high on Kellen Mond and people would ask me about it and like, okay, well, none of us really know, right? Like none of us really know what's going to happen. I don't think that there's anybody

that has great predictive abilities. The only thing that has ever been really found to be predictive is the sharpest of the sharp people who set the Vegas lines with their betting. And then those lines get worked out and they come out essentially 50, 50. And that's the best that anybody can do. Right. And if there's gamblers out there that understand this better than I do, I'm sorry if I'm like off on my understanding of how these things work. But like the Vegas lines make Vegas money. They're right more than they're wrong or they're even dead even basically there. So they're pretty well set with being predictive. It's kind of like how they win.

But I don't know that I've ever followed a media personality. This includes, I mean, this includes me for picking games for picking, you know, who's going to have this record or that record. I mean, I don't think that I'm great at that. I mean, especially picking games. You guys have heard me over the years. I'm like, ah, this was this one, the Vikings should win and then they lose. Or, you know, this is one that the Vikings always lose and then they win. Like, I don't know. I mean, it's none, none of us really have any idea what's going to happen. And if we did, then, you know, we would get, well, Colin Cowher does get paid a lot. So I was going to say we get paid a lot more, but he does get paid a lot, but I don't think that there's anybody who is super great at it, but I do respect like picking a team and saying, Hey, watch out for this

team this year. And then if you're right, you get to be that guy who all year long says, see, so everyone should pick one, like pick another team and tell your friends like, Hey, restore the roar or a Philly this year, or Hey, why are you sleeping on the giants? Like, I don't know, pick a team. There's a lot of data and numbers and things like that that can be predictive. And football outsiders, their almanac does like the Vikings as a top 10 team this year. So maybe that's what Colin Cowherd saw and decided he was going to kind of go in on that statistic. Or he just felt like a lot of it was Mike Zimmer's fault and their coaching is going to be better. I tend to lean when it comes to predictions, uh, toward here's kind of like the most likely scenario I see for them, which I think I picked was what, like nine wins. It's kind of the most likely scenario,

but as a reporter, um, I'm different than I am on Christmas. I don't really love Christmas or birthday surprises. You could just tell me any time what you got for me I love surprises covering the NFL I love when there's a surprise team so if he's right then good for him that's cool he gets to say that he nailed it and he was way ahead of it uh but I don't think it has any like I don't think he's seen something secret that none of else, none of us are seeing like that. He has some football x-ray vision is going, ah, I have spotted the world's most surprising 14 win team or whatever. So I don't know, but it's fun to do. If you're not doing that, then what are we doing here? Like pick a team last year, I picked the Rams and said, no, this whole thing won't work. And then it did. Oh, well, it was a crazy season, right? So we all had fun, uh, onto our next question here. This from

seven, seven, nine, zero skull fans. Only question hypothetical scenario. Could a coach like Kyle Shanahan make a functional offense out of recent gimmick players? Percy Harvin, Cordero Patterson, Jarek McKinnon, Kenne Wongwu, Michael Bennett. Basically, could an NFL team win with all athletes at the skill positions? Well, I mean, the first question I would have is, who is the quarterback? And then you've got your answer. Because if you have a good quarterback and you have all those athletes, I mean, you're going to be pretty darn good. I think that with each of those guys, but especially Percy Harvin,

Percy Harvin is not just an athlete. I mean, he's one of my favorite players to watch highlight reels of, but also just go back and look at a game that he was good and watch all 22. I think Percy Harvin could do anything. He could, he could like Debo Samuel. Debo Samuel is a great route runner, great receiver.

Percy Harvin could run routes. He could get open. He could break off corners. That wasn't really Cordero Patterson's thing. I think he got better at as he, as he went along, but clearly, you know,

with even Matt Ryan as the bar, he could help create something out of Cordero Patterson. I thought that, you know, Sam Bradford had a decent year throwing to Cordero Patterson, but if you are a great quarterback and you're given those athletes, it shouldn't be super hard. And if you have Kyle Shanahan, that man is absolutely brilliant at moving people around, creating space for his playmakers. So your scheme and your ability to get the ball in those guys' hands also really matters. Someone like Kenny Wong, I don't really know if he can play

yet or not because we haven't seen that opportunity. We've only seen his speed and athleticism, but I do think that the NFL is kind of close to Madden where you try to get all the 98 speed players. There's certainly something to, and a lot to technique. And you see someone like Adam Thielen or someone like Stefan Diggs, where technique is everything. Hands are everything, but the players you're naming have a lot of those things and might just have one shortcoming. So I think that team right there, that group would be absolutely freakish. Now, if you're talking about a track athlete team, I think they're way more equipped today to scheme up those type of guys to get in space and make plays, even if they do not have

quite the technical skill but you still have to catch the ball you still have to like understand the offense correctly um but if you have a really good quarterback who can put it on a guy like right that's that's going to determine a lot of those things but you know i think that in today's game they're much better at figuring out how to get those guys the ball even since since I started covering the league, that it's become a major thing. How can you get these fast guys in space and have them make plays? So, yeah, I think that someone like Kyle Shanahan with that group, it wouldn't just be functional. I think it would be fantastic.

But if you had somebody who didn't really know what they were doing and a quarterback who couldn't really execute the offense, you're probably wasting a lot of those guys. But Percy Harvin, the exception, just because I think he could do absolutely anything. But I love the discussion, though. But when you look at the athletic ability of a lot of the star players, I mean, it's usually up toward the top. It's usually elite, elite like speed or size, strength, speed combination or something like that. And then there are those outliers

and those outliers are awesome to study. Like why did Adam Thielen make it? And we've spent years kind of studying this guy. Like how did he go from being an average athlete at Mankato to a star NFL player. Who's probably going to have his name in the ring of honor someday. Like how did that happen? Um, and that's what makes football great is that it's not always the freakish athletes. So I totally get your point. Uh, can you catch the ball? Can you run the routes? Can you have the technique, but just based on how things are

designed, you could put together a pretty darn good offense just based on those freakish talents. It's a good question. All right. Let's get one more here. This is from Mike via the email. Who would you pick given today's NFL? Would you want for a running back who can run and catch assuming they all stay healthy? Let's see.

Delvin Cook, Adrian Peterson, or Chuck Foreman. Are you impacted at all by the off field issues of Cook and, uh, Adrian Peterson? Well, yeah, I don't really know what to say about that exactly. Um, I mean like, yes, the things that have happened regarding those two players, you know, those are things that we've had to write about and talk about a lot and kind of hang over them both as a black cloud. A lot of people, when I first moved here, I was like, man, you guys, Adrian Peterson, huh? And they're like, eh, you know, the thing with the kid. And it's like, yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it. I totally get it. So that, I don't, I don't know what to do with that exactly because like Chuck Foreman, as far as I know,

it's like an A plus guy. So, you know, I guess you would pick him to be on your team in part because of that, because you didn't have to worry about some of those other problems. So let's just talk about talent wise. Instead, I'm picking Adrian Peterson over the other two, because it, even though Adrian Peterson can be nitpicked for fumbles of which, you know, he did have some clutch ones for sure. And for the receiving ability, we're talking about one of the most dominant football players in NFL history and not a guy who had a short run for just like a few years. Like so far, Delvin cook has been a short run. Chuck Foreman's was five years, I think where he was really good and that's great. And Foreman was

a solid runner and a really good at catching the ball out of the backfield. That's valuable. That's fantastic. But how many players can run for the NFL record in yards, go for over 2000, break the number of long touchdowns that Adrian Peterson had? I mean, this is just an other worldly all time. Great talent. I think Delvin cook has been a very good running back and there have been a lot of very good running backs throughout history. He's stood up toward the top in this era for a few years and Chuck Foreman, you know, same kind of thing where it's like, as far as underrated all-time great Vikings, he's certainly there, but Adrian Peterson goes in the category of all-time great NFL players. When you talk about the greatest running backs of all time, it's not going to take you long to get to Adrian Peterson. The league changed a bit while he was playing,

but I also think that the passing game part of it is just overrated in general. Like when Favre was here, Peterson had a pretty good year catching the ball because a lot of those passes are just swing passes or screens. There's still not a lot of running backs, if any, that are dynamic in the receiving game. It's mostly how much did you scheme it up and could you catch a screen and then run with it, which Adrian Peterson did a lot of. There aren't too many Thurman Thomases in the league who can go downfield.

Even Christian McCaffrey doesn't do a whole lot of that, or Marshall Falk could do that if you wanted him to, but there's like five running backs ever that could come out of the backfield, go downfield. Eric Metcalf was a kind of a hybrid, you know? So, you know, I think if we focus mostly on the running part, which is what all of them do the most, there's no competition for Adrian Peterson. I think I would have to, I would have to pick him. Uh, but you know, I mean, give the other guys their credit for being great running

backs and sort of speaks to the long and illustrious history of, um, you know, Vikings with incredible skill of which there have been many throughout the years, uh, at the receiver and running back position. So, and hey, Robert Smith, you know, I would throw Robert Smith in there. I ran into a stat the other day that in terms of yards per game, Robert Smith, Adrian Peterson, and Delvin Cook own like the top 14 seasons for yards per game. That's crazy, right? Really fun episode, guys. Thank you for all the questions as always. Thank you for all those five-star reviews. Again, can't tell you how much I appreciate those. I'm glad to answer, continue to answer the questions as we count down to camp and, you know, we're

going to do like a 53, man. I mean, it's time. It's time for all of these things. We've done our previews and now we're ready to go. So thanks so much for all the questions and we will catch you next time.