Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Would you rather have great coaching or draft a top QB next year? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

Matthew Coller continues to roll through Minnesota Vikings fans questions, including what it's like in the locker room after tough games, whether you'd rather see Kevin O'Connell become an elite coach or the team draft a top three quarterback next season? Will the defense be vastly different in a 3-4 system? Will Danielle Hunter push the Vikings' defense into the top 16? And the odds of an 11-win season vs. 7 or fewer? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and this is another fans-only podcast. I have so many fans-only questions that I am making a concerted effort to try and get through them. I also have predictions left over from Predictions Week and some of you have asked quarterback questions for Quarterback Week, which it is on the site. And I ranked, if you look at my Twitter or if you go to purpleinsider.com, I ranked the 20 best Vikings seasons of all time by quarterbacks. And there were 14 different quarterbacks. And just so you know, there have been some people on the internet who have heckled this with the Packers would only have three quarterbacks that would make up their top 20 seasons. But you know what, Vikings fans, I can tell you this. You've kept it spicy throughout the history.

As I was going through all of these seasons from quarterbacks, there are so many crazy ones. And so many times where I was looking through the numbers and going, wow. I mean, Wade Wilson, 88, was like second in the league in quarterback rating or completion percentage or whatever it might have been. The Jeff George one comes up on the show all the time. But 1999, I believe he was second in the entire league in quarterback rating. So many great Fran Tarkenton seasons where when you look at his pro football reference page now, you're like, oh, well, he had a 91 quarterback rating. That's fantastic. But the guy had a 91 quarterback rating in the seventies when defenses were dominating

and him doing that was some of the best quarterback that anyone had ever played. And then, you know, you have the Randall Cunningham, the Dante Culpepper, Dante Culpepper. Oh, three is the most underappreciated season because of how it ended. Uh, that was, I mean, I don't have to tell you guys, but the Josh McCown, Nate pool incident at the end of the 03 season. But Culpepper basically had three great seasons out of four as a Viking starter, at least statistically, but also, you know, accomplishment wise, he won a playoff game against New Orleans. He won a playoff game at Lambeau, took them to an NFC championship. And I feel like with Culpepper, he's the one where there are fans who

never really loved call pepper because he could be frustrating at times but he's a hindsight guy when you go back and look at what they did during the time he was the quarterback you're like man some of those years were pretty darn good so it was a really fun research project check that out um of course there's the joe cap season that's thrown in there where he goes 12 and one as a starter is second in the MVP voting. And then the next year he goes one in nine for the Boston Patriots. So Joe cap, not exactly a hero of the QB wins argument, but you know, I think it was maybe a little bit different for the QBs value in 1968. But what, what a QB wins argument, but, you know, I think it was maybe a little bit different for the QB's value in 1968.

But what a QB history. You guys know about it. This is a really fun one. In fact, why don't I just real quick run down a couple of these, you know, on the list here. I'll just give you my top 10, and we can talk about it real quick before I get into the fan questions because this was one of the more fun things. And why, even though we were bemoaning June football content the other day, this also gives me an opportunity to do stuff like this when I'm not going out to TCO Performance Center all the time. And I have a lot of fun with it.

Every year we do kind of a different thing. Last year was what if week we had, um, you know, there was, uh, the podcast we did where we looked into whether the Vikings are cursed. So fun stuff like that. Uh, so here's my, here's my quick top 10 list. 1998 Randall Cunningham needs no explanation at the time. I'll give you some of these great stats at the time. It was the fifth highest quarterback rated season of the entire Super Bowl era and the third best ever in adjusted yards per attempt. Culpepper 04, you guys know about that one.

Should have been MVP if not for, obviously, Peyton Manning. Fran Tarkett in 1975, he was the MVP with a 91 quarterback rating. 09 Brett Favre, ironically the lowest interception percentage of his career. I think I mentioned that yesterday, but that still blows my mind. 2000 Dante Culpepper does not get talked about enough, but he was very good. In fact, he threw 32 touchdowns that year and he was one of only 19 quarterbacks ever to throw more than 32. I'm sorry, I think he threw 33. To throw more than 32, there was only 19 guys who had done it at that time. There's also a stat called approximate value by Pro Football Reference that tries to gather how much somebody was worth.

And the 2000 season for Culpepper was tied for the highest approximate value in Vikings history for a quarterback. So kind of crazy. They're a little underappreciated season. I think Warren moon, 1995 through the ball over the place tied for the sixth, most touchdowns in a single season in NFL history at that time. I mean, Jake Reed, Chris Carter, 122 catches, not a really particularly great defense. Actually, it was a horrible defense that they had that year. I put Case Keenum in the top 10, 2017, because how about this? If I told you that the Minnesota Vikings were in the top five of expected points added through

the passing game. So this is a stat that tends to correlate to winning a lot expected points added through the passing game in recent years, especially if I told you on the last 15 years, they were only there, whatever it is, or since, since Favre, they were only in the top five once who was the quarterback. You would not have guessed that it was case Keenum. I don't think, But it was. 2017, an incredibly efficient passing game. And actually, a surprisingly inefficient running game when you look at the whole of the numbers for that season. So, he gets the nod there.

Of course, the Minneapolis miracle. 86, Tommy Kramer deserves its credit here. He was only worse than Dan Marino in quarterback rating in 86 Joe cap, who I just talked about 1969 season. Um, you know, just a crazy, crazy one for him. And, or is that night? What did I have the year wrong on this? Um, and then, uh, or was that right? But, uh, then Fran Tarkin to 1964 that rounded out, uh, the top 10 and the first, if you're wondering, because I know that Kirk Cousins fans are always wondering, the first Kirk Cousins season, oh, it was 69. Oh, I got that right.

Comes in at number 12, his 2019. And that was just behind Wade Wilson's 1988. So that's kind of your top 12, a really fun project. If you guys want to send me any of yours and what you think were the most fun quarterback seasons, feel free to do that. So, all right, with that said, let us crack open a diet, Dr. Pepper, uh, back, back to the cans today, better for the environment. I'm told to have the cans as opposed to the bottles. So I was able to sneak over to target, grab some cans.

They had it today and here we go. Okay. All right. Let's get to this. Um, shoot. You know what? I forgot to write down a person's name who sent the first one. You've got to be kidding me. Just, just silliness, just silliness. I do this every time. All right. I'll find that person's name momentarily. So let's start with the second question. This comes from Sarah via the email. And Sarah says, I remember on your podcast a few weeks ago, you talked about the relationship in the locker room with players. Two questions. Are certain players required to give interviews after each game? Since it seems to be the same players giving press conferences, is it hard to approach players after a loss to get what you need for your column? Well, that is a great question, Sarah. every single time the quarterback for one after every single game. But also during the week, there are designated players who only do press conferences. So you don't need them to be like at their locker for us to go up to

individually. It's usually players that a lot of people would want. So a Harrison Smith or Stefan digs when he was here, Justin Jefferson, but in COVID times that changed a little where they would rotate the players at the press conferences. So when we're back in the locker room during the week, they'll have these designated players that talk every week.

Kyle Rudolph was one of those. Naturally, a good talker, team leader and so forth. So he's going to be a guy that's out there each week. It wasn't actually a bad deal for them because that means they didn't get crowded at their locker every single week and they could just go up there, do the press conference, and then that would be it for them. And they wouldn't have to talk if they didn't want to. I'm not saying that you could catch Kyle Rudolph off the field or whatever, and he would always be very, very helpful when it came to doing interviews.

But for those guys, they could say, Hey, I'm at the, I'm at the press conferences, you know, each week. So I'm not doing other side interviews. I think it's kind of a way to get everybody, the players that they know that the TV channels want, the writers want, it's always the quarterback. You know, it's always the head coach doing a few and the coordinators will do one, that kind of thing, because they know that there's a lot of media that's going to want those people after games. It's a little different than that, but kind of the same. The PR will grab the guy who had a big game that usually happens, or sometimes it's a

key mistake, but they'll know, all right, the media is going to want to talk to you after this. So they're going to gather around at your locker. Why don't you just come out and do it? That was frustrating at times with COVID when we couldn't go in the locker room because we would have to rely on the player agreeing to come out and do a press conference, which they didn't always want to do. So I think that if I'm not mistaken, Greg Joseph didn't want to do a press conference after he missed the kick in Arizona. I could be wrong. I don't, I don't want to like call them out, but I feel like I remember a few key mistakes that happened. Maybe Delvin cook after the fumble in Cincinnati, where the player said, no, I don't

want to do a press conference, but when the locker room is open, we're coming to your locker anyway. So usually they'll set it up. So, okay, we're going to do a press conference right here. He'll talk about the mistake or the same thing goes for a big game. Somebody catches three touchdown passes. The PR is going to know everybody wants this guy. So let's do a press conference here or have them come to the podium. I'm sure some of this stuff will change a little bit. That's kind of how it works behind the scenes with us getting to talk to players after games. Now, your question, is it hard to approach players after a loss? I mean, you know, look, yes and no.

Yes, as in nobody likes that. Like they don't like it. We don't like it. No, no one is having a great time. I would say it's not a big party when someone makes a huge mistake or when they've lost by 30 and you have to go up to them and say, so you lost by 30. What happened there? I mean, that's not exactly a weekend in the mountains for anybody, but it's also very much part of the job for both of us. It's part of the job for the player and it's part of the job for the reporters. And so I've always found that if you go up to players and usually there's multiple reporters in a locker room, so it ends up being kind of a little throng

talking to someone. But if you go up to someone after the game and you respectfully ask them questions and you're not trying to insult them, or you're not trying to call them out or anything like that. Sometimes I'll get what, you know, why don't you go after this player or that player? Like that, that's not the way to get answers for things that you're looking for so say it's after a game like indianapolis 2016 they totally melt down so we go into the locker room they've gotten destroyed by indianapolis and you go to the team leaders in a situation like that like a brian robson or someone who you know is kind of a voice of the team. And you just ask what happened, what's your reaction? How do you deal with that? Things like that. And a lot of times they will

answer you respectfully back. There are awkward moments sometimes where players are super frustrated and they might snap at a question or something else like that. But I think anything beyond that is pretty rare because they understand you play the game and then you get asked questions about the game and that's how this all works. And for most of them, it's worked this way for a very long time. Like if you go to college at Alabama, you got to do the press conference after the game. If you usually won at Alabama, but if you lost, you got to answer for it, that kind of thing. And as far as reporters go, you can't not ask people, you have to do it.

So you just go right in and go up to the leaders of the team, find out what happened, what happened on that play. And sometimes you'll get, I don't want to talk about that, or I don't want to answer that question. It's okay. I think you have to be understanding that they are very upset about what just happened. So you're not, you're not trying to have a reaction that you would see on Twitter, like what is wrong with you or something like that. Um, I mean, I remember there's everyone handles it differently. Um, when Dan Bailey would miss field goals, he would have great explanations for what happened. Like he would take you through the

entire thing. He was a very analytical person. And until it got really ugly with that game in Tampa Bay, he would be a great guy to ask what happened on some of those kicks. There are players like that who get very analytical about it. Then there are other players who are very emotional about losing and it's harder to really get explanations, but you also can't say, well, that guy doesn't take losing well. So I'm going to stay away from him because it might be important to the story for what the fans want to know, because that's what we're really there for is fans are going to have a lot of questions about a football game. Everybody watched it and there's only 17 of these. So you care a lot about every single one. So it's the reporter's job to go answer the questions that

you have about what happened on the field. It's not like you'll hear something like the hold them accountable. I don't really ever look at it that way. I think it's being like you'll hear sometimes like the hold them accountable i don't really ever look at it that way i think it's being able to tell the story so when a player does dodge the media after a game does happen sometimes not that often though usually but when they do then it's really hard to tell you guys for sure what happened or at least to be able to say, oh, well, feeling said that he received that punt that he fumbled against Dallas because he thought X, Y, and Z. Okay. That's what happened. I understand it. Um, there are other times where feats will be put in mouths like the, uh, issue in 2016 with Xavier Rhodes, where he was very frustrated and the defensive backs were frustrated with Zimmer and did the go rogue thing.

But that's a result. Finding out that the corners were so frustrated with Zimmer that they decided to not listen to him, that's a result of having to go up to guys after a very difficult loss and say what happened. So that's kind of how it works. It's not anybody's favorite thing in the world, but, uh, I think everybody understands at the professional level

that, that that's what you have to do. A great question, Sarah. Thanks so much for that. All right. This one comes from at I am a super before fans only question for you, which would pose a brighter future? The Vikings winning the division at 11 and six, because O'Connell turns out to be an elite coach who looks like Sean McVay two or getting a top three quarterback in next year's draft, assuming it remains a great class. Well, that is a fun question. I will go with the first one, even though, as all of you know, this show advocates for tanking, for drafting quarterbacks high, for we don't have any idea who's going to be a great quarterback, so you should pick one.

All of you know that those are the viewpoints of the purple insider podcast because of recent history, like look around. However, Kirk cousins is 34. He's not going to be the Vikings quarterback until he is 42. You can have a great coach for a long time. And if Kevin O'Connell turns out to be an elite coach, then it's kind of like winning the lottery. I mean, when you look at the NFL, there's a lot of, if you're on Twitter, there's a lot of people sharing this interview with Mike Tomlin and they're coming away with this interview from the pivot podcast. And they're saying, Oh, wow, man. now I understand why everybody follows Mike Tomlin. What a presence that guy has. What leadership you can just see it. If you find that

person doesn't have to be like Tomlin, but that person, that McVay, then you are going to have multiple chances with multiple quarterbacks over a long period of time that you may not be able to get deep into the playoffs or to a Super Bowl with Kirk Cousins. Though I would say that if they win 11 or if they win 12, I would call them a Super Bowl contender because that's the threshold. It's about 12 games, 11 to make the Super Bowl historically. So if you win 11 or 12, you have a chance to win the Super Bowl. So if they were to win 12 or 11, I would say, hey, this is a contender

to potentially go to the Super Bowl because things can happen, and you certainly saw it last year. Guys can drop interceptions or your defensive tackle can get a big sack in a big spot, and you can go. I mean, how about gosh, Tampa Bay just losing its mind and sending a blitz against Matt Stafford at the end of that playoff game. Things happen.

If you get to that point, to that 11, 12 win threshold, you're good enough to win. So if Kevin O'Connell could take Kirk Cousins there, then I guess I would have to say, why couldn't he do it again the following season? And eventually though, Cousins is going to fall off and they'll find another quarterback the same way Los Angeles did when they felt that Jared Goff wasn't enough. And you'll draft another one or you'll acquire another one because whatever disgruntled quarterback, which there's a chart, I tweeted out that Kyler Murray should be the most disgruntled quarterback in the NFL. That's another podcast conversation maybe for later. But, uh, if you're Kyler Murray

and you're super upset two years from now and you want out, Hey, look, that elite coach in Minnesota, that is the guy I want to go join because he's going to get the most out of me. Boom. Like you become all of a sudden very attractive for whatever unhappy quarterback. Uh, or if you draft one, I think what we've seen in recent years is whether you're, you might be drafting the first guy off the board or the third guy or the fifth guy. If it's a great quarterback draft, then, you know, you've got a chance, a fairly close chance between maybe the first or second guy and the third or fourth guy that are coming out. But the point is that you can have this coach for a long time. There

are coaches in the league. Still, Sean Payton was one of them. The elite coaches are usually keeping their jobs. There's just not that many of them, but Sean McVay is one of them basically has a lifetime contract with the Rams. If you have that guy, you can be good over decades. You can elevate quarterback play over a decade. I would take that. And that idea of having an elite coach over taking a swing at a top three quarterback. The problem is how rare that is. And I'm not saying I don't believe that Kevin O'Connell can be a good coach, but that McVay,

Sean Payton level coach, the Belichick, the Tomlin, not hard, not easy to find. Very, very difficult to find. That's why there's only been a handful of these guys. And the average coach keeps their job maybe three, four years at most, because there's been a lot more mediocre or not great than there has been of Sean McVay's. So I guess that's the way I would answer that question. Even though I do think that drafting in the top three, clearing out the salary cap space, rebuilding a lot of parts would be a way to quickly get back to contention. I'll take the

long-term of having a really good coach. That is a great question. And there's a lot of different ways people could look at that. They might look at that and say, well, if they win 11 games and it's kind of fluky, then Kirk is your quarterback forever. But I'm not even sure about that considering what Los Angeles was willing to do. And also the age of Kirkousins and I don't think he's going to play forever and if you can win 11 with this roster which I think is or at least you know draft kings and everyone who sets out to make money thinks it's a nine win or eight and a half win type of team if you can win 11 12 if you could be that far above expectations with a very similar offense

then you can add to that. And then you can have another chance with Kirk the following season. Uh, okay. Next question comes from at Brutus bird. I have a friend who is a reasonably successful lawyer. He has explained to me the expenses involved with being a lawyer. It's not cheap. Got me thinking, what are the hidden costs, financial, of being a football player? So I was thinking about this not too long ago. Let me get a sip of the Diet Dr. P here. Thank God it's only in the 80s. 110.

I like to record these on my sun porch because it's very pleasant. Sometimes you'll hear planes going over. Like when I do it in the office, you won't hear the planes going over. but it's just really nice out here. Uh, so I could just sit back and answer these questions, but sometimes it gets really hot. Um, and then I need more diet, Dr. Pepper, as if I didn't need more anyway. Oh, what was I saying to answer your question about the hidden expenses? So you start off with the agent. And if I'm not mistaken, and maybe someone who's an agent, if you're listening to this, you could correct me. But I thought the last number that I heard was like 3% is what the agent gets. It might be a little

more than that, but I don't think it's a massive percentage. However, when you start to look at some of the numbers, that's a chunk right off the top. If you're say a first round draft pick, then you got to pay your agent, whatever, three to 5%, somewhere in that ballpark. And so you lose some money there. So, uh, let's see, what else would there be? Well, one of the issues is that you deal with as an NFL player is if you're reasonably successful, everyone, you know, wants something from you. This was like an Antoine Walker thing. I actually had this conversation with Latavius Murray once,

where I was chatting with Latavius about how NFL players saw all the documentaries about the players before them who lost all their money. So there's this perception that NFL players always end up poor because they just lose all their money. Not really true these days, but Mark Brunel had a happened to him where I think he got scammed by a financial advisor or something or made bad investments. That happens pretty often.

But everyone is coming to you that, you know, and saying, Oh dude, you're in the league. Like you've got this money. Give me 50,000 so I could start my own restaurant or let me, let me get a loan from you. I'll pay you back next year.

And that just doesn't happen. Uh, you know, some guys they hit, they hit it big in a way and they think, Oh, it's, it's a, it's a huge paycheck. It's whatever millions, but most players are not really making millions. Like the drop off from the first round, even to a fourth round pick is gargantuan in terms of how much you get paid. If you played a year in the NFL as a fourth round pick, I mean, you are not even coming close to being able to retire. Like you're living nicely for maybe a year or two, and that is about it. And then you got to go get yourself a job because the taxes are another part of it. Uh, this is why players like to play in Florida,

probably because they get more of their money. But if you're playing in California, then you're not getting as much of your money because of the taxes. So that's going to take off a big amount. Um, yeah, I mean, then you got to go with trainers. You got to go with meal people. I mean, these guys, I remember Xavier Rhodes talking about how when he got his contract, he hired someone to make his meals for him because it was really helpful for him, you know, staying in the right shape. But a lot of times now, I mean, everybody needs those people and all of those people

have to get paid. So if you're only making a million dollars a year and you get, you know, I don't know, 40% taken off in taxes, and then you get the agent fee that you got to get, and then you have to pay your meal person. You got to pay your trainer. You end up with, you know, not exactly a lot of money. I mean, maybe you end up taking away like 300,000 or something. And if you're trying to use that to buy new cars, houses, whatever else, getting yourself in debt, then you can end up getting a little bit behind.

And then if you have an injury or you get cut or whatever, you can be without all that money pretty fast. And I think that any adult kind of understands how this works, but I mean, a lot of times these are younger guys. So they try teams, try the league tries to help them out a lot, but it can certainly still be an issue when it comes to dealing with the financial part of the NFL. Good question. There's a lot. I would just say a lot, a lot of your money's going to go to taxes. A lot of money is going to go to people who train you and to the people who help you become an NFL player and then family, friends, and everything else. So, um, it's not easy to manage your money as an NFL player. Okay. This comes from Scotty nine Oh seven on Twitter.

How much different will the three, four defense be it sounds like the defense will be playing in multiple fronts enlighten us please and thank you i would start out by saying that even mike smith the outside linebackers coach the other day after practice said we're going to be playing nickel and i mean maybe some dime dime where you're having three corners. So a nickel corner is on the field at all times, two safeties, or even adding Cam Bynum to the mix and having three safeties out there as more of a dime type of thing. Mike Pettin, remember, comes from Green Bay. And I saw in 2020, Green Bay played dime with, what was that, six defensive backs?

They played that in 50% of their snaps. So you could see more of that for the Vikings. 3-4 just doesn't really happen so much anymore. And there was an episode where Jeremiah Searles explained kind of how even in a nickel, those 3-4 defenses play like strengths of the defense. So, you know, instead of putting, you know, the three technique on this side, they put them on the other side, like those kinds of intricate details of what it actually means. But I don't think that we're going to be watching it and say, whoa, this is wildly different.

This is a whole other universe. We will see Daniil Hunter standing up from time to time, as opposed to having his hand in the dirt. You might see Delvin Tomlinson directly over the center, which we've seen in the past with Michael Pierce, and we've seen with Linval Joseph. But there isn't a ton of enlightening to really do here because they're going to play a lot of the same nickel defense

that the Vikings have in the past. Ed Donatell's system is really just different in terms of how they deal with the safeties, having the safeties stay back and trying not to show the offense what they're doing and then adjusting the safeties after the snap as opposed to before the snap. But this is something that Mike Zimmer did a lot too, which was using Harrison Smith to show that they were going to have a single high safety and then drop him back at the very last second or something like that. You're going to see a lot of that. There's details of how you do certain things, how you play against certain runs that are going to be noticeable, but only to a really trained eye. And I wouldn't even really

trust myself to sit there on a game day up in the press box and go, Oh, that's so much different than how the Vikings handled this. You know, I don't know gap scheme run before I would have to study it and use someone like Jeremiah Searles, a former NFL player to show me exactly the differences in techniques and details. Now, when it comes to their base package, when they actually have three defensive linemen and four linebackers, I mean, I just really don't know how often you're going to see that, but from time to time, it will look a little bit different, but it's still kind of the same. It's kind of the same concept. So when you talk about three, four, four, three, I think it's really the difference is coverage and you're going to line

up the outside linebackers wider than you would. Um, if you're in your base package, then you would have, uh, under Mike Zimmer. So Mike Zimmer had four guys down and the defensive ends were just off of the, the tackle's shoulder in this situation, they're going to be farther out and they're going to be standing up. So that would look a little bit different. Um, but you know, teams now, everybody kind of knows everything as far as all the different ways that you can rush the passer and cover. It's really who executes it the best. There isn't like a, think about this. Like the chargers had a horrible defense last year with Brandon Staley, who is considered a great defensive mind because they just didn't cover

very well and they didn't have a great pass rush. And that's, what's going to determine it. So I think it's fun to talk about and ask Ed Donatel and other people. But the answer that keeps coming up every time I ask someone is, you know, it's they're going to be a nickel most of the time. How they cover the schemes they use to cover are going to be the things that determine it. So, you know, I think back in the day there was probably a really big difference, but I'm not sure that there is as much now.

Now, how they use the personnel, you know, will you have some three-man fronts that have three defensive tackles on them and then two outside linebackers, sort of like the bare front or whatever? Like, will you see some of that? Where will they move Z'Darrius Smith around to? Like, there's interesting things there, but I don't think there's like a, oh, well, they're playing three, four. So this is how they play now.

Just considering how many different defenses NFL teams like to implement. Let us move on here. Why don't we do some, why don't we do some predictions here? Let me scroll down in my little file and look up some predictions. Still got a ton of great questions that we'll get through throughout. Uh, also another will rag it's show coming with Paul. I think later today is when that will be up. If you listen to this on Thursday and then, uh, Eric eager is going to stop by at some point. Um, he is visiting Minnesota. If you guys listen to the show a lot, you've heard Eric. Okay, let's get to our predictions here.

This one comes from at VF10281. Vikings will win the North at 12-5 and have a top five offense. Defense will be top 16. People forget that with Hunter, our defense was top 10 last year. There's only through seven games. So I'm not sure what top 10 you mean is top 10 and points top 10 and yards. I don't know that through seven games, we can really talk about who ranks where, uh, also they didn't do a very good job defensively against Arizona or Cincinnati to start the season last year. Seattle, Cleveland, Detroit was better. Carolina, they played well for most of the game defensively,

but not at the end. And then against Dallas gave up over 400 yards to Cooper Rush. So I'm not sure that that's really true that they were top in anything before Daniil Hunter. And what we know is that defense is like, it's great to have a great player. You really need great pass rushers like Daniil Hunter. So I don't want to downplay his impact at the same time. That's not really the thing you're worried about with Hunter coming back and Zedaria Smith, you should be able to get more pressure. The question is really about the secondary. Yes. It helps the secondary to get more pressure. There's no doubt about that is, uh, you know, uh, cam Dantzler going to be able to handle top receivers is Patrick Peterson going to be a hundred percent. Where's cam Bynum going to play is Shandon Sullivan going to hold his own at nickel corner?

What's Lewis seen look like as a rookie safety? Like there's a lot of questions there. And that would be why I would like hesitate to say, oh, they're going to be way better just because Hunter comes back. And there's also the issue of health in general. Like the one layer down, this is not a great defense. It doesn't have a ton of depth, especially in the secondary. It certainly doesn't have any depth at linebacker at all. And unless they have signed and Dominic can sue by the time you're listening to this,

the interior of the defensive line and the edges are lacking secondary players that are proven who can come in. But I think your defensive projection was fairly reasonable. Top 16 is a fine projection. If you're saying that, oh, they were top 10 in something when Daniil Hunter was in, and that's why they'll be top 10, I might press the brakes a little bit. Top 10 is a little lofty for this defense. Top 16 is a fair ask. If you're going to

spend as much money as they did and sign as many players as they did and draft two defensive backs with your first two picks, asking them to be in the top 16 is very fair. Top five offense. I'm not sure that that is fair. Actually. Um, top five offense is something that they've never done with Kirk cousins as their quarterback. That doesn't mean it's impossible. It just means that like, let's go through now, if you mean top five and NFC, now that could be the case, but let's go through who they're going to have to top to get in the top five. Like, who are you going to be better than Tom Brady is back. Dallas didn't change much. They lost one receiver. They were the leader in points last year. Buffalo will score a lot of points. So will Kansas city.

So will the chargers. So will the Bengals. So will the Rams and the Packers have Aaron Rogers still Arizona's, you know, going to run back Kyler Murray. These are teams that were better than the Vikings in scoring last year. Philadelphia got another receiver. If San Francisco's quarterback is better, which is very possible. It's not easy to get in the top five when you have quarterbacks who are either the superstars of the day or who are going to the hall of fame at some point in the case of Tom Brady. I just have a tough time seeing it. But if you talk about the NFC, I expect Dallas and Tampa and Los Angeles to outscore them beyond that though. You could talk me into even, uh, green

Bay will probably outscore them as well, but you can talk me into them outscoring Arizona or Philly or San Francisco or new Orleans. Who's, you know, got their quarterback back, but he's not a great quarterback. Washington, they can outscore. So I think top five in the NFC is much more reasonable to ask. And if they're a top 16 defense and top five in the NFC and offense, they should be a playoff team. So I guess that's as far as I want to go. I don't want to go 12 and five.

I really am going to have to see that before I go 12 and five. Cause to me, that's getting into the, like you are legit if you are 12 and five. All right. Where are we at a time-wise here? Okay. We got some time. We got some time. Uh, this comes from Matt via the email. He says 10,000 season simulations using Vegas game lines and win odds from DraftKings for all 17 games results in the Vike. Matt is a extreme math guy. So as you can tell, he's followed the show for a long time and sends me some awesome charts from time to time. Nine wins is the most likely followed closely by eight wins with 18 percent, 10 wins with 16 percent. They have a better chance of winning seven or fewer 28% than 11 or more. So that's based on the Vegas odds.

The Vikings average 8.6 wins and have a one in seven chance of winning the division for the division. It's got green Bay at 10 wins, Chicago at seven Detroit at seven. So, uh, there is his prediction or projection, I guess. And, uh, he says a player take no third round draft pick or later will be, or have a meaningful, uh, impact stupid take. We'll know if it's different. If they win week two, Mike Zimmer was one six and one in week two after being six and two in week one games. Okay, Matt, there is so much there.

Let's start off with the first part is do I think it's more possible that they win seven or fewer than 11 or more? I tend to lean with the answer being yes. I mean, because here's, here's the scenarios to win seven, they would basically have to repeat last year. And that could happen because we just saw it happen. And I know that it was an ugly year and it was a frustrating year and Matt, uh, Mike Zimmer made a lot of mistakes, but this is also a new coach who could in the long run be better, but make enough mistakes to only win seven games. And you have the same quarterback who just two years ago

won seven and last year basically won seven except for week 18. So would it be crazy that that happened that you won seven? It would be crazy disappointing for a lot of people, but if we're running odds, I tend to agree that it's a little more likely than going 11 or more, 11 or more. You can absolutely talk yourself into it. And I would go on this sort of 55, 45. So 55% would be, this thing is a disaster and they win seven games and everyone's throwing their hands up in the air saying, why didn't you change more? And 45% with everyone going, ah, that's why you didn't change more because you're actually awesome. So I think those odds are very similar for both of those outcomes to happen.

But what Vegas thinks is what a lot of Vikings fans think going into this and what a lot of the prognosticators seem to think, which is that the most likely is somewhere in that nine or eight range. But at least there is kind of a, an easy one to agree with that. It's unlikely that we see any draft pick around the league, even that is taken in the third or later having an impact right away. Those are guys that you develop for the future. Maybe Brian Asamoah becomes some sort of, uh, I don't know, like a roving type of player that they can use in a lot of different ways, but I'm not really convinced about that at this point. So yeah, I'll agree with that one. And, um, we'll know they're different if they win week two. I do not, I do not agree with that. I don't agree with that. It's a long

season, man. And they could win week two and we could all go, Oh my gosh, they went to Philly revenge game, I guess in some way. And they, you know, win that game and everybody goes, wow, this team is here. It's a long way to go, uh, from week two that we've seen, like even through think about 2019, the most successful Kirk Cousins season in Minnesota, 2019 was a complete mess through the four first four weeks of the season. After week four, Kirk Cousins is apologizing to wide receivers. Stephon Diggs is skipping practice. And then they go on and get on a winning streak

and overall end up with a very good season that ends in the divisional round in San Francisco. I don't think it's very easy to tell that early on in a season, even if I get what you're saying that that was one of their trends. Uh, okay. This, uh, a quick one from at Jeff and Tokyo predictions here to end the show. Pretty good year. We go 11 and six and win one playoff game. I think that's, that's a, if you're doing the like reasonable meter so if if like code code unreasonable was red and mildly optimistic is in the like yellowish and maybe a little much is orange blue is you hate

them and think they're gonna lose every game like if that's kind of our meter i don't know what's in between blue and yellow but if we're doing that like this is a code orange type of projection as yeah, I think they'll be pretty good and better. And if you look at the quarterback schedule, as we talked about a little bit, and I wrote about at the website, like that opens the door for something like 11 wins. So if you're, if you're telling me in your predictions, 11 wins, that's one where I would just say they stay pretty healthy. O'Connell's offense is better. His game management is better. His vibes are better. And you, and they play a lot of quarterbacks who I don't really trust defenses improved just from personnel or, and maybe scheme too, but personnel is, is better.

And you win 11 games. That is a very reasonable, optimistic take. That's, that's what I can say about 11 wins. Uh, last one for predictions from at Christopher burn for Lewis scene and a Caleb Evans will play bigger than expected roles by week six, making the defense relevant as opposed to last year. Cousins will be in the MVP conversation until November 3rd. The defense will allow no more than seven touchdowns at the end of halves for the whole season. Now this, this is knowing what you're doing in the prediction game. This is getting oddly specific in the prediction game, which is why I love it. And a reminder, you can send them through Twitter, through email, you know, uh, purple insider.com is where you can find that.

Just go to contact us. This is the bizarrely specific type of projection that I absolutely love. Louis seen and a Caleb Evans, a Caleb Evans is my early pick for Mr. Mankato. So I guess I should have disagreed with Matt who said no player from the third round or more ends up having an impact. But I think that a Caleb Evans is an interesting one for, we forgot about a Caleb Evans and then he surprises us in training camp, gets a couple of interceptions in preseason and we all go, Oh yeah. Okay. Remember that guy? He was a draft pick as well. Um, Lewis scene is not going to play a bigger role than expected because he's going to start, or at least that is how things appear at this moment that it's going to be Lewis scene. Uh, Caleb Evans is one that it's, I think he's more of an outside corner, but is somebody other than Shandon Sullivan able to play

nickel? Is that Cam Bynum or is a Caleb Evans, somebody who could be bumped inside that might open the door for him a little bit. Injury's always a factor. He would have to be above Andrew Booth jr, but he could also be right there and get a chance to play with one or two injuries by week six. But I'm not going to say impossible until we see guys on the field at training camp. I can't really tell you what chances different rookies have to get in the game and how they're going to perform. Once we get a few weeks into training camp, it starts to become very clear. Making the defense relevant that we'll see if a Caleb Evans is the guy taking your defense to the next level. I don't know about that.

Lewis scene is an interesting one because Xavier Woods is a very solid player, but didn't have the high end athletic ability. Whereas Lewis scene has big play ability because of his athleticism and size. That could be a difference there where maybe there's more mental mistakes from time to time, but there's, excuse me, there's also bigger plays that go along with it and the defense. Okay. And cousins will be in the MVP conversation until November 3rd. That really depends on the strength of defenses that they play early on in the season.

They do have some very difficult defenses that they play early on in the season. They do have some very difficult defenses that they play in the middle. And later on Miami, new England, Buffalo, these are very good defenses that they have to play in the AFC East. We'll see how that goes, but that is a very Kirk cousinsy thing. I was looking this up the other day that in the, in the final five weeks, I think I searched like weeks 12 through 17 cousins has not been a top 10 graded quarterback by PFF in the final stretch of the season from weeks 12 to 17 at all since he's been with the Vikings. And I wonder if that's a combination of reaction to injuries, offense being figured out, Cousins being worn down possibly. I mean, the guy's played a lot of football in his career. He hasn't ever really had any time off.

So that might be it a little bit. I think I tend to think that injuries usually play a role here, but that has happened every year where it seems like there's a fading point in the middle late part of the season. So could he start off really hot and then drift a little bit away from the MVP conversation? That's what the history says. And I have no idea what to do with the defense will allow no more than seven touchdowns at the end of halves. It would be hard to do worse than what they did last year at the end of halves. Maybe there's another win right there alone

that you could bet on for Kevin O'Connell being better. So, all right, there's a fans-only episode. I still have a lot of your questions and your predictions remaining to get to on the show. Thanks so much for listening. We will be with Eric Eager for an episode on Friday. Will Raggett's show will be here as well. At some point, Courtney Cronin is going to return to the show,

but she has been getting super famous on ESPN lately, and I haven't wanted to beg her for another show appearance, especially since it's June, but she'll definitely be back. So thank you guys all for listening, as always, and we'll talk to you later.