Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Would you rather have the Vikings or Bucs history?

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Matthew Coller chats with fans about the crazy difference between the Vikings and Bucs' histories and then talks with Jonathan Harrison about the ring of honor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and a lot of Vikings talk and other talk around the league here tonight. Jonathan Harrison will join me at some point. He is working on something else, and so he will be popping in very, very soon, but we've got a lot to discuss, including a bit of a conversation that I had the other day about the Tampa Bay Bucks and the Minnesota Vikings and how different their team histories are. But I thought also that we could start with the unofficial depth chart and a pronunciation change on the Vikings roster. And this is going to be important, I think, for this pronunciation change. That for the entire time since he was drafted, the Vikings linebacker third round pick from

2022 was known as Brian Asamoah. But Brian himself asked the public relations to pass along that his name is pronounced Asamoah. And I don't know how it got lost in translation or if that was a change from him or that he never corrected. This happens in hockey a lot where players will come over from Russia or something or whatever country, and they'll just sort of roll with whatever everybody else was saying, and they won't correct you. And then once they get a little bit more playing time, then they'll say, hey, actually, it's

not how the way you've been pronouncing it. So Brian Asamoah is how it is pronounced, according to him. So that's what we'll go with in the future. And also, he's the most notable thing to happen on the Vikings unofficial depth chart, which I would just really emphasize that it is unofficial, but it's out and they posted it on their website. So at least that's worth discussing. Now there's nothing else that was very shocking or surprising on the depth chart. Miles Gaskin is listed behind Ty Chandler. I think that's probably true.

The wide receivers, no surprises there. The offensive line, defensive line, maybe a little bit that Jonathan Bullard is listed ahead of Kyrus Tonga, but Kyrus Tonga is listed as a nose tackle and also Harrison Phillips is listed as a nose tackle. So they couldn't have both. But Kyrus Tonga has played the entire time with the first team where Jonathan Bullard has mixed in.

And I think it's just kind of a technicality there a little bit with the actual position. So I would expect that Kyrus Tonga is going to be out there with the first team playing the actual nose tackle where Harrison Phillips is more of a three technique or more of kind of a guy that moves around to a lot of different positions on the D line. But yeah, I think that that's more of just the technicality than what's actually going to happen. Although I think they do like Jonathan Bullard. They brought him back.

So they're going to play him on the defensive line as a run stuffer. But I don't think he's going to end up with more snaps than Kyrus Tonga unless it goes bad for Tonga. And then at the linebacker position, Brian Asamoah is the guy who's listed as a starter with Ivan Pace Jr. listed as the backup. Whereas in training camp, it was much more, it looked like Pace had taken a lot of the snaps from Brian Asamoah. And so now, you know, Asamoah is listed as the starter, but again, unofficial is unofficial and it probably doesn't mean anything. And if I had to guess, I would say that what we're

going to see is more human beings get used to play defense than we have ever seen before in our lives that Brian Flores is going to make sure that if you put on a Jersey on a Sunday and you're active that you might be playing and you might be doing something on this defense, which I like for a defense with a lot of players that might have one skill that they're really good at, but maybe not necessarily something else. So, all right, this guy's good at blitzing, get him in on a third down. This guy's good at playing in the box, put them at that outside linebacker position. This guy's good at the nickel, put him in there, whatever it's going to be, I think Brian Flores is going to look for those particular skills. Like just for example, DJ Wanham appears that he'll be kind of a third down outside linebacker where Marcus Davenport will move inside. Okay, that works for me. Davenport's a huge guy. I think he could have some success running inside. So, all right, yeah.

And so I think that's how it's going to work. That means now that the depth chart is even more useless to us than its usual uselessness by being unofficial. But at least it was worth bringing up because they posted it on the website. So, anyway, we can talk about any questions you have leading into week one. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is quote media day, which means that the coach and the quarterback talk. So we're going to hear from Kevin O'Connell and from Kirk Cousins tomorrow. And we will go from there leading up to this week of Vikings and Tampa Bay Bucs.

So any questions that you have, of course I'm interested in, and I've got a few things that I wanted to discuss as well about these two teams and about this matchup. Uh, Hunter wants to know, should I start Mike Evans or Rashad white for fantasy football this week? I've got to say the answer is yes. Right? I mean, Mike Evans is going up against rookie cornerbacks. So naturally right from that, you know, you're, you're going to say, yeah,

like this is one of the most consistently successful wide receivers in the league. And even if Baker Mayfield isn't the most accurate or isn't the best quarterback, they're going to throw the ball to their best players. I mean, guaranteed. And is there a world where you could see

Baker Mayfield getting sacked a ton and so forth? Yeah, probably. But that could mean from a fantasy perspective that the Bucs are playing from behind. Like if there's some turnovers, if there's mistakes and the Vikings get out to a lead, then they're going to have to throw the ball to catch back up.

There's really only, and look, you never know it's week one. So there's plenty of predictions throughout game weeks that will be wrong from me. You can guarantee that because we can't predict ball. But if you were trying to predict the outcomes of this game, you would probably go with, there's really only two ways this could go. There's either the Vikings winning by a fair amount, which doesn't always happen with this team in recent years, but it can happen. It's possible.

So the Vikings win by a fair amount because the bucks just aren't that good. So you remember a couple of years ago when they opened against, was it Atlanta and Matt Ryan through like three picks and we all just went, oh, okay, well, Atlanta's bad. So good win.

That could happen. Or it is the Bucs coming from behind and throwing a game-winning fade pass to Mike Evans to win the game in the final seconds because the Vikings couldn't close it out. Those are the only two outcomes for this football game. And I feel like both of those include Mike Evans. Rashad White I'm not really sure about because I don't think that the Vikings are going to have a great rushing defense.

We just talked about Tonga Phillips, Bullard. That's your middle. They're going to play a lot of smaller people. And white has been, am I wrong that he's averaged like five yards of carry when he's played? So he's been like, he's an interesting player for them, but are they really going to have an opportunity to run the football a ton? And that one,

I don't know because it's hard to see them getting in a situation where they're going to be able to just run and run and run. This game seems like it's going to include a lot of passing. So that's just always, if you ask a fantasy question, grain of salt for me, I like talking about it. I'm also very bad at fantasy. So, you know, that's just how it goes. Good idea to play everyone. Why not? I may find a gem sitting on the bench. Yeah, I agree. what the NFL often comes down to is star players and dudes who do one thing well. So you have a lot of teams that have a star or two. If you got more than that, you've probably got a chance to be a legitimate contender, especially a quarterback. But the rest of the roster is this guy's good at playing the nickel. This guy's good at coverage as a linebacker. This guy's

good at pass protection, but not run. Like there's just no team in a 32 team league that is going to have the type of depth that, uh, or even just the number of good players. Like, so I was watching a game from 1994 as one does with the 49ers the other day every position is somebody who's really good because it's 1994 and there weren't as many teams and the salary cap was just uh let's see free agency was just starting and it was a different league when you could stack up a bunch of positions so i like the idea of byron murphy j. is going to play all the time. Daniel Hunter, Harrison Smith, probably Jordan Hicks, but he doesn't have to. And everybody else can be rotated and try to find what they do best. I think that if they had done that a little bit more last year,

like Josh Metellus is a good football player, and he sat on the bench the whole year and just played special teams. Like, was there anything that josh metellus could have been doing to help you not be the 27th ranked defense and i think brian flores said yes yes there was and so now he's using him uh sloth asks who plays more snaps between blackman metellus and tonga i mean, Blackman, at least for right now, is your starting outside corner. So I would think that Blackman would be playing every snap. And will it be a Caleb Evans when they go to their base package, or will it be Blackman? Maybe

whoever's playing better. I think right now it's probably Evans that would be paired with Murphy because they're not taking Murphy off the field. So even when they go to their base package and they don't have a nickel, it's still going to be Murphy. And there will be times, yeah, that they work in. Josh Metellus is more of a linebacker. Maybe they do at that point also play only two cornerbacks. So that's that.

Yeah. Okay. So maybe that gap isn't quite as wide if they are regularly taking one of their starting corners off the field to have a bigger package with another safety. That is possible. But I think that Blackman is going to play pretty much all the time, and Metellus is going to be much more of a third down type of thing and mixing in, mixing and matching.

Maybe they'll do it on early downs. I don't know. It kind of looks like a third down package to me, kairos tanga's first and second down he's got he's actually got a very important role which is why it's kind of funny on the official depth chart to not have him there because if you're playing three safeties on first or second down and the other team's going to be thinking we can run the ball here and if Kyrus Tonga becomes Jerry Ball or Gilbert Brown from back in the day or Linval Joseph for more recent fans you're you're in pretty good shape but if he struggles we've kind of seen that movie

before too like 2021 when Michael Pierce got hurt they just got ran over. And it can be pretty frustrating when that happens and also sets up a lot of advantageous situations for the quarterback. In fact, Baker Mayfield is 1-0 at U.S. Bank Stadium, and I think they scored 14 points, and most of it was just handing off. And if I'm not mistaken, they gave up like a 4th-and-20 handoff for a first down in that game. So Tonga has a very important role. But I think to your question,

it's probably Blackman plays the most, then Tonga, then Metellus, who's going to be more of a rotational player. But it's all going to depend on who they play, what type of packages the other team uses. I think what they really want to do is just to be able to match anything their opponent wants to do.

You want to go three wide. You want to go two tight to be able to match anything their opponent wants to do. You want to go three wide. You want to go to tight end. You want, you have bigger receivers. You have smaller receivers. You play shotgun, you play under center. They've got a match for that. And philosophically, I like it personnel wise. There's some questions and there's some questions to be answered, but philosophically speaking, I think Flores has the right idea, which is why he's a highly regarded defensive mind. Anthony says, what are the benchmarks the Vikings need to achieve in week one that will let you know the Vikings are on the right track?

That's a good question. I mean, one thing is that there's no overreaction in football quite like week one overreaction. So let me just put that little asterisk on what I'm going to say is that last year, we saw them just club the Green Bay Packers, smacked them all over the field. And then they went to Philadelphia and got beat up the next week. And that's football sometimes, right? Sometimes we think, wow, wow oh my gosh there's so

much going right and then we're just told something the exact opposite the next week so i'm going to try not to overreact but we usually do anyway i think that the biggest things would be answer the questions answer the questions like the interior offensive line is going to get tested ed ingram ezra cleveland garrett bradbury they gave up the vast majority of the pressures last season and guess who knows that todd bowles so there's going to be a lot of pressure that's coming up the middle and if they can handle it from a vita vea and kalijah can see, and then the blitzes that they're going to send and stunts, twists, all sorts of different looks, then, you know, I mean, I think that that's going to be a really good sign for their future. If they can handle what Tampa Bay is sending,

it's not the best defensive line in the league, but it's a pretty good one. It's got some players and Vita Veya is a monster. So can you handle him? Can you handle another aggressive head coach, defensive mind, that's going to send a lot of blitzes like Todd Bowles? That would be impressive if they were able to do that. I think everyone's going to be looking for what Jordan Addison does. That's one that I wouldn't overreact to one way or the other because it's a rookie.

So if he gets three catches for 15 yards, okay, well, let's, you know, not declare him a bust or anything just yet. But, uh, you know, if he has a big game, of course, we'll say, Oh, wow. The passing game is going to be unstoppable all year because he had a big game. But I think that you want to see other people other than Justin Jefferson be the answer. And then it isn't just always, I guess I'm obligated to throw to other people sometimes. So I will it's these other players can be weapons. And I ran across an interesting stat the other night, which is that no receiver who got more than 50 targets for the Vikings last year ended up with more than 11 yards per catch. So everybody was pretty much an underneath

option. If it wasn't going to Justin Jefferson, I think that there needs to be something a little more down the field. And if you can see that in week one, well, that's going to be a nice little benchmark for them. And then this is a really good test of wide receivers. It may not be the most impressive quarterback, but it is a very good tandem of wide receivers. It may not be the most impressive quarterback, but it is a very good tandem of wide receivers. So how does Blackman look? How does a Caleb Evans look? This is another thing not to completely overreact to because of their lack of experience. But if, if they're serviceable in this game and Flores is causing problems for Baker Mayfield, I think it's going to bode well for their confidence going forward when they have to face a much better team just a couple of days later.

But they're going to have to face two great wide receiver tandems right off the bat. And how they look in the first week may be a, I don't know about determining factor, but it's going to shape how you feel about the defense overall. And of course, Greg Joseph has to make his extra points. I mean, that's come on. That's a benchmark. We have to at least throw in the kicker there. I don't know why he didn't make his extra points last year, but he's got to make them this year. Let's see. Hunter asks, who do I think wins the game?

Well, Vegas has the Vikings as a six point favorite. I think that's fair. I'm going to go with the Vikings. I mean, it's home field advantage. It's a new defense that Baker Mayfield hasn't seen. I don't trust Baker to have a great game against the Vikings in U.S. Bank Stadium. And I do think that this offense will be very much on the same page right from the outset because Kevin O'Connell is the head coach in the offensive play caller from last year. Everybody's back except for Addison is new, but it's not like Madison is new. He's, and I think there's a big edge there versus Baker Mayfield spent half of his camp competing with Kyle Trask. I just think that that's a, that's a harder ask. Ken says college football

week one might be bigger for overreaction. Well, that's true. I mean, Colorado won the national championship, although I enjoyed that game. So I don't mean to, I don't mean to downplay, but Duke is the best team ever, right? After beating Clemson, I do think Clemson might have some problems. Maybe I'm overreacting there. Ben asks, what week can you make a determination how good the team is? That's a great question. That's a great question. I think that there was a study on this not too long ago, and I'm trying to remember what it said, but I think that the true strength of a team is usually figured out in that middle section of the season. The first part of the year can lie and the back end

of the year can lie because of just circumstances. But the middle part of the season is usually everybody's fairly healthy or healthy enough. They're at their, they've got their chemistry together because no one does preseason anymore. So there could be weird results, but maybe like week three through week eight or something is really that meat of the schedule gonna tell you how good you are the rest of the way the vikings have melted down before after good middle sections of the season people remember the call pepper years but that that's my feeling is it probably takes like seven seven weeks and that middle section is is the most telling for how strong you really are uh let's see here um oh jonathan is here hey what's up jonathan how are you jonathan harrison

what's going on buddy uh not much how's it going i gotta put my headphones on hold on uh i am good i am good i am good uh we're just uh previewing a little bit of Vikings Bucks week. I feel like we still are so far away from it. And just answering some questions here. But I've got questions for you as well to answer. Hot route style, as we always do. Rewatching Colorado versus TCU right now. Yeah, I mean, it was a really fun game, I have to say.

That was one of the most fun games that I've watched in some time. So let me answer a few more questions here, Jonathan, then we can get into our discussion of what we were going to talk about tonight. Noren says, I'm thinking going up versus a Flores defense every week will better prepare them than last year. Offensively, yeah, I don't know. I mean, wasn was a, wasn't that a funny sort of conversation throughout camp, Jonathan of like, it seemed like Kirk

cousins couldn't decide whether he wanted to say that he liked it or not with Brian Flores sending a bunch of blitzes at him all year or in the summertime, because he was like, yes, I think it helps me, but I kind of don't like it. And I want to solve the problems, but I'm not supposed to. But then you guys think I stink when you're watching from the sideline. And I think probably the guys that helps the most are probably the linemen and running backs who have to make those adjustments. But he's also wasn't going up against the defense that's like Tampa Bay. So it's kind of a yin and a yang there such as life, I think,

isn't it? Jonathan. I think I remember reading about the, the Browns a couple of years ago when Greg Williams was the defensive coordinator, I think. And there was problems with the offense, obviously a lot of problems with the Browns back then,

but there was problems with the offense. And a lot of the problems started early in the season because Greg Williams and training camp wouldn't let up and continued bringing the house every single play in training camp and a lot of the coaches on the offense they wanted to blame the defense because the the offense never was able to build into a rhythm because they were always just being harassed playing and play out during training camp and it never allowed them to actually practice their offense because it felt like they were all they were always just putting out fire so I think there's yeah there's very much a yin and a yang and you want to you want you want the defense to practice what they're

going to be playing because it's a very much very much a new look defense but you also want the offense to kind of feel good about what they're playing with going into the season you don't want them to feel like oh man is are we just going to stink this year? You want them to feel good about their offense heading into the season. And I thought that it was an okay training camp for the offense. I tried not to live day by day

with their success or failure because we already know what they mostly are. And I was really looking for, is Jordan Addison good? And he answered that pretty fast. So yeah, I don't think that something like that is going to destroy a team's confidence struggling a little bit against Brian Flores, his defense, but I do think you could overdo it. And I kind of got the sense

at times from Kirk cousins that they overdid it. Um, Hunter says interesting stat Vikings are 20 and 10 when Justin Jefferson is 80 or more receiving yards. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, it's kind of like, I'm kind of like the on off splits for Nick Bosa or whatever. It's like, well, you know,

there was a lot more that went on in those football games. I think Nick Mullen started a lot of those games that Bosa was not there over the last few years. So, I mean, the same thing kind of goes for this. Like, yeah.

I mean, when just the jefferson whoops the other team then that probably helps you win that one but also this is why we were sending people to jail if everyone remembers that if you didn't get at least i forget what it was 10 targets then someone had to go to prison and we sent way too many people to prison in 2021 sloth says addison couldn't have done much more to make us all forget about the speeding ticket incident well look i mean the speeding ticket incident i i think that we talked about that in the way that like you really have to learn from this because if you follow i

don't know our friends that bring me the news or the Star Tribune or the Pioneer Press, you see car accidents and stories about car accidents all the time. And a lot of them involve speeding. And so I think that probably everybody in his life who has been supporting him all the way from the team to his family, to his mentors, things like that, probably was in his ear after that. And hopefully it's something that he learns from. I would not conflate that with the play on the field. I expected the field, like he wasn't going to get a speeding ticket and then just be like, Oh,

I forgot how to run routes. I mean, so I figured he was probably going to be pretty good at football and he is, but I also think that it's something that if he doesn't learn from, he's going to have some further problems it seems like he did though jonathan it seems like at least from the way he spoke to us and yet again you never know but the way that they talked about it that it was made

very clear to him this is something that cannot happen again yeah the the strong comments from kevin o'connell after the incident the first time he had to talk to the press after the incident was a little bit out of what we expected, what we normally get from Kevin O'Connell. And so it very much felt like the organization kind of sat him down and told him and kind of got his head straight on that one and made things very clear what would happen if something like that continued to happen. So yeah, very felt like it very much went quiet from him as soon as training camp started. Like the performances on the field was all the talking that was being done from him and his side.

It wasn't a lot of the stuff we saw from, or the comments we saw after the draft and everything. It was a lot of just showing out on the field and performing there and just kind of focusing on what he needs to focus on. Yeah. I mean, I think that what you saw from Addison was, well, one, his talent, but also what he was known for coming out of college was being a film junkie and being all about football. And to take every first team rep right for pretty much day two of training camp and then get it the way that he did.

I think it all bodes well for his first season and that they can believe in him going into week one based on the way he played. It's just that, you know, he has to make sure that that other stuff does not happen like ever again. Cause that, that's, that's just playing with fire right there from Aaron says,

where does the 23 flores defense rank at the end of the year what do you think what do you think jonathan well i mean you can't really go any further down than what they were last year so and it i want to say that they're going to improve obviously from what it was last year but with how many veterans they got rid of and how much change and the fact that you're starting corners outside of Byron Murphy are guys who have played so, so little in the NFL. That concerns me a little bit. I know they're going to blitz, but that's also going to leave those guys on islands by themselves, covering some really talented receivers going up against some really talented quarterbacks. So I think there will be a lot of growing pains this season. I don't, part of me thinks that I don't think it's

going to get anywhere near like 15. I think it's going to be, they're going to go up a couple spots to like the high twenties, but it's going to be a noticeable difference from what it was last year, because it's just going to look a lot better than it was in 2022. Folks, we are going all in on prize picks this football season. If you haven't heard of it, prize picks is the easiest and best way to play daily fantasy. Instead of battling against thousands of other players and people who spend their entire life doing fantasy, all you do is pick more or less on between two and six players stat projections. Say a quarterback's number is 250 yards. Go more or less and bang, you're playing. And you can pick from hundreds of players this football season. It's so simple.

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That's prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple. PrizePix. Daily fantasy sports made easy. Circumstances play a role in where you rank a defense as well. And last year they played in a lot of shootouts, a lot of situations where opposing teams were coming from behind and they were throwing all the time. And of course the Vikings were playing in this shell type of thing where they sat back and let the other team throw a lot, the Vikings were playing in this shell type of thing where they sat back and let the other team throw a lot.

But there were a lot. Think about like the Miami game, right? They're up in that game. They weren't playing particularly well, but they're leading in that game. And then Teddy Bridgewater starts completing a ton of passes and racking up a ton of yards. And he was pretty close. If somebody doesn't fumble, I think it jaylen waddle fumbled or a great play by harrison smith to cause the fumble if that doesn't happen though i mean maybe it's

worse but they end up throwing for like 400 yards in the game overall and a lot of it was trying to kind of scrap from behind so circumstance matters this is why they're really trying to improve how they run the football by getting josh oliver by going with alexander madison who's more of a straightforward runner and they're hoping won't lose yards as often and things like that so i think that they're trying to kind of mitigate some of those shootouts but i agree with you that when you have so much youth at key positions in the secondary and then you don't have multiple dangerous four down pat or three down pass rushers, and you have to rely so much on being aggressive.

I think it's going to be a week to week league for this defense, where some weeks we're going to go, wow, why they really kicked somebody's butt. And then other times what happened there? They just got smoked. I think that there's going to be some of that, which they kind of have to lean into because last year was so miserable

to just watch them get beat over and over. I think it'll be like 2021. I would guess they rank like 22nd. 2021, Zimmer started blitzing like crazy because they couldn't really cover anybody. Brashad Breeland, that whole deal. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. And I think that there's going to be a lot of that throughout this season. So something I wanted to talk to you about, Jonathan,

that I've brought up before on the show, but I feel like is always an interesting discussion in regards to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Vikings and the Bucs have two wildly different histories. For a very long time, the. The bucks were a trash fire. My entire upbringing, they were super, super bad until they got Brad Johnson, obviously the final piece to their championship. Uh, but also, you know, Warren Sapp, Derek Brooks, Rondé Barber, these guys may have had a little bit to do with it john lynch but it was mostly brad johnson and mike allsign they actually did have a good offense but you know nobody cared

because their defense was so fantastic and then they win a super bowl and then they stink again for a long time all sorts of quarterbacks josh freeman jeff garcia everybody's coming in and out and not good the james winston era not good. And then they get Brady, they win a Superbowl and now they're probably not going to be good for a while. So that is long stretches. That's like generations of little Tampa Bay children who grow up with their one Superbowl, but then don't see their team play well for many years. Whereas if you are a Viking fan, whether you came from the seventies or the nineties or you're eight, you have the same results, which is lots of good and competitive football that

never gets over the top. So let me ask you, Jonathan, would you prefer that every year of your life, your team gives you some reason to believe in them or that they won twice and they stink the whole rest of the time? which would you rather have oh man it's so tough because obviously coming from the vikings fan base i want the super bowls and something that i've never experienced so i'm going to lean more towards yeah i'd take the crappy years and for the occasional pop-up great year that they win the super bowl but also you can probably see the same argument from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

fans where they're like, yeah, we give up maybe one or two, maybe one or both of those Super Bowls in the chance that we're consistently good and we don't ever have these horrendous seasons where it's three wins because those are just, those are absolute killers of seasons. And there's just, it's no fun having to like trough through the end of the year and trough through the NFL season with those just terrible seasons. So I lean more towards, I would rather deal with crappy seasons and have the occasional Super

Bowls only because I've never experienced what winning a Super Bowl is like, what having my team win a Super Bowl is like, but I definitely can understand, you know, wanting to have a consistently competitive team. And I think Sloth puts it correctly. Give me the Super Bowls and watching Red Zone from the beach most years. I kind of understand that too. Like, I think that's where I'm leaning is I want the Super Bowls and I don't really care if my team is bad the other years because there's so much other good football on it

and it's so easily accessible that it kind of makes up for that. I feel you because a lot of people, and you know, everyone knows where I come from. They don't have a Super Bowl either at Buffalo. They've had their close calls. And then here, many, many close calls and many years where they thought, just one more thing, go right, and you're in the Superbowl and there is an emptiness to that. There, there, there is a, there is a deep rooted pain that people feel in these cities that don't have a

Superbowl and that space in your empty, cold hearts that have been beaten down by missed field goals and calamities and knees and everything else that has gone wrong and uh you know um whatever it was bounty gates and and all the other things that have happened and throwing across your body and 12 men in the huddle and all these things that it certainly leaves an empty feeling for everybody every time you go into a season there's like a desperation. Like this has got to be the year. I can't wait another year. But then also it's the, this is never going to happen. And there's like a psychological warfare that goes on with Vikings fans and themselves because they

have not won a Superbowl. So there is that there's like a deep insecurity that goes along with it as well. It's also part of the identity, I think, in a way that bonds Vikings fans together, that they've never quite made it. And what's the first thing that you're going to talk about with a fellow Viking fan if you meet them while you're on vacation in, I don't know, like Cabo or something? Are we going to talk about how they won't win the Super Bowl

because they'll miss a field goal? So, you know, there is a little bit of that. And I think that miserable years are painful. And so I'm trying to make the is a little bit of that uh and i think that miserable years are painful and so i'm trying to make the argument a little bit that having hope every year that it can actually happen looking at your roster going into this year looking at your roster and you're saying all right well they're probably not a super bowl team but all right and like last year probably not a super bowl team and then you get to 7-1 and you go, but? And so, I mean, there's a lot of years like that with the Vikings,

where with the Bucs, it's not. There's only a couple of years where you could even make any case at all that they were anywhere close. So there's something to that. But if you're the Bucs, I guarantee you 0% of their fans would say like, oh, yeah, I'd give back the Super Bowls for 10 more decent season. Never, never going to be the case. And so when you don't have one, you're always you're always waiting and waiting. The one thing I would caution, and I'm not saying you don't want a Super Bowl, so don't take me the wrong way, is I have a friend of mine who's a Boston Red Sox fan who is older than me.

So his entire life was all those botched jobs by the Red Sox. And as soon as they won, it kind of became different for him. Like, okay, well, I guess that's kind of over. It was like the end of the show. Like, all right, well, and he still likes them, but not in the same way. So lean into your identity as Superbowl this people, but it's pretty hard to make an argument that you'd rather not have the Superbowls when you are a city that struggles two cities that struggles so much to get any sort of hardware unless you're the links recently. Right. I mean, what do we, what do we say

about the rams and how they built their their roster when they won the super bowl you you don't get to you don't have to give that back you won the super bowl yeah you're gonna have some lean years afterwards but you won the super bowl it really doesn't matter after that it last season's uh terrible calamity that it was doesn't really matter because you won the super bowl two years ago you understand that you're paying for it now, but you still got to feel what it felt like to have your team go to the Super Bowl in your own stadium and win it. I mean, you can't take that feeling away.

You'll never have to give that trophy back. Okay. So the other side of that coin is that you didn't care. That's part of this. And look, I'm not saying Vikings fans would stop caring. You won't. It's not the same thing as an LA team, but it's just different. Like every year comes with an urgency.

And one of the fun things about talking with this fan base on a nightly basis is sort of the, the, the passion that has come along with this. And I think there's something special to that. And there's something different for these teams that are chasing that elusive Superbowl when it comes to that passion for it. I mean, I mean, think of it, like if you're the Eagles and you lost the Superbowl last year. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, sure. It was devastating for them. And of course that breaks the hearts of Vikings fans that Eagles fans, but not in the same way as it would be for you because they got their super bowl. So maybe, maybe there's a good and a bad to that for everybody. But I like the question because I think that it offers different perspectives on things like, what do we do this for? I, because there are people who come into a season where it's like if they don't get to the

super bowl then it was all a failure and i wasted every sunday and i should have been playing yahtzee with my friends and and there are other people who think like well this whole thing is part of the journey and uh that's the fun of it and i think if that's the case if you see it as kind of just all part of the journey and you're not just about rings or nothing, then you're more apt to say, I'd rather just have good seasons and maybe we have a chance rather than being horrendous like 80% of the time. So anyway, another question for you, a thing that's in the news is Kyle Rudolph, that he is retiring and they are going to honor him in week three against the Los Angeles chargers. My question for you is Kyle Rudolph was a really good Minnesota Viking, couple of pro bowls,

a plus guy off the field, the, the hospital, you know, the children's hospital stuff, irreplaceable impact that he made here, but a tough choice on someone like that, whether to put them in the ring of honor because

i mean that's tough because i mean the ring of honor there's only going to be so many names that go up there also from the zimmer era there were a lot of good players from the zimmer era so my question for you is how many zimmer era and extended into o'Connell players will make the ring of honor. So I have one, two, three, four, five, I think six guys that I think could go in. I'm a little iffy on some of them because looking at the Vikings ring of honor, there's a lot of obviously hall of famers guys who deserve to be up there. There's also a couple of guys who are obviously just franchise greats. So it's kind of hit or miss on whether they go to the Hall of Fame or not. So I'm going to start off with Harrison Smith. I think he's a lock to go into the Ring of Honor. Obviously, we've talked about it a couple of times, whether he's a Hall of Famer or not.

I think very borderline. I think he should be. I think there's a lot of underratedness to just not getting a lot of the national attention that he deserves for how well he's played over the last decade or so with this team. I think Harrison Smith is a lock. I think Adam Thielen, I think he'll go in because of the Minnesota Factories. One of us, he started off as an undrafted guy, D2 or D1 AA, and just kind of rose his way up and became one of the best Vikings wide receivers in history. And that's an accomplishment considering the amount of great wide receivers

this team has in their franchise history. Like he's up there at the top, near the top of their charts in receiving stats. So I think Thielen goes in. Jefferson, he's only three years in, but I think if he continues this pace that he's on, I mean, he's an obvious lock. I mean, we saw Randy Moss is only here for a couple of years and he went in. So you clearly don't need the absolute longevity if you're an absolute freak like Randy Moss or Justin Jefferson. And those guys are clearly just incredible players at their position. So I think Justin Jefferson, if he continues this for at least two,

three more years, he's definitely a lock for the Ring of Honor. Daniil Hunter for me, I think there's – this is where I start to get into will they, won't they, because I think for me it all depends on if Daniil Hunter stays. That if he stays, if he's a Viking for life, I think he's a lock for the Ring of Honor because he's done, he's played incredibly well, played incredibly well for a long time, went through some injuries, then came back and played well again.

So I think if he stays in Minnesota for his entire career, then he's a lock for the Ring of Honor. But if he doesn't, if he leaves after this year, then I think it becomes a little bit questionable whether he gets into that ring of honor or not I think Kirk Cousins depending on how far they go in the playoffs this year because obviously it seems like very much this is going to be the last year of Kirk Cousins and we talked about that if they go far in the playoffs like say if they go to the NFC championship game he's put up the numbers to have to be in that

conversation to be in there whether you like him or not he's put up the numbers to have to be in that conversation, to be in there, whether you like him or not, he's put up the numbers to be there in that conversation. If they can get far in the playoffs, if he continues to put up the numbers, but they don't go any, any further than the first round of the playoffs and no, he's not going to get in and they'll just move on. And he'll just be remembered as one of the better quarterbacks in this franchise history. And then I think Eric Hendricks is also in that questionable because he played really well. I don't think he was ever considered one of the top-end linebackers,

but he was considered a really outstanding linebacker during his time here in Minnesota. But I don't think he ever put up the numbers that you would think deserve to be in the Ring of Honor, but i could also be swayed on that one folks this fall season is an unbelievable time for sports and i'm always a fan of trying to catch other games when i go on the road to cover football like baseball hockey basketball just about anything and that's why i use game time the fast and easy way to buy tickets of any type of event even even music, comedy, whatever you're looking for. GameTime has last-minute flash deals on tickets, images of seats, and a low-price guarantee.

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and use the code INSIDER for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again, create an account, redeem code insider for $20 off download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. So the, the ring of honor, I looked at every player who's in it and the standard is very high. I mean, the standard is like hall of very good or better. And by hall of very good, I mean, somebody who's being nominated potentially for the hall of fame, which doesn't mean you go in, but think about where Jared Allen is right now is he keeps getting in this nomination discussion. Like that's that, that is where guys usually have to be

in order where you're getting in that discussion year after year in order to get into the ring of honor because it's great, great players. I mean, you go way back. It's like your Mick Tinglehoffs, your Fran Tarkenton's players like that, Carl Eller.

I mean, it's the true greatness. And then there's like one level down, but really, really great. Like Steve Jordan is the only tight end, and he was fantastic. He's not quite of a Hall of Fame level, but has an argument. And from that standard, Harrison Smith, to me, is right on the cusp of having a Hall of Fame career. Maybe two more years, maybe a a pro bowl that gets him in that discussion i think he's going to struggle to get in because of the position and how few defensive backs are in just in general but and as you mentioned like usually if you're going to get

in as a safety you have to intercept the pass in the super bowl like that i mean that's just you have to have chris collinsworth saying here's a guy, and talking about you and highlighting you. It's just the reality that just pulling up his PFF grades and showing how consistently great he is usually is not enough. And even if he does have an actual case versus other Hall of Famers. But for the Viking standard of Ring of Honor, I think he meets it. The Adam Thielen is a little bit tough because what you said is 100% true that he had an all-time great Vikings receiver career, but so did like Anthony Carter. I mean, and so did Jake Reed, like it was Jake Reed, not like four years of a thousand yards in a row. And it was long, but it wasn't super long and the same thing goes for carter and reed

and you got the minnesota angle but i think if you're like jake reed or anthony carter you're like well you know right like am i not like in that same and even awkwardly stefan diggs also had a pretty darn good run for a handful of years. Jefferson to me is a lock already. Yep. He's already on this, on a hall of fame trajectory. If he even remotely continues it, he's going to be that player. Hunter is a hard one because I think he is of that similar standard. Now it took Dolman forever to get in the hall of fame. I don't know if Hunter's a hall of famer, but the top, he's the hall of very good. Yeah. Everson Griffin's one of the best players in the NFL during his time. I don't think that it's quite going to reach the level with him either.

But there are a lot of Hall of Very Good type of players from that era. And I think Kyle Rudolph at any given time is a top 10 tight end in the league, but isn't the number one tight end in the league. So he probably doesn't quite get there. Only two Pro Bowls, which is a stupid metric, but that's how we look at it. but isn't like the number one tight end in the league. So he probably doesn't quite get there only two pro bowls, which is a stupid metric, but like, that's how we look at it.

So, you know, I, I think there will be some very hard choices coming up when it comes to those players. And you mentioned Kirk cousins. I agree with you that if he gets to an NFC championship game, he's got a great chance.

If they don't make the playoffs this year, it's not going to happen. And you know, the stat, the stat stuffing is really just more of a product of the era where everybody has good quarterback stats. So, and, you know, they didn't, you know, Culpepper's not there and his run was very short, but his stats were really good.

So yeah, I think right now, the only guys that I would say, I think are really sure things to make it would be Harrison Smith and Justin Jefferson. Let me circle back. Hunter says, don't the Bucs have like the worst franchise winning percentage in the league? I think that's right. I mean, maybe like since the Texans came in, they've gotten worse than them over the last couple of years because they have a small sample. But that's my point. That's why it's a question.

It's not just that the Bucks were like occasionally bad and then won Super Bowls. It's a horror show for their entire franchise history. We're not talking that you have to accept the Bucks like the last 20 years. You have to accept the Bucks whole history, which is way the hell worse than the Vikings by like a million miles, except for those two years. Norrin says, Journey, I feel like Moses walking through the desert. Hey, well, didn't he find an

oasis at some point? Maybe you will. Maybe. I don't know that that's true. Easier for Craig, who says the Bucs have two Super Bowls. I'm going with the Bucs. I guess that's fair. I just think when you're talking about one of the truly most putrid franchises versus a very successful franchise that just didn't make it, that it's an interesting discussion. Javier says, do you think with everyone the Vikes have to sign that all roads have to lead to a change at quarterback regardless of how they do? I think the last part, Jonathan, is quarterback, regardless of how they do. I think the last part, Jonathan is not totally regardless of how they do, but mostly like out of all potential Vikings

scenarios, most roads lead almost all of the roads lead, especially with all these quarterbacks who look like potential first round picks. But I would not say all, what do you think the standard is for? They go back to Kirk and say, we're sorry. We doubted you. We were haters. Here's all the money. Like, like what would you have to do in order for that to happen? I think with, I think with the amount of quarterbacks and you talked about this earlier and talked about this, uh, with, with Trevor earlier today from PFF, with all the quarterbacks that are coming out, I think the standard should be Super Bowl or you're gone. I mean, I know that's a lofty standard and only two teams are ever going to reach that, but with the roster that you have, with the talent that you have, the offensive talent, especially

that you have building the youth in them, I would say that unless Kirk is able to get this team to the Super Bowl, or I may even be able to flex a little bit to go the NFC Championship game. If you get either of those two, then sorry, we're just going to move on. We're going to try a younger quarterback who has all this talent to develop with, and we're going to try the rookie quarterback contract route and try and move on from there and but i think they're like you said most if not all roads just lead to a quarterback change at the end of this season uh but there are maybe one maybe two roads that sees kirk cousins returns return and that's a super bowl or maybe even an nfc championship game i think a top five offense maybe because you have a top five offense then you have a chance to go compete for the super bowl

just historically like that's the bar and at least of recent years but even just all the time i mean you go back to the 80s and like the 49ers and broncos are making the super bowl with great quarterbacks and great offenses. It's always been that way outside of a handful of years. But if you're in the top five in offense, then that means he will have played really, really good. And maybe you could talk yourself into, well, Justin Jefferson's money won't really hit

for a couple of years. And Derisaw's won't really hit for a couple of years. And maybe you could skimp on the guard, but I, right. I mean, that's what they've done. That's how they've talked. Yeah. But Kirk cousins has never operated a top five offense. And if that were to happen, then that means there's something really there with O'Connell and cousins last year, they were eighth. A lot of that's playing from behind and having to score a lot of points in terms of their actual efficiency as an offense.

It was less than that. It was just okay. And it wasn't really great. So I think they have to be a truly elite offense and, and look, if their defense is so bad that they end up going 10 and seven or something and losing in the first round. But even then you're trying to project years out when you sign a contract, not reward what the guy just did. So can you project as a quasi Adolfo Mensah said this at the combine, it's hard to project more than a couple of years out. So can you project multiple years out to sign cousins to an extension? Even if you do have a great offense,

that's, it would be bold, but they, I mean, I actually did a lot of bold things this off season. Is it really? It's to me, it's the fundamental question of the year is what would you have to do to

remain as the quarterback? Sloth says Harrison Smith won't get in, but deserves to make it compare his stats to Troy, Paul Amalo. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about Palomaro is your regular seasons and Harrison Smith played on a lot of good defenses and was a centerpiece

to those good defenses and his underlying stats are great. And his box score stats are great. The problem is Troy Palomaro has this like dozen extra games and makes iconic plays that Harrison Smith just hasn't had. Now that's not his fault. Like he didn't play quarterback or he didn't, you know, draft bad players on defense around him or anything for a couple of years there.

So it's not his fault. And so I agree with you, but if you're like on that hall of fame committee and you weren't closely watching Harrison Smith through his career and the nuances of his game and so forth, but you sure were with Paul Amalo with all those great plays in the, in the playoffs and the ring. And it makes a difference, um, historically, but this year, if he makes the pro bowl, he gets in some very rare air of defensive backs with seven pro bowls. And I am interested to see about that, whether he could actually do that with Brian Flores,

the purple heel. Dave says, Harry and Kirk need a super bowl to have a shot at the hall of fame. I tend to agree with that. And Adam Thielen will make ring of honor because of his work in the community. Yeah. I mean,

I think that Adam Thielen being the ultimate Minnesota guy and certainly was very active in the community and stuff mean i think that adam thielen being the ultimate minnesota guy and certainly was very active in the community and stuff like that give puts him in the conversation it's just that right now the ring of honor receivers are like the goats so do you lower that standard a little and that's not to take away from adam but he's not chris carter so do you lower that standard a little but then when you do do, there's like a bunch of other Vikings receivers who go now, wait a minute, I was as good as Adam Thielen. And they've got a good argument for that. So that's, that's kind of interesting. Uh, Spencer says, I hate to say it, but I like the Vikings being relevant. Also, as one of my professors said, what will we talk about when the Vikings win

the Superbowl? That's you may laugh, but that's a real thing. I'm telling you, that is a that is a real thing about like it changes after you get it. I'm not saying you shouldn't want it. Of course you want it. But it it is different. It does change the identity of you as a franchise. I think eventually for sure that, you know, that they will win one at some point before the earth barrels into the sun. But, but I don't know when it's going to be.

I, I really, I, I tend to lean a tad toward you that even though this, this show has always been aimed for the super bowl, aim for the super bowl, nothing else matters. Aim for the super bowl.

The bucks history is so bad that you could, you go a lifetime almost with, if you just picked out sections of bucks history, you could go from being a child to like being able to rent a car and they're bad the whole time. So I'm just saying like that, that you have to consider that when we have that discussion. One more thing.

Let's see here. Oh, Aaron says, tell me if you've heard this one. Kirk will make an epic throw to win a wild card round playoff game, then throw 10 yards short of the sticks in a critical situation and get an extension. That's funny. That so that is why you hire someone else to be the general manager, because if that were the case, then you would just stick with Bricks Bealman. Although this, this to me, when it's the quarterback, it comes down to the ownership and would they get wowed by a playoff win and then decide,

okay, actually we should pay him his money because we're afraid of losing him because we like the playoffs. I don't know. To end the show on Tuesday nights, we're going to be doing a new thing with PrizePix. PrizePix is a sponsor of this show, and I am excited about this. And maybe we can even screen share to show everybody the PrizePix because this is kind of a fun thing that we are doing.

Can everybody see the prize picks? So all you do with prize picks, here's the website, is that you pick whether players are going to have more or less yardage. So, for example, if you could see it, like Patrick Mahomes, will he have more or less than 281 yards 281.5 yards and that's the game and it's kind of fun but it's very simple and it's very easy so each week at the end of the show on tuesday i'm going to pick three of these and we're going to stick with quarterbacks this week and jonathan is going to tell me whether I'm a fool or whether I am very, very wise. Okay.

So the first one I'm going to pick is of course, Kirk cousins, and I am going to pick him to throw for less than 257.5 yards. Jonathan, your thought. I think you're a little bit of a fool for that one. I think he will throw for more. This offense, I'm very high on what this offense can do. And week one, anything can happen. We saw that last year with what the Vikings did in week one. Now, part of that was because Green Bay just decided we're not going to cover the best receiver in the galaxy for some reason, rather foolhardily.

But I think Kirk Cousins will throw for more. He threw for 269 yards last year in week one. I think he will do something similar this year in week one. So more. Okay. Here's my thought on Kirk Cousins, less than 257.5 yards is I think the Vikings will be winning late in the game and they will put Josh Oliver out on the field and they will run the football. So they're going to be winning by two scores. And instead of just letting the other team come back and win the game as, or, or get really close and then lose, which is what they did last year. They let teams hang around in the game and then found a way to squeak it out at the end. I think at least for this game, because Baker Mayfield is

the opposing quarterback that Kirk cousins will not have to throw for more than 257 and a half yards. I think this will be more of a, or a cruise control fourth quarter where they're running the football. That's, that's why I'm going with that. And of course I could be completely, totally, and wholly wrong. I am going with more than 258 and a half yards for Trevor Lawrence. And this is just, this is all prizepicks.com. It's very easy. You don't have to put much money in. I got a few bucks in, you could see at the top. And that's another great part of it. It doesn't take any time at all. And so it's fun. And that's why we're doing it. Plus they sponsor the show. So, uh, what, what do you think Jonathan more or less for Trevor Lawrence, 258.5 yards. Uh, I think you are correct here.

More yards for Trevor Lawrence. Uh, that Indianapolis team concerns me with how bad they will be this year. And the, the Jaguars are getting Calvin Ridley to add to an already pretty good offense last year Trevor Lawrence is in the third year of his NFL career second year uh in with a head coach that actually knows what the hell he's doing I think that Trevor Lawrence is going to just go crazy this year he's going to take a giant step and week one against the the Colts is a great way to start the season for him. I'm agreeing with you. You hear more than 250 yards.

Okay. And my last one is Jordan Love, who is going for more than 212 yards against a bad Chicago Bears defense that will not pressure him. And I think he's going to have a nice start to his season against one of the worst defenses in the league. And by the way, the entry here is 20 bucks to win a hundred. So that kind of tells you that the type of numbers we're playing with here.

So if you're not like a big fantasy football psycho, that's why I like this. If you're not like, Oh, I'm going to put thousands of dollars and dress up as a chicken in public or something. If I lose, like if you're not one of those,

those crazy people about it, this is pretty easy to do. So 212 yards, I'm giving Jordan love more than 212 yards. I think that's a little risky though, because yes, the bears have a horrendous defense, but they've also got pretty decent secondary that could cause some problems. So I would tend to agree with you just based off the fact that the rest of that defense is atrocious and that will be a giant anchor on the Bears team in general this season. So I think I'll agree with you here more because again, like I said, with the Kirk Cousins pick pick anything can happen week one the bears have never seen i don't think they've ever seen jordan love not a lot of teams have so anything can happen i

think i'm going to go more here for week one uh jordan love right i i think i am flawless here and then i'm going to win but uh i i just i feel like uh that's going to be a really favorable game for Jordan Love to start off as the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers for the next 23 years or whatever, just like always happens in Green Bay. So there it is. I'm going with more for Jordan Love than 212, more for Trevor Lawrence than 258.5, and less for Kirk Cousins than 25 58.5 and a more for Kirk or a less for Kirk cousins than two 57.5. But the thing is that with this, you could do it for all sorts of stuff. You got receiving yards, pass rush, receiving yards, touchdowns, all sorts of stuff, and lots of other sports as well. We even got some W in here. I have not checked out the W. Um, so we'll have to give that a try. So anyway, that's PrizePix.

You guys should check it out. We're going to be going through that every week. And feel free to send us yours if you decide to go with some more or less action there, get their app and all that. So good stuff, Jonathan, and great stuff from everybody. A good conversation tonight. And we will have tomorrow night. I'll be here answering your questions again,

but the head coach on record, the quarterback and the first injury report, which I suspect will have no one on it, which is a story in itself for the Vikings going into the game against the bucks, but we'll see. So I'll have more information to work with tomorrow night and we'll have a good conversation then.

So appreciate all of you showing up. Thank you, Jonathan, as always. And we will talk to you all tomorrow night.