Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Yahoo! Sports' Eric Edholm answers: Should Vikings fans be worried about Jordan Love?

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Matthew Coller is joined by Yahoo! Sports' Eric Edholm to talk about his article on Jordan Love. Edholm talked to Love's former coaches at Utah State and Matthew asks Eric to read between the lines on Love. Could he overcome having poor numbers in college and being the No. 3 QB last year? Or should we be skeptical that Love can take over for Aaron Rodgers? Plus Eric talks about what he thought of Kellen Mond coming out in the draft and why drafting a QB these days is less risky than it's ever been. And he gives his prediction for a Day 3 Vikings player who could make a surprising difference in Year 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show from Yonkers Sports, the draft expert, Eric Edholm. What is up? My man, what's going on? Well, I wanted to give you time. I wanted to give you time to process. I know you're very busy right after the draft.

A lot of people want to talk with you, get your takeaways for how things played out. So I said, let me give you some space. Let me give you some OTA time to see what everybody's reporting and, and, and really, and really breathe it in, get the full draft in your lungs. And then now we can discuss how you feel about the Vikings draft, but we also have to talk about something else, which is what's that off in the distance that I hear. Oh, that's the Jordan love hype train. And look, and look, who's driving it. It's Eric Edholm from Yahoo sports. No, I'm just kidding. But you wrote a great piece about what the Utah State coaches are saying about Jordan Love. And I want you to tell me, like, what's a reasonable place for Vikings fans

to be as it pertains to Aaron Rodgers not being in Green Bay and their natural fear that Jordan Love could also be good. Yeah, wouldn't that be terrible for Vikings fans like Justin Fields balls out in Chicago and Jordan Love and, you know, somehow Jared Goff has a rebirth season, you know, and gives them a little bit of a positional envy, I guess. That would require a lot, all those things happening, but the Love situation obviously is so fascinating for a zillion reasons, right? I mean, in a perfect world, they would give him a ton of reps this summer. Rodgers would roll up in a white Rolls Royce,

you know, take his cape off and take the field week one. I mean, that would be, and people would move on quickly from the spat, right, whatever the disagreement is between the Packers and Rodgers. But that perfect world may not exist, Matthew. I don't – and again, it's like Rodgers has to put a strong front up and act like he's sort of as pissed as he is and everything and stay away and do things he hasn't done before. I mean, he's never missed a minicamp before,

mandatory minicamp in 16 years. But it may end up being a really good thing for Love in the sense that he got zero snaps last year, zero meaningful snaps, no preseason games, limited reps in practice. he was the number three quarterback he was probably doing scout team duty you know there's not much to do with that i mean there's there's no development but is there talent there yes and is you know yeah you and i do these things where we talk to coaches and they're always going to stick up for their guys, or most times they are, you know.

But their praise for them, two different staffs, Mike Wells, or I mean Matt Wells, excuse me, who's now at Texas Tech, and then Mike Sanford, who is his OC the next year, is now at Minnesota. You guys obviously know very well. I mean, both of them were effusive in their praise, more so than I thought they would be, especially for a player who had a really, you know, up and down college career. And it's always interesting. It's like a fun exercise to try to read between the lines

of the compliments. And that's one of my favorite things to do. Like I called Laquan Treadwell's position coach when he was first um sort of you know coming along in training camp and he was like yeah well you know Laquan is great came back from that injury and he's a super hard worker and I was like okay well you know what what could uh what's he need to work on basically and he's like well you know when a route is 10 yards you got to kind of hit it at 10 yards it's like oh wow ding ding ding that's that is going to be a problem. If you can't get 10 yard routes to 10 yards as a wide receiver. And lo and behold, that was the main issue with Treadwell other than, you know, his lack of straight line speed, but he just couldn't get the route details. Right. And, and so what, what is that for, for Jordan love? Because

we hear about his athleticism, his arm strength and that kind of thing, like all of his physical tools. But at the same time, his last year at Utah State was just not good. And I just will never buy it. And I know maybe Josh Allen's proving us wrong a little bit. But if you don't produce in college, I always have a tough time being like, oh, but you see, it was this, this, this, and the other thing. Dude, you're at Utah State though, right? So how do you balance what they're saying about the tools

and reading between the lines with the coaches and what could undo Jordan Love? Yeah, and I think the Josh Allen comp, at least as far as production and things like that, is very apt because Josh Allen played pretty well as a junior, not so well as a senior, same kind of pattern that Love had as well. And, you know, it was interesting because, you know, even though both Wells and Sanford have moved on to other places and are, you know, twice removed from that job and everything, you know, they were very hesitant to kind of throw some of the

teammates under the bus. You couldn't help but notice he was not working with a good offensive line there. I mean, it just wasn't a great group. They lost, I think, three starters from the year before, maybe four. I can't remember off the top of my head. They lost probably the best Mountain West tight end at the time, Dax Raymond. The running back who ended up playing for the Chiefs, I'm just blanking on his name right now, Thompson. Yeah, whatever. But, you know, so some significant losses and also a wide receiver who was a guy I think he hit for like, you know, 50, 60 balls the year before. So it was clear that both of them were kind of hinting that, hey, you know,

one year's team isn't quite like the next. So I think they were definitely pointing out to the fact that Jordan felt like he had to carry a lot of his shoulders. But to your point of looking between the lines, both of them kind of talked about riding that fine line of implementing the fundamentals, a good throwing base, a good throwing motion. You know, when it's a clean pocket, you got to have those things. If you're under duress, under stress, outside the pocket, you know, things are breaking down.

Yeah, then you can manipulate the arm angles and do all that fancy Mahomes stuff, right? And he has that kind of ability. But I think he forces it too much where, you know, he's falling away or he's throwing off his back foot or he's, you know, slinging its sidearm when he doesn't have to. And Aaron Rodgers can get away with that, dude. You know, Mahomes is a unicorn. We're not going to compare anybody to him. Jordan Love probably needs to be that fundamental guy, except when things turn to hell on offense. And so I think that was probably the closest thing to what you're talking about is, you know, the backhanded compliment, if you will.

He can do it. We just don't want him doing it quite as much as he thinks he needs to. Right. And so there's a PFF stat that's really interesting that off schedule throws track those for every player. And the league average is 5% of throws are off schedule. And Mahomes, I think, is at 10%. And naturally, because, you know, he kind of does that. But that means that only one out of every 10 Patrick Mahomes throws is off schedule and so if you're not the homes or even you know aaron rogers or any of the quarterbacks who could do this really well um you're probably like johnny manziel or something just trying back there to like do whatever the hell which works fine in college but does not work in the nfl most of your throws are on time they're dropped back their play action there you have to read it the way it's exactly read.

And I know this from Kirk cousins because he's the ultimate kind of execute. This type of quarterback is that his details on his footwork and everything for every single concept have to be exactly right for him to be where he is in the NFL. And I just don't think that you can effectively play quarterback from a week to week basis and be really good without all of that. I mean, even Rogers last year, like he's running this Matt LaFleur play action type of offense. And he's most, he's mostly executing the throws he's supposed to make. And then one out of 10 times he does something special. So that right there is like when love was coming out, the criticisms to me were just the ones that you don't want to hear was not super accurate.

He doesn't have the technical ability, that kind of thing. And usually or the statistical numbers either. Usually those things are big red flags. And then you have the fact that he was the number three quarterback. I want to know what you make of that, because my feeling is he probably should have been the number two quarterback I want to know what you make of that because my feeling is he probably should have been the number two quarterback if he's a first round draft pick he should be able to beat out Tim Boyle I would think yeah I think they felt like that what I've gathered you know talking to some people is that they felt like without getting let's say 80 90 throws in the

preseason or whatever you know 60 70 at the very least without getting a normal kind of offseason. I mean, they didn't have many camps or OTAs last year. We can't reasonably ask him to be the week one, number two. Fair, right? I think everybody would agree, okay, let's give him some time to catch up, absorb this thing. But by season's end, he wasn't good enough. And Tim Boyle, by by the way is somebody they let

walk this off season so it wasn't like they had some special backup you know right or an overpaid chase daniel or whatever you know it's not that kind of deal so for him to have been the number three for all 17 weeks in the playoffs makes you kind of wonder, geez, did he just, was he unable to catch up because he never got the reps? It was sort of a chicken and egg thing. Or, you know, were they just fine with Tim Boyle and saying, okay, Rodgers is probably going to stay healthy. And if we lose him, we're losing the season anyway. So yeah, it's a fair question to ask you know to go from three to one like he has is a little bit unusual and but then again last year was so strange for everybody especially rookies yeah no that's true something mike zimmer said a few years ago about a guy who was competing

for a backup spot really stuck with me and i never thought of it this way before but he said the guy can't get people lined up right and it's like yeah this thing is complicated right um and and it's you're just asking so much of the quarterback that if you can't get every single detail and line up people the same way or the right way for your scheme every single time they can't have you as the backup because then if you go in then you're going to have confusion and this is, and we'll get to this, but this I think is the reason that Kellen Mond right now is QB four for the Vikings and their OTAs is because Jake Browning knows how to line them up when they send in a play call and they don't have to stand there and go, no,

it's not like that. It's like this kind of thing. And so, you know, you, you can only put in the reps that he is, you know, he's feeling comfortable with. So how do you think? Because everyone has to have their take on this, right? Like, how do you think this plays out? Because actually, when you said he kind of rolls up in the Rolls Royce and starts week one is that's how I think of it. I think that the Rogers is going to need Mason Crosby to fly out to his house and convince him. Yeah, but I think he will do it. I think he loves this part of it.

He's sort of loving this. I'm going to like up my legend here. I'm going to, you know, hold out and then just say, all right, guys, here I come. Just, you know, in Farvian type of fashion. That's how I think it plays out. How do you think it goes? Yeah. You know, if we use public sentiment as some sort of barometer, it doesn't feel like there is the massive, overwhelming support.

I mean, obviously Ted Thompson became kind of a goat for the Favre situation. A lot of people turned their ire on him, whether it was fair or not, I don't know, but it felt pretty slanted. This one feels a little bit more balanced I don't think people are you know Packers fans are against Rodgers but it doesn't feel quite as vitriolic as it was before against Thompson as it is with Gudekun so you know maybe that works against Aaron a little bit I don't know but certainly if he did that opinions would change pretty quickly. And I think everybody would be like, whew, okay, we avoided that one. But it almost certainly would be his last year, I think, if that happened. I think he would just say, all right, I'm not

sitting out my age 37 year. I'm going to go play and just know where my stance is. And we're not going through this again, right? We're going to agree that you've now had a year and a half, two years to develop love. Good luck with that. I'm going to go out west and hang out with my wife and you guys figure it out. But yes, could I absolutely see the day before the third preseason game or whatever, some late development, or he rolls into camp a week late or something. Sure. It wouldn't shock me at all. I mean, we've seen stuff like that before. So that, that to me still feels like the most likely answer. I really, really doubt he would sit out the entire off season. Right.

And I, I, I also think that they're not trading him unless it becomes Carson Palmer E where it's very clear the guy's actually serious yeah um so one other thing on this if Rodgers does play for the Packers this year and then they've used two years of Jordan Love's rookie contract uh and I mean who knows how it will turn out maybe he's great great. Maybe he's OK. Maybe he's bad. Right. But fundamentally, I feel like I should be questioning this a little bit because the rookie contract is just like the golden ticket in the NFL. And now you've messed up your salary cap situation to push all the chips in with Rogers to keep everybody in pay, Bakhtiari and everything else. And and, you know, you're hoping

to kind of resolve that with the Jordan love once Aaron Rogers is gone, but then you've got just this tiny little window of a guy being on his rookie contract because you use two of those years to mess around, you know, and continue to have Aaron Rogers. I wonder about how you feel about that because like everyone loves the, Oh, sit a guy for a year and then put them in like my homes to Alex Smith. But you're sort of limiting yourself where you better do it in those couple of years. If the guy is good, because otherwise we see what a problem that could be if it's not Aaron Rogers.

Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, for first round picks, you get a four year deal plus the fifth yearyear option. Year one's been wiped out. Year two, if Rodgers comes back, theoretically would be wiped out in terms of him not starting. And now you're banking on him playing well in 2022 as the starter, presumptive. We're just going, you know, theoretically here. And then that summer, you have to decide whether you're going to, you know, get that fifth-year option and give it to him.

Probably would, even unless he was absolutely abysmal. But still, like to your point, it shortens the amount of time. It lessens the information you have on a player. Granted, most coaches privately will tell you that they kind of know whether a guy's got it or not. But at the same time, you you know having that on-field experience is going to be crucial obviously and whenever it comes so yeah it really is tough to it rarely seems to work out as beautifully as perfectly as that smith mahomes thing did everybody uses that as the template here's our plan well you know what it is about best laid plans they they go to hell fast so absolutely agree that it's it's a tricky line and i think

it was it's not going to always work out the way you hope all you need is the guy to be the mvp in his first starting year right i mean it's just that easy just snap your fingers well uh and and you know with someone like jared goff he got his ass kicked the first year, but he learns how to play NFL football. So then he comes back the second year and he's got some experience of being on the field. So I've always felt like you could sort of make the case either way based on just, there's, there's so many examples to draw from. But the Mahomes one, and even the Rogers one, they both feel like kind of outlier situations. Yeah. And so real quick, I mean, Love, his redshirt freshman year, waited, then started at the end of the year, didn't play great, wasn't terrible. And that helped him build towards 2018 when he broke out. So, yeah, didn't mean to step on your toes there. No, no, that's okay. Yeah.

And then so sometimes I even remember this going way back of like how bad donovan mcnabb looked right away and it's like oh my gosh this might be because i followed him at syracuse and they had great great team with him it's like well i wanted him to succeed and i remember watching him for the first couple times being like oh no maybe i was way and then he turns out to be a really good quarterback so um let's stay with the quarterback thing and Kellen Mond. And now he is QB for an OTA is what my thought on this is like, yeah, he's got to learn like how to take a snap under center at this point. Right. There's like so far he has to go. But what do you what did what did you think of Mond as a prospect and sort of what the NFL ultimately thought about him being a third round pick because there was the whole like oh Chris Sims thinks he's good and some people think he's

better than Mac Jones and it bared out that the NFL did not even remotely agree with that but what was your take on Mond kind of going into the draft and your thought on where he got picked yeah really kind of an interesting player in some respects. Obviously, he came into the NFL with 40-plus starts. You know, you don't see that very often these days. So that certainly is appealing from an evaluation standpoint. You can measure growth. I mean, he was starting as a freshman and then started every game after that,

I believe. He may have missed one along the way. But obviously great physical skills. He has a terrific arm. He can throw fastballs. He's got a better arm than Kirk Cousins does, obviously, and a better running threat. He's good on design runs.

And Jimbo Fisher, the thing with him is that he made guys like E.J. Emanuel and Christian Ponder look like first round picks. You know, he somehow turned those guys, you know, Jameis Winston the first overall pick. I mean, he made those guys look better than they were. So I was a little bit surprised that Maughan didn't take those proverbial next steps. Did he get better each year?

Yeah, by a marginal amount. You know, I mean, I think from 2018 to 19, yeah, you saw maybe small jumps, little improvements, you know, a little better ball security, those sorts of things, and a little higher completion percentage, you know, certain elements of his game evolved, and he completed a higher percentage,

I think every year close to that, but you never felt like he made that, that big jump. And if he would have done it, he would have done it by now. I mean, he's still relatively young. I mean, he's not one for a guy who started as a freshman. He was 18 years old at the time. So, I mean, impressive that he could get in as young as he was. But if you turn on the 2018 tape and the 2020 tape, I don't know that other than the Florida game this year, which was great, I don't know that there was a big difference. So some of it is like he's all fastball, not enough touch throws. You know, that's something that I think he could Improve upon I think the athleticism

You can use in spots if you want To have a change up package that sort Of thing just to get him some Experience but he went about Where I expected you know I Knew he'd go either Round two or three based on Conversations I had.

And that's sort of where, where he landed. And that's sort of what I expected. Hey everyone, summer is here and you're trying to get out on the golf course, but if you're like us here at purple insiders spending all day golfing, isn't always an option. That's why you need to check out birdie golf in Woodbury. I'll give you an example.

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is trying to talk about sort of ceiling with Kellen Mond, because when you watch his pro day or you look at his 40 or things like that or just his his basic arm strength you would sort of say oh a great athlete with a really good arm so his ceiling must be super high but with the amount of starts that he had in college and the limited you know performances that he had or production limited production that he had and the inconsistency of the performances that he had it's really hard to say oh well there's this massive ceiling for the guy and they got a boom or bust prospect to me he's almost like a guy who i would say is is more likely to have a high floor but a limited ceiling and be you know oh

this guy could be like a solid backup quarterback or the 20th best quarterback in the league. If everything comes together, I don't tie those things together necessarily of, Oh, he's got a strong arm and he's fast. So the ceiling must be high. Like there's lots of guys with strong arms who are fast, but I think the lack of like, this is a, this might be a weird thing to say because draft people are always so detailed about, oh, he's got hand placement and footwork. But he just he like doesn't really look the part sometimes. You know what I mean? Like he just it looks like a guy. Maybe there's a comparison of a baseball pitcher who played shortstop and is sort of coming into pitch. And that's kind of how it looks to me, where it just doesn't have that visual,

oh, this guy is a first-round type of talent, or this guy is clearly an NFL starting quarterback. There's something about that, even when I watch him in OTAs, where I'm like, it just doesn't look like what Kirk Cousins is doing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the comparison I've heard the most, and I don't know that he's quite the athlete, but the comparison that I heard, you know, I think more than once in talking to people was Colin Kaepernick. So I don't think he's got quite the upside of what Kaepernick was in that Super Bowl season. But, you know, as a passer, I think there are some real similarities there.

You look at Kaepernick's college starts, he played a lot of football at Nevada, and he was relatively unknown, not compared to some of the other quarterbacks in that class, but even Andy Dalton I think was more of a household name coming into the draft than Kaepernick was, but that's kind of the player he is. He's a little bit robotic in how he throws sometimes and, you know, looks a little kind of skittish when the pressure comes. And you're right, it has that, I don't want to say unnatural look, but there are times when he looks

a little, a little rigid and a little stiff and a little bit uncomfortable in the pocket. But, you know, without, I mean, while lacking maybe that special running ability that kaepernick had i think you could see some similarities to what kaepernick became as a thrower you know and also taking away from the fact that well because he was a good runner maybe teams didn't play as much man defense against them that sort of thing. You know, that's, that's fair, but I would say that that's the player he probably most reminded me of in terms of throwing the football. And, you know, Kaepernick wasn't always pretty, you know, didn't always look like it should or look like other quarterbacks. So I think it it's apt in a lot of different ways. Yeah. I like that for the throwing. But it's sort of like Kaepernick, I think, had a stronger arm because he threw a baseball at 97 miles an hour or something.

And it's like if you say, well, he's sort of Kaepernick without the prolific running ability. That was pretty fundamental to him being what he what he became. Right. So I kind of look at him like if he becomes anything more than someone who could be a solid backup, then they've then they've really hit the lottery. But I'm not sure that I see that upside. Now, let me ask you about the decision not to draft Mac Jones because there's been many wide varying opinions on the show. Mine is if you want to replace Kirk cousins,

take a first round quarterback and see how it works out because none of us are actually good at predicting which first round quarterbacks are going to work out but the nfl knows and identifies correctly who the first round quarterbacks are if that makes sense so that's sort of the nuance of you know some people thought oh why do you love mac jones so much won't you marry him like okay well that's not what i'm saying um but how did you feel about their decision to pass on Mac Jones? Yeah, it was interesting, right? I mean, I didn't necessarily think about the pairing of those two. I know they had looked at him and everything, but it wasn't until the trade happened that I thought, oh, that could work out pretty nicely, right? You know, it was Jones some people thought could go as high as number three.

You know, now he's floating out there. You know, would it make some sense? Sure. Absolutely. But with Jones, I always felt like he kind of had to land in the right place to really kind of get him into that perfect situation where, you know, New England would have been one of them, I think, just because their strong defense and Belichick and McDaniels and all that. I mean, you know, those are all things that I think are going to work in his favor or whatever. So I don't know. I guess I sat there and thought, on the one hand, they got such good value to move down.

I got it but at the same time those quarterbacks might cost you more uh when you're trying to trade for one later and there's so few opportunities to actually get one so i'm a little bit ambivalent i mean i'm not saying he couldn't have thrived in minnesota i mean, would it have been the perfect place? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But I think in the end, they just felt like, boy, we got a really nice value moving down what, you know, eight spots or whatever they did. I don't know what or nine to get what they did. It's pretty good. So it may end up working out, but I get why you want the quarterback and I get why you like jones well i think that it's more for me about you don't have that many opportunities to get one with your pick and what we see with washington is they drafted one with their pick and it blew up in their face and they're

fine like their roster is good and whoever the next quarterback after fitzpatrick is going to inherit a great roster that they built like first first round picks blow up. Sometimes it doesn't ruin your franchise. If you trade up three first round draft picks and then do it, which you might have to do next year, if you want to replace cousins, like that's, that's my point is that you could always just assess Jones for a year. Is this our franchise guy? And if the answer is no, you just take someone else. So that, that was,

that was kind of my feeling on it. And a lot of people i think that's the prevailing you know pete thamel my my colleague at yahoo wrote a great column i think it was either right before round one or right after basically saying that oh yeah you know this is a notable year five quarterbacks round one but get used to it this is the new way it's going to be where teams decide you know i'd rather use the first round pick gamble on potential greatness or potential top 15 20 starter if it's wrong look sam darnold darnold got traded and they got you know 75 cents on the dollar back or 60 cents on the dollar back whatever ended up being it It wasn't horrible.

They just missed and now they move on. So that's going to be the new model is just draft one every few years. If you don't already have one. Right, exactly. And so with Kellen Mon, I thought the pick was kind of a signal like, Hey Kirk,

right. Thinking about your future, but it wasn't a super serious player who could take his job anytime soon. And maybe that was the hesitation. That was what I was going to ask you about the fields thing too, that they reportedly wanted to trade up with Carolina to take Justin Fields, but they weren't really willing to go all the way in on that. And I know you and I had discussed fields before and how widely varying the opinions were on him around the NFL, But, you know, not only did you not trade up for fields because you didn't want to go all in on this idea of the next quarterback,

but then the team in your division gets him and you're sort of used to them not having good quarterbacks for their entire existence. So now it almost feels like a double L, even though, like you said, if you take this out of the equation, I think they handled the first round brilliantly with being able to get a potential franchise left tackle and extra draft capital. Yeah.

And that's the thing. I had a hard time. I think my draft grade for the Vikings, I think you gave me a little bit of guff for this was what C plus or B minus. And what I acknowledged was. In a perfect world, they'd have Justin Fields and everybody would say, wow plus or B minus. And what I acknowledged was in a perfect world, they'd have Justin Fields and everybody would say, wow, this is crazy. You know, they got this guy and it just sort of fell perfectly, you know, the way it worked out.

But I also think at the same time, it's hard to really knock them too hard because of the way they work. I wasn't the biggest Derisov fan. Like I liked him. It was easy to see why people liked him. Do I think he's going to be Jonathan Ogden? No, I wasn't the biggest Deresaw fan. I liked him. It was easy to see why people liked him. Do I think he's going to be Jonathan Ogden? No, I don't. I really don't. But to get

the trade value they did and to get a theoretically top 20 player at number 22, 3, or 4, wherever they ended up, I thought was pretty darn savvy just from that standpoint. It's tough to lose fields or not get them and then also have to face them twice a year at some point.

I like him a lot. I think that there were some teams that had some questions, but there were a lot that actually did like him. I don't think that – I think the media reaction, the fan reaction to the field slander that was going on out there, I really – I never quite heard it. And I called a lot of people on him. And I know some people at Ohio State.

I said, come on, tell me, like, who hates him? And the guy was like, nobody. I'm not really sure where this is coming from. I just think that there may be some preferences team by team. We like this one better. We think Zach Wilson has a higher ceiling, whatever. So it was fascinating to see it kind of play out, but I don't think it was quite that people were quite as down on him in the

NFL as everyone wanted to make it seem. Hey everyone. I want to tell you about our friends. It's scout logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends, they are fans of purple insider over at scout logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do. Scout Logistics is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads. And if you're wondering what that means exactly,

well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America. and we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. Yeah, and someone else told me that there were some teams that have concerned about the epilepsy thing. I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's a thing or not. I'm not. I can tell you.

Yeah. I mean, I know at least two teams that said it was a non-issue. They cleared them. Medical information, as you know, this year was really tricky to get just because of the lack of a combine. They had the recheck and all that.

Is it a thing? Yes. But Tiki Barber, Rondé Barber, several other players have had it. They kind of grew out of it. Medications helped that sort of thing. by and they had the recheck and all that is it a thing yes but tiki barber ronde barber several other players have had it they kind of grew out of it medications help that sort of thing with fields as condition there was an incident that happened i think it was sort of shortly after he arrived maybe like spring practice of 19 um where he i think it was he suffered a an epileptic seizure um but that that was the only incident that people can remember that I, you know,

and everything was controlled after that. So I, like I said, I know of at least two teams that were interested in quarterbacks who said we're not concerned about it. I didn't hear any that were, we'll see. So do you think that the Vikings offensive line is fixed now? I think it's all set we're good wyatt davis christian derisaw yeah well they're high draft picks up right no you're all

set no i mean i who is davis gonna be the right guard you tell me i don't know i mean i don't know what the what the plan is but if davis can't beat the guy who is currently the first team right guard then just pack it in like it's it's a bust i mean this like if he can't beat this guy it's a bust it's immediately i would declare it a bust as a rookie because he should be able to steamroll right past dakota dozier and i was gonna ask you who it was and i expect that he will do that and And so now, think about it. And you've probably talked about this, written about this, but D'Arceau, first-round pick. Ezra Cleveland, second-round pick. Garrett Bradbury, first-rounder.

Wyatt was a second or third? Third, yep. Third-rounder. Brian O'Neill, second-rounder. So they've invested quite a bit in that position, as you know, in the last two, three years. It better be right. I mean, that really obviously becomes a major issue if it isn't.

And, you know, chemistry issues and all that notwithstanding, I mean, the talent should be there. You know, we'll see. I mean, Wyatt Davis was – I don't know. I mean, I like him a lot. I didn't think he played his best last year. You think we saw a little bit better from him previously, but it was like a – yeah, it was the knee, right? That's right. He suffered the knee injury, and it really kind of plagued him down the stretch.

Last three or four games wasn't quite the same. So that had a little something to do with it too. But, you know, I mean, he's one of those guys who plays through pain, is tough, really well-built, strong guy. Is he probably a right guard only maybe but i i really think uh you know he could end up being a pretty good one and i think the nfl is undervaluing guards because a lot of the pressure is now coming from the interior a lot of teams are taking guys who would have been defensive ends of the past and putting them over the guard.

And we've seen the bad side of that for the Vikings, but also seen the good side when they had someone like Sheldon Richardson of just how disruptive those players could be. And I feel like it was sort of left tackle is just the guy. And then everyone else you figure out, but I think that that's changing a little bit and the NFL hasn't quite caught up. So one more thing. If there was a guy who was not drafted in the first or third round for the Vikings,

well, let's just say not named Derrissaw or Wyatt Davis, put it that way, that made an impact right away and from the Vikings draft, who would it be? Good question. I got to sort of mentally roll through my, uh, for, for year one, you're talking, I'm talking about this year that would sort of, I mean, anybody would surprise us. That's not a first round draft pick or, or Wyatt Davis. So anyone that you could say like, Oh wow, that guy kind of stepped into the limelight a little bit because of an injury and then ended up being good. Yeah, I mean, you know, here's OK, so I'll give you two that I think that I think have a chance. And I forget how to say his name, Kiki and in Wong Wu, I guess, or I don't know if I'm close on that or not.

No, not really. No. OK, it's's Kenne Wongwu is how you say it. Wongwu. Okay, there you go. And is silent, yep. And I was late on him. I didn't really sort of get hip to him until about March, and a guy, special teams coordinator that I know pretty well said, you got to check this kid out.

He's a phenomenal athlete. The week later he had the great pro day. But the more I watched, the more I thought, you know, this might be a player who ends up being pretty valuable. So obviously the special teams value is there. You know, I think he could probably work up to being a change up number two kind of runner at some point in his career. So he's one that I think might surprise some people just in terms of contributions and that sort of thing. I mean, heck, you know, they got Jalen Twyman who, you know, I think there were some people at this time last year saying possible first round pick, where did they get them in round five or six? So yeah, that's, I mean, that's somebody who

I have no idea what kind of a player they're getting truly, but there was some buzz on him prior to last year. And, you know, his teammate Patrick Jones early in the year, I mean, his energy was frenetic. I think he's a little too wild out there sometimes. But as a sub-package pass rusher, he probably gives you what you want. So he's one that comes to mind. The thing with Chaz Surratt that worries me is that he's still developing as a player.

He's a phenomenal athlete. You know, getting off blocks is going to be an issue for him that he's got to keep working on now he's never probably going to be a true stack and shed linebacker but um and missed tackles last year were a big big problem the last couple years he did cut down on a little bit but he's somebody who again you talk about special teams coverage ability, I think will be a natural for those those units. And so, yeah, I guess as I kind of roll through their picks, I may be forgetting somebody in the in the group here. But there may not be a lot that have that other than the two guys, Davis and Derisaw, who are going to be that kind of instant coffee type of prospect. Yeah. There's usually like one guy per year who gets a chance and then whether he, you know, shows something or not, who knows.

And I think there's several opportunities here. Like you said, with Wong Wu, if he shows that he can be a sub package type of player, they don't really do that a lot, but they have a new offensive coordinator. So maybe there's some ways to get them involved because of his insane speed or you know one of those pass rushers if somebody steps up then they're going to have an opportunity because right now there's a lot of competition there so it will be fun to watch and uh of course we'll get together and we'll talk about these types of matters periodically uh so always great to uh connect with you i i had a i did have a game

set up for you but we've just gone too long but um next time we'll play viking seventh rounder or 1982 chicago bear next time i think you're gonna say like you know member of 38 special or something like that that might be the the alternative game to that one we did have a camp body versus boy band member at one point i like that i like that yes i can relate to either one so whenever you want to do that i'm ready okay we'll do that next time uh thanks thanks again eric always great to catch up with you and we'll do it again soon buddy you got it buddy take it