Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Yahoo! Sports' Eric Edholm defends his mock draft, explains why the Vikings could pick Kwity Paye

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Matthew Coller connects with one of the top draft analysts on the interwebs, Eric Edholm, who talks about his latest mock draft and why he thinks the 49ers could take Mac Jones with the No. 3 overall pick. Which quarterback is most likely to fall? Why is Kwity Paye from Michigan a fit for the Vikings? If they were to take Best Player Available instead, who would that be? Plus Eric shares his favorite draft-night story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hey everybody, welcome to Purple Insider, presented by Scout Logistics and by Symbol. We welcome into the show Eric Edholm from Yahoo Sports for an episode of Defend Your Mock. What's going on, Eric? I'm glad it's not Tear Your Mock to Pieces. I think that would be a segment I would not agree to. Actually, you know what? I would.

Because I have a pretty good sense of humor about mock drafts and I realize how silly they are. But they're also fun, so thank you for having me. They are extremely fun. Okay, well let me try to tear it to shreds then. We'll just start there. And then I have Vikings-related questions and offensive end-related questions because you wrote about Gregory Russo, who seems to not really be getting any Vikings mentions and maybe deserves some. But let's start with ripping you apart here.

Do you really think that they're doing the Mac Jones thing, that the 49ers are doing the Mac Jones thing? Are you really buying it? Because you have the 49ers in your mock picking Mac Jones and I just feel like it will be um like my brain will just melt if this happens yeah a sleight of hand at the last minute would be pretty entertaining I will say that so when the trade went down right we heard the news it got broken my editor says all, all right, what are you thinking here? And I said, how about we just rate the three quarterbacks, assuming Lawrence and Wilson are 1-2, in terms of likelihood to go to the Niners

because they're not trading up for a tight end, are they, right? Okay, he liked it. And I just sat there and went for 45 minutes and came up with Trey Lance first, Mack Jones second, Justin Fields third. The Fields thing, you know, I sort of feel like I had a little bit of intel on why they may not be enamored by him, but let's put that to the side for a minute. I felt like there were different reasons, obviously,

why Lance and Mack Jones could be the pick there. But they're both, you know, high-end thinkers. I think that's the one thing that I've been able to sort of figure out is that they have great processing ability. They understand coverages and fronts. You know, they can handle the mental part of the game pretty darn well, which is crucial. You know, that's what Kyle Shanahan wants.

So I felt like I was pretty good on that. But when all this buzz started coming out about Mack, it was impossible to ignore. And I sent my previous mock with Lance going third to like three teams and two of them mentioned, hey, we don't know, but our thinking is that they're going to take Jones at three. You know, how do you ignore it, right? it's like it's the deafening uh the buzz that's going on leading up to the draft so i i fell victim to the uh the public uh uh pronouncements that have been going on okay can we talk for a second just pause and talk about how difficult it is to report on the drafts and one of the reasons that i've brought up when people ask me like who do you

read for draft season that i bring up your name is because you've been doing this for a long time and you're good at the reporting element. I feel like there's a lot of people who, oh, I heard something. So even if it's BS, I'm just going to put it out there because someone told me. And clearly Dan Orlovsky learned that reporting is different than just analyzing and so forth because you have to be responsible for what you report you've done this for a long time I feel like this is a really hard one because I mean there's always the smoke screens and the BS and so forth that comes out but this one seems to have like a particular I don't know like vibe to it that's very different

than in years past when we were trying to figure out where different guys will go. Yeah, I agree. The only one I could sort of compare it to was when the Jets traded up for what ended up being Darnold. They went from the sixth pick to the third pick, and they were flying blind because they didn't know exactly what was going to happen with the Giants pick right before them. Were the Giants going to take a QB?

They ended up taking Saquon Barkley, and it worked out well at the time for the Jets, right? But they didn't know who was going to be out there. I think the Niners felt like they had a pretty good read on who the quarterbacks were available. So I don't think you trade into that spot unless you feel pretty darn good about one of them already, right? I mean, if you fall in love with two of them, great, then you have your pick. You know, you can, it's like picking your favorite child, right? You know, it's not something you want to do, but you got to do. But yeah, like, you know, we get information from all over the place. We get

it from agents, not always trustworthy, sometimes depending on the person. Teams, same thing, right? This is line season. It's hard to get, you know, the cleanest information in the month of April as it relates to the draft. And then you get also stuff from the colleges too, and that's what I've really kind of focused on the last couple years is maybe tapping into a resource that isn't as much used for the draft analysis. So, you know, I try to piece all that together and filter out what I think is garbage and what I think might be real.

And that helps me kind of paint a picture. But, you know, if you're batting 500, you're amazing, right? You're not even going to come close to that most of the time. So I was talking to someone myself, and this is like I'm trying not to be this guy, that heard from someone else, like this is just I'm sorry for this, but that there are teams that are very low on Justin Fields compared to what a lot of us are. Now, from my eyeball of watching Justin Fields play football, I see a really talented player and I don't really get it. Knowing that there are people inside NFL buildings who see this guy as not one of the top

picks in the draft is kind of bizarre to me. I mean, like, how do you feel about this? Because when I see someone with that arm, with that mobility, who played with that level of toughness, I can't look at and go, well, Dwayne Haskins was a bust from Ohio State. Like, he looks like he's just more talented than most quarterbacks in any draft that you would ever run across. This one happens to be special. But I'm confused at why there is this debate over Justin Fields. Yeah, I think it has to do with, I think he is able to handle the mental part of the game,

but I think there's a little bit of a learning curve right now in the sense that, you know, when he was at Georgia in 2018, he was a run first quarterback, pass second, great athlete, who I think ran for as many or more yards, granted it was in a reserve role, but still, then he did throw in the ball. So when he arrived at Ohio State, he was sort of a project. Now, Ryan Day, to his incredible credit, whipped him right into shape, kind of put the spurs to him a little bit too in spring practice when Fields was a little up and down and challenged him. And all he did was respond with a 41 to 3 touchdown interception ratio. You know, didn't play great in the semifinal loss to Clemson,

but, again, had a brilliant year. This year started out like gangbusters, stumbled against Indiana, didn't play great against Michigan State, stumbled against Northwestern, and then put on what you said with the toughness, one of the all-time performances against Clemson, and taking the shot in the ribs from James Skalski and throwing six touchdown passes and completing all but, I think, six passes on the night.

So, you know, played well against Alabama, too. I know it was overshadowed a little bit in the loss because they got blown out. But, yeah, it was a little bit up and down the last year. And he's sort of seen this meteoric rise as a thrower. But I think some people feel like his reading of defenses is a little methodical. It's a little slow. It's not bad, but it needs some work. And so the idea that he's ready to come in and be a starter immediately isn't going to play for every single team that isn't willing to be patient. I haven't heard a ton of things that make me think, wow, there's something out there on him that we don't know about.

But you're right. There are mixed opinions about him, and some aren't all that enamored with him. I think there is one thing you could point to on paper from the numbers that would be a little concerning, which is that he took over three seconds to throw the ball and was, this has been mentioned by the PFF guys, but slower in releasing the ball when blitz than when not, which may be because he's trying to escape and moving around. So you have to factor that in like Russell Wilson takes a long time to throw

the ball on average too. But when you see Trevor Lawrence getting it out in 2.5 seconds, that's what you have to do in the NFL. You can't hang on there. You can't hang in the pocket, hang in the pocket and just hope that something comes open. Like you have to make a decision there and get rid of the ball. You can't hang on there. You can't hang in the pocket, hang in the pocket and just hope that something comes open. Like you have to make a decision there and get rid of the ball. So I could see that, but that's also a lot of quarterbacks. I mean, I watched college football

on Saturdays. It doesn't process in my brain how long these quarterbacks are getting to throw the football in comparison to what I watch in NFL Sundays. So I feel like that's anybody's adjustment. And I also don't know how you can watch so little of Trey Lance and the tiny little sample size of an offense that didn't even pass the ball that much and say, oh, yeah, well, he'll process way better than the other guy who was playing against Bama. That's the one thing that just always sort of sits weird with me. Yeah, I know.

There's no doubt about it. I mean, I was impressed the more I talked to people and the more I watched Trey Lance's film. You see him making protection changes up front, calling out the Mike linebacker, you know, adjusting the blocking schemes, all that stuff. That's pretty rare for a redshirt freshman who was really overlooked as the quarterback.

You know, teams like Minnesota and other bigger programs said, we love you as a safety. We'll bring you in as an athlete. We don't see it as a quarterback. Well, all he does is go to, you know, the best FCS program in the country, follows in the footsteps of Easton Stick and Carson Wentz, and acquits himself unbelievably well. So there was a level of maturity and I think quick thinking out there on the

field that you can see that you're still projecting on, but it was pretty evident. And it's not as if Fields is out there going, where do I throw the ball? You know, it wasn't, you didn't see any like smoke coming out of his ears. Right. But there were times when he was a little hesitant and times where he made some, oh, like in the when he was a little hesitant and times where he made some, oh, like the Indiana tape was a tough watch. The Northwestern game had some moments, but he also threw for huge yards against Indiana. But yeah, I think there are just some things that you

want to see sped up a little bit. Yeah. And I also think too that we overthink a lot of these things. I mean, one bad game, I remember Peyton Manning throwing like four picks in a game with Tennessee and it turned out okay. You would expect that every one of these guys is going to have some issues. Trevor Lawrence was not perfect this year either. Right. Oh, Ben Roethlisberger, when he faced Iowa in the opening game of his final year in 2003, he was a mess.

He was terrible. Josh Allen played the same, you know, same program, same played Iowa 10 years, 15 years later, whatever it was, and was horrible. He had a terrible game. So, you know, there are times when you watch games where a highly rated quarterback prospect looks like a mess and these guys have turned out okay. It's, you know, we don't know the play call.

We don't know all the personnel he's playing with, the other 10 guys. We don't know, you know, we don't know the play call. We don't know all the personnel he's playing with, the other 10 guys. We don't know, you know, what adjustments are being made and whether the receiver is supposed to cut his route off. There's so much where you have to, you know, kind of rule out the guesswork, but it's inevitable at some point. So back to ripping apart your mock, you have Trey Lance going at four. Now this, I think, is a really tough decision for the Falcons because if you want to trade down and there's somebody else who wants the quarterback there,

I feel like the offers are going to be through the roof for teams to try and move up. I mean, even if you're a team back a ways, if you're a football team and you're looking up going, ooh, could we trade up there and trade our next two first round picks or something for someone like Washington, that might be worth it. Or for a desperate team like Chicago that has been so without quarterback play for ever. I mean, would you consider, you know, taking another shot at it like they did with Mitch Trubisky?

So the Falcons, I think, will have a very tough time taking that quarterback when the offers start to come in. Right. And that's kind of what I wrote was that I kind of hinted that I think it's going to be a quarterback in that spot no matter what, whether they stay there or whether they trade out. And the tradeout possibility is absolutely real. So I kind of hedged a little bit on that one. You could tell Atlanta, I mean, first year GM Terry Fontenot, we don't have a track record on him. We can look at the Saints where he came from and try to extrapolate what he might want. But that's a dangerous game because he wasn't the final decision maker there. Instead, what you look at is their actions, right? They let word out that,

hey, we're going all these pro days that happen to be populated by really talented quarterbacks. And hey, you know, the market's heating up. You want to trade up here? You better get your – that suggests to me that they would love a trade down. Detroit looked desperate last year. They couldn't get a deal at three. They kept saying, like, picks for sale, and nobody came up. So I think Atlanta's in that spot, but there's a lot more attractiveness with that pick

if there's, you know, the right quarterback still on the board. Isn't it amazing how fast things change in a single year? Because last year, I remember we were talking about how many franchises for that year felt like they were kind of set at quarterback. Like, well, they look like they know what they're doing, which is another one I wanted to ask you about with Denver. You've got Justin Fields going to Denver, and I just feel like this would be a home run for both sides, where Justin Fields can go to a place with an offensive coordinator who loves his play actions in Pat Schirmer, who could slow things down for him, and just weapons on weapons that they have. Noah Fant is becoming a very good player.

Cortland Sutton is coming back. They've got themselves set up really well. But it's amazing, though, how many teams now are still, as we go into the draft, very, very unsure of what their quarterback situation is going to be. Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, you mentioned we've got the Saints who have a short-term plan with Winston and Hill. But could that blow up? Of course, right.

We've got the Bears who sign Andy Dalton and don't have that young arm in the pen. Are they going to be able to be in play for one of those guys, or do they have to wait until round two or whatever? They're in a tough spot. Washington, you mentioned, right, and New England. What's their situation with Cam Newton as kind of the placeholder, you would assume? And Denver fits into that, too, with Drew Locke, you know,

uncorking some crazy throws and also some crazy bad throws. You know, I mean, it was too scattershot, too inconsistent, too street ball. You know, it just wasn't what you wanted to see for an offense that had invested so heavily in receiver but if you get fields there you know he would clearly have the opportunity to knock off lock i think they're looking for whatever opportunity they can to to have somebody come in and beat him but and your investment in him in the quarterback position wouldn't be that big right you have a sort of middle second round pick with lock and then possibly the ninth pick overall with

Fields. That's not crazy at all. I would do that in a heartbeat. Hey everyone, we have a new special offer to tell you about with our friends at Symbol. If you go to symbol.app, that's S-I-M-B-U-L-L

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Follow them on Twitter at symbolexchange, and check out the Marketplace for Sports. It's something that I was thinking about with where the Vikings stand. If somehow you ended up at 14 and took a quarterback, it's so much different taking a quarterback where you pick versus having to trade up to get that quarterback. And this is why, I mean, I think with San Francisco, they're taking such a risk here, and if it doesn't work out,

they are in trouble if it doesn't work out. Whereas if you're Denver and you took Drew Locke, or even if you're football team and you took Dwayne Haskins, like, oh, well, who cares? Just draft another guy. It doesn't matter because you're 15th. Well, I mean, the Vikings have had a bunch of first round picks blow up. It's not like the franchise fell into the side of the ocean.

If one first round pick doesn't work, but if three first round picks don't work on one guy's shoulders, then that's where you end up having a problem. So let me ask you this. I've been talking about the scenario in which one of these quarterbacks falls. I mean, think about when Lamar Jackson fell to 32. All of us thought, no, these guys are all going to go in the top 10 and everything. Usually there's one guy who falls. Put odds on it. Who is the most likely guy to get to the middle of the first round? It's interesting because there's, you know, like we talked about with Fields, where there's some

teams that aren't that enamored with him, some that like him. The same thing exists with Lance. I talked to a team that felt like, you know, he's sort of an unprecedented evaluation, right? I mean, the small sample size, the lower level of football, you know, one game in the past year. He's not even 21 years old yet. You know, they said, like, if you're just strictly grading him on what he can do now for an NFL team, he put him as a high third-round pick. So if Fields were to somehow – I would say it's almost even odds with those two where I could possibly see, you know, a 10% chance that that scenario plays out.

New England at 15 might leapfrog the Vikings, you know, or maybe the Bears are within range at that point. And they say, OK, we see the opportunity. But let's say getting out of the top 10, you know, I passed the ninth pick with Denver. That would at least start to set off some alarm bells. And if there were still teams out there that had good grades on either one of them, then the activity might ramp up or both. You know, I mean, if both were available at that point, it would be a little bit stunning to me, but yeah,

it would start to get interesting. And then you ask yourself, right, you know, would a team like the Vikings who don't technically need one right away be willing to move up four spots, let's say, and give up the picks? Because they have what, Matt, 10 picks this year? 11, I think, right now. But they're ending with 15. I guarantee you that.

Let's have the first 30-man draft class over a two-year span. I'd love to see it i i wouldn't be surprised if there are trade downs in the middle that uh the 78th overall pick in the third round becomes the 84th or something like that it's always that's exhausting yeah day two and day day three is the longest day of the year i mean no matter what games i cover no matter how many times i travel i've been stuck in la traffic trying to get to games and everything else. Longest day of the year is day three of the draft because the Vikings get 15 picks and they trade down a bunch of times.

So I'm looking forward to that. And then, of course, having to try and figure out who some of these guys are where you're looking for that Lance Zierlein profile or something. Like someone's got to know, right? Yeah. Oh, hey, there were, there were five guys who got drafted last year that I had never heard of. I mean, you know, this is my sort of year round job and you know,

there are always going to be players who slip through the cracks. And I had a team once text me during a draft and say, we didn't have him even as an undrafted prospect. He was like a slate six round pick who was taken. He said, we didn't even give him a camp grade, meaning we didn't even think he was good enough. So teams look at things differently. I hope you've been looking at long snappers because the Vikings won,

and what's his name, Carter Cheeseman? Yeah, Cheeseman, right? Cheeseman is the guy. Yeah, I'm on it. We've got Cheeseman. We've got the Alabama kid. We've got – hold on. I should know this off the top of my head.

Yes, you should. I'm disappointed you don't know at least the top three long snappers because I'm going to need to know this. Cheeseman's in the mix. Yeah, I think the kid from San Diego State could be drafted. I don't even remember his name right now. Cheeseman's in the mix is my album name for sure. Got to get that cheese, buddy.

Yeah, I think the Bama Kid, there could be multiple long drafters. Long drafters. Long snappers drafted, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Vikings with their obsession with getting at least one specialist at the end of the draft, which has never worked out for them. Jeff Locke, Blair Walsh, Daniel Carlson. It's worked out for the Raiders, Daniel Carlson has.

Austin Cutting lived up to his name last year and got cut. I mean, just, you know, it's been a disaster for them. And yet they keep going back to that well. So I wish them the best of luck. I hope they, if there's a specialist that I pray gets drafted, it's the Virginia Tech, I mean the Virginia Tech B, Georgia Tech kid. I think his name is Presley Harvin. He's a punter.

I don't know if you know anything about him. He's like 5'10", 5'11", something like 265 pounds. I mean, he's built like a high school offensive guard almost. He's this massive round kid, but he crushes the ball. Like, it would not shock me to see him drafted, like, in the seventh round or something like that. He's going to be my feel-good story. He's the punter version of Dante Brown, like he has the same body.

Okay, so we've gone this far and haven't mentioned who you have the Vikings taking, which is Quidipe. And you have him as the top defensive end off the board. I also feel like Quidipe is a guy who the Vikings would love. His athletic profile is ridiculous. And people have brought up to me, well, he doesn't have the height and the wingspan and so forth, I feel like they'll look at Quidipe and they'll see Everson Griffin because of that sort of more bowling ball-ish, unbelievable athlete type of guy.

And I think Vikings Twitter will be upset if they don't draft an offensive lineman, but I have right now defensive end as being the top potential pick, so make sense of Quidipe for me. Yeah, right. I mean, they were in the bottom of the league in sacks and pressures, and I don't think it's, you know, I wouldn't say obvious, but it's clear they need to upgrade that position, I would think. And, you know, it took me a little while to warm up to him.

I mean, I have to say, like, there were some times where he'd flash, but then you'd see him kind of disappear for a little stretch. But the more I just sort of focused on his traits, you're right. I mean, the athletic twitch that he's got and the burst is really impressive. And, you know, there have been plenty of pass rushers in that mold at, like, 6'3", 260-something range who end up fine, even if they don't have that great length. You know, Khalil Mack can still make a long arm move despite not having elite length, right?

So those are the kind of guys that you think about and say, you know, it absolutely could happen. But, you know, he plays hard, plays full tilt. I think he's got some pop in his hands. He just sort of fits as somebody that I can see, you know, Zimmer and Spielman kind of liking and saying, yeah, I like that. I mean, he ran a crazy 40 time, four or five something. Like you said, some of the other numbers weren't quite up to par. But, boy, I mean, the bench press strength that he showed, even without super long arms, I thought was impressive.

And he just didn't have a great opportunity this year. Aiden Hutchinson got hurt for Michigan. They really, you know, Carlo Kemp is okay, but they really didn't have a whole lot around them. And that team kind of went off the rails a little bit. I think he suffered from it. I see him as someone that Mike Zimmer will look at and their co-defensive coordinator, Andre Patterson,

who has a big voice in that room when it comes to the draft, and they'll say, we can mold him. We can make him into what we want. And they do have a history of being able to do this if the guy has the talent. I'm not sure that Jalen Holmes ever had the talent to do this. But this is the thing, that they've been drafting guys in the fourth round and saying, DJ Wanham, become the next Daniil Hunter and so forth. And I just don't think that's a model. Let's try to get a guy who sort of looks like

Daniil Hunter if you're really squint or don't have your glasses on or whatever. And it's like, no, I don't think so. I think that's not really it. But there are other guys who are lanky. Gregory Russo is one that you wrote about. Jalen Phillips. When I watched Jalen Phillips, to my eye, I thought, I think this is the best pass rusher because he does have a lot of moves that are developed. Compare this class for me because I think there's a lot of guys who are really intriguing, but no one who's the clear cut, oh yeah, it's got to be this guy for the first one off the board. No, you're 100% right.

I mean, you know, when I was sort of compiling my list of each position and was sort of giving them the 30,000-foot glance, like around October, November, I thought, wow, there's a lot of edge players who could go in the top 50 picks. And I was a pretty good edge group. But the more I kind of drilled down and talked to people around the league, they said, look, there's no Nick Bosa, there's no Chase Young, there's no elite prospect of that position, probably no top 10 pick. And I think that ends up being true.

But you have players like Quiddie Paye, who I think at a regular season would have shown out a little better. You have players like Jalen Phillips, who was rated above Chase Young as a high school recruit, went to UCLA, had some off-field stuff, had some concussions, didn't live up to his billing, came to Miami, and probably the last six, seven games last year was the best edge in the country. Big, long, rangy guy with great athletic ability. You know, there's some people who worry about his focus.

He's sort of talked a lot about his music career, you know, but I still think the traits are going music career, you know, but I still think the traits are going to scream, you know, upside. So Jason Owe, same thing, like at Penn State, the kid who's just an unbelievable athlete, length, burst, explosion, you know, you name it, he's got it, but he's also sashimi raw, you know, so all yeah, the Rousseau one season, he dominated, he did a lot of work from the inside. I think he's probably a five technique. If I had to bulk them up a little bit and have them for a year in my weight

program, but none of those guys scream. Sure thing. None of them really say where, like I would feel great about picking them in the top 10. And that's why I think we're going to see him slip to where, you know, the Vikings are picking him thereafter. And this is what we talk about on the show sometimes, about how what the roster looks like right now will mostly determine how good you are for next year,

because you can't count on someone who needs some development and defensive ends. I think often do unless they are chase Young or Nick Bosa. And I mean, it isn't even like Chase Young had a double digit sex season last year and he was, you know, by far the best rookie edge rusher. So whoever they draft is probably ending up in a rotation and then down the road, you're hoping that they become a star. But I still think that that's a position that the Vikings are so desperate to improve that they have to go that way. Now, Mike Zimmer said, and they always say this, so I'm, you know,

preface with that, that the way that they've set up their free agency, they can take best player available. I'm sure it's the first team that's mentioned that. And whenever they take the guy, it'll be the top guy on their board. But say it's BPA, though. Say it is best player available for the Vikings, and it's not trying to fill a need. They usually fill needs, as you know, in the draft, immediate needs.

But say it's not. Who would be that guy if it's not to fill a need in the middle of the draft? Yeah, I mean, like, for instance, what would happen if Devontae Smith was still there? Would they entertain him? I mean, like, for instance, what would happen if Devontae Smith was still there? Would they entertain him? I mean, maybe, right? I could possibly see it. What if Micah Parsons was there?

I mean, Parsons has a ton of ability, but you're still projecting a little bit because he only played one year of quote-unquote linebacker, like true linebacker. He was more of a pass rusher as rookies his freshman year. What if, you know, I'm trying to think of a good one who could, I don't think JC Horn will be there. I suspect he's going to be going in that, you know, maybe the first couple of picks ahead of that. Phillips is a good one.

I mean, I could see them maybe having a little bit of a debate on him and whether he, you know, checks off all the boxes. It's tough. I mean, I don't know that there's that one obvious. Maybe Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoa, the linebacker safety hybrid guy from Notre Dame. There are some teams who may have him rated as a top 15 player, you know, but I don't know that he goes in the top 15. You know, I just haven't been able to find that one spot

that makes a ton of sense for him. So, yeah, those are kind of the interesting conversations that, you know, you think NFL teams prepare for, but there are cases where they're caught off guard and where they say we did not envision this happening. Now what do we do? Because we love this player, but he's going to sit behind two of our best players or whatever. So a receiver would obviously make me think some of that,

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having Chad Beebe as your number three wide receiver, not addressing that at all in free agency when there was a lot of free agent depth wide receivers out there. Feels like it's going to happen. I don't know if it would happen in the first, but as you said, even there have been draft nights where they come to the podium and tell us we didn't expect all those guards to go in the second round like 2018. And we got left with someone who turned out to be better than most of them

with Brian O'Neill, which tells you about this. That was my sort of last Vikings related questions. Just they don't have a second round pick because they traded it for Yanni Gengakwe. It has occasionally been brought up on this show. How much does that hurt this year? I, cause I think it hurts more this year because of uncertainty,

because of opt outs that I feel like there's more value in second round picks and it will be harder for the Vikings to trade into the second round. Do you agree with that? Yeah, no, I think you bring up an interesting point. I mean, and this year, you know, there might be some surprising second round picks. Sorry, surprising prospects who are still on the board after the first 32. It'll lead to a really interesting start of Friday night to see, you know, teams move up or the Jaguars are just going to stay and pick their guy, what have you.

So, yeah, the early pounder round, I think is going to be really interesting, but I think it's a deep enough draft. Maybe I'm a little, little more optimistic on, on some positions than other people are, but I think day three, or sorry, round three, I'm getting confused here. We'll, we'll provide some immediate starters in this league. Not, not a ton maybe, but, but some who I think could end up being pretty good. Offensive tackle is deep. Cornerback is deep. I think both those are spots that I could see the Vikings taking. You may even see some round four guys who fit into that category. You know, I mean, the receivers are probably as deep, if not more so, than last year.

So that's a position where you're going to have to say to yourself, how early do we go? Because we could end up getting a third round talent in round five, and it would be great. So those are tough questions. Linebacker, I'm a little hit or miss on that group, but there are a couple guys who didn't have outstanding pro days but are good football players,

so I think we'll maybe suffer a little bit too much for that yeah i think friday night becomes just as interesting uh because of who's going to be left i can't fit all the good players into the first round and this is another thing about you know the vikings potentially trading back um before i let you go and if you need a second to think about this it's okay i want i just want your best draft night story. I want you to, I just want to know like what shocked you or what you couldn't believe or what you were hearing or what was going on inside teams rooms that blew your mind. Best draft night story. All right. Well, I mean, this is probably an unoriginal one, but nothing for me tops the gas mask

bong of Laramie Tunsil. And I was in the Chicago, or not the Chicago theater, but the auditorium theaters where they held it in Chicago, 2015, if I recall. And it was funny because we sent Charles Robinson, Yahoo writer, fellow Yahoo writer, out to L.A. to do a Jared Goff story. Goff was the first pick in the draft. And he's texting me.

He's like, man, I got some good stuff, bro. I think it's going to be a really good story. By 9 p.m. that night, that story was like the hardest thing on Yahoo's site to find because this story had broken out. And you could actually hear in the room, in this auditorium, busy, loud, noisy place, a lot of media people writing and whatnot. You could hear the buzz rippling as it was unfolding once that hit Twitter and everything. So, and I just heard my editor who was sitting

next to me said, oh my God. It's just like, you know, I'm sitting there writing pick by pick analysis and I kind of been feeling the sense of what is going on here. And then I looked on his phone and went, oh boy. He said, I got to get Dan Wetzel on this right away. So he calls Dan Wetzel, our columnist, and said, I guess he was in the other side of the auditorium. All right, whatever you were writing before, put it down. This is the story. And it was just brilliant to watch it unfold in real time. And I actually got to see, you know, he was at the draft. And so I went to where they were bringing prospects out, you know, kind of like they do at the other big events. And there's a podium set up. I kind of

went behind it because I knew there was a curtain there. And I thought, I want to see if he comes out. And I caught a peek of him and he stands there. He's talking to a PR guy and said, what do I do? And they held him there for a minute. And I don't believe they ever brought him out. I could be wrong about that, but I don't remember him coming out and talking to the media that night. I think he did the next morning in Miami, but that, that for about an hour and a half, that, that story was complete fire. This is where I coined, uh, cause I was doing draft coverage that night. And, uh, I forget where the Buffalo bills were picking. I was in Buffalo then. And I coined always draft the weed guy. Because look, everyone.

Warren Sapp and yeah, right. I think there was some, Moss had other things, but Moss was the weed guy too. And Tyron Matthew was the weed guy who was literally thrown out of LSU for so much weed. And he's a megastar. Like draft the weed guy. And so I remember, I forget where the bills were picking or whatever. It was like, if this guy's dropping and he's a franchise left tackle, I don't think he's the first player in the NFL to participate,

maybe to get that creative. I don't know. But then the other thing was too, we had a producer who would quite often partake himself to break down the gas mask bong and why it would be effective. And not my area of expertise, but he was terrific in his breakdown. That that is an all time draft breakdown is why a gas mask bong would work and how it works. You see, you have this chamber that comes down from the top hose and then that connects to the breathing apparatus and then you get the

perfect bong hit it's a vape it's everything oh my goodness i wouldn't be able to do it but i could fake my way through it yeah uh this is why draft season is the best season the best the best uh craziness yes eric at home uh we didn't rip apart your mock quite enough, I don't think. I think we were probably too friendly. But make sure you check it out. Follow him on Twitter. Eric, E-D-H-O-L-M is where you can find him. And, you know, you do terrific work, man.

And I've brought it up on the show before that there's a lot of not terrific work. And I don't want that to be a backhanded compliment. But, I mean, just the work that you put into it is good. And I respect it very much as a fellow reporter. That means a lot. Thank you. I try, you know, we have a lot of competition, a lot of great analysts out there. I just try to separate myself in whatever way I can, tell some of the fun stories.

It can be fun, guys. Like, we're not all just breaking down D3 guards from you know saddleton state or whatever i mean like let's enjoy this let's have fun with the process not that serious yeah good point good point all right well we'll do it again post draft at some point to break it down and uh then we get to do the other fun part first fun part is mock second fun part is great so i love it all right thanks eric all right buddy