Latest / The Skol Hop / Who’s Who in the NFL Playoffs? Best Moments for the 2023 Vikings? How did the Vikings do in Free Agency in 2023? | TSH Ep. 23

Transcript

Who’s Who in the NFL Playoffs? Best Moments for the 2023 Vikings? How did the Vikings do in Free Agency in 2023? | TSH Ep. 23 · The Skol Hop

• 0:29
  right. Hey, Vikings fans, welcome into
• 0:31
  another episode of the School Hop.
• 0:33
  We're just a couple of dudes from Iowa who love the Vikings,
• 0:37
  drinking good beer. I'm Evan.
• 0:38
  And I'm Austin. And we only drink Iowa beer.
• 0:43
  We do on our episodes. And you brought the beer today,
• 0:45
  so tell us about it. So we do drink other beer.
• 0:48
  I feel like I always have to let people know that.
• 0:50
  Like there is that. Disclaimer, we we love beer and
• 0:52
  we do drink all kinds of beers, but on our show, we're Iowa
• 0:57
  boys. You're you're one of them.
• 0:59
  You're a Minnesotan born Twin Cities.
• 1:01
  I was. Lived here more than I lived
• 1:03
  there. Sure.
• 1:04
  But I was born here. We're we're we're Iowa boys.
• 1:08
  Maybe we should do a TikTok about that.
• 1:10
  I don't know. Maybe that trend is already
• 1:12
  dying. But today we have a wonderful
• 1:16
  beer that I've never tried before from Big Grove Brewery,
• 1:21
  who I believe is it. Is it Coralville?
• 1:24
  Is it Iowa City? We should confirm Iowa City, IA
• 1:28
  City. I think we've said Coralville in
• 1:29
  the past. Sorry Big Grove, but yeah, what
• 1:32
  I'm not sorry about is this delicious beer.
• 1:35
  We already filmed our TikTok which will be out soon, where we
• 1:39
  do our first taste of this beer. Evan, we've been calling this
• 1:43
  beer by the wrong name a few times, so this one is a Big
• 1:46
  Grove Brewery. It's an American Brown Ale, and
• 1:48
  it is the Birch the Bear, Birch the bear, Birch the bear.
• 1:54
  We were calling it Birch the brown bear, but you can clearly
• 1:57
  see on the can it's a blue bear. He should be brown.
• 2:01
  Evan said he is brown. It's just an infrared picture,
• 2:04
  big robe. Maybe you can.
• 2:06
  Maybe you can confirm or deny for that.
• 2:08
  He looks like he's having fun. He is.
• 2:11
  And Evan, are you having fun drinking this beer?
• 2:13
  I'm enjoying it. I am too.
• 2:15
  So yeah, and we'll just give the listeners slash viewers out
• 2:20
  there a little bit of an insight into what we're drinking.
• 2:23
  The description says it has big flavors of hazelnut and
• 2:28
  bittersweet chocolate with a sweet but crisp body.
• 2:32
  Yeah. Also, and I I can taste all of
• 2:35
  that. Yeah, that's a very accurate and
• 2:37
  good description. I like this beer.
• 2:38
  Also, one more description on the can.
• 2:41
  It's not it's not just a regular 5.2 percenter.
• 2:45
  Oh yeah, it's a solid. Solid, solid, all caps, solid
• 2:51
  5.2. And whoever at Big Grove made
• 2:55
  that decision to write solid. You just spoke to our hearts,
• 2:58
  'cause we say solid beer all the time.
• 3:00
  So yeah, this is a solid one. We're not very far into them,
• 3:04
  but towards the end of the episode, hopefully we will have
• 3:07
  finished our allotment for today and be able to give a true,
• 3:12
  experienced review on it. So, so far, good job, Big Grove,
• 3:16
  Yeah. Well, let's pay the bills really
• 3:18
  quick and then we'll jump in here.
• 3:19
  So today's episode is brought to you by Big Top Ventures.
• 3:22
  To get the best rates on all inclusive resorts in Mexico and
• 3:25
  Jamaica, send an e-mail to bigtopventuresllc@gmail.com.
• 3:31
  Once again, that's bigtopventuresllc@gmail.com.
• 3:36
  Shout out to Big Top for sponsoring today.
• 3:38
  Yeah, thanks big top. I actually just last night
• 3:41
  picked up front of the show Brian from the airport who
• 3:45
  through big top ventures was in Jamaica for a few days and when
• 3:50
  he left there was no snow on the ground.
• 3:53
  I think it had snowed one day a few days earlier, but like most
• 3:55
  of it had already started melting.
• 3:57
  So when he left there was no snow on the ground.
• 3:59
  When he came back, there was a ton of snow on the ground, like
• 4:03
  2 feet. It's like Elsa like blew her
• 4:06
  magical fairy dust or whatever. And we live in wherever Elsa
• 4:12
  lives. Oh no, I'm the worst.
• 4:15
  I don't know where it is either. We're girl dads.
• 4:17
  We should know this. We are.
• 4:19
  Anyways, Yep, there's a lot of snow on the ground in Iowa.
• 4:21
  He also did not bring a coat with him, which makes sense.
• 4:25
  He was only outside in the bitter 0° cold, if not colder,
• 4:29
  for like 20 seconds. But yeah, he he was not happy to
• 4:32
  be back in the bitter cold and snowy Iowa after spending some
• 4:36
  time in Jamaica, and I wouldn't be either.
• 4:41
  That's rough. It's rough.
• 4:44
  You know what else is rough? Have.
• 4:47
  The Vikings not being in the. Playoffs.
• 4:49
  Yep. That was rough.
• 4:50
  That was tough. I still watched a lot.
• 4:52
  I didn't watch every game and I didn't watch all of the games.
• 4:57
  Most of the games that I watch, I'm trying to think if I watched
• 4:59
  a full one from kickoff to double zeros.
• 5:01
  But I mean, I watched quite a bit of playoff football.
• 5:05
  My wife will tell you that it was on quite a bit, so it was
• 5:10
  sad not to see our beloved Vikings in the playoffs.
• 5:14
  There's some surprising games, though.
• 5:17
  Yeah, and I think what's worse than the Vikings not being in
• 5:21
  the playoffs is 2 NFC North foes getting victories in the wild
• 5:27
  card round. One by a very narrow margin, the
• 5:30
  narrowest you can get, and another by just a frustratingly
• 5:35
  huge margin. And you wouldn't expect no the
• 5:40
  Packers to have won by such a large margin?
• 5:43
  I guess the margin's not crazy. What?
• 5:47
  16 points. But they just manhandled the
• 5:50
  Cowboys from beginning to end. I didn't watch any of the games
• 5:54
  in their entirety, but I caught snippets of them and as I was
• 5:57
  doing other things and then watched highlights and listened
• 6:01
  to some various pundits and things afterwards.
• 6:05
  But. So just to give a quick recap,
• 6:08
  the Packers beat the Cowboys pretty good, 48 to 32.
• 6:13
  They the Packers will go to. It's not technically San
• 6:17
  Francisco, but wherever they play.
• 6:20
  Is it Santa Clara? I think yeah.
• 6:22
  So the 49ers will host the Packers this coming divisional
• 6:25
  round. The interesting.
• 6:28
  Sorry, interesting side note on the Cowboys 'cause I just read
• 6:32
  this a few hours ago. Jerry Jones announced today that
• 6:36
  they would not be moving on from Mike McCarthy.
• 6:39
  Yeah, he'll be. Coming back, 'cause there was
• 6:41
  some question marks like is he gonna especially with some of
• 6:44
  the names that are out there for head coaching positions.
• 6:47
  I mean Belichick is 1 huge name. Yeah, Belichick, Vrabel, Flores,
• 6:55
  Flores. Yeah.
• 6:56
  I mean, there's there's a lot of big time names out there and
• 6:59
  another interesting fact just about the Cowboys I I guess
• 7:02
  we're turning this into a Cowboys podcast now.
• 7:05
  Not over my dead body. Since what was it 1995, when
• 7:11
  they won the Super Bowl last, they've lost in the playoffs a
• 7:18
  lot. They've made it to the playoffs
• 7:20
  a lot, but they have not made it back to the Super Bowl since
• 7:23
  that 95 Super Bowl. I thought you were gonna say the
• 7:26
  stat about how the Cowboys have less playoff victories than the
• 7:33
  Texans since the Texans became A-Team.
• 7:38
  And the Texans, they also won. They beat who'd they beat The
• 7:42
  the Browns. Handily.
• 7:45
  Yeah, so yeah, Since the Texans formed as a team in like, what,
• 7:49
  2001, 2002, somewhere in there they have more playoff victories
• 7:53
  than the Cowboys do in that same stretch of time.
• 7:56
  Obviously the Cowboys in their history have more, but.
• 7:58
  Right. Still, they're they're not the
• 8:00
  top Texas dog in NFL teams, I guess.
• 8:04
  That is an interesting stat. I didn't know that, yeah.
• 8:06
  But anyways, I thought those two things were pretty interesting,
• 8:10
  that the Cowboys still can't find success in the play offs
• 8:13
  and Jerry Jones is going to continue to put his trust in
• 8:17
  Mike McCarthy, at least for the time being to.
• 8:20
  And maybe more surprising is the stubbornness by Jerry Jones, the
• 8:24
  GM. The owner will not fire the GM.
• 8:27
  Same person. And he has said before, if
• 8:32
  another person were the GM and had the same track record that
• 8:36
  he does as the GM Jerry Jones, he would have fired that person.
• 8:41
  But he's not gonna fire himself. So yeah.
• 8:45
  But overall, yeah. The Packers beat the Cowboys 32
• 8:48
  or 48 to 32. The Lions edged out the the Rams
• 8:54
  24 to 23. The Lions will host the
• 8:57
  Buccaneers in the divisional round.
• 9:01
  That was, that was kind of a a heartfelt game for a lot of
• 9:05
  Lions fans, a lot of booing of their greatest quarterback in
• 9:08
  franchise history. And I don't quite understand
• 9:12
  that. I mean.
• 9:13
  And he didn't reciprocate in his press conference either.
• 9:16
  No Matthew Stafford. Somebody asked him about it and
• 9:19
  he's like, yeah, I still love the the players, the guys on the
• 9:22
  team, but. That was my brother.
• 9:24
  But he was, he was kind of passive, aggressively saying
• 9:28
  like, no, I don't like the fans. Well, and you could, you could
• 9:31
  look at that and say like, I mean coaches, fans, everybody
• 9:37
  involved, like, I mean he's good with the players because he
• 9:40
  still probably has some former teammates on that team for sure.
• 9:43
  There's a lot of turnover every year on NFL teams would I would
• 9:46
  imagine there's still more than a couple.
• 9:48
  But yeah, for the fans to just outright Boo him, it's not like
• 9:52
  he pulled a Stefan Diggs and like pouted his way out of
• 9:56
  Detroit. I think he's still, at least
• 9:59
  when he was first traded, did like charitable things in
• 10:01
  Detroit like. And he was traded.
• 10:04
  When you're traded, you don't really have, unless you request
• 10:07
  a trade and go to ownership and say I want out, It's really
• 10:11
  their discretion. I mean, you could walk into the
• 10:14
  facility on any random day and get the news that you're traded
• 10:18
  and have no control over that. Like, that's just how it goes.
• 10:21
  And I don't remember hearing any stories that he was trying to
• 10:24
  force his way out or trying to make sure he got traded.
• 10:27
  I just think the Lions had a valuable asset and they, you
• 10:32
  know, got some good value out of that asset.
• 10:35
  And I mean, how can Lions fans? And they got a Super Bowl
• 10:39
  winning quarterback in return. I mean, yeah, the.
• 10:43
  The Lions did. No, Goff attended near.
• 10:47
  He brought his team to the Super Bowl, sure, OK, but he they he
• 10:53
  lost. Who was that against the Rams
• 10:55
  and the Patriots? It was in our building.
• 10:58
  OK, no, it wasn't the Patriots, was it?
• 11:01
  Pretty sure, man. Because it was.
• 11:04
  It was a few years before. It was 20/17/2018.
• 11:09
  It would have been before Tom Brady left to go to Tampa.
• 11:12
  It was a Minneapolis miracle year.
• 11:14
  Yeah. No, no, it was not, Sean.
• 11:18
  Sean McVeigh has won a Super Bowl and Jared Goff was his
• 11:21
  quarterback. No, Sean McVeigh has won a Super
• 11:23
  Bowl and Matthew Stafford was his quarterback.
• 11:26
  Sean McVeigh went to the Super Bowl with Jared Goff.
• 11:29
  And I'm wrong. It was not the Minneapolis
• 11:31
  miracle year 'cause obviously the Eagles won it that year.
• 11:34
  I think it was the year before, or maybe the year after.
• 11:38
  But yeah, I'm pretty sure, pretty sure it was against the
• 11:42
  Patriots. Their Super Bowl history is kind
• 11:44
  of shaky. Sorry, everybody.
• 11:46
  All right, TikTok, tell us how wrong we are.
• 11:48
  We'll, we'll get straight on all that.
• 11:51
  We'll educate. Let's just kind of whistle past
• 11:54
  the great. We're a Vikings podcast we know
• 11:56
  nothing about. Super Bowl Yeah, right.
• 11:58
  What's a Frank Arkanson? The Buccaneers beat the Eagles,
• 12:03
  Which I very much enjoyed watching, and I know there's
• 12:08
  only so much crap you can talk when your team didn't make the
• 12:12
  playoffs and looked terrible. But.
• 12:14
  I mean, did you see the video of the fan throwing a whole bucket
• 12:19
  of popcorn on Nick Siriani as he walked out?
• 12:21
  It's. Like you're done, Nick.
• 12:22
  You're done. That just shows you how
• 12:25
  classless that fan base is. Yeah, it's a game that you have
• 12:29
  no control over, like. It's a mess out there in Philly.
• 12:33
  Yeah, we're fans. We want our team to win.
• 12:35
  We get actually upset if they don't.
• 12:37
  We get actually happy if they do.
• 12:38
  But like, I mean, we're just fans.
• 12:42
  Like, I don't know, maybe at home watching on my TV, I'll say
• 12:47
  something like fire that guy. But like, that's actually a
• 12:50
  person. Like, I don't know.
• 12:53
  But yeah, I did see that. And that fan is not a real fan.
• 12:57
  And Jason Kelsey has kind of. I thought I saw he like
• 13:01
  announced his retirement and then on his podcast today or
• 13:05
  yesterday kind of said like hold up like nothing's for sure yet.
• 13:09
  I'll let everybody know in due time.
• 13:11
  He even said something like it wouldn't be fair or appropriate
• 13:15
  or maybe even accurate if I announced a decision right now,
• 13:18
  like, I can respect that. Yeah, for sure.
• 13:21
  It was just interesting, like all the rumors came out that he
• 13:25
  was going to retire and then he did come out today and say, Oh
• 13:29
  well, maybe, you know, I'll we'll give it some more time and
• 13:32
  blah, blah, blah. I saw that the TikTok of the New
• 13:37
  Heights podcast where he's he's kind of saying that and he kind
• 13:40
  of that TikTok video kind of ended with him saying like you
• 13:44
  know if other if he was retiring other teammates coming to him
• 13:47
  and saying like oh that sucks. Like it sucks for you to go out
• 13:50
  this way and he was pretty emotional.
• 13:52
  Like don't don't feel bad for me.
• 13:55
  Like I've had a great run. It's it was phenomenal.
• 13:57
  And then he yeah, he got understandably emotional.
• 14:00
  Yeah. But yeah he's a good player.
• 14:03
  I think he's a good dude. I hate his team and his team's
• 14:06
  fans, but like, I don't know, I I can't think of any reason to
• 14:11
  not be OK with him. But yeah, he's had a good
• 14:15
  career. Yeah, and they got just
• 14:18
  destroyed by the Buccaneers. Yeah, and a team that think back
• 14:22
  all the way back to before week one episode.
• 14:25
  What, like 4 of this podcast we were talking about ramping up
• 14:28
  against the Buccaneers. I talked a lot of trash.
• 14:31
  Yeah, I said something like, yeah, the Buccaneers don't even
• 14:33
  know who their quarterback's gonna be Well, and I'm laughing
• 14:37
  last, you know. I picked the Vikings to beat him
• 14:39
  in Week 1. It was a surprise.
• 14:41
  I think most most everyone picked the Vikings, but Baker is
• 14:48
  playing really well. He is playing himself into a
• 14:52
  more secure, higher dollar contract than the, what, $4
• 14:56
  million contract he got this season.
• 15:00
  I think the Buccaneers should resign him.
• 15:03
  If not, he'll get. I mean, he's not going to get
• 15:05
  $50 million a year from any team next year, but I don't know,
• 15:10
  between 20 and 30 is my guess. He's playing his way into some
• 15:13
  decent money. Agreed, agreed.
• 15:16
  And maybe, maybe an option for the Vikings if Kirk is
• 15:21
  overpriced or out of range, or if he wants to move on.
• 15:26
  But that's That's a talker. For another time, yeah, I can
• 15:29
  tell you right now I don't want all the drama that comes with
• 15:31
  Baker. I I wouldn't mind it initially,
• 15:34
  'cause I don't think he's been too dramatic.
• 15:36
  He's been pretty. Quiet.
• 15:38
  He's been pretty quiet lately. Yeah.
• 15:40
  But he he has a history. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 15:43
  And that that would worry me. And that would be quite the
• 15:46
  whiplash from from, you know, Kirk Cousins to Baker.
• 15:54
  Mayfield. Yeah, very different.
• 15:58
  But yeah, again, talk her for another time.
• 16:00
  But I think he he's a good option for any team that would
• 16:03
  be looking for a quarterback. All right, on to the AFC.
• 16:08
  The Texans. Now, this was a beat down.
• 16:11
  They beat the Browns 45 to 14. And I unfortunately, I didn't
• 16:16
  watch a minute of this game. I haven't even really seen
• 16:19
  highlights. So I don't know how horrible it
• 16:22
  was for the Browns. But man, that score tells you
• 16:24
  enough. This was the first.
• 16:26
  It was the first of all of the playoff games.
• 16:28
  I think it was the early game on Saturday.
• 16:31
  I didn't really watch much of this one either.
• 16:32
  But yeah, just a beat down and a rookie quarterback, Rookie head
• 16:37
  coach. Yeah, that.
• 16:39
  You gotta think the Texans are gonna be good.
• 16:41
  Even if they if this is it, if this is the end of their season,
• 16:44
  they lose next week. I mean, 'cause they go to
• 16:48
  Baltimore and that that's gonna be a good game, honestly.
• 16:53
  So I hope Stroud continues. Looking good.
• 16:57
  The defense continues looking good because I want it to be a
• 17:00
  good game. I still think the Ravens are.
• 17:02
  They're in my mind, they're the one that are going to win the
• 17:04
  whole tournament. I don't know who can beat them,
• 17:07
  including the Texans, but I hope for a good game.
• 17:11
  Yeah, and then got the Chiefs Owning the Dolphins more or
• 17:17
  less. I mean, it was frigid.
• 17:20
  I think they said it was the 4th coldest game in league history.
• 17:22
  Yeah, that's probably behind the 2010, was it or no 2015 TCF
• 17:30
  Bank? Oh yeah, where the the field was
• 17:33
  literally frozen. And yeah, yeah, I mean, I I
• 17:36
  guess I don't know where that game ranks.
• 17:38
  I think I said that was third. I think there were two other
• 17:41
  games, the Ice Bowl. Packers I had.
• 17:45
  Boys in like the 60s or 70s. I was thinking of a different
• 17:48
  TCF Bank Stadium game you're talking of.
• 17:51
  The game wide left so 8:50. I think I blocked that one out
• 17:55
  of my mind. Over the Vikings, I think this
• 17:59
  Chiefs game was still slightly warmer than that from what I
• 18:03
  understand. But anyways, Taylor Swift was in
• 18:05
  the press box, so it doesn't really matter.
• 18:09
  She warmed the whole place up, sure.
• 18:11
  And then the Chiefs got the dub. Slightly.
• 18:16
  I don't know if it's a funny story, but I remember we're from
• 18:21
  Iowa. I had a work training one time
• 18:24
  in Texas and at that work training, you know sometime in
• 18:27
  the week everybody in the training kind of went out to
• 18:29
  dinner and I think it was in it was in like February time in
• 18:34
  Texas. It wasn't one of their cold
• 18:36
  years. Somebody who was running the
• 18:38
  training. We were in a conversation about
• 18:39
  like differences in weather between Texas and Iowa and cold
• 18:42
  and what cold really is to us. And they said something like
• 18:47
  when, when does it not even matter anymore?
• 18:49
  Like how cold does it have to be before like, you know, 0 and
• 18:54
  -100 aren't that different. And I was like, well, really
• 18:57
  anytime past -15. And I never really thought about
• 19:01
  it. Like that's when your eyes start
• 19:03
  kind of freezing. So if those players were
• 19:07
  experiencing that Mahomes helmet cracked?
• 19:09
  Because it was cold. The manufacturer kind of came
• 19:12
  out with a long statement. I didn't read it, but they were
• 19:14
  probably defending themselves. He didn't get a concussion, so
• 19:18
  that we know of. But yeah, it was cold.
• 19:20
  I would not want to be even a spectator at that game I
• 19:24
  jokingly texted you a picture of.
• 19:27
  Ticket prices, Yeah, 33 bucks, yeah.
• 19:30
  You immediate. I think it's the fastest you've
• 19:32
  ever texted me back, you said Yeah, no, I'm out.
• 19:37
  Well, I'm out for the temperature, but then the
• 19:41
  Vikings aren't playing either. So does it really matter at that
• 19:44
  point? But Speaking of another bad
• 19:47
  weather game, the Bills Steelers had to get moved.
• 19:50
  Yeah, they were supposed to play on Saturday.
• 19:52
  They got moved to Monday and even playing on Monday, they
• 19:58
  still had snow everywhere. I don't.
• 20:00
  I think in most of the stadium you couldn't sit down in a seat.
• 20:04
  Well, they just opened it up. They said sit wherever you want,
• 20:07
  you know, can you sign seats? Can you imagine that though?
• 20:09
  Like, what if you're like 10 years old and your dad's like,
• 20:12
  all right, let's go. Like, sure.
• 20:14
  I think all the tickets were pretty much general admission,
• 20:17
  so it had to be cheap to get in, which is weird, 'cause people
• 20:20
  probably already paid a lot of money for different tickets.
• 20:23
  I don't know how that all worked out.
• 20:24
  Hopefully people got their money back, but yeah, like you, just
• 20:28
  you get to sit anywhere, just go be there early and set up shop
• 20:32
  and bring a stove or something if it's not out of the rules
• 20:35
  and. I saw a picture earlier today in
• 20:39
  some Vikings fan group on Facebook of a referee on the
• 20:44
  field, and another referee was like tending to him.
• 20:48
  And the caption was it was like some playoff game in the 60s or
• 20:52
  70s maybe. And allegedly a fan at Met
• 20:59
  Stadium in Minneapolis threw an empty whiskey bottle, glass
• 21:04
  whiskey bottle and hit the ref smack in the face from I don't
• 21:10
  know how far away I mean. And and at Met Stadium, you
• 21:13
  could be pretty far away from the field.
• 21:15
  Because it was not a great. It was a multipurpose stadium
• 21:17
  that. Stadium was long gone before we
• 21:19
  were born, but yeah. But I've seen pictures and stuff
• 21:21
  and like depending on where you're sitting, your distance to
• 21:24
  the field is pretty far away, yeah?
• 21:26
  Because it was, yeah, like you said, a baseball stadium too
• 21:29
  the. Twins played there too.
• 21:31
  So anyways, just reminded me of the Bills, Steelers and like
• 21:36
  man, they just let anybody sit wherever they wanted to.
• 21:40
  Then anytime a good play happened for the Bills, you just
• 21:42
  saw clouds of snow being thrown up in the air.
• 21:47
  Yeah, that's cool. So the Bills will host the
• 21:50
  Chiefs. I saw another funny meme that
• 21:54
  was it said like Taylor Swift walking into the nicest hotel
• 21:58
  room in Buffalo. And it was this old lady, like
• 22:01
  opening the door to a dingy, gross room.
• 22:03
  And the old lady had this, like, gross outlook on her face.
• 22:06
  Like I. Saw that too.
• 22:07
  I've. Never been to Buffalo, but you
• 22:10
  hear the jokes and. She'll make the trip the day of
• 22:13
  she'll stay in New York and her flat somewhere.
• 22:16
  She'll be fine anyways. Hold on, can we just take a time
• 22:20
  out? I think we've talked enough
• 22:22
  about Taylor Swift on this podcast.
• 22:24
  Should we just? Be done with that.
• 22:26
  Yeah, I mean, I don't have any problem with her, but like, I
• 22:29
  don't understand the hype. I don't either.
• 22:33
  We can move on. All right, let's let's talk
• 22:36
  about our favorite moments from the season.
• 22:39
  I mean. Back to the Vikings.
• 22:40
  We Yeah, we've spent far too much time talking about 14 other
• 22:45
  teams that aren't the Vikings. Let's talk about our favorite
• 22:48
  team. And even though they're not
• 22:49
  playing anymore, yeah, let's talk about them.
• 22:54
  So you came up with the idea to identify our favorite moments
• 22:58
  from the season. So, favorite moment on offense?
• 23:00
  Favorite moment on defense? Favorite moment on special.
• 23:03
  Teams. And to be clear, I stole this
• 23:05
  idea. I was surfing YouTube and,
• 23:10
  excuse me, the Vikings official YouTube page.
• 23:14
  Basically they had a 15 minute segment with PA and Gabe
• 23:19
  Henderson and Tatum Everett I think is her name where they
• 23:24
  they did just this. So still the idea, but I'd I'd
• 23:27
  made note of some of their thoughts and how that while they
• 23:29
  had great, great moments to choose from, I don't think we're
• 23:32
  double dipping on anything here, so.
• 23:34
  And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so.
• 23:37
  It's cool. It's cool.
• 23:39
  All right, so First things first.
• 23:41
  Favorite moments on defense? Why don't you start us off?
• 23:44
  All right. I think my favorite moment on
• 23:46
  defense was the Jordan Love interception to Josh Mattelis in
• 23:54
  the third quarter of the first Packer game.
• 23:57
  I was already very much trending towards the Vikings direction in
• 24:01
  that game. Things were looking great.
• 24:03
  It's probably the highest of high.
• 24:05
  You know that third quarter, 4th, halfway through the fourth
• 24:09
  quarter, free snap. Yep.
• 24:13
  Football snap. Achilles snap.
• 24:16
  But we were. We the Vikings were just giving
• 24:20
  it to the Packers. At Lambeau, everything was
• 24:24
  coming up roses. That was definitely, for me, the
• 24:27
  highest of the season. Even after beating the Niners I
• 24:31
  believe, the week before. Maybe not, but yeah, that that
• 24:35
  interception for Josh Matellis, who was a backup, and this year
• 24:39
  he just flourished and blossomed into a starter and really did
• 24:43
  well. And he's like a second or
• 24:46
  alternate for the Pro Bowl. Yeah, that was my favorite,
• 24:50
  favorite defensive moment. Was that Just yank it?
• 24:52
  Give it to me. Interception.
• 24:53
  Yeah, well, it wasn't like he just leapt out of the air and
• 24:56
  plucked the ball out of the air. The receiver caught it nearly,
• 25:02
  and Mattelis took it away from. If not for Mattelis, being
• 25:06
  there, like that would have been a completion.
• 25:08
  Like it wasn't a good ball and probably good.
• 25:10
  Yeah, good decision. Could have been a touchdown or,
• 25:13
  you know, a tackle, depending on where Mattelis was, if not right
• 25:17
  there. But yeah, he just, he'd give it
• 25:20
  to me. He yanked it away.
• 25:21
  So what about you? Favorite defensive moment?
• 25:25
  So mine's also an interception, but a different interception,
• 25:29
  one that we were sitting in these very chairs watching the
• 25:34
  game, and I moved my microphone out of the way.
• 25:39
  I stood up and I gave you one of the best high fives I think,
• 25:42
  that we've ever given each. Other Yeah, I still kind of.
• 25:45
  In our 20 plus year friendship, but that was the Ivan Pace
• 25:50
  junior game ceiling interception against the Raiders.
• 25:54
  Yeah, that was such a good moment.
• 25:55
  School, school, school, school. You've admitted to blacking out
• 26:00
  in that moment. Yeah, it was.
• 26:04
  And it was probably one of the only good moments of that game
• 26:06
  other than the benching of Josh Dobbs.
• 26:08
  That's a good moment, Good defensive moment.
• 26:10
  But probably the last good moment the Vikings had.
• 26:13
  It could be, but if you think about defense as a whole, that
• 26:18
  was the best defensive game arguably the Vikings played all
• 26:22
  season long. Like, Yep, the Vikings had been
• 26:25
  through the wringer in terms of offense.
• 26:28
  Kirk got hurt, Dobbs had two amazing games and then laid a
• 26:32
  couple of eggs and got benched in that game.
• 26:35
  And Mullins came in in that game.
• 26:39
  Like offensive side, that game. The defense won that game.
• 26:43
  Oh yeah, there's a three nothing victory for the Vikings and to
• 26:48
  pitch a shutout in the NFL is phenomenal.
• 26:52
  So that interception is the the cherry on top.
• 26:55
  But I think that whole game, the defensive performance was
• 26:59
  incredible. Not to mention the fact that the
• 27:01
  Raiders went on to score like what, 60 something points the
• 27:04
  next week? Crazy.
• 27:06
  Against the Chargers? Like, unreal.
• 27:09
  So yeah. And I believe the idea of that
• 27:12
  defensive performance in that game as a whole was Gabe
• 27:16
  Henderson's favorite defensive moment for the Vikings in that
• 27:20
  that video I was talking about. So definitely a good choice,
• 27:23
  good choice. You you went a step further to
• 27:25
  name. The moment whittled it down to a
• 27:28
  specific play. But yeah, to to echo Gabe, I
• 27:32
  guess I haven't watched that. It's a good one, you should
• 27:34
  check it out. Yeah, I'll have to.
• 27:35
  But yeah, that play just kind of is the cherry on top from that
• 27:42
  whole game. I think so.
• 27:44
  All right. Moving on offense, what's your
• 27:47
  favorite offensive moment from the 23 season So.
• 27:51
  I had to dig a little bit on this one.
• 27:54
  Like, man, there were some good moments.
• 27:57
  There were some bad moments. I didn't want to go with like
• 28:01
  the the easy pick of like Dobbs doing his thing in those two
• 28:06
  games or whatever. Like, I didn't want to, you
• 28:13
  know, worry about that or anything.
• 28:15
  We're getting some action over there on TikTok.
• 28:17
  Is that what you're looking at? Something popped up.
• 28:19
  I didn't know what it was. Anyways yeah, so I was I was
• 28:27
  trying not to like go with the those like fleeting moments.
• 28:32
  Yeah. But for me, the Jordan Powell
• 28:35
  game winner touchdown and it for me it's not about winning the
• 28:42
  game. That was awesome.
• 28:44
  But the reaction from Kevin O'Connell afterwards and like
• 28:50
  Koc telling him like This is why I brought you here and us being
• 28:54
  able to hear that as fans in the sideline audio and stuff.
• 28:58
  Like, I don't know. Like the the 4th wall was
• 29:02
  shattered almost and just kind of brought me into being on the
• 29:06
  sideline. And like, yeah, I I mean, I
• 29:08
  didn't really know Brandon Powell.
• 29:10
  I know he played for the Falcons and he's kind of bounced around
• 29:12
  the lead a little bit. But yeah, that game winner was.
• 29:19
  Awesome. That was fun.
• 29:20
  And it was the culmination, too. If you really look back on
• 29:22
  everything, that Falcons game was the first game after Kirk
• 29:27
  went down South. Vikings fans were in a
• 29:30
  whirlwind. The Vikings organization,
• 29:32
  everybody in purple, was in a whirlwind overall because you go
• 29:36
  into that game with Jaren Hall as a starter and he looked bad
• 29:41
  for one possession and then pretty darn good for another
• 29:44
  one. And that ended with Jaren Hall
• 29:46
  going down. And then you gotta put in a guy
• 29:49
  that's been on the team for four days or something like that.
• 29:52
  More like 3 minutes. Yeah, which wouldn't have
• 29:54
  happened if Nick Mullins wasn't on IR.
• 29:56
  Mullins would have started that game.
• 29:59
  But yeah, and then he just lights it up and just that was
• 30:04
  the pasture, not game. That game was the most fun we
• 30:08
  had with Josh Dobbs, and that touchdown was the culmination of
• 30:13
  that. That that is a good, that's a
• 30:15
  good moment there. And it's not necessarily like
• 30:18
  credit to Josh Dobbs, like, Yep, great, great throw.
• 30:22
  And yeah, you had a great four quarters spread across two
• 30:25
  games. But for me, it's more about
• 30:29
  Brandon Powell, kind of the the undersized underdog kick
• 30:34
  returner, punt returner making something of himself.
• 30:38
  Absolutely. And I I.
• 30:40
  Think. You know, we saw enough out of
• 30:42
  Jordan Powell to consider bringing him back.
• 30:45
  Oh yeah. I was just about to say that.
• 30:46
  I think barring any big moves in the draft or free agency, I
• 30:51
  think, yeah, he How many times this year would would he go most
• 30:55
  of the game and be quiet? And then the Vikings would need
• 30:58
  like a third and four and out of nowhere, Brandon Powell gets 7
• 31:01
  yards. Like here he comes for the most
• 31:04
  part did really good. I think his low point of the
• 31:06
  season was fumbling the punt return.
• 31:09
  I I think against the Eagles after a big return.
• 31:13
  But after that like he he did what you needed him to do, no
• 31:18
  more, no less. Things that KJ Osborne has done
• 31:22
  in the past, you know he was just out of nowhere, just kind
• 31:25
  of there when you needed something.
• 31:26
  And yeah, I agree. I I'd be on board with bringing
• 31:29
  him back. Unless they upgraded somehow
• 31:32
  through free agency or if Jalen Naylor really looks good coming
• 31:38
  into next season or something. I don't know, but yeah.
• 31:41
  What about you? Yeah, favorite moment on
• 31:43
  offense. So I I could be labeled
• 31:47
  unoriginal here because my favorite offensive moment is
• 31:51
  just moments after my favorite defensive moment.
• 31:55
  This is also in the Packer game, third quarter.
• 31:58
  The Vikings just got a huge game altering interception and I I
• 32:05
  should remember this better. I think it was the very next
• 32:09
  offensive play, the very next play.
• 32:10
  Pretty sure you're right, Kirk. Throws a dart to Jordan Addison
• 32:15
  for a touchdown. And I I Was that Jordan
• 32:19
  Addison's last touchdown this season.
• 32:22
  I think he went. He had a drought, at least for a
• 32:24
  while. No 'cause.
• 32:25
  He had at least one in the Bengals game later on, but.
• 32:29
  He did. Lambeau Leap.
• 32:30
  He Lambeau leaped. And then I think the next drive,
• 32:36
  or within the next few drives or, yeah, got demolished.
• 32:40
  But take nothing away from that. That dart straight to Jordan
• 32:45
  Addison, to a rookie who's who had been looking really good
• 32:48
  already that year or this season.
• 32:51
  The the decision to just after a big play, take a big shot,
• 32:56
  that's a huge that's what you want out of your coach to make
• 32:59
  that decision. Quarterback played it perfectly.
• 33:02
  Brandon Powell or not Brandon Powell.
• 33:04
  Jordan Addison played it perfectly.
• 33:05
  It was just it was awesome. And the cherry on top was that
• 33:08
  it was against the Packers. Well, if you rewind the season
• 33:12
  back to that moment and Kirk's injury doesn't happen and JJ
• 33:18
  comes back fully healthy before the bye and you don't lose Cam
• 33:23
  Acres and you never even have to worry about picking up Josh
• 33:27
  Dobbs before the trade deadline and your offensive line stays
• 33:34
  immaculately healthy like you wonder where the Vikings would
• 33:38
  be right now after Wild Card weekend.
• 33:41
  Yeah, I mean, the Vikings almost assuredly would have would have
• 33:46
  played Wild Card weekend and depending on how well they
• 33:50
  played down the stretch in the season, they may, they may have
• 33:53
  been. I mean they.
• 33:54
  Hosting a game. Yeah, they could have won the
• 33:56
  division. I mean, shoulda, coulda, woulda.
• 33:58
  Nothing actually happened. So it's all fairy tales.
• 34:01
  But yeah, you're right. You rewind it to that moment,
• 34:05
  Kim Jordan Addison catching that ball is probably the happiest we
• 34:09
  we were. That was our high.
• 34:10
  That's the peak of the season. It's the high watermark for
• 34:13
  sure. And then everything went down.
• 34:16
  We had a couple other lower peaks, but that that touchdown
• 34:21
  was the highest of the season after starting one and four doom
• 34:27
  and gloom. Kirk looks great, but we're
• 34:30
  going to ruin the this awesome MVP like season because the
• 34:33
  defense isn't working and then everything starts clicking.
• 34:37
  You play decent against the Chiefs, you beat the Niners.
• 34:40
  You're kicking the crap out of the the Packers.
• 34:44
  Yeah it that's a good moment. Like if we could just live in
• 34:48
  that moment forever, that'd be great.
• 34:50
  Thus is the existence of Vikings fans.
• 34:53
  Because I think, I think it was you that tweeted, like, a
• 34:57
  reaction to maybe, I don't know, if it was you, something about a
• 35:01
  few days ago when we were all reacting to the anniversary of
• 35:04
  the Minneapolis miracle and I wouldn't have been the
• 35:09
  anniversary, I don't know. That came up and you said
• 35:13
  something like, it's pretty sad that that's the peak of my
• 35:19
  Vikings fan hood. That wasn't me.
• 35:21
  It wasn't you. OK?
• 35:22
  I don't remember who it was. Yeah, I mean, it's true.
• 35:25
  That That's the peak of most Vikings fan hood.
• 35:28
  Unless you were freaking Divisional Round.
• 35:31
  Unless you were old enough to live for those purple people
• 35:35
  eater days back in the late 60s, early 70s when we were in the
• 35:39
  Super Bowl, how many times? But most of those guys are long
• 35:43
  gone. Yeah.
• 35:44
  So I mean, yeah, it's just that that's my my happy place of the
• 35:49
  2023 season. We could just go back and I
• 35:53
  think it was Madden 09. They had this feature called
• 35:57
  Madden Moments or Madden Rewinds or something.
• 36:02
  Anyways, it was a feature every game You got like two or three
• 36:09
  opportunities where if you like through a big interception you
• 36:12
  can like hit, pause and go. I want to use my Madden Rewind
• 36:15
  and it would go back to right before that play and then you
• 36:18
  could keep playing the game as if that play never happened.
• 36:21
  Can we just have a Madden Rewind for earlier in the season
• 36:27
  against the Packers? If only it worked like that,
• 36:30
  man. If only it worked like that.
• 36:33
  I'm realizing maybe we should have started with special teams
• 36:36
  because feel like offense and defense were good.
• 36:40
  And honestly to me, special teams were kind of a a dud this.
• 36:46
  Year kind of. I mean, we had a couple of.
• 36:48
  A few splashes. I mean, as we're we're gonna
• 36:50
  outline here a few splashes. Well, I'll let you go first.
• 36:55
  Well, maybe I should go first 'cause mine's a little more of a
• 36:59
  like yours. Yours is better than mine.
• 37:03
  I'll go first. I mean, it's your favorite
• 37:05
  special teams moment. Yeah, well, I put a question
• 37:08
  mark next to it because I was just kind of like, I don't know,
• 37:12
  like what is a good special teams moment this year?
• 37:14
  I can't really point to 1. 7 and 10 season, it's fair to say.
• 37:19
  Is this a good moment? You stole the only good one that
• 37:22
  I could think of. I can think of a couple more,
• 37:24
  but this is not a bad one. Well, I just.
• 37:27
  I picked Greg Joseph's game-winning field goal against
• 37:31
  the Raiders like. The only score of the game.
• 37:34
  Only score of the game. It came down to defense and
• 37:37
  special teams. Special teams got the points.
• 37:41
  Yeah, good job. I don't even know how long the
• 37:43
  field goal was. It probably wasn't that long.
• 37:45
  It was, I think, in the 20s. But, and I that that comes, you
• 37:50
  know, a week after kind of dragging Greg Joseph through the
• 37:54
  mud last week when we were talking about free agents and
• 37:57
  just saying, like, yeah, he needs to go.
• 37:59
  He's one of my goners. I think he's not a guy worth
• 38:04
  keeping. Statistically, he's not a great
• 38:06
  kicker, but. It was a good.
• 38:10
  Moment. Shoot he He put us over the edge
• 38:13
  to beat the Raiders. Skull, it's cool, all right.
• 38:18
  Mine is a little more exciting. And you're right, I'm probably
• 38:21
  still one of the only great ones.
• 38:24
  But it was early on in the season against the Chiefs.
• 38:27
  Vikings were set to punt and they ran a fake.
• 38:31
  It was a direct snap, I believe, to Ty Chandler, who got, I wanna
• 38:35
  say, like 15 yards. Obviously the first down, man.
• 38:39
  It was so exciting. It was awesome.
• 38:42
  It was a great fake punt. They went on to lose the game
• 38:45
  against the Chiefs, but that that was a gutsy, A gutsy call
• 38:49
  and a good call. And obviously it's a good call,
• 38:52
  'cause it worked. If it didn't work, then it would
• 38:53
  have been a terrible call and we'd be trash and Koc right now.
• 38:56
  But. They were in a similar play
• 38:58
  against the Broncos, I think. I think it was a direct snap to
• 39:01
  Chandler again Monday night against the Broncos and it.
• 39:06
  Worked, they got there. Was a penalty right?
• 39:09
  Maybe I can't remember, but. They also there was one I think
• 39:14
  later on. I don't remember too much, but.
• 39:17
  We were a little distracted during the Broncos game.
• 39:20
  It was our first live stream. Oh yeah, that's true.
• 39:22
  Yeah, shout out Tom Grassy. Yeah, but anyways, I don't think
• 39:28
  special teams were that amazing. No?
• 39:31
  This year I I had hoped for more.
• 39:35
  Greg Joseph proved that he's not a great kicker.
• 39:40
  Ryan Wright kind of took a step backwards, not a step forward
• 39:46
  like we had hoped for. And I really liked what Paul
• 39:53
  Allen had dubbed Ryan Wright. The with the plus size punter.
• 39:58
  Size punter. So I'll be really sad if he
• 40:01
  leaves, Yeah, because that was fun.
• 40:05
  But if he's not good. He's gotta go.
• 40:07
  I mean, the fact of the matter is, punters and kickers, outside
• 40:11
  of like long snappers, are the most easily replaced players on
• 40:16
  any team. Not that you're gonna find an
• 40:19
  elite one all the time, but I mean, if one's not working, it's
• 40:25
  not much to just kick him to the curb and kick him to the curb
• 40:31
  and then try to find somebody else.
• 40:33
  So not going to kick him very far the way they were kicking
• 40:35
  this. Year We very well could have a
• 40:38
  new punter and a new kicker for next season.
• 40:40
  Which may not be the worst thing in the world, yeah, but, well,
• 40:45
  let's keep hitting the rewind button and let's go all the way
• 40:50
  back to the offseason. And there were some pretty some
• 40:57
  pretty big free agent pickups and some pretty big free agent
• 41:01
  departures. Before this 2023 season.
• 41:04
  Before this season, yes. So we spent a lot of time last
• 41:07
  week talking about the lengthy laundry list of Vikings free
• 41:12
  agents going into the 24 offseason.
• 41:15
  Guys that are about to be off the team, correct?
• 41:18
  Have their contracts expire. We would like to spend some time
• 41:21
  talking about how did the 2023 season pan out for these free
• 41:28
  agents, either that were signed by the Vikings or that left the
• 41:33
  Vikings or maybe signed new contracts with the Vikings.
• 41:37
  Yeah, so just to kind of start off the the Siamese, the guys
• 41:43
  that the Vikings brought in before the season, and this may
• 41:48
  not be a comprehensive list. There's one name I'm not seeing
• 41:51
  that I didn't write down. But off the bat we had Marcus
• 41:54
  Davenport, Byron Murphy junior Garrett Bradbury.
• 41:59
  He's a free agent signing because his contract had
• 42:02
  expired. Dean Lowry not deal.
• 42:05
  Lowry like I've written down here, Alex Madison.
• 42:09
  Josh Oliver, Brandon Powell and then one that we signed during
• 42:13
  the season, Dalton Reisner. You have that on this other.
• 42:17
  Sheet. Yeah, on the other sheet.
• 42:18
  But so yeah, do we want to go through those before we talk
• 42:23
  about anything else? Yeah, I mean, I maybe we could
• 42:28
  just identify, well, we kind of did this last week, but like I
• 42:33
  can tell you right now, the one that was the worst signing was
• 42:37
  Marcus Davenport. Absolutely.
• 42:39
  Yeah, that's 13,000,000. The $13 million the Vikings will
• 42:43
  never get back one. Year $13 million Contract played
• 42:47
  in four games. I guess he had three starts.
• 42:49
  I would have guessed less. He only had two sacks and three
• 42:52
  solo tackles, 4 assisted tackles.
• 42:56
  Yep, so I get I got these stats from Pro Football Reference and
• 43:02
  stat that I did not know existed before today.
• 43:04
  I guess it's not really a stat, but Pro Football Reference
• 43:09
  attaches what they call the approximate value to players
• 43:13
  after a given season and I I took that to mean they give a 1
• 43:20
  digit rating essentially. You know what it is?
• 43:25
  It's Moneyball. It's boiling things down to one
• 43:28
  number. I'm just gonna try to bring up
• 43:29
  Moneyball in as many episodes as possible.
• 43:32
  I looked up that scene that I butchered a few episodes ago and
• 43:35
  I had the gist of it right, but man, I'd yeah, I was way off.
• 43:39
  But anyways, the approximate value that Pro Football
• 43:42
  Reference had for Marcus Davenport was a two and I
• 43:46
  believe the lowest you can get is a zero.
• 43:48
  And I think the only reason he got a two is because he had a
• 43:51
  couple of sacks. But other than that injuries and
• 43:57
  maybe motivation derailed his Vikings career.
• 44:01
  Hopefully he has taken all the money he will take from the
• 44:05
  Vikings, let him be somebody else's problem.
• 44:10
  But yeah, I guess to quickly go over him and stop me if you have
• 44:13
  a good talker. Brandon Powell, He came in as a
• 44:16
  free agent. He signed a one year deal for
• 44:20
  $1.2325 million. One and a quarter million
• 44:24
  dollars, yeah. We'll call it.
• 44:26
  I mean, the point OO 25 million is still quite a bit of money.
• 44:31
  I mean, what isn't that $25,000? Yeah, but he played in all the
• 44:37
  games started two of them, had 324 receiving yards and a
• 44:44
  touchdown. He did have a fumble.
• 44:47
  I think that's the punt return fumble.
• 44:49
  Yep, an approximate value of three.
• 44:53
  Another big money guy was Byron Murphy junior.
• 44:57
  He signed A2 year deal. I thought it was 3, but I guess
• 45:00
  it was 2. The Vikings also like to do void
• 45:03
  years, which I'll have to pull up.
• 45:06
  I think it's spot rack where I was getting the contract numbers
• 45:10
  from and they kind of do a good visual representation of those
• 45:13
  void years. I'll have to pull that that up
• 45:15
  and show you, but yeah, he Byron Murphy, he was injured A injured
• 45:20
  a little bit 14 games. He started all fourteen of those
• 45:23
  3 picks. He's kind of meh ish.
• 45:28
  Against the past quarterbacks had a 97.8 passer rating against
• 45:33
  him. His approximate value according
• 45:36
  to Pro Football Pro Football Reference was 5.
• 45:40
  And just seeing the numbers, I think anything 5 or above is
• 45:44
  kind of like and once you hit five, you're like all right,
• 45:48
  you're you're decent like maybe that's like a Madden 74 or
• 45:51
  something like you know, like sure you're OK.
• 45:55
  Wow. Alex Madison has a 5.
• 45:57
  Yeah, which I I don't know well. I mean, yeah, he signed A2 year
• 46:01
  $7,000,000 which in the grand scheme of things for a starter,
• 46:05
  you know, three and a half, $1,000,000 for a year is pretty
• 46:09
  decent I think. I think Dalton Reisner got
• 46:12
  around that much money. Madison 16 games, 13 starts, 700
• 46:19
  yards off 180 attempts. He did have 30 catches for 192
• 46:26
  yards, and his only touchdown of the year was a reception
• 46:28
  touchdown. But he had three fumbles and I
• 46:30
  would have guessed like 400 fumbles.
• 46:33
  Like, yeah. Well, he will historically go
• 46:38
  down as the only Vikings leading rusher to not score a rushing
• 46:45
  touchdown. He has you, as you mentioned, a
• 46:48
  receiving touchdown, but he did not score a touchdown on the
• 46:51
  ground. And he will as of right now.
• 46:54
  And until someone else does it, he will be the only Vikings
• 46:58
  running back to never score a touchdown on the ground, yet
• 47:01
  lead the team in rushing yards. Yeah, that's crazy.
• 47:05
  I think he's got a lot of value as an RB2, and I him
• 47:10
  specifically convinced me of the idea that like a running back is
• 47:16
  a position, but like running back number one is a defined
• 47:21
  position and running back #2 is also a defined position.
• 47:25
  You could have the the NF LS history's best running back #2
• 47:32
  and maybe he wouldn't be a great running back #1.
• 47:35
  And I think Alex Madison is a good case of a good running back
• 47:39
  #2. And I think when you start to
• 47:42
  delineate that position into those two different categories
• 47:47
  as a team, you have to figure out is our RB1A first and second
• 47:50
  down back or are they a third down back?
• 47:52
  Where is their value found? And I don't know that.
• 48:00
  I don't know. I I think Alex Madison struggled
• 48:04
  to figure out where he fit, if that makes sense.
• 48:08
  Like. Well, and that goes a little bit
• 48:09
  to coaching, too. I mean, yeah, I did.
• 48:12
  They just try to plug Alex into the same role Dalvin Koch was
• 48:15
  playing. I mean, they're two different
• 48:17
  guys. That's a mistake.
• 48:19
  Yep, it's agreed, agreed. And.
• 48:22
  And we saw some of those things resolve themselves when Cam
• 48:28
  Akers was signed and healthy. Yeah, And then he got hurt.
• 48:32
  Yeah, but even when Cam Akers was playing like he was the
• 48:37
  running back, too, like it should have been flip-flopped.
• 48:41
  And it was pretty evident that that was the case pretty early
• 48:44
  on. And they never made the.
• 48:45
  Switch and they probably should have just put Ty Chandler in
• 48:48
  from the get go. Maybe.
• 48:50
  Yeah. And who knows, You know, maybe
• 48:52
  he's maybe he's the leading rusher, if they would have given
• 48:56
  him the job. Yeah.
• 48:58
  Or at least elevated him to an RB2 type of situation right
• 49:03
  away. Yeah.
• 49:04
  So, yeah, I guess kind of going down the list as far as if a
• 49:08
  signing was good or bad, I think we can say the Brennan Powell
• 49:11
  signing was overall good, yes. And that tips the skills to the
• 49:14
  good. Marcus Davenport, overall bad.
• 49:18
  Byron Murphy, I'd say overall good.
• 49:21
  Like if you had to say yes or no, I'd say overall good.
• 49:24
  Garrett Bradbury I was concerned for a little bit after what the
• 49:29
  first drive when he had that back issue flare up again.
• 49:33
  He signed a three-year $15.75 million contract.
• 49:38
  He played in 14 games but missed 3 because of injury.
• 49:44
  He started all fourteen of those and his approximate value was
• 49:46
  six. I thought there could be a point
• 49:50
  where he was done playing football.
• 49:52
  Thank goodness I was wrong and thank goodness he kept.
• 49:55
  He came back and was not an issue.
• 49:57
  I think he's a high IQ guy. I still think he's a little
• 50:01
  undersized at the position and I still think there are plays
• 50:07
  where he's out muscled just because he is smaller.
• 50:12
  But he you gotta wonder if there's some Jason Kelsey in him
• 50:19
  a little bit. I don't know that there's.
• 50:23
  I don't know that that's a a phenomenal comparison.
• 50:27
  No, I mean, I still think even now Kelsey is better, but I I
• 50:31
  think I know what you're getting at.
• 50:32
  I I just, I just think from a like from AIQ standpoint from a
• 50:38
  like I'm gonna do whatever it takes.
• 50:41
  I'm gonna gut it out. I I I I like Bradbury a lot.
• 50:46
  Yeah. I also think if Kirk isn't the
• 50:49
  quarterback, that raises some question marks at the center
• 50:54
  position as well. I think Kirk and Garrett have
• 50:58
  developed a lot of chemistry and that's why Garrett has been so
• 51:02
  successful. There's a lot of trust there.
• 51:04
  But even when Kirk went down, it's not like we saw a different
• 51:07
  Garrett Bradbury. I think Garrett Garrett had a
• 51:09
  solid season, agreed. And we saw a lot fewer of those
• 51:13
  obvious plays where he was just manhandled this year than we
• 51:17
  ever have before. I think this was his best year
• 51:19
  as a pro, which is great because even with missing a couple of
• 51:23
  games for that scary back injury, he came back.
• 51:27
  But yeah, I think he's good. I'm gonna say for me that's a
• 51:30
  good signing and. He's he's got the highest
• 51:33
  approximate value according to PFR on this list of free agency
• 51:38
  acquisitions for the Vikings. So they must, I mean with their
• 51:43
  algorithm see something in him? Yeah, I'd be interested to know
• 51:46
  how they come up with that number.
• 51:48
  It's gotta be a combination of like money and stats and.
• 51:52
  Yeah, there's there's some sort of mathematical equation going
• 51:56
  on behind the scenes there, but. Other Guys Dean Lowry Defensive
• 52:01
  lineman 2 years 8.5 million. He didn't play enough.
• 52:05
  No, he he got, I think he had two pretty significant injuries.
• 52:10
  I think he had like a quad injury and also like a PEC
• 52:14
  injury at a different point in the season.
• 52:16
  I might be wrong on specifics of that, but I think twice he got
• 52:20
  knocked down pretty hard. But even going back to our
• 52:25
  earlier episodes, I can't. I'm so restless right now, I
• 52:28
  can't figure it out. You're good.
• 52:31
  I said. You said that you weren't super
• 52:33
  impressed by that signing soon after they signed him.
• 52:36
  And I'm, I reminded you like he's not a starter signing.
• 52:39
  He's a he's a depth guy, which I mean he for $4.25 million a
• 52:44
  year, like that's that's a little bit more than depth
• 52:47
  signing money that's. Pricey especially for what?
• 52:50
  An interior defensive lineman that played in nine games and
• 52:55
  only started 4? Like that's $1,000,000 to start
• 52:59
  right there. Well, yeah, but when you sign
• 53:01
  him, you don't know he's gonna only.
• 53:03
  Play or so half $1,000,000 to start, but still.
• 53:07
  But yeah, four solo tackles, 10 assisted.
• 53:11
  A value of two. Yeah, just not.
• 53:14
  I think mostly injuries, but also maybe they were thinking
• 53:18
  they were buying low on him and looking to see some good return.
• 53:23
  But yeah, they didn't get it. So I'm gonna say overall a bad
• 53:27
  signing so far. He's still got one more year in
• 53:29
  his contract, two more guys we haven't said yet.
• 53:34
  Josh Oliver, tight end, He got some big money, some surprising
• 53:38
  money for someone who wasn't a starter previously.
• 53:43
  Three years, $21 million and I think at the time 10 of it was
• 53:47
  guaranteed. I I think he earned that money,
• 53:52
  not his receiving stats. Don't say that.
• 53:55
  But the hard part about the tight end position is there
• 53:58
  aren't many stats beyond receiving stats that indicate if
• 54:02
  you've done a good job or not. I mean you can kind of look at
• 54:04
  the overall rushing numbers to try to see if they made an
• 54:08
  impact, but that is hard to quantify.
• 54:10
  And I know there are some advanced stats like you know if
• 54:13
  he's in on a a run blocking or a pass blocking play and he's the
• 54:17
  one of the blockers, like there are some advanced stats.
• 54:21
  I don't think with our limited budget, I don't think we have
• 54:24
  access to those. But I think he proved that he's
• 54:28
  a good tight end. Is he worth 7 million a year?
• 54:34
  Maybe, Maybe. I think he's got a lot to prove
• 54:39
  next year. But we may be relying on him
• 54:43
  quite a bit. Especially early on in the
• 54:45
  season, yeah. If TJ is still out for a game or
• 54:47
  two rehabbing from his ACL, it'll it'll be interesting.
• 54:52
  But he could be. You're right, he could be tight
• 54:55
  end #1 going into the 2024 season.
• 55:00
  Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:03
  And then Dalton Reisner and in season signing, probably the
• 55:06
  biggest. He wasn't the only guy they
• 55:09
  signed during the season, but probably the biggest name.
• 55:14
  My stomach is going crazy. So he got a one year $3 million
• 55:18
  contract, which I think was prorated.
• 55:20
  So a little bit less than 3 million played in 15 games,
• 55:24
  eleven starts took him really the Ezra Cleveland injury to
• 55:28
  break into the not even the starting line up the on the
• 55:31
  field because before then it was like a couple of special team
• 55:35
  snaps here and there like. But once he got in, he looked
• 55:39
  great at a value. Approximate value of five, which
• 55:45
  was pretty good, I mean one of the higher numbers on this list.
• 55:48
  And I think, again, one of those more advanced stats that he
• 55:52
  finished the season with was he didn't allow a sack or a tackle
• 55:57
  for a loss at his position. So to me, his approximate value
• 56:06
  of five is actually a lot higher than that.
• 56:08
  Yeah, I'd put him up at a six or seven or an 8.
• 56:10
  And maybe the same kind of play throughout 17 starts and not 11
• 56:17
  would bump him higher. I don't know if that plays into
• 56:20
  the the number. One of my honorable mentions for
• 56:24
  best offensive play was his kick that he did.
• 56:31
  I think it was. I think Josh Dobbs had run the
• 56:34
  ball himself down the field. I think this was against the
• 56:38
  Saints and U.S. Bank and Dobbs rushed to the
• 56:43
  ball and Reisner just followed him down the field.
• 56:46
  And just like there's the scrum that developed around Dobbs and
• 56:52
  Reisner just pushed him like within the five yard line.
• 56:55
  I mean they were. It was first and goal.
• 56:57
  After that, Reisner gets up and gives the little like, like,
• 57:00
  yeah, rock. And roll kick afterwards the the
• 57:03
  Chad Greenway kick, Yeah, yeah. That was one of my honorable
• 57:07
  mentions for offensive best offensive moment.
• 57:10
  Would have been a good one. And then on the sideline he's
• 57:12
  like, I almost kicked that guy in the face.
• 57:14
  I need to be more careful. We made a little, we made a
• 57:16
  little TikTok of that. So that was fun.
• 57:19
  But yeah, I think Reisner's a guy that you got to bring back,
• 57:23
  for sure. I'd love it, but I think he may
• 57:26
  be. Deservedly so.
• 57:28
  Pretty expensive. Yeah.
• 57:30
  But I'm we were kind of thinking that last season when because I
• 57:34
  think the Broncos cut him before the final year of this rookie
• 57:37
  deal and it was kind of surprising he was one of the
• 57:41
  higher named free agents on the board at the time.
• 57:46
  And yeah, I I'd be interested to know if the Vikings ultimately
• 57:50
  gave him, excuse me, ultimately gave him more money than he had
• 57:55
  been offered elsewhere. And if he just waited it out
• 57:59
  thinking you get more and maybe it didn't work out for him.
• 58:02
  But I want him. I want him on a on our team.
• 58:05
  He's a good player and he did well.
• 58:09
  Well, let's talk about free agents that left the Vikings
• 58:14
  some pretty big names, I mean. Yeah, and I kind of grouped
• 58:17
  these in with some of the cuts the team made early on in the
• 58:22
  offseason or even throughout the summer 'cause I added in like
• 58:26
  Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook, right?
• 58:29
  But yeah, either way, I think all of these guys that are
• 58:34
  departures, their contracts exceeded $10 million, except for
• 58:38
  one that they got from other teams.
• 58:40
  So yeah, do you wanna you wanna say the first name we got on
• 58:45
  that list? It's bittersweet.
• 58:48
  You did give me gift me his jersey.
• 58:52
  I did, yeah, several episodes back, but yeah.
• 58:55
  Adam Thielen, longtime Viking Signed a three-year, $25 million
• 59:02
  contract with Carolina, Played in 17, all 17 games for the
• 59:08
  worst team in the league. That had to be rough with a
• 59:11
  rookie quarterback. He netted just over 1000 yards,
• 59:17
  which says something when JJ played in. 10 games. 10 games
• 59:22
  and netted more than Adam Thielen.
• 59:25
  Well, I mean, you're talking about two different calibers of.
• 59:28
  Player I know, I know and and Adam's getting old and he he's
• 59:33
  even said as much like he knows the clock is ticking and I I
• 59:39
  would be surprised if he's I would not be surprised if he
• 59:43
  leaves Carolina. Interesting.
• 59:46
  In the offseason would not be surprised. 4 touchdowns in
• 59:52
  approximate value of eight though so.
• 59:55
  Which is higher than, I think most Vikings.
• 59:59
  But I don't know. Again, I don't know what that
• 1:00:01
  means. I think compared to most
• 1:00:03
  Panthers he's he's he's probably one of the more talented guys on
• 1:00:06
  their roster. So yeah, anyways, tough to see
• 1:00:11
  that guy playing in a different jersey, especially being the
• 1:00:13
  hometown guy that he is, being the, the Minnesota product.
• 1:00:19
  I mean, from beginning to last year, Yeah, Minnesota boy, all
• 1:00:26
  the way through. But at the time, I mean it made
• 1:00:29
  sense for the Vikings to move on.
• 1:00:31
  I'm sure they didn't offer him three years, 25,000,000.
• 1:00:34
  I think he was slated to make something like 20 just this year
• 1:00:37
  from the Vikings before he was cut and he had had I think 2
• 1:00:42
  full seasons where he his numbers were pretty mediocre.
• 1:00:46
  The writing seemed to be on the wall for the Vikings that it
• 1:00:50
  just wasn't there anymore. And for him to go to another
• 1:00:54
  team and net 1000 yards, 100 receptions.
• 1:00:58
  I mean those are good numbers. 4 touchdowns is OK, but nothing
• 1:01:03
  great but the yardage and the the receptions for sure.
• 1:01:06
  He was probably like a good cornerstone mainstay for their
• 1:01:12
  rookie quarterback, Bryce Young. Yeah, I mean, I guess I wouldn't
• 1:01:17
  be surprised if he moved on, but I don't know if it He's never
• 1:01:20
  been, at least publicly, a guy that complained too much on the
• 1:01:25
  field. He'll get emotional and try to,
• 1:01:28
  you know, yell at the refs a little bit and.
• 1:01:31
  Or the other coach. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:33
  But I mean, he seems to always be, you know, the PR guy, the
• 1:01:39
  he's not in the news for complaining like I'm not getting
• 1:01:42
  the ball enough for I need more money or anything.
• 1:01:45
  But. So I'd be surprised if he
• 1:01:47
  publicly like, talked his way out of Carolina.
• 1:01:49
  But I mean, when you're the best guy on the worst team, it's hard
• 1:01:54
  to hard to stick with it. Yeah, and I think he's said as
• 1:01:59
  much in his kind of postseason pressors.
• 1:02:02
  Too did he? I didn't.
• 1:02:02
  I didn't see any of that. He just kind of like, it was
• 1:02:05
  definitely under the surface. Like, we'll see what happens
• 1:02:10
  from here, you know? Like, who knows?
• 1:02:13
  What stinks is I don't think there's even if he were which he
• 1:02:17
  shouldn't. But even if he were to say like
• 1:02:18
  I'll take the veteran minimum, I don't think there's a an obvious
• 1:02:23
  role for him back with the Vikings.
• 1:02:25
  I think their their receiver room looks pretty good.
• 1:02:28
  At least they're one and two and then after that you can fill in
• 1:02:31
  from there. But that does kind of stink that
• 1:02:34
  he wouldn't immediately walk in as the one or two.
• 1:02:37
  So I don't think he at the end of his career, he's probably
• 1:02:41
  still looking to win that Super Bowl, which good for him.
• 1:02:45
  I hope he gets one. But yeah, it does stink that he
• 1:02:48
  probably won't ever play for the Vikings again.
• 1:02:50
  Yeah, he might bounce around and never get one.
• 1:02:52
  Who knows? We'll see a couple of Dalvins on
• 1:02:57
  the list here. Got Dalvin Cook, who he was on
• 1:03:00
  the team when we first started this podcast.
• 1:03:02
  He was. It was like episode two or three
• 1:03:04
  that he finally had been released and then he was a free
• 1:03:08
  agent for a while. I think he was dealing, he had
• 1:03:10
  just had solder, solder, shoulder surgery.
• 1:03:14
  There it is and I think that kept him off the field.
• 1:03:18
  But he seemed to luck into a beautiful situation with The
• 1:03:22
  Jets and Aaron Rodgers and a great looking defense before the
• 1:03:27
  season. Like it looked like he was going
• 1:03:30
  to walk into a ring. And yeah, he signed with the The
• 1:03:34
  Jets one year $7,000,000 which after the the big story this
• 1:03:40
  offseason, this previous offseason about run running
• 1:03:43
  backs wanting to get paid 7 million was one of the higher
• 1:03:47
  ones. I think Saquan Barkley got
• 1:03:50
  something like 10 million, but other than that I don't know who
• 1:03:53
  else made more than him more than Dalvin.
• 1:03:55
  What about Derrick Henry? I think he was.
• 1:03:58
  Was he at? He's on the end of his contract.
• 1:04:00
  I don't think he had to re sign or do anything.
• 1:04:02
  He may have been making more than seven, but yeah, Dalvin
• 1:04:06
  just never, never did anything with The Jets, I think.
• 1:04:10
  When he started one game. One game or 15 games in one
• 1:04:13
  start, 67 attempts, 214 yards. I mean, that's that's great.
• 1:04:20
  I think K makers had more yards for the Vikings than Dalvin had.
• 1:04:24
  He caught 15 balls for 78 yards and he had two or two fumbles.
• 1:04:29
  I don't think he scored a touchdown this season and then
• 1:04:33
  an approximate value of 1. And I think Bruce Hall was
• 1:04:38
  playing well for The Jets. The opportunities just weren't
• 1:04:41
  there. I think the offense looked
• 1:04:43
  different than they thought it would.
• 1:04:45
  Once Rodgers went down, it just never worked.
• 1:04:49
  But he he did get cut or released.
• 1:04:52
  I think he asked for his release and I think he's on the
• 1:04:55
  Baltimore practice squad right now.
• 1:04:57
  Could could be making his way towards the Super Bowl.
• 1:05:00
  He still could, yeah. Which is kind of crazy.
• 1:05:02
  But yeah, I don't know. I think overall that was a good
• 1:05:06
  release by the Vikings. And I think as much as it hurts
• 1:05:10
  the feeling release, I think overall was a good release too,
• 1:05:14
  especially when you think about Jordan Addison, yeah.
• 1:05:19
  Yeah, well, and the Vikings just needed to clear cap space.
• 1:05:22
  That was the big thing going into the offseason in 2023 was
• 1:05:28
  there's just very limited money to do anything.
• 1:05:32
  And running backs. I mean, I should get it tattooed
• 1:05:34
  on my body. Don't pay running backs.
• 1:05:36
  Just the other Dalvin. Dalvin Tomlinson made by far the
• 1:05:43
  most amount of money from any previous Viking.
• 1:05:46
  He got a four year deal for $57 million with Cleveland, 16
• 1:05:52
  starts and 16 games. What, 30, 28 tackles, 12 solo,
• 1:05:59
  16 assisted, 4 tackles for loss, 3 sacks.
• 1:06:03
  He had an assessed or approximate value of nine, which
• 1:06:07
  I think is the highest on all of this list.
• 1:06:09
  Yes. Yeah, so he must have had a lot
• 1:06:13
  of unsung non stat sheet stats. I mean, he's an interior
• 1:06:18
  defensive lineman so he's not going to get a lot of sacks.
• 1:06:21
  So 3 is pretty good. Yeah, I I don't think he made a
• 1:06:26
  ton with the Vikings before he left, so I was surprised when he
• 1:06:30
  initially signed that big contract with the Browns.
• 1:06:34
  But seems like he's pretty good. And the Browns were a playoff
• 1:06:37
  team this year. I mean, yeah, so good for him
• 1:06:41
  and hopefully continues to work out for him in Cleveland.
• 1:06:46
  So. Then we got Patrick Peterson,
• 1:06:48
  cornerback, who left the Vikings for the Steelers where he got a
• 1:06:53
  two year, $14 million contract. Another guy at the end of his
• 1:06:57
  career, probably. Yeah, I feel like he's going to
• 1:06:59
  just kind of stick around like and watch.
• 1:07:02
  He's going to announce his retirement tomorrow.
• 1:07:04
  Probably now that I said that, but I feel like he's just going
• 1:07:06
  to be like, holy cow. Patrick Peterson's been playing
• 1:07:08
  since I was in kindergarten. Yeah, he had sixteen starts and
• 1:07:12
  17 games, 2 picks did pretty good.
• 1:07:16
  I think he had a better overall season than Byron.
• 1:07:19
  Byron Murphy definitely played more and was better against the
• 1:07:24
  pass approximate value of 6. But yeah, I don't, I don't know,
• 1:07:31
  maybe the Vikings, you got to think they'd offered him a
• 1:07:33
  contract, but maybe it wasn't 7 million a year.
• 1:07:39
  Or maybe they didn't offer him because like you said, they were
• 1:07:42
  kind of hurting for money a little bit.
• 1:07:44
  Yeah. And he's he's one of those guys
• 1:07:47
  that he's kind of in the same category as Adam Thielen, like
• 1:07:51
  older plays, plays well, still plays well, still can add value
• 1:07:56
  to a team. But I don't know.
• 1:08:00
  It just push has to come to shove at some point and maybe he
• 1:08:05
  got shoved out, I don't know. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:08:09
  A couple more. Eric Kendricks, He got cut, I
• 1:08:12
  think in March. He signed with the Chargers.
• 1:08:18
  He got a two year $13.25 million contract, 14 starts in 15 games.
• 1:08:26
  He I think was out during the game.
• 1:08:28
  The Vikings played the Chargers in what, week three?
• 1:08:33
  He had 3 1/2 sacks, 79 tackles, solo tackles, 38 assisted and
• 1:08:40
  approximate value of 6. So he had an OK season.
• 1:08:43
  Pretty good season starter level.
• 1:08:46
  Was probably a bright spot on that Chargers team.
• 1:08:51
  It did kind of stink when they cut him.
• 1:08:53
  I was a little surprised when they cut him, but I think he was
• 1:08:55
  a cap casualty for the Vikings and seems like he can keep going
• 1:09:00
  with the Chargers. And the last one we've got here
• 1:09:05
  is Herb Smith. Yeah, signed a one year, almost
• 1:09:09
  $2 million contract with Cincinnati.
• 1:09:13
  Played in 12. Started six games, only 26
• 1:09:17
  targets, 18 catches, 115 yards and a touchdown.
• 1:09:20
  I feel like there were several games that TJ Hawkinson had.
• 1:09:25
  Oh yeah, twice more than. So, yeah, an approximate value
• 1:09:32
  of 1, so not a big contributor in Cincinnati was Irv Smith.
• 1:09:37
  I feel like he's just always been like I feel like he's good.
• 1:09:41
  He just he's either been hurt or the opportunities haven't been
• 1:09:46
  there, I guess. I admittedly don't know if he
• 1:09:49
  was injured this season. You got to think anytime your
• 1:09:52
  starting quarterback goes down, that probably hinders your
• 1:09:54
  numbers. But exhibit ATJ Hawkinson.
• 1:09:58
  He had almost 1000 yards even after.
• 1:10:01
  I mean not only after, but even with Kirk going down South.
• 1:10:05
  In dealing with injury himself. Yeah, yeah, I just it it that's
• 1:10:10
  a good no sign, a good. I don't know.
• 1:10:13
  Was he cut or was he just not? Did his contract run out?
• 1:10:16
  For the I don't remember. But yeah, hope the best for him.
• 1:10:20
  But man, it just doesn't seem like he's ever going to get it
• 1:10:22
  started. We've got a few more talkers
• 1:10:26
  here if we want to keep going. The Vikings added some players.
• 1:10:31
  Let's go with the the guys that they gave new contracts to
• 1:10:34
  before the season. Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  So, TJ, yeah, probably the biggest.
• 1:10:42
  Oh, absolutely. The biggest.
• 1:10:43
  Four years, $66 million. And that paid off, as you just
• 1:10:47
  mentioned, almost 1000 yards. He had five touchdowns, started
• 1:10:54
  11 games, played in 15, dealt with injury, like I mentioned a
• 1:10:59
  minute ago. But man, if he's healthy next
• 1:11:04
  year, he's he's tight end #1. Absolutely.
• 1:11:07
  And I had made a point more than a handful of episodes ago that
• 1:11:12
  maybe even in our first episode, maybe even in the episode that
• 1:11:15
  we have yet to release under a different name, that TJ really
• 1:11:20
  fills that that Adam Thielen role.
• 1:11:24
  And I think his numbers this year absolutely proved it.
• 1:11:27
  He had very similar numbers this year that Adam Thielen had with
• 1:11:32
  Carolina this year as their wide receiver won and if not for the
• 1:11:37
  injury, TJ would have broken 1000 yards.
• 1:11:40
  He had 960. I think he had more touchdowns
• 1:11:44
  than than Thielen with Carolina. So yeah, he definitely filled
• 1:11:48
  that Thielen for the Vikings role and overall, I think it's a
• 1:11:52
  good signing and if he's healthy, it'll keep being a good
• 1:11:57
  signing he. Had one more touchdown.
• 1:11:58
  Yeah, than Thielen. That's another guy.
• 1:12:01
  CJ Hamm, they You're the guy that you wanted the Vikings to
• 1:12:05
  cut. You're not going to let me
• 1:12:08
  forget that, are you? You did not want the Vikings to
• 1:12:11
  cut him. You just said he could be a
• 1:12:12
  surprise One he before the season got a two year deal for
• 1:12:16
  $8.65 million. I thought it was a one year deal
• 1:12:20
  until I saw this today. I thought they were kind of
• 1:12:23
  hyping this up as like his farewell tour, but I think he's
• 1:12:26
  going to be back. He played in 17 games, he had
• 1:12:31
  five starts. He had one rushing attempt for
• 1:12:34
  seven yards, caught 7 balls for 25 yards.
• 1:12:39
  His approximate value is 0, which is obviously the worst you
• 1:12:43
  can get. I just think the Vikings don't
• 1:12:48
  utilize a fullback in their offense.
• 1:12:50
  Yeah, and I think that's a product of Kevin O'connell's
• 1:12:53
  offense because I think prior to KOCCJ, Hamm was pretty active
• 1:12:58
  and he would get quite a few carries and he would be active
• 1:13:03
  out of the backfield as a receiver.
• 1:13:06
  And I think the primary value of fullback brings you in today's
• 1:13:11
  NFL is as a pass and rush blocker.
• 1:13:15
  Yeah, Oh yeah, and he may have been the best backfield pass
• 1:13:19
  blocker the Vikings had this year.
• 1:13:21
  Which only is probably more of a hindrance on Alex Madison than
• 1:13:25
  anything else, right? He may not be back next year.
• 1:13:30
  Just what, $4 million for a guy that won't produce, at least
• 1:13:36
  stat wise? A lot, especially when when I
• 1:13:39
  mentioned what last week. If you have a good tight end
• 1:13:41
  room, that kind of reduces your need for a good fullback.
• 1:13:45
  CJ is a good fullback and if he's not on the team next year,
• 1:13:50
  he will be in the NFL. He's just good enough to be
• 1:13:53
  there. He's probably one of the better
• 1:13:54
  ones in the league. He's kind of a hometown hero,
• 1:13:57
  too. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:13:57
  He's from Minnesota. I think he's from Duluth, or at
• 1:14:02
  least at one point was from Duluth.
• 1:14:06
  So yeah, he he's definitely a guy that has a lot of those
• 1:14:10
  hometown ties and a lot of people, including me, will be
• 1:14:13
  sad to see him go. Oh, absolutely, Yeah.
• 1:14:16
  So. Yeah, another contract that was
• 1:14:20
  given out before the season, Josh Matellis got an ext. 2
• 1:14:24
  years for $8 million, which I think when he signed it they
• 1:14:29
  tacked it on. So he had like three years left
• 1:14:32
  for like $13 million before the season started.
• 1:14:36
  He started all 17 games. He had one pick for 43 yards but
• 1:14:43
  he played every position pretty much.
• 1:14:46
  Five passes deflected 4 forced fumbles which is a huge number
• 1:14:51
  with one recovery, 2 1/2 sacks, 78 solo tackles and 38 assisted
• 1:14:57
  which is a lot for a safety, but he played a lot of non safety
• 1:15:01
  positions. His approximate value was 6, but
• 1:15:05
  I really think he felt like more than.
• 1:15:09
  That this should be a lot higher.
• 1:15:10
  Yeah, he he was a good player. He really blossomed this year
• 1:15:14
  and I think that was another scenario where Quasi was giving
• 1:15:19
  out a contract thinking he was buying low.
• 1:15:21
  And he did. He definitely, if Mattelis was
• 1:15:25
  an upcoming free agent, he'd be getting a lot more than $4
• 1:15:27
  million a year right now. So good signing.
• 1:15:32
  And the last one is none other than the hitman himself,
• 1:15:37
  Harrison Smith. And he's one that we talked to
• 1:15:42
  even last week, like, man. Yeah, we don't know what's going
• 1:15:46
  to happen with him. Could be he could be gone.
• 1:15:48
  We'll see, but started all 17 games in a little bit of a
• 1:15:55
  downturn, I think in terms of on the field production from the
• 1:15:59
  Hitman. But I think what he gives to the
• 1:16:01
  team is so much more valuable than just the numbers on the
• 1:16:05
  field. He's a leader for sure.
• 1:16:06
  I mean, just the play where Byron Murphy got an
• 1:16:09
  interception, that's because Harry was saying you, you take
• 1:16:12
  it, you this is yours when Harry could have easily picked it off
• 1:16:15
  himself. But we mentioned him here
• 1:16:17
  because before the season I think they may have approached
• 1:16:20
  him. He's getting up there, a high
• 1:16:22
  salary player. He actually took a salary
• 1:16:26
  reduction for the season by $6.7 million.
• 1:16:30
  So that's crazy. Yeah, I think I looked it up.
• 1:16:34
  He's made almost $90,000,000 in his career, which for safety,
• 1:16:37
  that's pretty good. That's really good.
• 1:16:40
  I I'm not gonna. I wouldn't say no to that.
• 1:16:45
  So I think his main concern isn't solely based on every dime
• 1:16:49
  you can get, even though I always say NFL players should
• 1:16:52
  fight for every dime they can. But I think he just loves being
• 1:16:55
  a Viking and hopefully he can continue being a Viking.
• 1:17:01
  Let's hope so, but we'll have to.
• 1:17:04
  We'll definitely have to talk about kind of like we did going
• 1:17:08
  into this season, like who stays, who goes, who could be a
• 1:17:11
  surprise cut. There are so many variables,
• 1:17:17
  especially with 24 plus. I think it actually changed.
• 1:17:20
  I think we said there were 24 free agents last week.
• 1:17:24
  I think it's actually 25. I think we missed one.
• 1:17:28
  I don't know who we missed, but I think our numbers were
• 1:17:31
  slightly off anyways. We're not statisticians.
• 1:17:35
  We don't claim to be perfect, but my gosh, there's a lot
• 1:17:42
  that's going to happen this offseason and it'll be kind of
• 1:17:46
  chaotic at times to track all that, but.
• 1:17:48
  Oh yeah, What do you think? Should we Should we talk about
• 1:17:52
  how the draft picks went now or should we kind of save that for
• 1:17:56
  a closer to the draft episode? Thinking we should save that
• 1:18:00
  closer to the drafts, we kind of double up and talk about last
• 1:18:04
  year's draft picks and how they impacted the team this year or
• 1:18:09
  didn't for some of them, and then look ahead to what
• 1:18:17
  positions the Vikings need to draft that sort of thing, 'cause
• 1:18:20
  that's definitely a big talker right now too.
• 1:18:24
  And the Vikings? Oh, absolutely.
• 1:18:25
  Sphere is what are we gonna do with the draft?
• 1:18:29
  And we're only we're, I think as of today, we're 99 days away.
• 1:18:33
  Oh yeah, so draft. So 100 days yesterday, 99 days
• 1:18:37
  away today. So just a handful of episodes
• 1:18:41
  before we get to the actual draft.
• 1:18:44
  Yeah. And we're going to keep going at
• 1:18:46
  least weekly through the Super Bowl or up until the Super Bowl,
• 1:18:51
  yeah. We've got plenty to talk about.
• 1:18:54
  Plenty is the point I'm trying to make so.
• 1:18:58
  What do you what do you think of the Dang it?
• 1:19:00
  What's the what's the name The Birch the Bear?
• 1:19:03
  Birch the Birch the Bear from Big Grove Beer the brewery.
• 1:19:10
  American Brown Ale. I liked it.
• 1:19:12
  I did too. Hazelnut chocolate really good.
• 1:19:16
  Oh yeah, I would definitely try it again.
• 1:19:18
  Yep. I don't think I've said I
• 1:19:21
  wouldn't try it again for any of these beers that we've had, but
• 1:19:23
  this one for sure, I'll seek it out.
• 1:19:25
  Definitely a solid. Oh my gosh. 5.20 Yeah,
• 1:19:29
  definitely. So yeah, would recommend 5 out
• 1:19:33
  of 510 out of 10. Whatever your scale is, I would
• 1:19:37
  rank it up there. Yeah, it's a good one.
• 1:19:39
  I like it. So, all right, Well, we'll put
• 1:19:44
  the kibosh on this one for today.
• 1:19:46
  Yeah. And.
• 1:19:48
  Everybody reach out to us on our socials.
• 1:19:50
  We're everywhere at the school Hop.
• 1:19:53
  Send us, send us an e-mail. We still have some stickers we
• 1:19:55
  want to give out. Still, the T-shirt we're trying
• 1:19:58
  to give away e-mail is theskullhop@gmail.com.
• 1:20:04
  And yeah, just Google us, you'll find us.
• 1:20:07
  We're out there. We are.
• 1:20:08
  So. All right.
• 1:20:10
  Well, good beer. Good episode.
• 1:20:12
  Yeah. Thanks for joining us.
• 1:20:13
  Yep. Till next time.
• 1:20:14
  Let's go. Let's go.
• 1:20:33
  Hey Vikings fans, Evan here from the School Hop and we just
• 1:20:35
  wanted to say thank you again so much for listening to the School
• 1:20:39
  Hop. And we also wanted to take one
• 1:20:41
  more opportunity to let you know that this episode of The School
• 1:20:44
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