The Daily Norseman Mailbag, August 4th, 2021

the first week of camp mailbag

Good Morning!

Life intruded and prevented me from getting the mailbag questions pulled together last week, I’d like to say this won’t happen in the future but it will, thanks for you patience.

No Twitter or email questions this week.

SAD!

For salary cap questions I’ll continue using overthecap.com so I’m consistent with the numbers I throw out there.

Any trades involving draft picks I’m using the updated NFL Trade Value Chart developed by Rich Hill available at https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart-Rich-Hill.asp

For evaluating or looking up draft prospects or rookies my go to is thedraftnetwork.com

If I can’t come up with what I think is a legitimate answer, I’ll ask someone who I think can provide one.

Enough from me, let’s see what was on everyone’s mind.

adementor pondered:

Anthony Barr and a 6th round pick for… … … Chandler Jones??!?! Or even straight up? Eh? Eh? One year rental for a one year rental. Jones isn’t happy. For some reason football people think Anthony Barr is good. It’s conceivable, right?

Adding a better player is never a bad idea, however you have to consider the cap ramifications. Jones is going to be looking for 18M/year plus if Barr is traded his contract results in a 3.8M dead cap hit. Unless a player puts a team over the top (I think that’s a fan fallacy, although Favre made the 2009 season interesting) I don’t see how it’s advantageous to the Vikings this year.

Benjaman asked:

Hey Rob, the oline has sucked for seemingly forever and this year doesn’t look to be starting off great either. I’ve read the Vikings are being cautious with him, but its not a positive development that Darrisaw isn’t ready ready for camp after surgery back in January, if he’s to take over at LT as a rookie he needs every snap he can get, whether it be practice or game. Oli Udoh at RG with the ones, from the film I saw yesterday Sheldon Richardson was eating his lunch, but hey its early and the alternative is Dozier so I’m pulling for the kid. Bradbury is a lost cause, Cleveland needs to be a lot better in pass pro and O’Neill is solid, not a hole lot different than last year other than Hill or Darrisaw replacing Reiffer. As you mentioned before we’ve been bemoaning the oline for the last 7 years, but we’ve also been complaining about kicker for the last 6ish years and the current depth chart there shows a guy with very limited NFL experience who has not been particularly good kicking the ball through the uprights and a rookie UDFA who is already hurt because of course he would be. Which is a bigger concern for the upcoming season, kicker or oline, possibly both

We’ll continue complaining about the offensive line for at least the near future, it’s a known poor commodity and an easy target for our anger, because they haven’t been good as a unit in a long time.

This is the year Bradbury either gets it together and earns that next contract with the Vikings or it’s time for the team to start thinking about an alternative at center in the next year or two. I get it, playing center as a rookie is physically and mentally difficult, but we should have seen some sort of progression and improvement in his pass blocking last year.

The guords are a mess, getting consistent league average play from LG and RG would represent a huge improvement over the last couple of years, I’m going to reserve judgement until I see an preseason game or two…or three.

Hill looks to be the starter at LT at least to start the season, eventually Darrisaw will take over but won’t replicate Reiff’s last couple of seasons…I do think Darrisaw is the future at that position though, same with Davis at RG.

O’Neil is going to get paid too much.

As for kicker, like many professional writers have mentioned I don’t think the Vikings 2021 kicker is on the roster. One name to keep an eye out for is Josh Lambo, the current kicker for the Jaguars. They inexplicably have a kicker competition going on even with Lambo having a 93% conversion rate on FG’s, if the Jags cut or want to trade him Rick needs to pick up the phone and call me…so I can tell him he’s a moran and called the wrong number and needs to call the Jags.

poofda22 pondered:

Why is this guy such a putz? (pictured was Aaron Rodgers)

Because he’s an all-pro at a position of need for the Vikings, plus he’s been throwing daggers at the Vikings for years. He’s an easy target for our vitriol and the media fawns all over him. I hope he has the opportunity to meet Mr’s Richardson, Tomlinson and Hunter frequently this year.

As for the twitter account, it’s pretty funny but one I don’t follow it because that account because it strayed into a subject we don’t talk about here, funny only to probably me I think the same person runs that account and the Polite Kirk account.

Ulikunkel asked:

Why are kickoffs still a thing? Jon Bois made a video examining them a few years back, and I agree with him. Kickoffs are stupid and bad.

If you haven’t seen the Jon Bois “kickoffs are stupid and bad video” here you go. I agree, get rid of kickoffs.

MalcomBiggles231 had a statement:

hi?

Hi Biggles.

NorthwoodsVF pondered:

In the name of women’s equality, why have you not published a Daily Norseman Femailbag? Yours,
The cast of The View

Because the mailbag carries correspondence in either electronic or paper form and is gender less.

Also, that’s bait.

NorseCoder asked:

Now that Kendricks has some Meaty Boys out in front of him, do you think they can get a good nickname?

Thunder and Lighting, Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, Meaty Boys and …. I’m looking at all of you here for suggestions.

HiVike had two questions:

Why are football fields measured in yards instead of feet? Wouldn’t it be more impressive to say Dalvin Cook rushed for 4,671 feet last season instead of 1557 yards?
Also: Speaking of feet…………Why do we say feet SMELL and noses RUN???????

All the rest of the players rushing, receiving measurements would be in the same number, so changing it from yards to feet or meters wouldn’t change anything.

-As to your second questions, we have a funny language. Here’s some more:
-Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
-If a tin horn is made of tin, and a brass horn is made of brass, what’s a fog horn made of?
-Why is something sent on a ship called cargo, but something sent in a car called a shipment? And why is one thing sent on and another sent in?
-Why is it a pair of pants, or a pair of glasses, of a TV set, when there’s only one of it?
-If a set of stairs is called a staircase, why is a set of steps not called a stepcase? And is there a difference between stairs and steps?

JW15807 pondered:

I know it is early, but any news out of camp as to who is getting the most looks with the first team D opposite Hunter on the D-line.

Weatherly and Wonnum from what I’ve read. Hopefully Jones II or Robinson will earn some playing time, Weatherly wasn’t good last year, but Hunter is going to occupy a lot of the opposing team’s attention and make the RDE look better than they actually are. Richardson will get some situational RDE rushing opportunities.

Jackrabit1 had a lot of questions:

My questions isn’t focused on the Vikings, per se, but with the upheaval this week in college football. With Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC in 2025, how will this shake up the rest of the conferences?

Will the Big 10 and the Pac-12 try to poach the rest of the Big XII?

Does the Big XII try to recruit members from the smaller FBS conferences (American, Mountain West, MAC)?

Could this lead to some of the power FCS schools (North Dakota State, Montana, and Montana State) moving up to the FBS?

I think teams and conferences will chase the exposure for their team and by that I mean money. I could see one of the smaller FBS schools moving into a bigger conference but that would come at a risk for the school if it went from a powerhouse to an also ran and cream puff on a bigger school’s schedule.

I wouldn’t expect the FCS schools you listed to attempt to move up, they have carved out a very good niche for themselves, but if enough money were dangled in front of an AD, you never know.

SuFuDu pondered:

Can like…anyone…try out to be the Vikings kicker ?
I kicked a 23 yard FG…once…in the 70’s
Asking for a friend.

Most professional kickers can hit from 40 yards and beyond consistently in game conditions. The NFL uprights are 18 feet 6 inches apart, plus you have to consider the height the ball must be once it reaches the line of scrimmage to prevent a player from jumping up and blocking it….twelve or thirteen feet from memory.
Short answer, no.

Mn-Fan-OutWest asked:

Getting close to that time of the year !! Any Bold Predictions ? Vikings and NFL wise. Thx for the mailbag !!

I opened the mailbag for questions before the news about players having to sit out because they weren’t vaccinated. I do think the Vikings will be forced to sit some players this year because they aren’t vaccinated, if one of them is Kirk, that will likely cost the Vikings a game or two. We will meltdown here over it.

The Vikings are either going to trade or sign a QB2 because of Kirk.
Slotergoatgoat and Sam Bradford are available
(ducks)

The defense will be improved but won’t crack the top ten, mostly because that’s not how Zimmer plays defense.

Special teams will improve because there was nowhere but up for them to go from last year’s nonsense.

The running game will regress but the passing offense will open up a little more under Kubiak Jr, which provides a segway into…..

The Vikings will win the North and two playoff games.

ArildVornson pondered:

Will there be anybody actually at Training Camp this year from the DN (like Ludford) giving first hand accounts or will it be Twitter and other second hand information?

We’re locked out of getting press access again because of Covid, our own Eric Thompson is going to practice on his own time, even if you don’t have a Twitter account you can look at his thoughts and impressions of the team.

I don’t know if Wludford is going to training camp on his own this year.

Thank you again to everyone who took the time to pose questions either via Twitter, email or in the mailbag post. Look for the next mailbag post in next week.

Skol