Friday Mailbag: Backup QB moves

Vikings fans are curious about the QB2 situation and final roster moves

Photo courtesy Minnesota Vikings

---

By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday everyone! This is the second to last Friday Mailbag until the start of the season. What a journey it’s been. Let’s find out what’s on everyone’s minds….

Rob…Rypien for Hall, lol wut?

Death, taxes and people falling in love with QB3s in preseason. All respect to Jaren Hall for handling the summer with class and professionalism but this is not a player who is capable of starting NFL games. I’m not saying Brett Rypien is either but this isn’t something worth much discussion. Rypien did actually play a good game in 2022 against Arizona where he went 21-for-26 with 197 yards 1 TD 1 INT and he was great this preseason with 335 yards on 34 attempts and 3 TDs. I tend to lean on KOC’s quarterback expertise when it comes to evaluating Hall but if either guy ends up on the field, it’s goodnight 2024.

Kyle R…. I think it’s pretty safe to say they’re not going to roll with the two RBs on the roster. Who are some post-cut RBs that you think would be some good targets?

Yeah, clearly Myles Gaskin isn’t going anywhere after Kwesi Adofo-Mensah announced that he won the kick returning job so I’m guessing that he’s going to end up being elevated for the first few weeks from the practice squad. The list of veteran free agents is not inspiring. Your guess would be as good as mine in terms of which guys they might be interested from the pool of Matt Breidas and Latavius Murrays. But I do wonder if they will sign someone off another team’s practice squad. Frank Gore Jr. was a guy who stood out in the preseason. New England practice squad RB Terrell Jennings averaged 6.2 yards per carry. Possibly someone like that. They cut DeWayne McBride on Wednesday so there has to be another dude on the way at some point before the start of the season, I’m just not sure who they’ll go after.

Brian_H… Rypien replacing Hall on the roster is a curious one for me. I could see KOC trusting Rypien more based on having played in this offense in LA and having significant regular season game experience. However, if you're down to your third quarterback you're already up a creek without a paddle. Why not stick with the younger quarterback that you've been molding from scratch?

The simplest explanation here is probably the right one: They don’t think Hall could give them a chance to win if he had to start a game. That’s the case for almost all QB3/QB4 types.

Jordy…. How do you interpret Kwesi's '33-nothing' comments regarding the 2022 draft?

I took that to mean that he inherited a situation with a lot of older players and a very bad cap situation and he was trying to use the 2022 draft to fill all of their needs with one swing. He traded down to accumulate capital with hopes to restock the entire cupboard for 2023 and 2024 with that one class. In reality, if you get two or three good players in a draft, it’s a huge win. What KOC was telling him about coming back from 33 down was that you can only focus on scoring on the next drive rather than getting 33 points back by trying to hit on all explosive plays.

It sounded to me like the start of KAM’s tenure was pretty overwhelming. Being a first-time GM is a lot like being a rookie QB. There is nothing to prepare you for that.

Also humans do not respond well to randomness. If you get hit by a bus, our instinct is to say that you shouldn’t have walked in front of that bus. If either Cine or Booth Jr. had become what most analysts thought they would be then we wouldn’t talk about this. But the draft is extremely random. Every bit of research ever shows that. Kwesi just got bit by the randomness in his first draft.

Overall when we look at the totality of three drafts including trades and UDFAs, they have acquired: TJ Hockenson, Jalen Nailor, Ty Chandler, Ed Ingram, Jordan Addison, Ivan Pace Jr., Mekhi Blackmon, JJ McCarthy, Dallas Turner, Will Reichard and a couple UDFAs this year who could be something down the road. That’s a pretty good bunch to go forward with.

Mike B…. So Gaskin is going to be RB3 and the kick returner? Is he really better than Nwangwu?

I found it pretty interesting that Nwangwu failed his physical in New Orleans. That suggests there may have been another reason for the Vikings to move on. Gaskin can do a lot of things from a special teams perspective. He can tackle, throw a block as the second kick returner etc., which may have been the difference. From an experience perspective, he’s played a bunch of NFL games and has been a legit pass protector before. The fact he can do much more than Nwangwu probably played into it.

Christopher K…. So now that cutdown day has come and gone, what things in training camp surprised you the most, both positively and negatively?

The biggest surprise was how far JJ McCarthy came along. From what I saw in minicamp, I thought he was going to need the entire year to develop but before he got hurt he looked like he was getting pretty close to ready to play.

I was surprised Jerry Tillery looked as good as he did on the DL. Sometimes those types of signings don’t even end up on the team (shoutout Datone Jones).

I expected some type of competition… anywhere. Nobody challenged left or right guard. All the receivers made it. They signed Gilmore, thus ending any cornerback competition. Ryan Wright was the clear punter the whole time.

It really wasn’t a camp of twists and turns, to be honest. I looked back at my original 53-man roster and the only misses were Trent Sherfield, McGlothern (who I mentioned as a possibility), a fifth LB, Jihad Ward, Taki Tiamani and Jalen Redmond, Michael Jurgens and Kene Nwangwu. Not a lot of stunning stuff.

Scott…. Vikings might be in better shape Wk2 Vs SF. They aren’t at full strength or healthy imo. Thoughts?

Jordan Addison’s ankle is certainly a concern for Week 1. Who else? As far as I know they are going into Week 1 as a completely healthy team aside from TJ Hockenson. Kevin O’Connell said repeatedly that they were looking for a physical camp this year but I’ve always been 1000% behind sitting guys in preseason in order to be as healthy as possible to start the season.

Ramsey K…. My wife and I are coming into town to visit my grandpa for the Lions game week 6 - we're staying in NE Minneapolis which we've stayed in before and love. Yes, before you ask, that was when I was thinking would be JJ's debut. We're trying to coordinate a meetup to watch the Vikings game on a nice October sunday. We'd like to have my (fairly immobile) grandpa, my wife and I, my aunt and her three members of her family, and then my friend, her wife, and daughter. That's a girl as young as 3 and a guy as old as 92 and a variety of folks inbetween. I'd love to find a spot that has good drinks, a playground for the young girl, and a good setup for the Vikings game. What do you and the rest of purple insider think?

That sounds like an amazing family trip. I’m a South Minneapolis guy so I’m not as familiar with the Northeast stylings. Maybe somebody in the comment section can help you out there.

Jeff M…. Our D looks strong enough to keep things close and give the O a chance to win a lot of games. Given this, I think it will be easier for Darnold to not feel he has to work a miracle every time he drops back. My question is, offensive weapons aside, how much impact can the D keeping things close influence Darnold's performance?

I’m not sure it works that way. The 2021 Panthers ranked fourth in yards per play allowed and sixth in defensive Expected Points Added and Darnold still struggled. The 2019 Jets had a statistically good defense too and it didn’t keep him from leading the 31st ranked offense.

However, you might still be barking up the right tree.

Here’s a crazy stat about Darnold: When his team is leading, he has a career 91.7 QB rating. When his team is tied he has a 96.1 rating. When his team is losing he has a 66.0 rating.

You’d think he was trailing a lot right? Oddly no. He has 991 passes when losing and 820 when tied or trailing.

The league rating when tied or winning: 93.7

The league rating when losing: 84.4

Of course, telling the Vikings to play from ahead is kinda silly but there might be something to avoiding situations where Darnold feels like he has to play hero.

Timothy G… Who's most deserving of credit for getting Jet's extension across the finish line when others like Ceedee Lamb, Brandon Aiyuk and Jamarr Chase have been publicly contentious?

Everyone, really. Justin Jefferson for keeping negotiations out of the media. His agent for being reasonable about the dollar figures. The Vikings front office for continuing to come back to the table with different approaches (KAM told us that they weren’t able to make one structure work so they changed paths) and the Wilf ownership for paying players.

When they talk about “culture” stuff, it’s so cliche that our brains shut off but I think it shows up when it comes to situations like this. Players always seem to stay here.

Dennis… What is being unspoken is that Kwesi was hired late in the process and inherited the previous administration’s scouting and inner advisory team for that draft and no doubt had to rely entirely on their input. Since then he’s hand picked his inner circle and the last two drafts have been dramatically different. Now the word by some people is that he is on the hot seat. That to me is utterly ridiculous. I believe Kwesi will prove to be one of the great GM’s in the NFL. He is very much an intellectual, but a very rare humble, self effacing intellectual who gets along with everyone. It’s time to look at the gem that he is instead of a constant attempt by some in the media to berate him.

Nobody berated him. He was just asked questions about it, as you’d expect when you cut a first-rounder and trade a second-rounder after two years. Kwesi doesn’t need anyone to make excuses for him. The draft went completely sideways, he acknowledged that he was trying to do too much with one draft and that they have spent a lot of time reflecting on what happened and trying to learn from it.

Where I agree with you is that there seems to be a section of people who can’t get over that one draft. As if nothing else he’s done with the roster means anything. This front office has put together a good roster with the potential to be great around its young franchise QB over the next three years.

I’ve said over and over: Stay the course with this plan. But we have to admit that if this year goes badly, the 2022 draft will be part of the overall evaluation and there will be a ton of pressure going into 2025 on everyone.

Jake W… I cannot imagine the NFLPA loved what we did with RB3/KR. With expanded practice squads and elevation rules, do you think we see increased roster sizes? Not to mention the QB3 rules.

The NFLPA should be happy with the current rules. Veterans like Myles Gaskin can still have jobs. Otherwise he would have been out of the league two years ago. What the Vikings did with him made sense. Nobody else was going to pick him up, so they can fit someone else on the 53 and elevate him eventually. Every team is doing similar stuff with veterans.

I’m sure the NFLPA will push for bigger rosters once the league goes to 18 games. I’m not sure if that’s needed with the giant practice squads. When there were only 10 PS spots in years past you would see teams having to pick up a bunch of free agents during the season. Now there has to be an injury catastrophe for that to happen.

Pete… You mentioned earlier in the week about how good the Vikes have been with their UDFA choices especially on defense. Do you think that has been due to having Flores on the staff? Especially with his background in scouting as well? With him he’s not just an X’s and O’s man and is really good in identifying what players can do in my view. Skol from the UK

Some of it is their willingness to spend. They paid $236k for him and $245k for Murphy. That’s a lot. If you are always landing the most sought-after priority free agents, there’s a better chance you find some hits in there. I do think Flores is a big factor. When I asked him about this, his explanation was that they are all about fit. If they believe a player does something that they can use in his system then they are going to bring the guy in. It’s not something you can count on always working because UDFAs are undrafted for a reason but if the top UDFAs have a 5% chance of working out and your team signs 10 of the best, you’re going to get some hits.

I think the Flores scouting thing goes beyond just his ability to identify certain skills. He also has a really acute sense for when a player is highly competitive, tough and intelligent. Everyone wants those things but identifying them isn’t always easy. We now see a defense full of those guys.

NavyViking…. What do you think the QB room would look like if JJ was not hurt and kept progressing through training camp as he was? Does Hall go to the PS or do they cut Mullens?

It most likely would have been Mullens as QB3 and Hall to the practice squad. It’s always possible that they could still look for an upgrade from Mullens but it seems that they really like his knowledge of the system. And the crazy thing about Mullens is, despite the interceptions, his stats vs. other backups in the league are either similar or better. That’s just where we stand with backups in the NFL. His 88.4 rating was fourth best among backup QBs who played a decent amount and he was ahead of starters like DeShaun Watson, Will Levis, Aidan O’Connell, Desmond Ridder, Kenny Pickett, Sam Howell, Ryan Tannehill, Jimmy Garoppolo and Bryce Young.

Tough league.

Joe…. Let’s say the Vikings are a 7-10 team this year with their current guards. How much better could their record be if they added prime Randall McDaniel and Steve Hutchinson to the lineup? Would this make them actual SB contenders ? Or are we only talking a couple wins given their current QB and the relative lack of significance of guard play?