Mind Character

Wirfs has the athleticism to do whatever he wants. The question is where will he thrive best. His positive power skill set, powerful/flexible hips, and ability to anchor and redirect in close quarters compared to his instinctual/technique deficiencies when preparing to engage or engaging Defenders on outside at tackle all suggest that Wirfs best position will be at Guard and not tackle. At Tackle, he has to wait to engage the defender in pass sets and that's where he comes undone technique wise (reaching, waist-bending, whiffing, over-setting, etc) because his instinct is to strike immediately. His decision making and awareness (when to help; who to block) also needs maturation and development at the tackle position.He's best when he can get on people right away in run and pass pro. When he gets that opportunity to get his hands on people immediately it's over almost every single time. He has an elite wrestling background and dominates as an immovable force when he gets his vice-grips on defenders shortly after the snap. He has the hips and feet to change direction quickly and never get out of position or give leverage to defenders on the inside. Everything happens quicker and faster on the inside; decisions and impact; everything. It's rare that a prospect has elite power, elite anchor, elite hip flexibility, elite leverage instincts, elite hand/upper body strength, elite upper body flexibility, and elite inside blocking instincts. That's the skill set of an All-Pro/First Ballot Hall of Fame Guard prospect. This has led many scouts, personnel people, and amateur scouts to see Wirfs as having the best Guard skill set of anyone to enter the draft in decades. Wirfs is so uber talented that he can play Left Tackle or Right Tackle or Defensive Tackle for that matter. He'll likely be able to do so at a quality level. To me though, he'll be an All-Pro Guard, but not a All-Pro Tackle out the gate. If it came to left or right tackle, I'd play him at right where's he comfortable but would cross-train him to play Left Tackle down the line. Ultimately though, I plug and play him at Right Guard and watch him put together a HOFer career without the need of a tremendous deal of development and technique work because he naturally does what the great ones have done at guard.

Calling my shot now as reference/prediction. No matter what, Alaric Jackson won't go before the 5th round. He's that athletically deficient. No way shape or form is Jackson a pro-bowl talent or will he ever be. No way shape or form will he go before the 4th round. We'll see what it looks like down the line.

Another huge blow to the draft prospect pool... Smith has some of the best film and all-around play (deep vertical threat, 3rd down big play reliability, and combat catches) of any WR in this draft. He's not thought of as highly as others, but was going to run a high 4.3 or low 4.4, he blocks, is as tough as nails despite his slight frame, and he was the 2nd round gem with pro-bowl impact ability that scouts league wide had as their favorite prospect... This was shaking out to be the best WR draft in history. So, far 3 key WRs have decided to return to school. It's still a class with great depth, but players like Smith are what put it over the top. He'll easily be a top 25 prospect next year assuming that he's healthy. Fringe 1st round prospect this year (but I think he had a great shot of being a 1st rounder), if all goes well he'll be a guaranteed first rounder next year. His film is electric and gives the feeling like unearthing a true diamond in the rough. Hope he has a healthy and productive final season at Bama.

In the rationalization and anticipation phase of the pending decision, it can be easy to gloss over the negatives of each candidate. Stefanski has his. I don't think anyone that follows it closely believes Stefanski is a "great team leader" by any stretch of the imagination and in fact reports suggest that he struggled some leading the Vikings out of their early season offensive malaise and had to rely on Gary Kubiak to get their group to positive resolution. What has been verified by a wide-variety of people is that Stefanski has the Temperament, Mentality, Communication skills, and Emotional Intelligence attributes that good and great organization leaders possess. Therefore, a lot of people think he has the foundation of intra and inter-personal skills to build a sustainable leadership tenure on. With McDaniels, based on a wide-spectrum of direct and indirect sources including respected players, respected beat writers, and trusted insiders Josh McDaniels is a verified human being that struggles with ego-mania and power-tripping when elevated to the Captain's chair (Denver and Rams) without an executive restraint. The same people characterize McDaniels as not being an effective Executive communicator and one that has difficulty getting buy-in from players at the individual and collective level instead needed a respected executive like Bill Belichick to drive the buy-in process from players. The remaining questions with McDaniels are how much of an *** is he now or has he changed?; has he been able to mature and restrain his ego?; Will he that ego-mania show itself again under pressure/high stress?; Will his other positive leadership and coaching skills outshine the negatives for a sustainable period of time?

DePodesta has spoken at multiple Leadership conferences about core traits such as willingness to learn and stay on the cutting edge, adaptability, ability to delegate to experts, emotional quotient, emotional intelligence, and emotional discipline as core components of what he seems to find as critical elements of effective leadership. It's hard to say that Josh McDaniels thrives in those attribute categories of leadership so in my opinion it's unlikely that DePodesta would see McDaniels as the top candidate. We can't know for sure of course, but I seriously doubt it even if DePo values various other attributes and abilities of Josh McDaniels. We'll see.

On Stefanski and Last Year: I have my doubts regarding if Stefanski truly wants to come here as his #1 preferred option, and I'm going to predict he goes to Carolina. That's because last year it was reported that Stefanski told various assistant coaches he was going to be taking with him, as well as Vikings people that he was led to believe that he was going to get the job by the Browns. At that same time, Brad Childress resigned from his Head Coach/GM position at the AAF Atlanta Legends team. The timing on the resignation and reporting on it suggested that Childress did so in order to come with Stefanski to Cleveland on a Senior Assistant position. The Browns dragged on their decision then chose Freddie. The Haslam's looked pissed at the press conference. Stefanski may have felt mislead. ----------- It's McDaniels With McCarthy, it's like I said before with McDaniels, the Haslam's won't run the risk of losing out on their golden boy just because they want to wait to interview Kevin Stefanski. You can't wait. They waited on McCarthy in order to interview other candidates and he's now the Cowboys Head Coach. In a perfect world, the Browns would wait to interview Stefanski and consider all their options, but with the Giants and Panthers calling on McDaniels I doubt that the Haslam's will especially given the fact that McDaniels is seemingly their first option. It's a shame that Stefanski won't get another shot. As much as we heralded McDaniels offensive mind, it's Stefanski that has the emotional stability, leadership temperament paired with a good offensive mind that make him imo a more longterm, sustainable "blow it up proof" Head Coaching candidate. As I and others have said in previous posts, it's all McDaniels. He'll be named our next HC and probably will be named so before Stefanksi even interviews.

Thanks a lot for the info. Much appreciated.

Ohioan Browns fan here. Formerly lived in Minnesota for 2 years and became a Vikings fan from afar along the way. Every year I watch as many of the games as I can which typically amounts to 5-8 games. As a result, I miss out on a lot and the overall depth understanding of the team. I was looking for thoughtful feedback regarding all things Kevin Stefanski this season including how he navigated the early season offensive turmoil, the quality of his play-calling based on a pre-playoffs regular season review, his strengths, his weaknesses, and to what extent people think the current offense is Gary Kubiak's influence versus not. I've heard and read a wide-variety of things from family that works in the football business, Minnesota beat writers, and "insider," but without being engaged with the team full-time it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. So, what's your guys/gals take on Kevin Stefanski? Thanks in advance. Vikes look like a real competitive force to win in this tournament.

Pre-draft I locked in on trading down and selecting either Jonathan Abram, Nasir Adderley, Jerry Tillery, Darnell Savage, or Andre Dillard. So, would I trade OBJ and Olivier Vernon for Jabrill Peppers, Kevin Zeitler, and Jonathan Abram/Nasir Adderley/Jerry TIllery/Darnell Savage/Andre Dillard? Knowing what I know now (injuries and season production) probably not. That all is based on the belief that OBJ is healthy and plays up to his talent for the next 2-3 years. His great will likely exceed the collective good of all those players. But it's close. Oddly enough, if you would've came to me pre-draft and offered up those trade terms I would've said no to acquiring OBJ. That's because I believed in the Pairing of Jabrill Peppers and and Adderley/Abram a lot. Zeitler was an important piece but he's not a high quality impact player but instead a quality starter.

Indeed, you're right that the difference between Chase Young and AJ Epenesa is a very wide margin. Indeed, our disagreement is a lot to do with how we define the word generational. When I say "generational" I'm referring to the NFL player life-span 7-10 years meaning it would take another NFL life-span cycle before we might witness a talent such as that again. That's often how a lot of scouts use the word "generational" with some extending it up to 15 years. Not "generational" as in a human beings life-span of 70-84 or so years or if a human being is 30 or so 50 years. American football's only been around 90 or so years. So, if we were to use generational in that sense we could really hardly ever use the word generational because we'd be saying this player is a Once in 70-84 years or 40 years player depending on a given human beings life span. It is what it is. Chase Young is a special, elite, all-pro talent. It's just my opinion that OBJ and one of the top 3 All-Pro talent OLineman wouldn't be a good trade for Chase Young just because of our need for an elite OLineman and my belief that OBJ has at least 2 more years of goin off on the league if he can stay healthy (a big if though).

How easy it is to forget talent after one down, injured season of play and one with a broken leg. If you don't think that OBJ based on what he's done thus far in this league including with Eli Manning in his spiraling decline rises to the amount of a generational receiving talent, I don't know what to tell you. OBJ is right up there with Julio Jones, AJ Green, and the other "generational talent" WRs to enter the league recently. A generation in NFL Terms is 7-10 years. Of WRs entering the league since 2009, OBJ is absolutely a generational talent based on skill/ability and started out his career with 3 consecutive 1300yards+/10TD+ seasons. He then broke his leg. Bones heal back just as strong. The year after that he had a quad and groin injury and a spiraling declining Eli Manning. The year after that he suffered sports hernias before the season and played on a Freddie Kitchens directed Cleveland Browns. All his talent, did not just get beamed out his body. If you have qualms with the word generational, then he's an All-Pro Talent. Injuries are a real thing. He's been injured, but even through injury and a trash offense he's still impacts the game positively even without the ball. Teams can't fill all holes in a given year, but if I had to choose between plugging the OT hole or DE hole, then I'm plugging the OT roster hole. Given Free Agency and the draft pool, it looks as if using our high 1st round pick is our best option to do so. Who says we can address our OL issue in FA or the later in the draft? To assume that we can address the issues later in the draft is an assumption. The OLine class isn't that way. The pass rushing class is even less deep than the OLine class. If our primary concern is OLine, then why not address the pass rush concerns later in the draft or free agency instead.

We were always going to interview Stefanski this week as has been reported the past few days. Had the Patriots won yesterday, McDaniels was set to interview on Friday; that is, after the weeks preparation for the upcoming game was done. That's likely the timeline for Stefanski as well; that is, he'll interview Friday after the Vikings preparation for the 49ers is done. Zimmer and Belichick are old school like that when it comes to advising their coordinators to interview after the "hay is in the barn" on the week's game planning and preparation. Timing is key. If we truly want Stefanski, we'll have to be willing to let McDaniels leave Cleveland for the Dallas, New York or Carolina interviews.

Vikings win could make it very difficult for us to both entertain McDaniels and truly consider Kevin Stefanski. Stefanski would be the only candidate for which we couldn't finalize a contract with until after the Vikings post-season run. Even then, there's no guarantee that he won't interview and take another job elsewhere unless the Haslam's and he can work out some agreement. All signs now point to McDaniels, especially if Stefanski doesn't interview until Friday. The Haslam's will likely not feel comfortable interviewing Josh McDaniels on Monday then watching Josh interview else up until Friday or so when the Browns interview Stefanski. It's a shame that we likely won't be able to interview both of them around the same time and choose accordingly between the two based on the merits perceived by the coaching committee. If we tell Josh we're going to wait to interview Kevin, it's likely he and his agent will take that as enough justification to finalize an agreement with another team.

Marcus Mariota's last legendary act before becoming our backup...

Huge News in my opinion regarding our coaching search is that we're reportedly interviewing McDaniels on Monday. McDaniels who's team is out of the playoffs can finalize a contract whenever he and the hiring team chooses. This is big news imo because we're in competition for McDaniels (assuming this is who the Haslam's want) with other teams. Therefore, if he's the Haslam's guy, they can't afford to let him leave Cleveland and head to New York or Carolina without doing everything they can to solidify an agreement. McDaniels may inform them that he wants to interview with the other teams anyway, but Coaches often cancel their scheduled interviews the moment they see that they are working toward an agreement. Agents and coaching search team's usually give a 48 hour window to negotiate a preliminary contractual agreement with the belief that finer details will be resolved in the upcoming days and weeks.. If the Vikings win today, Stefanski likely wouldn't be available until much later this upcoming week. Will the Haslam's wait to interview Stefanski or Daboll OR will they strike while the irons hot with McDaniels? If people want Stefanski to get a shot, the Vikings likely need to lose.

How does Chase Young immediately help the Offensive Line? If Chase Young is an All-Pro talent, are there any potential All-Pro OLineman available in this draft? Calling Michael Jordan the best player of all time and Lebron James the 2nd best of all time is choosing between two all time greats and isn't a slight or under-valuing of his talents. Saying that Chase Young is a Tremendous talent but not so special as to trade a 1.) A Generational Talent in Odell Beckham Jr. AND 2.) All Pro-Talent Jedrick Wills Jr./Tristan Wirfs/Andrew Thomas/Cee Dee Lamb/Kristian Fulton AND 3.) David Njoku AND 4.) Creating a Disgruntled Jarvis Landry ... that is not a de-valuing of Chase Young's ability at all. I can think both Chase Young is an All-Pro talent and the proposed trade not make sense. Both can be true. I think there's 3 All-Pro talent Offensive Lineman (Wirfs, Thomas, Wills) that we may be able to acquire via their falling to us or trading up. I don't believe trading one of them plus OBJ and David Njoku for Chase Young and Trent Williams makes sense based on my evaluation of them. We may have differing evaluations. I think while Young and Garrett certainly have the talent to possibly be one of the better/best DE duos in NFL History, in a league that's seen the pairings of Lawrence Taylor and Leonard Marshall, Reggie White and Clyde Simmons, Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, and Derrick Thomas and Neil Smith I don't think it would be the certainty you make it out to be. I do get your point that the pairing of Young and Garrett would be special and elite. You're right, it won't happen.

Lol. Close but not as tingly. This train is headed to McDaniels or Stefanski station. Time to make our peace with one of the options. In 2 years, we'll be right back at anyway after Jimmy-JW-Dee stir up the HC-GM power-grab pot.

Indeed, Sexton as a bench scorer and secondary ball-handler is a valuable piece. I think Sexton should've been Shai-Gilgeous Alexander. He has a strong efficiency and defensive rating while providing length and ball handling SG versatility. SGA is thought by most in the league as being one of the best young assets in the league while Sexton is not despite similar raw statistics. MPJ would've been a great pick for our purposes as well. Darius Garland paired with MPJ or with SGA would be more of a starting line-up fit and would've given us actual value. That Kyrie Irving trade with Sexton as the centerpiece return hurts more as time goes on. We had to turn that pick into a core starting piece. All signs point to us missing that mark.

Those of us that watched Sexton closely knew that it would be a pain for other players to play with him as he has no awareness and is an energy drainer on the court. Kevin Love frustrated by a rough season was being guarded by Chris Paul in the post and Sexton unaware kept pounding the rock and running the clock down to start a play instead of moving toward the Love vs. Paul action and dropping it to him for a mismatch win immediately or letting Love run clock and shoot over Paul. Sexton has blinders on and doesn't even realize what's going on. We should've drafted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who has defensive star ability and is an energizing player that plays the 2 and initiates offense from the wing and occasionally at the outset. He's aware of hit aheads and is a better and far more efficient scorer than Sexton. He's also a more aware passer and enjoyable to play with despite lower assist.

Watching a team snap the ball with 27 seconds on the clock routinely, zone run scheme, moving with pace and predominatly start under center... this Vikings offense gets my pants tingling regarding what it could be with Baker and our Offense.

Well if Jimmy admires them, then it should work out great... I have a good feeling we're headed for an arranged marriage...

Nick Cesario has been the de facto Assistant GM in New England since 2008 Here's the draft record: http://www.nfl.com/draft/history/fulldraft?teamId=3200&type=team Again, New England has a special talent for accumulating draft capital AND THEN blowing that draft capital on draft busts. People in the scouting community laugh to themselves whenever the public lauds the Patriots draft picks. They're miss rate on found 1-3 is one of the higher miss rates in the league year in and year out. Andrew Berry had his issues as well (drafting Carl Nassib and Emmanuel Ogbah as 34 DEs). Passed on TJ Watt, Ryan Ramczyk, and Tre'Davious White for Jabrill Peppers and David Njoku. Was on the staff in central role when Mitchell Trubisky and a trade down from 12 were valued over Deshaun Watson and possibly Patrick Mahomes, etc. Even still, based on the draft approach and evaluation talent, I'd lean Berry over Cesario/Ziegler.

You have to look at it as just trading for Chase Young. Trent Williams may never pass a NFL physical again. Long before he recently failed his physical with Washington this year it was reported that he may not be able to wear a helmet and absorb repeated contact for the duration of a game or season ever again. Even without the head injury he's missed a lot of games over the past few seasons with severe knee tears and issues as well as other injuries. Assuming all goes well with him passing a physical, he likely only plays at a high level for 2 more years or so during which we'd have to give a massive new contract. Plugging in a player name at 10 also clarifies what the trade would look like. Representative Trade Terms would be the following: Browns Receive: 1.) Chase Young for 4-5 years AND 2.) Trent Williams for 2 years AND a Future 3rd Round pick Browns Give Up: 1.) Jedrick Wills Jr.//Tristan Wirfs//AJ Epenesa//CeeDee Lamb for 4-5 years, 2.) Odell Beckham Jr. for at least 2-3 years; 3.) David Njoku for at least 1 year; 4.) Jarvis Landry's commitment to the team. For me, it's premature to bury Odell Beckahm Jr. as a generational talent that has completely lost it or isn't worth keeping on the roster and seeing him healthy. Even still Chase Young for Jedrick Wills Jr. AND Odell Beckham Jr. wouldn't be worth it at all. 1 Pro-Bowl Caliber Player for 2 Pro-Bowl Caliber players doesn't make much sense especially if one of the players we give up is on the OLine. Chase Young is a tremendous talent, but he's not that special.

I wish man. He's the perfect Culture Leader Executive Head Coach that doesn't care to be an OC or DC. He'd go out and get the best coaches in college and the pros that we could possibly get. Then he'd delegate to them and coach them up holding them accountable to a winning standard. He'd burnout in 3 to 4 years, but during that time the Browns would likely make back to back to back playoff appearances and wins. It's just not likely that we'd get him imo. Hope I'm wrong as I disagree with the vocal opinions that Meyer somehow couldn't coach NFL players which is just laughable.

What the Browns want is for Stefanski and McDaniels' interviews to happens as close to one another as possible. That's important because if we interview one and inform them afterwards that we plan to make a decision after all candidates are interviewed that would give them the opportunity to make the rounds to other teams and we could lose out on them if another team's coaching search team wows them or presents a better fit. The goal is to likely not let them "leave the building" and progress things to more finalized conversations within 48-72 hours of the initial interview. The candidates on their own accord may also decide to wait to make their decision until after they've visited other teams, but that doesn't often happen in the NFL, If we told McCarthy we want to wait until we interview the other candidates before making a decision and the Cowboys and him make an agreement then our hesitation to finalize an agreement with him would cost us what could've been our preferred candidate. I hope the Vikings win, Stefanski and McDaniels interview in close proximity, and McCarthy waits to hear from the Browns on their decision. In that case, we'd know that our decision included all available options instead of having to pick from 2 or less in the group.