Courtesy, Library of Congress

On May 1st, 1915, nearly 2,000 people woke up in or traveled to New York City, possibly read that very headline, and boarded the Lusitania anyway. 

Captain William Turner (no, not that one) felt no hesitation about embarking toward Liverpool. In fact, he was so unconcerned he delayed departure for hours to give his niece a tour of the luxury liner. He ignored warnings from the British admiralty to sail in a zigzagging pattern, among other advice.

In fact, William Turner had likely been seeing warnings for some time. With the Great War raging for nearly a year, these threats had been nearly constant. Months earlier, Berlin had declared the waters around the British Isles and the northern coast of France a war zone. German forces regularly sunk or captured merchant ships in the contested waters.

Captain Turner was a decorated commander. He heroically saved lives on multiple occasions and had plenty of experience with Trans-Atlantic voyages. His confidence was well-earned. But it would be his undoing.

On May 7th, Turner looked out to see a telltale wake heading toward his vessel. It was too late to do anything but contemplate his error. As the Lusitania sank in the Irish Sea, Turner resolved to go down with his ship. Believing himself to be the last soul on board, he clung to a deck chair and awaited his fate.

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Hours later, a small steamer came by and plucked him out of the water. He was horrified to learn of the full death toll. He’d live another 18 years, racked with regret and survivor’s guilt.

In a sense, the German warnings were a case of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. There had been so many instances of violence in the waters, it became mundane, and the dangers were ignored. In modern times, we are certainly familiar with such a phenomenon. 

In a twist of macabre irony, Captain Turner’s son Percy perished at sea in the next World War. He served on a merchant escort ship called the Jedmoor. The Jedmoor was part of a convoy of merchant ships 

Their convoy veered north in response to intelligence about German U-boats, but that steered them right into a storm. The storm pinned them in place, the U-Boats caught up, and sank the Jedmoor.

There’s a lesson in the duality of these two stories that we can apply to football. When presented with a threat, it is unwise to ignore it. But your response to that threat can bring you into just as much trouble if it’s not well thought out. 

In football, pre-snap motion is reaching new heights of popularity. Nearly two-thirds of all plays feature some kind of pre-snap motion or shift. The Vikings, in particular, have their own style and use of pre-snap motion, but that could be changing. So what is it, what might it become, and is that a good idea? 

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Definitions

When Mike Pettine retired as Kevin O’Connell’s Assistant Head Coach, he filled the role with Frank Smith, picking him out of the rubble of the Miami Dolphins. 

Smith served as Run Game Coordinator for Mike McDaniel’s offense, which led the league in motion usage for the vast majority of his time there. They led the league with 59% in 2023, and last year, they ranked just behind Buffalo.

What if Kevin O’Connell brought in Frank Smith to vault the Vikings to the cutting edge of pre-snap motion usage? 

To get an understanding of what that might mean, I charted a few select Vikings games and their usage of motion. I separated their motions into buckets based loosely on the Miami Dolphins’ system, and we’ll dive into their motion usage in another part. First, let’s define the Vikings’ motion usage and identify what problems O’Connell could seek to solve.

Below are screenshots of relevant motion ideas from an earlier Mike McDaniel Dolphins playbook, along with clips of the Vikings using them. Sometimes, I use words that are different from Miami’s, so I cropped out the verbiage to avoid confusion.

First off, there is a difference between pre-snap motion and motion at the snap. As the word “pre-snap” implies, these are movements from the offense that stop before the ball is snapped. Plays with motion at the snap, as one might imagine, are those where the movement from the offense continues through the snap. Pre-snap (I’ll call them shifts) can gather information, but gives the defense a chance to respond and the offense time to settle. Motion at the snap (I’ll call them motions) is more difficult to time and keep straight, but stresses the defense much more.

These buckets are very unofficial, but should help us pare down an already highly complicated system. Make no mistake, this piece will misidentify some motions — we’ll just have to embrace the occasional oversimplification in hopes that this shit makes a lick of sense.

The most common motion the Vikings use is Jet motion. It’s what it sounds like — a fake jet sweep. That playbook had a complex system of airline names across many variations, but for our purposes, we can call it all Jet.

Next most common is what I’ll call Escort motion. This is not the term for it that I see in any playbooks I have access to (you might know it as Sift), but it seems to be the word in the national lexicon, so we’ll go with it. It’s a cross-formation motion with a tight end — usually to block the defensive end.

Any motion from the tight end that crosses the formation will go into this bucket. Because most defenses declare the rushing strength by the alignment of the tight end, moving him across the formation in any context stresses their communication.

To play off these ideas, the Vikings occasionally call Counter motion. A player, usually a tight end but sometimes a receiver, motions halfway across the formation then quickly cuts back. 

Orbit is a rare but dramatic motion where a player goes across the formation behind the quarterback and running back, rather than in front. Again, I’m boiling down many variations into a single category to keep things manageable.

Hal and Hay are two words I’ll use for running back motions. These can also be defined as shifts, if the player gets set before the snap. 

There are tons of variants with a whole naming system for in vs. out, left vs. right, and which player is motioning. We won’t need that much detail for this project, so I’ll use Hal as an umbrella term for any motion where someone leaves the backfield, and Hay as an umbrella term for motions where someone enters the backfield. 

If a running back or fullback motions within the backfield, like shuffling in or out of an I-formation, I’ll call that Jazz. Again, Jazz refers to a specific motion, but I’ll group all similar motions into the bucket of Jazz.

Similarly, I’m boiling a ton of different wide receiver motions into a bucket I’ll call Short motion, which encompasses any motion where a player splits out wide, then motions closer to the formation. There can also be Short shifts. 

This is not to be confused with Insert motions or shifts, which bring a receiver or tight end into the “core” of the offense. Insert puts players right on the line of scrimmage, usually into a “sniffer” alignment. This is distinct from Hay, which places players in the backfield.

The Dolphins had their Cheat motion in the national spotlight in 2023, where a receiver motions farther outside at the snap. I’m taking all the other motions that widen a receiver and putting them in the Cheat bucket.

Many of these motions can be shifts as well as motions, but there are a couple of instances where I charted the shifts separately. If the receiver shifts across the formation, I labeled that Zoo (the Z is for receiver).

As you can see at the end of this clip, shifts like this can elicit a reaction that gives the quarterback information about the defensive play call. Carson Wentz alerts the play to something else, and hopefully we’ve generated an advantage.

If the tight end crosses the formation during a shift, I label it Fly. 

Once, on a short-yardage play, Carson Wentz shifted from shotgun to under center to feign a QB sneak. I labeled it Sneak, and it didn’t work.

For this project, I charted four games from the 2025 season: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Washington. I wanted to investigate the season-long narrative about Kevin O’Connell simplifying the offense for various reasons. 

Did Carson Wentz get a different version of the offense? Did Kevin O’Connell dumb things down later in the season, when J.J. McCarthy started playing better? 

To the extent that motion charting can answer these questions, the answer is no. All four games fluctuated between the types of motions and shifts used, but not the frequency.

Below, our email subscribers will see a static image. Check out the published version on our website for an interactive applet! The applet allows users to exclude plays without any motion, view plays with just shift, just motion and total motion/shift vs. non-motion/shift rates.

In fact, the game following O’Connell’s famous choice to stop working on McCarthy’s mechanics used more motion than any of the others I charted. That doesn’t encompass all the ways a gameplan can be made easier for a struggling quarterback, but we can at least say that pre-snap complexity wasn’t the focus.

Photo by Jerry Holt/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images

In 2024, the Vikings led the league in interceptions with 24. That’s not only the top number of that season, it is the best mark of any season during the entire tenure of Brian Flores as Vikings defensive coordinator.

That’s also more than the Vikings generated in 2023 and 2025 combined. Interceptions are a famously unstable stat, so much so that PFF invented a different way to chart quarterback mistakes. So it’s not too surprising that things fluctuate this much.

Defensively, turnovers are mostly agreed to be a luck-based statistic. As such, it would have been foolish to expect the Vikings to match their 24 interception season with a repeat performance.

But their regression to the mean blasted way past the mean. In 2025, the Vikings ranked 25th in interceptions with just 8. Of the 96-season sample from the last three years, that ranks 76th. Could there be some signal in such a dramatic ping-pong?

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The same luck factors that make for a historically high interception total can also cause it to go low. Tipped passes bounce your way one day, then their way the next. Defenders drop passes seemingly at random. 

That’s not to say a defense has no control over their ability to intercept a pass. Pressure is sustainable, for example. A player like Harrison Smith can force the issue and generate turnover opportunities, as I explored in this three-part series.

So which is it? Did the Vikings get particularly lucky in 2024, then unlucky in 2025? Or did something fundamentally change in 2024 that the Vikings haven’t been able to replicate? 

In general, this is not the best way to evaluate Brian Flores’ Vikings defense. It’s not like there was some massive regression. The 2025 defense outperformed the 2024 defense by points per drive, 3rd down conversion rate, and yards per attempt.

The defense still performed at a high level, it just took a different shape. Vikings opponents punted more often in 2025 and took the same number of sacks (49) despite substantially fewer passing attempts (709 dropbacks in 2024 against 525 in 2025). The Vikings trailed a lot more in 2025, so it tracks that teams would be passing less often.

Still, that’s interesting in its own right. Were quarterbacks trying to be more aggressive? Was the pass rush just better? Was the coverage worse, but hidden by the pass rush?

We can learn a lot by examining all 43 interceptions the Vikings have notched since Brian Flores took over in 2023. That’s what we’re going to do today. 

To break this up, I categorized interceptions into some generalized buckets. There are plays from zone coverage situations, plays from man coverage situations, chaotic tips and overthrows, and a couple of Van Ginkel Specials. 

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The man and zone coverage buckets are self-explanatory, though the pattern-match philosophy of modern defense can sometimes blur the lines. Man-to-man coverage happens in quarters and sometimes other “zone” coverages. It’s cleaner to separate by technique rather than coverage. Is the defender covering the man, or watching the quarterback and breaking on the ball?

As for the tips and overthrows, these are plays I figured were more about luck than anyone making a particularly good play. I also separated classic acts of Van Ginkel screen robbery into their own category.

All three main categories peaked in 2024, then fell back down in 2025. The luck-based tips and overthrows fell particularly harshly. For 2026, that doesn’t mean you should assume that the Vikings will get some medium amount of lucky bounces, but rather, that any outcome is possible.

But even removing tips & overthrows, you still see the same peak in 2024. That leaves 12 interceptions we’ll call “earned” in 2024 and just 6 in 2025. It is likely that we can find something informative beyond blind luck if we watch these all down.

So let’s do it. We’ll watch every single Vikings interception from the last three years in this piece. If you prefer a video, here’s a collection of all 43 interceptions, broken down one at a time. Otherwise, strap in for the journey.

Table of Contents

• Tips & Overthrows, Gotta Have Those

• Zone Coverage Picks

• “Man” Coverage

Tips & Overthrows, Gotta Have Those

First, let’s sort through all the plays we can deem “lucky”. That’s possibly unfair - after all, many of these plays are caused by pressure. If the blitz gets home, quarterbacks make bad, rushed decisions. Or, they just miss the throw entirely. That’s not luck; it’s baked into the defensive philosophy.

String these plays together, and you find a wonderful compilation of chaos, panic and bad decisions. 

Interestingly, there are no plays from 2025 in this subcategory. Not once, throughout the entire season, did the Vikings force an interception by hitting the quarterback as he threw or blitzing him into a blind panic.

The 2025 Vikings did a better job of converting pressures to sacks - taking down the quarterback every 11th dropback, while the 2024 Vikings did so every 14th. Perhaps that, plus a general reduction in volume, helps explain the decrease in this category.

Still, it doesn’t always require pressure for a ball to sail on a quarterback. Sometimes you do genuinely get a lucky miss that lands right in the defender’s lap. Still have to catch it.

Crucially, you also have to be in position. When I complained about Theo Jackson getting too much depth in his coverage, part of the cost is missing out on possible interception opportunities like this gift from Aaron Rodgers.

With both routes breaking inside, Cam Bynum can break inside as well, putting himself in close enough proximity to snag an errant pass. It’s also important that Byron Murphy was in good enough position to make the throw difficult. Rodgers has to attempt a difficult layered throw, and misses.

Every single one of these will be debatable as to how much credit goes to the defense, or how much blame to the offense. For the most part, there is more to the latter. They’re just bad throws.

Again, nothing from 2025 here. That compilation is in chronological order, and the last one is from the final regular season game of 2024.

In this way, the Vikings of 2024 got a little lucky, and the luck dried up. If you see these plays as unearned turnovers (which is debatable!) you can chalk it up to the whims of the football gods.

It’s not always the quarterback. Sometimes a receiver’s drop lobs it up like a volleyball set, landing gently in your defender’s arms. Finally, 2025 makes an appearance.

How do you factor in luck when evaluating a tipped pass? On those two plays, there was an open receiver ready for a completion. The coverage, definitionally, did not do its job. But it turns into a massive swing the other way. I’d argue these are the luckiest of the bunch.

But how can we separate those from tips that feel more earned? Take a play like this one. Harrison Phillips got his hand on the ball and sent it awry.

On the other hand, it bounces pretty luckily to Kamu Grugier-Hill. Do we still deem it lucky and set it aside? If it fell into a Texan’s lap, would we say the defense failed or call it a stroke of bad luck?

Is it lucky if it’s something you can practice? Here’s a video from West Virginia’s program practicing this exact situation.

On a play like this one, it’s difficult to dismiss the skills on display. Blake Cashman makes a great break on the ball, gets his hand on it for at least a PBU, and sends it up for a textbook tip drill. It took Metellus, then Bynum, then Metellus again to actually bring this thing in.

The coolest play in this whole section came from a tip. It’s a total team effort. Pressure flushes Jake Browning out, Harrison Smith makes an incredible play to get the ball in the air, and Isaiah Rodgers takes it to the house.

It’s up to you how much credit you want to assign, and more importantly, how much you feel you can expect these sorts of plays in the future. 

Zone Coverage Picks

When you think of an interception, you probably think of a player lurking, sussing out the play, and jumping the pass, to the quarterback's surprise. It’s never that simple, but it’s not far off when it comes to zone coverage.

Per PFF, the Vikings run zone coverage 76% of the time, so it shouldn’t surprise you to see this as the next-most-popular category. In fact, because I separated these plays into zone and man techniques rather than coverages, even more interceptions would fall into the zone category as PFF charts them.

Instead, dividing by technique allows us to sort these into more detailed categories to seek a common thread. For example, the most common subcategory across this whole exercise comes with interceptions out of hook zones - broadly, the underneath zone in the middle of the field on a given coverage

Linebackers (or often enough, Joshua Metellus) practice an inexact art when it comes to hook zone drops. You need enough width to limit the offense’s space to that side, but not so much that you give up a second window over the middle. You need enough depth to discourage intermediate throws, but not so much that you give up a productive completion in front of you.

To handle this, linebackers will respond to routes, tape study, and the quarterback’s eyes. But even that can lead you astray. Route concepts are designed to influence linebackers, and in the NFL, quarterbacks constantly look off linebackers.

It’s a deeply difficult assignment, and one the Vikings struggled with a lot during the Flores years. But when done properly, it’s a thing of beauty.

Let’s start with the game-clincher from rookie Ivan Pace in that 3-0 snoozer in Las Vegas from 2023. It’s Tampa 2 this time, and Pace widens out to his hook zone. 

Because Harrison Smith is blitzing, Pace has to work all the way from the other side to get to his zone. Also, notice that it’s 3x1. Davante Adams is the only threat to the left side, and he’s lined up outside the numbers. There’s a lot of distance to clear.

You’ll see Pace work all the way over to Adams’ route, then flow back inside when Adams breaks. He’s playing to routes, but he’s not playing true man coverage. His eyes are on Aidan O’Connell the whole time, and when the ball comes, he’s in position to pick it.

Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Watching the coverage of visitors to the United States for the World Cup has been many parts wholesome and some parts infuriating.

There are endless videos of Europeans (and those from other countries, but primarily Europeans) finding themselves charmed by unique American cultural elements, like giant Bass Pro Shops, country music, free refills and enormous gas stations.

This genre of post is worth digging into more (we’ll do that), but nothing will dislodge the charm of an old man from Lawrence, Kansas, chanting “Rock Chalk Algeria” from my brain after Kansans welcomed the Algerian team to set up camp in their town.

It rules.

There are so many posts that have emerged from this experience that have reinforced the love of the American people in Americans, and I’m not excluded from that experience. The Spanish National Team’s video thanking Chattanooga, Tennessee is outstanding.

Twitter tweet

This has encouraged a sense of pride in a certain understanding of America, just as we enter the commemoration of our national independence.

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Celebration of Americana is seemingly hitting a high as we enter the July 4th weekend and the recognition of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The dovetail of the World Cup and the Semiquincentennial is almost too perfect.

We’ll see more of this as the year goes on; the NFL has already started to make the most of this 250th anniversary and will almost certainly continue to do so as the 2026 season begins.

Table of Contents

• Are We Patriotic?

• Why The Fourth of July?

• Whose America?

• Let’s Talk About Those Viral Videos

• Cultural Exchange and Americanness

  • Barbecue

Are We Patriotic?

This feels like a unique moment in American history to be holding this celebration; this is the least “proud” Americans have ever felt in the 25 years Gallup has been conducting the poll, with only 53 percent of respondents telling surveyors they were “proud” or “extremely proud.” From 2001 to 2017, those values exceeded 80 percent every time the question was asked.

When asked whether the word “proud” described their feelings toward the semiquincentennial, only 43 percent of respondents said “extremely well” or “very well” in a poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.

A Marist poll found that 47 percent of Americans believe the country has moved far away from its founding principles and ideals, compared to 30 percent when the poll was conducted 50 years ago on the heels of the failures of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

It is perhaps unsurprising to see dissatisfaction is largest among the youngest Americans, according to a poll conducted by the Hinckley Institute and Deseret News.

From Gallup

There are any number of reasons for Americans to feel dissatisfaction with that identity; whether it’s the United States’ constant and destructive intervention abroad, the support of genocide in Gaza, the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the elimination of foreign aid, rising cost of living (including health care, incorporating cuts to the ACA) and years of institutional failure, including mishandling of the 2008 financial crisis, an inability to resolve the student debt problem or provide adequate housing to the populace.

Regardless, it is difficult for many Americans to see a celebration of the United States and its history without thinking about, well, its history.

Why The Fourth of July?

The history of Independence Day itself is curious. “July 4” as a date is almost arbitrary; independence and its attendant declaration was approved on July 2, 1776 (the first “vote” for independence), not July 4. This was the date that John Adams thought Americans would celebrate. The document wasn’t signed by the vast majority of delegates (and therefore hadn’t gone into force) until August 2, 1776 (the date on display at the National Archives at the document’s exhibit).

And declaring independence is no more or less legitimate a “starting point” for the American cultural or political project than many others. Americans first fought for independence on April 19, 1775, at the battles of Lexington and Concord. There was no political entity known as “the United States” until March 1, 1781, when founders ratified the Articles of Confederation.

The current political entity and framework of the United States, including documents enshrining what we popularly consider to be American values (like freedom of speech), was not put into place until June 21, 1788, when the Constitution was ratified by the ninth state (New Hampshire), effectively replacing the Articles with this new political structure.

The date on the document is July 4, which probably matters a great deal for our institutional memory. Credit: Getty Images

In many ways it doesn’t matter; for the purposes of celebration, one might as well pick a date — any date.

Whose America?

But most “Americans” weren’t citizens in any meaningful sense until decades later; non-landowners first earned a right to vote in 1791, when Vermont entered the union, and most other states didn’t adopt this practice until about 1850 or so (North Carolina didn’t until 1856).

Black Americans weren’t allowed the right to vote until 1868 and weren’t protected in that right until 1870, with incremental changes in access to that right throughout the following decades, most famously with the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Women hadn’t been granted the right to vote in any state until 1869, with only three more states adding the right in the 19th century before the 19th Amendment was nationally ratified in 1920.

“America” was, in some ways, accessible to some of these groups but not to others. Nobody captured this better than Frederick Douglass in his speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

So, while there was an America for 250 years, there was no America for Americans for decades afterward. One would be hard-pressed to make the case that most Americans were afforded the privileges of the name until more than a century after its original founding.

That’s why it feels useful to ask “What is America” when we celebrate its anniversary. The anniversary commemorates a date when many people did not have an America that they could call theirs. So is it 250 years of America?

Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

This is part three of a three-part series about Harrison Smith, his impact, and how well his likeliest replacements Jay Ward and Theo Jackson will be able to fill his shoes. Part one was about the basics of safety play, footwork, and tackling angles. Part 2 discussed safeties in Cover 2, and today, we’ll go over how they play in Quarters, specifically, Brian Flores’ Hot Quarters coverage.

Back in the 1990s, Bill Belichick and Nick Saban were head coach and defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns. As the story goes, they were struggling with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ four verticals concept. 

They couldn’t play Cover 3 because there were too many deep routes. They couldn’t play Cover 4 because of all the concepts the Steelers had to exploit the lack of underneath zones. And they didn’t have the talent to play the Steelers man-to-man. 

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They needed the sticky techniques of man coverage, but with the leverage advantages afforded to them by zone. So they invented the concept of “pattern match” zone. At the time, they were inventing a new form of Cover 3.

For those Browns teams, pattern matching meant a Cover 3 that added a fourth deep defender if one was required. This wasn’t really zone at all. Now, these principles have taken over the world of Cover 4 or Quarters.

Dispense with the idea you might have in your mind of Cover 4 that you’ve maybe seen from Madden or EACFB. This is a pattern match man coverage. 

No!!!

Pattern match means there is a set of rules that dictates who you cover, and you play man coverage from there. The important thing to remember is leverage. An inside player will be asked to play to the inside of his receiver, often with help from an outside player. It’s easier than the pure man-to-man coverage you might play in the park, if you can master the rules and principles. 

The Vikings make liberal use of a coverage I’ll call “Hot Quarters”. That’s a six-man coverage that pairs with any number of exotic five-man pass rushes. So you have to lose one of the classic Quarters defenders. Flores opts to cut out the middle defender underneath and change how the flats work a bit.

This coverage uses classic “Palms” rules (Called Cut, if you’re a Saban enjoyer), meaning that it plays out like normal Quarters unless someone quickly threatens the flat. In that case, the corner will trigger downhill, and the safety on that side will take over his deep responsibility, converting into a deep-half defender.

I like to think of Palms as Quarters that can become Cover 2 if it needs to. Its native language is Quarters, but it spent a semester in a country that speaks Cover 2 and won’t shut up about it.

Here’s a perfect illustrative example. The top gets a quick underneath route, the bottom gets a late release to the flat. You can see how the coverage rules are different. We’ll still draw typical zones for the sake of understanding, but keep in mind these players will play to routes, not drop to landmarks.

Regular quarters in pink, Palms in blue. The green zone is what Byron Murphy converts to when he sees a quick out.

First, watch Fabian Moreau and Joshua Metellus at the bottom. They get one release, a vertical stem, and double-cover it. Metellus takes the inside, Moreau takes the outside, and everything’s fine.

Compare to Isaiah Rodgers at the top. He gets a short route from Terry McLaurin, which counts as a threat to the flat, so he triggers down. The Commanders try to exploit this by running a corner behind him, so Murphy has to then midpoint the two routes while Byron Murphy plays over the top. That softens Rodgers’ hold on McLaurin’s under route, but he has help inside from Andrew Van Ginkel.

A particularly difficult assignment for Isaiah Rodgers.

Sack.

Picture perfect Palms. For it to work, everyone has to have the same read about what is going on. With one fewer defender, they have to rely more than usual on help from their teammates.

Because this is a blitz coverage, we expect the pass rush to get home, so we can play a lot more aggressively. There’s no “getting beat over the top” like in Cover 2, because there shouldn’t be enough time to set that throw up.

Back in week 1, it wasn’t as well-oiled a machine. Byron Murphy gets a hard vertical release from DJ Moore, and doesn’t see DeAndre Swift release fast to the flat.

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

This is part two of a three-part series about Harrison Smith, his impact, and how well his likeliest replacements, Jay Ward and Theo Jackson, will be able to fill his shoes. Part one, linked here, was about the basics of safety play, footwork, and tackling angles. Today is about safeties in Cover 2, and part 3 (now published, linked here) will discuss Quarters.

When discussing safety play, we’ll have to take a certain mentality about risk and reward. If an offensive lineman makes a mistake, the quarterback might still be able to scramble and save the play. If a receiver runs a bad route, someone else can get the target. 

Even defensive linemen or linebackers can err and still make the tackle, just further downfield. Safety errors lead to touchdowns. 

If the safety makes a mistake, it’s a long touchdown. There is no room to leave anything to chance. Safeties have to play it, well, safe, unless they have a reason to believe there are no deep threats. The purest distillation of this is Cover 2.

From Alabama’s 2019 defensive playbook.

When the Vikings play Cover 2, or Tampa 2 or any other variation, the defining feature is the safeties’ deep half zones. In true Cover 2, the safeties are responsible for everything on their side of the ball that goes deep. Because they’re the only defenders playing anything deep, they need a lot of depth. Any clear-out route, post, or anything else deep is a touchdown if they let anyone get behind them.

For this reason, safeties are required to backpedal in Cover 2. Remember from part one, the backpedal is the most conservative footwork to select. But the play won’t end once you decide to back up some more — safeties have to decide when to break out of that backpedal and play a route.

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This is where defensive minds diverge. Some playbooks demand that safeties get more and more and more depth to guarantee that nothing can be completed behind the defense, breaking only when the ball is thrown. Some ask safeties to get more into the fray and allow them to break before the ball is thrown.

Flores, unsurprisingly, opts for the latter aggressive option. 

As such, Cover 2 exposes the general strategy and mentality of a given defensive back. Do you play it fast and loose, or lean more conservative? For the best safeties, the answer lies in the routes.

Here’s a great example. The Vikings are in Tampa 2, which encourages both safeties to widen out a bit. After all, there is a zone in the deep middle that they don’t have to worry about.

Theo Jackson on the bottom gets a different challenge than Josh Metellus, at the top. Jackson’s on the strong side, meaning more passing threats. Both Coleston Loveland and DJ Moore run aggressive vertical stems. So Jackson has to backpedal.

Conversely, Metellus doesn’t get any vertical threats to his side - the only eligible receiver over there is Cole Kmet, who stays in the flat. So Metellus can break the rule and avoid the backpedal in Cover 2.

This allows Metellus to lurk underneath the deep curl to DJ Moore. Caleb Williams doesn’t like it and checks down.

What he doesn’t see is how open Loveland was. Theo Jackson backpedals very aggressively, and justifiably so with two vertical routes. But one of those breaks off in the middle of the field, and the other is a tight end. Jackson backpedals so far that he’s unable to break on a theoretical 20-yard pass to Loveland.

Does Jackson really need to play that conservatively? Should he be worried about getting blurred by TE Coleston Loveland? Put another way, if you’re not defending a 20-yard pass to your side, are you defending the deep half at all? 

Again, this is a philosophical question. Some defensive coaches would say yes, Jackson should pedal that far and rely on help from his underneath defenders. God forbid you get tricked by a double move for a long touchdown. Some say that underneath help isn’t really there, especially as those players flow to the checkdown. So Jackson is solely responsible for Loveland’s route. 

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

This is part one of a three-part series about Harrison Smith, his impact, and how well his likeliest replacements, Jay Ward and Theo Jackson, will be able to fill his shoes. Part one will be about the basics of safety play, footwork, and tackling angles. Part 2 (now published, here) will be about safeties in Cover 2, and Part 3 (now published, here) will discuss how they play Quarters.

In the final game of the 2025 season, several of Harrison Smith’s teammates showed up to the game to honor his storied career. 

Twitter tweet

Andrew Sendejo, Anthony Harris, Xavier Rhodes and Anthony Barr all came out to celebrate The Hitman. Even Mistral Raymond and Jamarca Sanford, teammates from Smith’s earliest years, came out to show support. 

The entire game screeched to a halt as Kevin O’Connell called a timeout “to honor Harrison Smith”. Not to review a call or stop the clock, but to honor one player whose legacy justifies it.

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Smith is a six-time Pro Bowler, two-time All-Pro, and even got votes for Defensive Player of the Year in 2017. He notched 39 career interceptions. He’s been the backbone of historic defenses in the Mike Zimmer era and found a new stride with Brian Flores. I don’t need to justify this to you. You already agree.

He’s a Minnesota Legend, saying goodbye to the game he’s given so much, and that has given so much to him.

Or is he?

As of this writing, it’s unclear if Harrison Smith will retire or not. He could be waiting through the dog days of camp to come back, or genuinely mulling his future. The team is giving him space to make the decision, and so we wait. Maybe all that pomp and circumstance was for nothing.

In the meantime, the Vikings have to figure out a plan. Brian Flores spoke on the difficulties they are facing without him. “Somebody’s got to step into those roles and into those shoes,” he said. “That’s the National Football League. Whether it’s injuries, whether it’s guys moving on, every year is a little bit different, every team’s a little bit different.” 

He mentioned Jay Ward, Theo Jackson, and even Tavierre Thomas as veterans who know the assignments and can fill his shoes. It’s a tough sell. Theo Jackson went from a key cog in the defense to a rotational afterthought. Jay Ward only played 248 defensive snaps, but had a strong finish to the year. Thomas barely played on defense at all.

There’s always Joshua Metellus. In an ideal world, he would continue his famous Swiss Army Knife role, but last year that wasn’t quite possible with the goings-on elsewhere at safety. Metellus played 350 snaps at PFF’s “Free Safety” designation in 2025, more than double the total from 2023 and 2024 combined. 

I’d venture a guess that Flores doesn’t prefer Metellus at that role, but rather had no choice with injuries to Harrison Smith, the loss of Cam Bynum, and the aforementioned issues with Jackson and Ward. So let’s see if we can afford to leave him out of this. That shouldn’t be too much to ask with a fully healthy camp roster.

There’s also the new rookie Jakobe Thomas, something of a wild card in all of this. He could very well find his way into this equation somewhere. I think he has a puncher’s chance, but that’s a different and more speculative kind of dialogue than I’m going for today. For now, let’s chalk him up to an unpredictable rookie and leave him to the side.

That leaves Jackson and Ward to compete for the deep safety jobs. If they both fail, the Vikings will have to trot out Metellus with their tail between their legs. So can they do it? What is stopping Ward and Jackson from being bona fide starters going into this camp?

Theo Jackson’s role in the Vikings defense has been purely deep. He hasn’t been a regular part of Flores’ exotic blitz schemes, only rushing the passer 11 times in 529 snaps over 13 games. 369 of those, he aligned deep. He’s a true deep safety, unlike Smith or Ward, who play in the box much more often.

As such, we have to get to know the classic coverage responsibilities for a deep safety in Brian Flores’ defense. The Vikings live in split safety coverages, or Middle Of Field Open (MOFO), more than anyone else in the league, per Trumedia. In 2025 they ranked dead last in Cover 1 and Cover 3 usage, and 2nd in Cover 2 usage.

A chart I have tortured Arif with before, and I will torture him again.

dd Cover 4 (I’m going to call it Quarters) and the hybrid Cover 6, and you get the whole range of MOFO coverages. The Vikings still do use Cover 3 almost a third of the time, but many of those coverages are fire zone blitz coverages or other exotics - worthy of their own separate discussion someday.

Let’s stick to the MOFO coverages, which Flores loves, even as he blitzes - the defining feature of the exotic Flores defense. 

So for today, we’ll focus on Cover 2 and Cover 4 techniques. We have to learn a few fundamentals together so we can make sense of all this.

Contractually Obligated Feet Part Sponsored By Feetfinder

For today, I want to teach you three different kinds of safety footwork: scooch, catch, and backpedal. Backpedal is the easiest, and you’re probably already familiar with what it looks like. Hips over your heels, knees together, and walk backwards on the balls of your toes.

Here’s a really great one from Jay Ward, covering tons of distance while keeping his feet underneath him. Note how he uses his arms to maintain balance and control, “banging the drum”, as he may have been told when he was younger.

Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images for ONIT

After a drawn-out legal battle between Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby and the NCAA — the NCAA denied Texas Tech’s appeal to reinstate the quarterback, who placed over $90,000 of bets in four years at Indiana and Cincinnati, and courts instituted a temporary injunction allowing him to play the season before the Big 12 independently filed suit to prevent him from playing conference games — Sorsby decided to sidestep all of that and declare for the NFL’s Supplemental Draft. He should be the first player selected in the Supplemental Draft since 2019.

I took a deep dive into his tape to determine where quarterback-needy teams should value him.

Let’s figure out what he does and how teams should approach the question of spending a 2027 pick on him.

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Table of Contents

• The Supplemental Draft Explained

  • Draft Capital of QB-Needy Teams

• Where Should Sorsby Be Valued?

• The Brendan Sorsby Scouting Report

The Supplemental Draft Explained

The Supplemental Draft order is determined by a lottery system, with teams split into three groups based on their record from the previous year (in parentheses: QB-needy teams):

1. Teams with ≤6 wins (ARI/NYJ/CLE)
2. Non-playoff teams with >6 wins (MIA/MIN/ATL)
3. Playoff teams (PIT)

The order within each tier is randomly generated by a weighted lottery, which gives better odds to those with worse records.

Teams place blind bids, tied to a specific round, on players they want to draft. Players are awarded to the highest bidder, and those teams forfeit their corresponding draft pick the following year.

Draft Capital of QB-Needy Teams

ARI: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7
NYJ: 1/1/1/2/3/4/5/5/6/6
CLE: 1/1/2/3/4/4/4/5/5/5/7/7

MIA: 1/2/3/4/5/5/6/7
MIN: 1/2/3/3/5/5/7
ATL: 1/2/3/4/5/6

PIT: 1/2/3/4/5/7/7

I see seven teams with pressing needs at quarterback, who could be in play to draft Sorsby. A third-round pick probably won’t be enough, but if it is, I expect Tier 1 (ARI/CLE) to be his floor. The Steelers are in the third tier, so they likely won’t accomplish anything by bidding a third.

I view a second-round bid as appropriate value for most teams, although Pittsburgh could justify spending a first to jump ahead of the other tiers.

Where Should Sorsby Be Valued?

I gave Sorsby a mid-2nd round grade (6.13), which would place him as a distant QB3 in the 2027 class and a close QB3 in the 2026 class. Though he could have established himself as a first-rounder with another year in college, his physical tools and feel for the position are worth a top-50 pick in a vacuum. NFL teams will not be grading Sorsby in a vacuum, however, and his off-field issues will likely cause him to slide down or off of some boards. 

The league has shown to be uncompromising in its gambling policy enforcement, giving year-long suspensions to Calvin Ridley, Isaiah Rodgers, Quintez Cephus, C.J. Moore, and Shaka Toney for betting on their teams, and a six-game (later reduced to four) suspension to Jameson Williams for placing college football bets from the team hotel. Gambling, particularly on one’s own team, seems to be one of the NFL’s few ethical red lines, but we haven’t seen it tested at the team level by a draft prospect of this caliber. 

It’s unclear where, if at all, individual teams draw that line for prospects who will be immediately eligible, but were banned or suspended for gambling in college. The closest parallel is Hunter Dekkers, who received a lifetime NCAA ban for betting on Iowa State games, went undrafted in 2025, and now plays for the Houston Gamblers. But Dekkers and Sorsby aren’t in the same zip codes as prospects, so we shouldn’t expect them to be judged by the same standard.

Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

I think most of the league would have had Sorsby graded as a late-first to mid-third round pick in last year’s class. The scale of his gambling addiction, which he described as “a compulsion which made it virtually impossible to resist the constant notifications I received from betting apps” and something he “lost complete control of”, is a major red flag that will probably limit how high GMs are willing to bid and might scare some teams off altogether. 

He’ll enter the NFL with a clean slate, but I’d be hesitant to invest an early pick in someone with such a high likelihood of recidivism. 

I would also be less willing to part ways with a 2027 pick than I would be for most classes.

While I expect many front offices to share my apprehension, league-wide quarterback desperation will drive up his value and could offset those concerns entirely.

The Brendan Sorsby Scouting Report

Strengths

• Sturdy build

• Arm talent

• Flexible release

• Velocity

• Touch

• Quick game

• Pocket mobility

• Poise under pressure

• Sack avoidance

• Short accuracy

• Deep accuracy within ~35 yards

• Movement/off-platform throws

• Decision making

Weaknesses

• Deep accuracy past ~35 yards

• Intermediate accuracy

• Anticipation

• MOF processing & ball placement

• Mechanics & footwork

• Jittery pocket movement

• Climbing the pocket

2025 Statistics

Ranks out of 118 qualifying quarterbacks

Arm Talent

Sorsby’s arm talent is his primary selling point as a quarterback prospect. He has a quick, flexible release, with the ideal blend of touch and velocity. He makes trick shots look easy and shows very little drop-off in accuracy when taking a hit or throwing off-platform.

He can accelerate his delivery in the face of pressure, or adjust his arm slot or release point to navigate crowded windows. When an unblocked defender obstructs the passing lane, Sorsby switches to a sidearm release and finds a clean angle.

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

In March of 2014, the Vikings had to let Jared Allen go.

In the midst of a messy 2013 season, Allen made it clear he was looking to contend. He did not want to stay with a Vikings team that was about to hire a new head coach and enter a full scale rebuild.

In addition, Allen had never been a true free agent, instead having been subject to tags, tenders and trades. He wanted to play the market. There wasn’t much the Vikings could do, outside of convincing Jared Allen that they’d instantly contend with a new coaching staff and a rookie quarterback to be named later.

So, Jared Allen walked. Behind him was a relatively unheralded Everson Griffen, playing well but buried on the disastrous Alan Williams defense. That March, the Vikings signed him to a five-year megadeal.

The rest is history. Griffen went on to be a four-time Pro Bowler, All Pro, and mainstay of the Vikings organization. Next to him for many years was Brian Robison, no slouch in his own right. 

In the Vikings’ 2017 NFC Championship run, Griffen totaled a career high 13 sacks while Robison rotated with a young upstart in his third season, Danielle Hunter. 2017 was Hunter’s breakout year, earning 9 sacks and an extension of his own the following offseason despite two quiet years to start his career.

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Back in the 1970s, Matt Blair and Fred McNeill waited in the wings while the Purple People Eaters devoured quarterbacks. In 1976, 3rd year Matt Blair took over for the retiring Roy Winston, and eventually became a primary pass rusher in place of Carl Eller. Fred McNeill followed a similar path as the Vikings transitioned to a 3-4 in the 1980s.

Any lifetime football fan has seen this story play out. A young player joins, waits in the wings, then takes over when the starter steps aside. Now, that young player is Dallas Turner.

Turner spent the first two years of his career buried behind Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel. In the five games where both Greenard and Van Ginkel were fully healthy, Turner averaged 26.8 defensive snaps (41.7%). In games with at least one of the starters on the injury report, Turner averaged 47.3 snaps (75.5%)

In his rookie season, Turner was so buried that Brian Flores had to try to explain it away:

Twitter tweet

After Rob Brzezinski traded Jonathan Greenard to Philadelphia on draft weekend, he admitted he wasn’t “jumping around excitedly” about losing his best defensive player for two 3rd round picks. Brzezinski appealed to the Vikings’ financial situation, presenting the deal as a value proposition the Vikings were priced into.

It’s worth mentioning that fellow Wide Leftist Matt Fries had very little trouble keeping Greenard on the roster, resetting the cap, and keeping flexibility for the future. An extension similar to what Philadelphia gave Greenard would have fit snugly into Fries’ plan.

The key difference is that Fries relied on several contract restructures, which require cash spending. Brzezinski insisted that cash spending wasn’t a limitation, nor was limiting cash spending a motivation, but that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

The most charitable conclusion I can come up with is that the Vikings felt Greenard would not be worth the money he was asking for. But even that does not try to sell some Dallas Turner improvement as a motivating factor. 

Turner did not get a mention in Brzezinski’s defense of the deal.

By at least omission, the Vikings acknowledge that they have gotten worse on the whole by moving from Greenard to Turner, and are asking us to forgive them because of the liquid assets it provided.

For what it’s worth to you, Greenard emphatically believes in Turner, comparing his situation to Will Anderson’s, who took over for Greenard in Houston.

Should we believe Greenard? Can Dallas Turner make the Vikings his team? 

The Jonathan Greenard Power Vacuum

Greenard is right about one thing: this was his team for the last two years. 

Greenard leads the team in pressures by a mile, but it’s worth noting that he also rushed the passer much more than anyone else. That’s because he never came off the field like Turner did, but also because he is the focal point of the Vikings’ pass rush strategy.

Dallas Turner posted a respectable 42 pressures in 2025, but Greenard still outproduced him, despite missing five games with a shoulder injury and playing injured for more. 

Turner will need to become a more productive rusher than he was last year in order to fill Greenard’s shoes. To understand how that can happen, we need to understand pass rushes better in general.

Twitter tweet

In the NFL, pass rushes aren’t simply a series of one-on-one matchups. You’re not regularly telling players to pin their ears back and win. Defenses want to exploit mismatches and manage the quarterback’s escape lanes.

Below is a screenshot from an old Fangio playbook from his days in Chicago. This was Chicago’s base defensive system. It’s not what the Vikings are running under Flores, but it serves as an adequate example to learn the collective basics.

Got all that?

Highlighting the important parts in orange and blue, you can think of the Rip/Liz as a strong side/weak side identifier. “Rip” identifies the right side as the strong side, “Liz” identifies the left.

So if you are “to Rip/Liz” that just means you are on the side with more passing threats. A back end defender — the “green dot,” if you will — relays this as part of the play call.

Color coding to help. Orange is the strong side, blue is the weak side.

Note that the strongside end (think Jalen Redmond for the current Vikings) must take an inside rush lane. The nose must rush away from the strength. The weak side end and the 4th rushing outside linebacker both have contain responsibilities.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Sandwiched between two lakes in the Fort Worth, TX area, a fourth grader was on a tear. Around 2007, elementary school science teacher Michael Staten decided to introduce fourth-grade student Kyler M. to chess. His classmates could not unseat him. 

Kyler Murray was one of those kids that won at everything. He was hyper-competitive and hyper-athletic, which meant that whether you were playing Connect 4 or high school football, Murray would be a force.

He holds his place as a Texas High School football legend. He once fell behind 28-10 before rattling off six straight touchdown drives. He’d regularly turn dead lost situations into explosive plays. 

He is one of very few athletes who could excel at multiple sports at the collegiate level. He is one of two athletes in history to be drafted in the first round in two of the major four professional sports leagues.

The Las Vegas Athletics, who were the Oakland Athletics when they drafted Murray, would still welcome him to the team.

Now, Murray finds himself released by the team that drafted him and subject to a quarterback competition with J.J. McCarthy.

Every other elite athlete, with the exception of Scott Burrell in the 1990s, had to focus all of their energy on one sport to excel at it. So how did Murray break that mold? How can you be that good at everything? And how can it suddenly fall apart?

In 2022, at the peak of a season that was about to collapse, Kyler Murray bragged that he can play without spending as much time as his peers watching film. He’d walk this back after it blew up in his face, but I think he really meant it. “It’s Easy” is still his bio, even as the 2022 season collapsed and Murray would never lead the Cardinals back to the playoffs. 

The best way to get into Murray’s mind might not be on the football field, but rather, over the chessboard. 

BlitzChamps

Every year, Chess.com hosts a charity exhibition tournament for professional athletes called BlitzChamps. Murray has participated every year since the 2nd edition of Blitzchamps, placing highly in each of the last three years. On May 26th, Blitzchamps V wrapped up with Kyler Murray losing to Justin Herbert in the semifinal, and again in the loser’s final.

Fittingly, these events use a Blitz format. That means each player has only three minutes total to play the game out. Players don’t have time for concrete calculation and have to act on instinct and principle. Which makes it perfect for Kyler Murray’s approach.

Murray prefers to play the Italian Game as white. It starts with a pawn move to e4 followed by developing a bishop and knight. With two centralized pieces and the option to castle quickly unlocked, it gives Murray a lot of tools. 

It’s popular for a reason. It’s one of the most well-covered openings in chess. That means there is a lot of opportunity to memorize the ins and outs and gain an advantage in a format where every second to think is precious.

Kyler Murray does not do this.

Here is how this year’s elimination game against Justin Reid kicked off. Reid beat Murray in the championship for both of the last two years, so he had his work cut out for him.

The Italian Game opening! Sort of!

Experienced chess players will notice a problem here: Reid played the Sicilian. The Sicilian is insanely complicated, but it always starts with black playing C5. Playing that same bishop move in the start is no longer called the Italian Game. Now, Kyler has played the Bowdler Attack, and it’s not a great idea. 

Reid’s pawn gets to freely control two squares, including d4, where the knight wants to go. Reid can also play e6 and blunt the bishop’s range of options. 

Justin Reid gets free real estate if he goes to freerealestateforjim.biz

That’s not how this game goes down, but it’s revealing that Kyler Murray will stick to his series of Italian Game moves, even when they are universally understood as a bad idea. Italian Game players usually have a specific response to the Sicilian that they’ll play instead of their main strategy. 

Think of it like lining up a short cornerback against a tall receiver. You can win sometimes, but you’ll be at an objective disadvantage, and you may want to think about rotating your defensive backs a different way. 

Every chess game eventually gets to its own unique position, never played before (it’s a cool math thing, we don’t have time). This uncharted territory is where Kyler is clearly more comfortable.

Here, he lays a trap. He moves his queen to f3, separating it from the knight on d4. On its surface, it looks like he blundered something juicy.

Wow, that block of cheese under that cardboard box propped up by a stick looks great

Reid could follow the path laid out above by taking the knight on d4, then the pawn on c2. That would put the king in check, forcing Murray to waste a move running away while Reid took the rook on a1.

It’s too good to be true!

Double question marks means very bad!

While Reid snatches up what he thinks is a free knight, his pawn on f7 is in dire straits. See that white bar on the left side? That’s a sort of win probability meter. You will notice it is entirely white. Murray can now take the f7 pawn with his queen, put the king in check, and the only legal move for Reid is to slide the king to d8.

Kyler Murray still plays a game or two of Blitz chess, or the even faster Bullet chess, once or twice per day.

After that, the queen can continue her rampage, take the bishop, and that’s checkmate. Kyler Murray wins. Justin Reid goes home. Reid had to resist that free knight and deal with the problem on f7 to continue the game normally. 

In the early game of chess, “attack the f7 pawn” is a good principle. In blitz chess, you have to rely on those principles to find opportunities like the one Murray takes advantage of. Keep that mentality in mind.

There is a limit to how much you can accomplish without memorizing opening theory. Playing fast chess on vibes works, but it can only carry you so far.

This is why I’m bringing up this random chess game. Murray displayed a lack of study for a player at his level, but found a way to win in the chaos of the middle game. Kyler Murray thrives in chaos. So much so that he invites it.

That’s the Kyler Murray quote that got him in so much trouble in 2021. Much like Kevin O’Connell, who dropped his infamous “organizations fail young quarterbacks” quote in 2024 after a 3-0 start, Murray was taking something of a victory lap. The Cardinals were 10-4 and leading the NFC West when this article got published, and Murray was in the MVP conversation.  

Never take a victory lap.

The Cardinals finished that season losing 4 of 5, lost the division and bounced right out of the playoffs in the Wild Card round. As Kyler’s play declined, that quote came back up. Similar to O’Connell, the quote doesn’t sting you until people are mad at your performance.

It aptly describes his chess, based on my extremely amateur ability to analyze 1200-1300 level blitz games. Does it describe his football game as well?

How To Improvise Like Kyler Murray

We’re Switching to Beehiiv!

Now that we’ve entered the dead zone of the NFL offseason, Wide Left has the ability to make some changes we’ve been planning for some time now. The biggest such change is moving our publication from Substack to Beehiiv.

In the short term, this should mean no changes for you, the reader. You’ll continue to receive emails with updated analysis and news, formatted in a slightly different way because of the change in platform.

In the long term, we hope to add new features to the site to provide a bit more for subscribers. Is that why we made the change? In part, but not entirely.

To help support us in this switch, consider subscribing at a discounted rate!

Switching Platforms

We don’t always have the luxury of choosing what systems we need to interact with in order to thrive. That’s true in business as well as in everyday life; we might make a decision to avoid Amazon but still find ourselves interacting with an exploitative supply chain for our food. One might go to a locally owned clinic but still rely on behemoth-sized insurance companies and global pharmaceuticals in order to acquire necessary medicine.

Indeed, the very infrastructure of the internet we rely on requires the use of these mega corporations whose values don’t align with mine; “Tier 1” networks are generally the networks that build the backbone of the internet. Owners of this infrastructure don’t charge transit fees to each other but do charge carriage fees for other networks to use their pipes.

They are unavoidable, and it’s the case that I need to use AT&T, Lumen, Verizon or other such networks at some point in the chain if I want to run an internet business. Or exist at all. These networks lobby governments around the world in order to maintain their monopolies, fund far-right media operations, cooperate with illegal government surveillance regimes and lobby to destroy a fair, neutral internet.

The leftist canard that “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” is not to suggest that one shouldn’t try to make ethical choices whenever possible, but rather that one is constrained and that even the most ethical consumption decisions have ethical baggage; we need to focus on systems rather than individual choices when we want to forge ethical pathways forward.

This is why I’m not (generally) upset when other creators take on sponsors or make content decisions that I avoid; we all deal with different constraints and have different audiences that define our decision pathway. On top of that, many of us have teams or employees to watch out for and cannot just make decisions that impact only ourselves.

But, sometimes, we get the choice to measurably improve our impact on the world. Here, we get to leave Substack for Beehiiv.

The Ethics of Our Infrastructure

So, why would leaving Substack constitute that kind of ethical choice we rarely get to make? For different people, there may be different answers. There are a few reasons. I’ve always been uncomfortable with Substack’s ownership structure, with a16z — also known as Andreessen Horowitz — likely the largest institutional investor that owns somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of Substack.

But before we get into Andreessen Horowitz, we can talk a little bit about how the platform itself operates.

Many people have decided to leave Substack because they’ve consistently platformed — here meaning both “provided a platform” to, in a literal sense, as well as the more colloquial sense of “boosting” such content — Nazis.

Something I often encounter when I see people discuss “Nazis” in contemporary politics is eyerolling and an assumption that commentators are exaggerating or conflating more acceptable political worldviews with an almost cartoonish avatar of evil. Godwin’s Law.

But, that’s not really the case here. Self-described Nazis are on the platform. People who call themselves white nationalists, white supremacists, race realists and National Socialists are on the platform, making money for themselves and Andreessen Horowitz by denying the Holocaust.

It’s more than just hosting the platform; Substack had actually sent a push notification to unsubscribed users for a publication that describes itself as “National Socialist weekly newsletter featuring opinions and news important to the National Socialist and White Nationalist Community.”

In response to this, Substack apologized for sending that push notification but not for hosting or profiting from that content. They argued for “free speech absolutism,” an odd stance for a corporation to take regarding its own platform rather than one that applies to, say, governments.

In response, they said, “But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetising publications) makes the problem go away – in fact, it makes it worse."

This is the dream of institutional liberals and maximalist libertarians: that open and free dialogue reduces extremist impulses. The evidence suggests overwhelmingly that this is not the case. Deplatforming reduces the reach and spread of extremist ideology. While some research suggests that migration to alternate platforms increases radicalization of some individual banned users, even as they do not find an audience to spread their violent ideologies, the net effect on banned users is moderation.

So, in short, no. This is a flimsy excuse to continue making money by profiting off of extremists. This year, Andrew Tate joined the platform and became a bestseller.

But there are other reasons to be concerned about Substack’s affiliation with right-wing extremism.

Marc Andreessen, one of the two billionaires who owns Andreessen Horowitz, recently went viral for claiming that introspection is a modern invention that holds people back. Aside from the fact that introspection is the basis of all modern philosophy in every cultural tradition dating back thousands of years, it’s also a shockingly worrying advocacy for someone who controls the platform I publish from.

That, along with what he himself calls “AI Accelerationism,” is enough for me to feel uncomfortable — but neither of these is enough substance for me to spend time talking about him specifically in the context of leaving the platform he partially owns.

Instead, it’s how his “techno-optimism” serves eugenics and a deeply conservative politics. He published a manifesto on this worldview and in it, he draws on a number of futurist philosophers and writers throughout history. He includes a citation list at the bottom of his manifesto, and in it, he encourages people to read (among others) Italian fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Again, this isn’t an exaggeration; Marinetti was a co-author of the Fascist Manifesto in 1919. In his Manifesto of Futurism, he says “We will glorify war — the only true hygiene of the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchists, the beautiful Ideas which kill, and the scorn of woman.”

He also adds “We will destroy museums, libraries and fight against moralism, feminism and all utilitarian cowardice.”

His Futurist Political Party merged with Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Party in 1919 and continued to develop party philosophy through the 1920s.

His work is echoed in Andreessen’s screed, where he argues that social responsibility is an ill that needs to be wiped out for society to progress:

Throughout the manifesto, Andreessen continues to make unproven arguments, some bordering on the absurd — like the claim that people act only for “love,” “money,” or “force,” a claim wholly unsupported by any studies of human behavior.

Worryingly, Andreessen vaguely gestures at his eugenic tendencies in the piece when he talks about “Becoming Technological Supermen,” but we’ve seen him substantiate these beliefs more explicitly in other fora, like in a podcast where he talks about IQ engineering and eugenics in response to the “population crisis.”

He also, including in his manifesto, heartily recommends accelerationist Nick Land — a contributor to Curtis Yarvin’s “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy, one that dispenses with notions like democracy and consent of the governed for a monarchical libertarian future. It has been characterized accurately as techno-feudalism and neo-Fascism.

This isn’t a game of trying to connect dots from one thinker to another; aside from the fact that Andreessen directly recommends Land’s work on this technofeudalism, he also recommends Yarvin’s work as part of his futurist philosophy.

Sometimes, we can’t help but put money in the pockets of people who will turn around to use it to make our lives worse. But this time, Wide Left gets to make the choice to avoid this particular pitfall in this specific way.

 Beehiiv is not wholly independent and has received investment from venture capital firms — no one is free from this particular sin in the modern economy — but, as far as I can tell, ownership is diffuse enough among private equity and venture capital firms that the impact is relatively minimal.

The concern with platforms owned in part by a16z (Andreessen) or the Founders Fund (Peter Thiel) is that they funnel money directly into political projects designed to rob us of our rights. Beehiiv’s investor list, which constitutes far smaller ownership shares than Andreessen Horowitz has in Substack, is not ideologically pure; Lightspeed also invests in the defense industry, and so does NEA.

But it is a big move away from some of the most serious concerns I’ve had with Substack. Not only is significantly less subscriber money going to these firms (more on that below), but the impact each dollar has with regard to my primary ideological concerns is minuscule by comparison.

It’s absolutely crazy that Curtis Yarvin allowed the New Yorker to take this … vanity? … image of him. Bizarre framing, composition and intention with this image of a neo-fascist. Photograph by Carolyn Drake for The New Yorker

Non-Ideological Reasons

There are other reasons to move on from Substack, too. Speaking purely as a writer evaluating the platform's structure, it is fairly good for people starting out; Substack charges a 10% fee for every paid subscriber — easily absorbable early on — and has powerful network effects that connect like-minded writers and their readers across populations. It’s great for growth in a number of ways.

It’s also a fairly turnkey solution; one can get started writing immediately without worrying about needing the technical knowledge and design instincts to put together a functioning, easy-to-use website for writers and readers.

Beehiiv approached Wide Left a while ago about moving our newsletter to their platform. Even before they approached us, we had discussions about moving our publication to Beehiiv or another platform for both technical and ethical reasons.

It wasn’t a good time for that, however, and we still needed to engage with economic reality.

Substack’s biggest draw for newsletter writers is their recommendation engine; when people sign up for our newsletter, they receive recommendations to subscribe to others based on the publications I specifically recommend and similar newsletters in the network based on what other subscribers have signed up for.

These network effects are significant for a newsletter like ours; a sizable portion of our readership comes from recommendations through other Substack newsletters. One must always be aware of where one’s data comes from, but Substack’s internal analytics indicate that about 25 percent of our paying subscribers came through their network.

In short, I need to eat.

That’s primarily the answer to why we wouldn’t have done that before, despite Substack’s well-known issues. Even now, Wide Left runs on debt.

If you’d like to help us as we switch platforms, we would love your support!

But while Substack’s fee system is fine for smaller publications, it seemingly punishes growth. Beehiiv’s fee structure will save the publication thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

There are some feature-side benefits to switching as well.

Substack is great for those who don’t want to be involved with the technical side of running a website, but those with a bit more technical knowledge or willingness to learn will find themselves held back. The element that makes it user-friendly can also limit it.

We want to offer more features and give our readers much more bang for their buck. We have a few ideas in mind but need to work on them before even promising that we can offer them in any real way. We couldn’t do that on Substack’s platform and the hope is that we can find a way to do that on Beehiiv.

We’ve also mentioned before that being a paid newsletter doesn’t preclude us from taking on ads. Substack doesn’t really have an internal ad network to use, while Beehiiv does. We’re in full control of those ads and we can avoid advertising for companies or newsletters that violate our values — when approached, it’s been almost entirely for prediction markets and gambling sites.

So, you may see some inserted ads going forward. But not from Kalshi.

There will be some technical hiccups as we transition all the content over to the new platform. If you encounter one, please let us know.

Despite these up-front benefits, there is a long-term risk. We hope to build the kind of site that readers want to return to again and again to pay off that risk.

Thanks for following along.

[Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of Matt Fries’ Mock Free Agency Part 1, which you can find here]

Minnesota Vikings interim GM Rob Brzezinski will have his work cut out for him as he tries to improve the roster. The team has several holes and is well over the salary cap for 2026. The NFL has finalized its salary cap at $301.2 million for the 2026 season, which means the Vikings are $45.5 million over the cap, per OverTheCap.

To be fair, the team can easily move money around to get cap compliant, and Wide Left has covered how the Vikings can get under the cap, which impending free agents the team should keep, and what needs the team will have heading into free agency. This piece will combine those moves and dive into available outside free agents, creating a full mock free agency for the team.

Author’s Note: I want this exercise to be as realistic as possible, but it is not necessarily a prediction. In some of these situations, I’m suggesting a move the team is unlikely to make, but it’s the better choice. There are many winding paths, and at some point, you just have to make a decision. Information on the salary cap and existing contracts comes from OTC. For contract projections, I projected the structures myself, but I used multiple resources to determine contract values, including PFF’s projections by Josh Queipo, The Athletic’s projections by Daniel Popper, and, when those were missing, player value judgments from OTC and Spotrac.

Table of Contents

• Filling Out the Roster, Part 1: Re-signings

• Filling Out the Roster, Part 2: The QB Decision

• Filling Out the Roster, Part 3: Free Agency Additi …

• Final Roster and Cap Implications

Filling Out the Roster, Part 1: Re-signings

Jalen Nailor #1 of the Minnesota Vikings celebrates after his receiving touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys during the fourth quarter at AT&T Stadium on December 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

As can be seen above, the Vikings have several free agents. While they don’t have many starters leaving, there are a few players who will be critical to re-sign. I’m projecting they retain 11 players total, all of whom are rosterable in 2026.

There are a few rosterable players that I’m choosing not to re-sign, but I could see bringing them back as bottom-of-the-roster players.

Re-sign WR Jalen Nailor for 3 years, $21 million

Salary Cap Impact: $4,333,333 mil in 2026, $5,333,333 mil in 2027, $11,333,33 mil in 2028

Nailor was one of the most difficult projections in this entire piece. The different resources I used have his contract projections all over the map. PFF has him ranked as the 12th-best WR on the market, 114th overall among free agents, and projects him to get a one-year, $3.5 million deal.

The Athletic has him ranked fifth among receivers and 29th overall, earning a three-year, $36 million deal. OTC lists his value at just over $7 million, while Spotrac lists him at just under $5 million.

I like what Nailor brings to the receiver room: he can play all three positions, is a willing blocker, gets off the press, and threatens defenses vertically. But Nailor’s production lags far behind, and he never eclipsed 500 yards or 30 receptions with the Vikings. Even KJ Osborn, who got just $4 million in free agency, had three consecutive seasons of 500+ yards for the Vikings.

ome team could well take a chance on Nailor at the $12 million/year The Athletic projects, but it’s fair to split the valuations and project a three-year, $21 million deal for Nailor. This offers a nice pay bump while not overextending for a player who will be the team’s WR3.

For structure, I’m giving Nailor a $7 million signing bonus and $12 million fully guaranteed over the first two years of the deal. This will mean a $2 million salary in 2026 and a $3 million salary in 2027. The Vikings will have an opportunity to get out of the contract at that point, but if Nailor plays well (and, potentially, the team moves on from Addison), he can earn $9 million in 2028. So, the deal is a two-year, $12 million contract with a $9 million option.

If some other team chooses to bet big on Nailor, the other FA options at WR are questionable at best. My two favorites from the bargain bin are Tyquan Thornton and Jahan Dotson. Dotson seems to be entirely overlooked, as neither PFF nor The Athletic has him ranked in the top 150. Dotson was the fifth wheel in a loaded Eagles skill group, much like Nailor was the forgotten man at times on the Vikings.

Running 2026 Operating Cap Space Tally: $34,619,734

Re-sign LB Eric Wilson for 2 years, $10 million

Salary Cap Impact: $3,250,000 mil in 2026, $6,750,000 mil in 2027

Wilson is another tricky projection, as he suddenly broke out with the Vikings in his ninth season at 31 years old. His production was dependent on Brian Flores’ scheme, where he was an incredible blitzer.

So, Wilson might not translate well into other schemes. He is undersized compared to other LBs, like Kaden Elliss and Frankie Luvu, who have made names for themselves. The biggest risk is in Washington, if Daronte Jones wants to bring some of Flores’ scheme over and thinks Wilson can help teach other players.

Like with Nailor, the projections are split on Wilson. PFF ranks him egregiously low at 269th and does not have a contract projection for him. The Athletic has him getting a three-year, $19.5 million deal. My projection for Wilson is a two-year, $10 million deal that rewards a player who had a fantastic year on a small contract without breaking the bank.

This deal is similar to the one Jordan Hicks, an aging player at that time, signed with the Vikings in 2022. I’m giving Wilson a $2.5 million signing bonus, adding $2 million in salary in 2026, and $5.5 million to round out the contract in 2027. For the deal, I’ve projected $5 million guaranteed, which means there would be at least some pain, $500k, if the Vikings cut him before the 2027 season.

Running 2026 Operating Cap Space Tally: $32,254,734

On Sunday, Dan Duggan, The Athletic’s beat reporter for the New York Giants, penned a column to discuss the back-and-forth locker room drama surrounding quarterback Jaxson Dart’s decision to appear at a Trump rally and teammate Abdul Carter’s public objection.

Duggan’s column reflected a poison that has become an insidious part of sportswriting and has been for decades.

He led his column with three paragraphs of posturing about how he doesn’t care — or even know about — politics.

This is an abdication of one’s responsibilities as a citizen and as a sportswriter.

Initially, it might seem like his pure commitment to intentional ignorance is a retreat into being shielded from the consequences of weighty decision-making or public accountability. And it may very well be.

But more than that, it’s arrogance.

Counterintuitively, this kind of signaling is often meant to convey seriousness and intelligence; in this construction, politics is theater and frivolity. It is no different than looking down on people for liking pop music or reality television.

The fact that this is in service to something inarguably more frivolous than politics — sports — is hilarious.

Table of Contents:

• The Luxury of Apathy

• Bad Process is Bad Reporting

• Not Mere Theater

• “Objectivity” — A Systemic Poison 

The Luxury of Apathy

Nevertheless, there has been some discussion speculating that Duggan is “lying” about this stance of his and that he’s secretly a Trump supporter. I haven’t seen any evidence of that throughout his writing, even when sensitive topics like Colin Kaepernick come up, and I have no reason to think he isn’t writing what he believes to be true of himself.

The problem is that a political orientation of apathy prioritizes the status quo, an ultimately conservative instinct. While the current regime of conservative politics does more than maintain the system as-is — there’s a genuine attempt at rollback and move towards an imagined historical ideal — apathy reinforces power.

It is easy to ignore politics as a middle-class cis white man. It is more difficult for my trans friends, who are fighting for their lives every day for access to health care. It is tough to ignore politics when one has to choose between medication and food or when underlying systemic factors impact auto loans, mortgages, education, access to hospitals, law enforcement and hiring.

Duggan is enjoying the luxury not to care.

This column engages in what is essentially defensive writing. That itself is not a huge criticism; I often engage in defensive writing — pre-empting common criticisms or responses — in my opinion-forward columns. He wants to prevent readers from accusing him of writing the issue with bias that would otherwise cloud his analysis of the Giants locker room.

The issue is that the defensive argumentation has stolen the focus of the piece and disrupted the flow of the writing. It’s a slog to read, and there’s no momentum heading into the parts he wants to discuss. Three paragraphs of defense before ever hitting a point he actually wants to make.

Ostensibly, the intent of the piece was to discuss the locker room impact of having “big personalities” — a ridiculous framing — on one team. Instead, the reader comments are (or were, before moderation) primarily about Duggan’s stated non-stance. Was this the goal?

The rest of the piece is thin, but it’s not an entirely poor recap of the issues the Giants locker room might face with a roster prone to inviting in non-football news stories. It threads together unrelated news items and brings them into a cohesive conclusion that, while somewhat unremarkable, is still functionally within the scope of Duggan’s job.

Everyone who has written for the Athletic, me included, has written a piece that does this, and it would be ridiculous of me to exempt myself from the critique of a shallow, but reasonably well-constructed piece that would otherwise not make many waves when bringing together a useful set of shared concerns.

But there’s a reason this piece drew over 1,000 comments at The Athletic, despite there being several other pieces one could comment on for this event that have been directly fed to Giants fans. The comments are not about the common factors linking Carter, Dart, Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo.

Bad Process is Bad Reporting

The moral cowardice of refusing to take a stance aside, this makes Dan a much less effective sports reporter. Without an understanding of why Dart took the risk of making a public stance or why a Black Muslim man might object to Dart’s support for a racist, Duggan can only report on the surface-level impact of these kinds of things.

Indeed, his third paragraph made it clear he didn’t expect to have to address this at all.

One is not a better journalist in any arena — sports, arts & entertainment, science, religion, lifestyle, business, cooking or even video games coverage — because one ignores the institutions that impact all of these systems in obvious and non-obvious ways.

Can one cover the games industry without talking about the spike in RAM prices? Can one discuss the types of food Americans eat without learning about agricultural subsidies? How are the costs of products impacted by oil prices and war in the Persian Gulf? How do tariffs impact fashion? Can we have a conversation about religion in the news while ignoring the Pope’s stance on American intervention? Can we do science journalism without understanding the extraordinary blow to science funding we’ve experienced? How can we discuss any entertainment at all if we don’t talk about the people who produce it?

These are all political questions, and while coverage of these newspaper sections can be done without this knowledge, one is, inarguably, a worse journalist without knowing about these things.

With the New York Giants specifically, anyone with any level of political insight would be able to detect that there was some possibility that Dart’s endorsement could cause strife in the locker room. There’d been endless discussion about the volatility of the first Trump election inside NFL locker rooms, with some banning discussion of the election because of how explosive it could become.

Without serious political interrogation, Duggan doesn’t have the ability to discern why players might find it objectionable or how they might feel the need to violate established norms of keeping “locker room issues” inside the locker room and address things publicly — outside of calling Carter a “big personality” or saying they have “political disagreements.”

This flattening of distinctions does not serve readers, despite Duggan’s suggestion that his ignorance benefits those wanting to learn more about the Giants. Why would a Black Muslim man feel that objecting to Trump was important enough to risk strife in a locker room?

Every year, the NFL brings in about 450 undrafted free agent rookies into training camp. About 45 of them make the roster the week prior to the NFL season. Even fewer make it to Week 1 as teams sign veterans to fill out the roster. In total, about nine percent of undrafted free agents make the opening-day roster.

That means about one or two per UDFA class for each team should make the roster, which is a bit higher than we typically see in 53-man roster projections. This doesn’t include the undrafted free agents who end up on practice squads only to make the roster later.

We know about the star stories — Adam Thielen, James Harrison, Tony Romo and Kurt Warner — but many UDFAs contribute in more ways than becoming leading stars at their position. Even more provide outstanding and critical rotational value or do meaningful work on special teams.

Key starters like Reed Blankenship, Ronnie Hickman, Jalen Sundell, Charvarius Ward, Alaric Jackson, Rashid Shaheed and Carl Granderson join essential role players like Jalen Coker, Jordan Mason, Emmanuel Wilson, Gage Larvadain, Nazir Stackhouse and Danny Strigow as important undrafted contributors for their respective teams.

That’s not to mention a bevy of special teamers, who include Devon Key, Del’Shawn Phillips, Jeremy Reaves, Joe Andreessen, George Odum, Jake Hansen and Brenden Schooler.

We know that undrafted free agents play a critical part in putting together a winning team, but the nature of UDFAs — teams generally didn’t think they were even good enough to draft — makes them difficult to predict.

Nevertheless, we’ve got some key clues: guaranteed money and the Consensus Big Board.

Roster-Make Rates

Every so often, you might see a graphic on a television broadcast or online showcasing how important UDFAs are to roster construction that can be interpreted incorrectly by those presenting the data or those looking at it without context.

Some broadcasters use this to say that you’re more likely to make an impact as a UDFA than as a seventh-round pick, which really isn’t the case. There are more UDFAs on rosters than there are in any Day Three pick group, as you can see.

In the example above, Yahoo! Sports’ Jay Busbee does bring up why this is the case – more than ten times as many UDFAs sign with teams than are drafted in any particular round – but still quotes former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum as saying, “You could make the argument that not getting drafted is better than going in later rounds.”

In either case, we can do better – we can use post-training camp cutdown rosters to estimate make rates for each individual round and compare them to the UDFA population.

From there, we can estimate how much guaranteed money and pre-draft acclaim can help us predict which undrafted free agents are most likely to end up on a roster or make an impact.

I gathered 2018 to 2024 data on the roster-make percentage on cutdown day for each draft round. This data isn’t completely definitive; it treats those put on injured reserve as “misses,” which means that players like Jameson Williams and J.J. McCarthy didn’t “make” their teams.

Nevertheless, it’s useful because injury risk is (mostly) evenly distributed across rounds, even though you’d expect players with injury concerns to be drafted later.

If we look at data from 2021 to 2025, the roster-make rate for UDFAs has slightly risen to 9.5 percent, but this is a pretty good baseline to work from.

But that’s all it is, just a baseline. We know that teams put much more stock in some undrafted free agents than others. Using guaranteed money, we might be able to predict which players have the best odds of making the roster.

Combining that with the consensus rank of those UDFAs gives us an even better model for figuring out which players have the best odds of making the roster.

Validating the Approach

Is the model any good? It turned out to be pretty good in 2025 and has been fairly predictive for several years running.

Last year, ten percent of the undrafted free agent class — 46 of 460 players — were given roster-make estimates between 18.0 and 25.0 percent, for an average roster-make rate of 19.9 percent. In order to approximately meet that mark, we’d need nine (9.2) of them to make the roster on opening day.

That’s exactly what happened; Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson (Titans), Bam Martin-Scott (Panthers), Benjamin Yurosek (Vikings), Max Brosmer (Vikings), Beaux Collins (Giants), Efton Chism III (Patriots), Karene Reid (Broncos), Torricelli Simpkins III (Saints), and Johnathan Edwards (Colts) all made their respective team rosters.

152 of the free agents were given a five percent chance or less of making the roster for an average estimated roster-make rate of 3.5 percent. That gives us an expected value of five (5.3) players making their rosters. Six of them did, further validating the exercise.

Those six — Keyon Martin (Ravens), Rueben Lowery III (Ravens), Cooper McDonald (Chiefs), Marlow Wax (Chargers), Myles Price (Vikings) and John Bullock (Buccaneers) — put in outstanding efforts to personally beat the odds.

At a large scale, however, the numbers are what they are. Guarantees tell us what teams think of a player’s talent level and the Consensus Board seemingly gives us an eye into talent level that teams may have missed.

This holds up over a larger sample — from 2021 to 2025, there were 166 players given roster-make rates between 25.0 percent and 18.0 percent and 36 of them made the opening-day roster (21.7 percent). The estimated number (34) and rate (20.5 percent) was very close.

Which Matters More? Money or Rank?

These models only estimate likelihood and cannot provide certainties. Players without significant guaranteed money or acclaim from analysts make rosters every year.

Last year, six unranked players made rosters. Three were mentioned above — Martin (Ravens), Lowery (Ravens) and McDonald (Chiefs) — and three more earned high guarantees, giving them better odds. They were Darius Cooper Jr. (Eagles), Nick Kallerup (Seahawks) and Ale Kaho (Commanders). Martin, Lowery and McDonald earned nothing in guaranteed money while Kaho ($75,000), Cooper ($90,000) and Kallerup ($259,000) earned significant guarantees.

Now that we’re in the dead of the offseason, it’s time to break down the long-awaited 2027 NFL Draft class. My excitement for this class has been building for two years, and it took a lot of restraint to avoid looking ahead, but I can finally lean back from the edge of my seat and dive in.

I’ve completed evaluations of the consensus top ten, which I’ll break down in depth for this piece. I don’t put a lot of stock in the early preseason consensus, but it’s a good starting point to introduce the class.

While there are some players I’m lower on, the 2027 Class, as a whole, has lived up to the hype. Of the ten players I evaluated for this article, I have first-round grades on each of the top eight, and early second-round grades on the last two.

The top of the board is mostly comprised of young, athletic, former five-star recruits who already have a year or two of production under their belts. Compared to the last two years, 2027 is teeming with blue-chip talent; however, I’m only 80 players in, so I don’t yet have a strong sense of the class's depth.

Where Do I Rank the Consensus Top Ten?

1. WR Jeremiah Smith - Ohio State

Consensus Rank: 1
My Rank: 1
Grade: Top 5
Biggest Strength: Size + Speed
Biggest Weakness: Intermediate Route Running
NFL Comp: Andre Johnson

Jeremiah Smith is an imposing X with a generational combo of size, speed, and explosiveness. Since 2024, he has led FBS WRs in receiving yards (2,558), touchdowns (27), first downs (101), EPA (140.5), 25+ yard receptions (27), and yards/route run (3.44). His change-of-direction skills are mediocre, as expected for a receiver of his size, but it’s almost impossible to overstate his physical tools or linear athleticism.

Smith launches off the line of scrimmage and into vertical stems, stacking the DB early and extending separation with long strides. He’s unfazed by contact, but would benefit from refining his footwork and release package. At the catch point, Smith has outstanding focus, ball-tracking skills, and hand-eye coordination. He has an enormous catch radius to secure off-target throws and makes one-handed catches look easy. On 211 career targets, he has just three drops (1.8%). He also does a great job of establishing late catch space to win jump balls down the sideline:

Though Smith will immediately be a matchup weapon on the vertical plane and at the catch point, he has room to grow as an intermediate route runner. He weaponizes his size at the top of routes, bullying defenders out of phase with push-offs and wipes. Until referees start calling OPI, there’s no reason to abandon this strategy, but he’s still too dependent on physicality and athleticism to separate.

His abrupt deceleration allows him to separate on stops and comebacks, slightly expanding his route tree. He’s much more effective disguising his breaks than setting them up, however. He runs stems with his eyes/head facing the end zone to avoid telegraphing his route, but his nuance and salesmanship at the break point are underdeveloped. As a bigger receiver, he also struggles at times to cleanly transition on more complex routes.

2. QB Arch Manning - Texas

Consensus Rank: 2
My Rank: 2
Grade: Top 5
Biggest Strength: Pocket Presence
Biggest Weakness: Accuracy
NFL Comp: Drake Maye as a prospect

Arch Manning’s preseason hype came to a screeching halt after his Week 1 performance vs. Ohio State. But while everyone turned their attention to other quarterback prospects, Manning quietly developed and rebuilt his stock. Over the second half of 2025, he began to play like the premier quarterback prospect he was billed as.

Manning is a tall, sturdy pocket passer with ideal physical tools for the NFL. His arm strength (range) is above average, and he complements that with a quick release; he can generate enough velocity to pierce tight windows. He’s a true dual-threat with breakaway speed, contact balance, and elusiveness in the open field. Texas fully unleashed him as a runner late in the year, and he recorded 223 of his 519 rushing yards in the final two games.

He’s a clean processor who can get his eyes to the backside and hit his second or third read. When given time to hang in the pocket, Manning consistently diced up zone coverage and moved the chains on third down. He uses his eyes to manipulate second-level defenders, expand/shift passing lanes, and create openings vs. tight coverage.

But he’s still a bit too slow and methodical getting through his reads and will need to accelerate his process at the next level. Learning to eliminate options pre-snap will allow him to get ahead of the progression and target zone coverage with better timing. He’s fearless attacking the sideline vs. Cover-2, and has the perfect blend of touch and velocity to layer hole shots into concealed windows. He’ll throw with anticipation when the picture is clear, but is at times hesitant to attack tight windows over the middle of the field.

Decision-making was a problem early in the season, but it became a clear strength down the stretch. Manning had 14 turnover-worthy plays and 5 interceptions over the first six games, but only three turnover-worthy plays and two interceptions in the final seven. He eventually struck a healthy balance between playing aggressively and protecting the football, and by the end of the year, I had full trust in his decision-making.

Manning’s pocket movement is exceptional. He remains calm and composed when the pocket heats up, but still operates with enough urgency to beat the shot clock. He takes strong pocket climbs, shrugging off edge pressure with his eyes downfield and finding a clean launch point. He can dodge interior pressure or rip out of arm tackles, and is a very difficult quarterback to bring down. In 2025, he faced 165 pressured dropbacks (6th most in FBS) but had only a 13.3% pressure-to-sack rate.

Manning’s accuracy and mechanics must improve for him to reach his upside. He posted a ≤ 60% completion rate in seven of his thirteen starts last year, and while drops slightly deflated his production, the tape and advanced metrics show Manning deserves plenty of the blame.

According to Sports Info Solutions, he had a 66.3% on-target rate in 2025, which ranked in the 20th percentile among FBS quarterbacks. He has pinpoint accuracy to the intermediate sideline, but very little command of ball placement to other parts of the field. He sails short/intermediate passes over the middle and threw a couple of digs directly to the free safety. Pressure causes his footwork to unravel and leads to brutal misses at every level.

He throws a very catchable deep ball, but his placement is imprecise. On 25+ air yard throws, his on-target rate (39.5%) ranked 81st of 111, but his catchable rate (67.4%) ranked 37th. So he doesn’t have a ton of egregious misses downfield, but he needs receivers who can track and adjust to the ball. His ball placement is also scattershot when throwing on the move or from an unorthodox arm slot, and significantly worse to his left. Last year, he was on-target on 20/27 movement throws to his right, but just 5/19 to his left, according to Sports Info Solutions.

3. QB Dante Moore - Oregon

Welcome to the landing page for the Consensus Big Board for the 2026 NFL Draft. As often as possible, I’ve tried to provide it free, without subscription, to as many people as possible.

To that end, this piece is free to everyone, as is the data.

The insights generated from the board, which include analyses such as who the most polarizing players are in the draft, the difference between evaluators and forecasters, and post-draft team grades, will continue to be subscriber exclusives. This page will serve as a hub for those pieces, so you can find them if you feel the need.

• Why Use This Consensus Board?

• Using the Consensus Board to Find the Most Polarizing Players in the 2026 NFL Draft

• Forecasters and Evaluators: What’s the Difference and Why Does it Matter?

• The Consensus Big Board Grades the 2026 NFL Draft

• Ranking the 2026 UDFA Classes with the Consensus Big Board

From two years ago:

• Which Draft Analysts Predict the Draft the Best? Who’s Right on Players? And is the Consensus Board any Good?

Even if those pieces don’t strike you as appealing, I would urge a subscription to keep efforts like this running; this project takes dozens of hours every year and many of the boards in use are proprietary and behind paywalls.

What Makes This Consensus Board Different?

There are, by now, a half-dozen or so consensus boards out there. In some respects, they are more useful than this one – many of them have been running throughout the season, giving us a good barometer for a player’s stock and giving fans a genuine look at the players they might want to pay attention to during bowl games.

They also happen to be more focused, with particular emphasis on big-media boards, preventing unorthodox and uninformed rankings from polluting the system.

But I believe there’s a lot of value in this board, too. Every year, I’ve been able to gather anywhere between 50 and 90 big boards to provide a larger survey on the industry’s feelings about prospects in the draft.

For more on that topic, check out the piece below.

This year, we’ve gathered over 100 boards and anticipate having at least 115 by the time the draft rolls around.

We’ve been able to use the size of that data to leverage unique insights, like the ones described above. Using just ten boards wouldn’t give us a meaningful understanding of variance in player rankings and they don’t have the ability to split boards by type.

The boards used in this ranking are all updated in the month of April — some consensus boards take the average of all boards, including ones from the same analyst multiple times over many months — something I try to avoid.

On top of that, there’s also value in the approach I take to the board, which isn’t to average out the ranks across the industry but to average out the implied player values. There is admittedly more transparency in the approach that averages out player ranks across big boards, but it has the unfortunate side effect of suggesting that the difference between 145th and 147th is the same as the difference between 1st and 3rd.

In the NFL draft, that’s not how player ranks or player value works – the decision to rank a player first is a big decision; it signifies that teams should be willing to move heaven and earth to acquire that kind of player. That’s not the case at 145th.

Often, players ranked between 145th and 147th aren’t all that different. But the differences between the two are treated as the same in most consensus methods.

There’s also typically no accounting for player absences in boards. We can demonstrate this using an example, assuming we have 100 analysts ranking players 1 to 100. Not every analyst will rank the same 100 players and most leave players on the cutting room floor that others have decided to put in their top 100.

In this example, Player A is ranked by 50 boards as the 75th-best player in the draft and unranked on the other 50. Player B is ranked by all 100 boards as the 76th-best player. Most approaches to consensus boards will rank Player A as the better player, even though the average opinion on that player is that he is worse than Player B, not better.

This particular board, with its points-based averaging approach and varying penalties for absences on different-sized boards, avoids that problem, at least partially.

The data below is downloadable using a link at the bottom (labeled “Get the data”) and the 300 players are separated into three 100-player pages; an arrow in the upper-right can help you navigate between them. The table is also searchable and sortable.

Over the next week, the table will be updated to include ranks from two different groups of analysts (“Forecasters” and “Evaluators”) as well as the overall rank by consensus. At the moment, it only shows the consensus rank. It will also be updated in the coming days to include rank-adjusted variance, a score that tells us how polarizing the players in the draft are.

If you want a printable Google Sheet, click here (this will also be updated until the day of the draft).

Data Visualizations

Below we have a few data visualizations of the Consensus Big Board. Hopefully, these will help you understand some of the concepts we’ve been discussing, especially regarding variance. The first chart is a rank-adjusted variance chart, plotting players by their Consensus Big Board rank and their rank-adjusted variance, so you get a sense for how much disagreement the player drew relative to where they are on the big board.

The rank variance between Fernando Mendoza and Peter Woods is comparable when accounting for the fact that Mendoza ranks first and Woods ranks 26th, but the absolute range of rankings on Mendoza (generally first through seventh, with the outliers hitting 35th) is much narrower than the absolute range of rankings for Woods (generally 21st through 36th, though outliers hit between 3rd and 95th).

There’s another way to visualize the distribution of ranks, and this one makes no adjustment for rank. In order to prevent ourselves from focusing on outliers, we’ll use a box-and-whiskers plot; the middle line of the box is the median and the outside edges of the box are the 25th and 75th percentile values. The “whiskers” of the plot will give us the complete range of typical outcomes, with some dots representing extreme values outside of the typical range.

Below covers the top 100 players in the draft.

What if you wanted to know where positions might be scarce or abundant in the draft? We also have a positional distribution chart.