Why Minnesota Vikings have top 10 defense - with Chuck Aoki!

okay Chuck Aoki has been a friend for I was going to say like almost 10 years but it's probably been like 13 or 14 years the first time we met something around that yeah it's been a it's been a while I've always all all the way back to the 1500 days baby oh my gosh you guys for a long time the old 1500 ESPN Radio day so if you're like most people especially in the Twin Cities area are familiar with Chuck and um just the amazing run you've had with the wheelchair rugby team but for those un familar and there's a lot of people that consume purple daily in scorn North around the country uh Chuck Aoki is a three-time Paro Olympic medalist looking to make it four and looking for a gold not going to put too much pressure on you but you put more on yourself anyway so exactly yeah don't worry don't worry about that and he's a tortured Vikings fan as well oh yes so I we we're doing we're doing our annual power of sports fundraiser this week uh to raise money on behalf of the courage Kenny rehabilitation institute there's a couple amazing items that I want your help promoting here but I'm going to put you on the spot and ask for a Vikings take give me like give me like a Vikings take or give me your current thoughts on the state of the team going into the season here Chuck do do you have a temperature you'd like to take to be at or we just are we kind of like wide open here I mean the hotter you want to go I'm not I'm not going to turn the temperature down let's just put it that way fair enough let's get in the kitchen and start cooking here yeah okay well I think my this is probably medium hot I think the defense is going to be phenomenal this year I think it's gonna be really good uh I'll go I I'll say top 10 and obviously there's a lot of ways to measure it I'll say top 10 defense wow I'll just I'll go for it you know I think you've got another year of Flores system like you know I think there's always something to like more time in a system players just get to know it obviously they added a ton of talent uh the biggest problem they'll probably face is they may have to be on the field a lot because you know I think there's a lot of good players in offense I'm hearing different signals come out of Camp about darnold and McCarthy so we'll see where that lands but I think defense could be really good I think there's a lot of talent there and I just I kind of have this feeling that they're gonna all it's G to come together really well so that that that we'll start with that one that I think the defense I think we're have a top 10 defense and I think we'll miss I will miss denil Hunter's sort of presence but I don't think his production will be missed in terms of what they just sort of reloaded with there that's the I think so I don't disagree with this hot take and they they jumped from like 30th in scoring defense to 15th right and what's what's kind of funny to me is there's all the yah buts well yeah but denal Hunter's gone well yeah but they don't have a defensive tackle next to Harrison Phillips or yeah but their cornerback room is is in question well but two of those three existed last year they didn't have great defensive tackles last year and they didn't have like a stud shut down cornerback last year and the system and the way that flues operated week to week still brought them from 30th to 15th and I think even though denil Hunter is probably the best Edge rusher of the collection I think that room is better I think so you they had one Edge rusher of note last year and now they have three maybe even more because I've got hot takes on some of the undrafted free agents I've seen at Camp too but I think you're right dude yeah I you know I I think you're right and I love denil Hunter so I don't want to be perceived taking any shots denil Hunter aggregators Chuck Aoki clowns denil Hunter on Vikings podcast he he's a great player but I I always thought there were times where he could go a little missing you know because he's one guy he was he was the pass rush last year it wasn't like the Vikings pass rush it was like no no denal Hunter is the Viking pass rush right and so I think there were times where he was probably physically just like I don't I can't quite bring it the same way and I I don't blame him for that but I think to your point you've got three guys now who are legit who just keep coming and coming and coming and as someone who plays a physical sport I can tell you it's exhausting when you're out there and then suddenly another guy hits you and then suddenly you get hit by even more fight what is happening oh it's a different person so I I think this is going to be a case of the the parts are greater than the the single individual for for sure even if maybe none of them are quite his talent level yeah are you so i' I've been at like four practices and tried not to overreact to like Sam darnold when they get him in the two-minute drills and stuff he's kind of struggled with the first team offense JJ mcth has led a couple scoring drives and these are like the smallest of sample sizes in practice but I just I wonder it's so easy to sit here throughout the summer and say yeah we're going to slow cook McCarthy and he might not even play all year and then like darnold throws two interceptions in the first half of the first game I just might I wonder how long they're going to be able to just slow cook this thing with the pressure of fans and media and maybe even inside the organization I I have the same question because I thought to your point it sounded really great they drafted him he'll get as much time as he needs he'll read and that's a great that's a great philosophy it's a great philosophy and then to your point when you're down 20 point they open up against the Giants right yeah you're down 24 to zero at halftime against the Giants because you know Sam darnold's getting sacked left and right by Dexter Lawrence then is Kevin o sitting there going all right well this it's got it can't be this bad I mean what I go back to with this too is he played jiren Hall last year and I for the record I'm a Nick Mullen truther I will defend Nick Mullen to the death I love Baby Brett Favre out there just chucking the ball wherever he wants um and so I never thought Nick Mullen would have been benched but clearly Jared Hall was not ready and here's the thing Kevin oconnell is not stupid he knew Jared Hall wasn't ready but the heat was too much he's like I gotta do something I gotta try something so I guess the other hotas I I would I would bet we see JJ McCarthy before I guess I don't know what the midseason point is now because the 17 the math is hard now yeah I would bet we see JJ McCarthy before week 10 I I would that I I I think I think we're I think we're now trending that way uh and let let's and if the defense is good like we think it will be they're going to be in games it's going to be like you know 10 1310 17713 kind of these little grinded out games and you know darnold's gonna I do think dar's gonna get every chance to prove he can do it however you know you start owing four people let's be real too fan pressure from the outside is real coaches can say all they want and obviously they're going to make what they think the right decision but you feel the pressure so my my my gut says we see M we see McCarthy started I think we see it again not in the first four to five weeks because you don't pay a guy $10 million to bench him after one game or two games drive the car for a month and then see what happens yeah exactly so I think we'll see McCarthy uh Baby Brett Favre is one of my favorite Nick mullen's references I so I'm a Kevin oconnell Crusader I just I don't know the way he connects with the guys in the locker room the way he he he's also not afraid to get into guys and hold them accountable but what one of the funniest criticisms of KOC that I hear is well but look what happened when when Kirk left look what happened you know after the first couple games of Dos and they lost say no no look what happened with Kirk left they pulled a random dude off of a roster who never met his teammates and won two games with Josh dobs he was literally like in the dude's headset narrating the afternoon for him as a head coach yeah and then Nick Nick Mullins Baby Baby Brett Favre in your words comes in and throws for like 400 yards in a couple of games toward the end of the season and and they could have won two of those games and I know could have won thing it's tough they could have won two of those games they they lose against Cincinnati because it turns out that the tiniest guy you have on your team is not the person who should be shoving someone forward like I they put at that point why why not put Greg Joseph out there to shove him like no offense to Greg Joseph he's he might have better leg Drive I anyway actually the punter uh yeah I feel like the Vikings have the two biggest punters in the league right now Ryan right you know that that's not a bad idea on a on a fourth and short put Ryan right out there then have him Sprint up to the line and just shove CJ ham forward I dude the other the other punter in Camp that's competing with him I think Seth Vernon I think is he's 6' five like's like a tight end he's legitimately I think the the tallest non-offensive lineman on the team and he's he's competing for a punting job that's a St that's a that's a staggeringly large punter that's just I mean our punters can beat up your punters I guess yeah if you put like every punter in the Octagon in the NFL I think the Vikings punters would would come on on top yeah I I it seems hard to debate do you think they purposely Scout large punters this in conference Matt Daniels where do you call fair catch cuz if you get past the first line of defense the punter is going to blow you up take your head off yeah um so what's uh what's training like so you guys are heading off the paral Olympics in Paris are at the they start end of August and then into September right what's where are you guys at with training right now yeah so for us we have just wrapped our final training camp as a team so we TR team sport obviously we're so we're all over the country we get together to train uh wrapped up our last Camp team's feeling really good jelling kind of get those last little things together and so we as opposed to like uh Sports of like swimming or track and field where they're training for like one day one event that's it you know I've got we play five games in five days so we'll train pretty much all the way through uh the time we leave we'll get on the ground about a week early we'll get acclimated to the time change the par Parisian heat and all that stuff and then get uh get into our chairs and get ready to knock uh we we start August 29th so in 28 days actually is our first game which is pretty wild or 28 days from 20 days from today I should say on August 1 um so yeah so we're we're excited the team the team feels really good it's this there's not really anything left to do in a lot of ways I don't than just maintain maybe get that tiny little extra bit uh but the goal now is just to kind of maintain and then and then go take care of business how old so your first par Olympic G your first world was like 2010 or 11 yep 10 which is I I feel like we met maybe right before the Paralympics in 2012 that sounds great are you like the oldest guy on the team now cuz you were like in your early 20s or maybe 21 years old when you started I feel like the crazy part is I am not the oldest on the team now uh paralympic Sport and wheelchair and wheelchair rugby careers are slightly different because a lot of our guys end up starting a little bit later in life you know they get injured in their mid 20s maybe don't actually start playing competitively till late 20s early 30s so we've got a couple guys so I'm 33 now we've got a couple guys who are into their 40s um and it's actually very funny I end up on the lower end just because there's a lot of us in that sort of early 90s birth range and I just happen to be the youngest of all of them with like two people in the n in 90 889 so I well you you know you old grandpa like all right you're like six months younger than me I'm like I'm still younger than you but we do have our first gen Zer on the team so that's been a lot of fun learning all my all my all my bruh slang and how to say that's crazy you see there's a is that how you you've skyrocketed on social media here too is that you are you crediting Jen Z teammate for any of that or is that all Chuck aoke um you know I'll give him a little bit of credit he certainly is you know I say some ideas and he looks at me he's like I don't know it's a little cringe man I'm like you think so he's like yeah I you know so you know gr OFA it you know it's always a team effort right it's all a team effort nothing you don't achieve anything solely on your own so we we'll throw a little we'll throw a little bone at my my guy's eye on yeah hey actually uh tell the audience what what is your handle on Instagram is your is your do you have Tik Tok to or you mostly just I'm getting there on Tik Tok it's Chuck Aoki on both platforms um that's just my name c h a Ki uh yeah on on Tik Tok and Instagram you know it's a lot of fun we talk about Team USA par Olympics all kind of a disability kind of a different take stuff you may not heard about might find interesting and obviously going to be doing a lot of stuff coming up here in the games as well so if you're want to obviously there's a lot going on in Paris right now but you can see even more uh if you if you tag along with us so please do yeah CH Chuck does a bunch of just awesome uh relatable fun and funny videos and behind the scenes things so definitely follow him so uh as we've been mentioning throughout the week we're holding our annual power of sports event this week with the goal of raising $15,000 to benefit the courage Kenny rehabilitation institute so people can go to scor.com auction to check out various experiences and items I want to highlight two featured things real quick uh we have a purple daily dinner for four at parlor in Minneapolis so that just so the math is clear it's whoever wins the auction you bring four and then we'll bring three so it's really dinner for seven it's the three of us from purple daily and then whoever you put together uh audience as a forsome and all seven of of us will have dinner at parlor in Minneapolis we did this at Red Rabbit last year it was a blast yeah so you'll also get an authentic TJ hackinson signed jersey courtesy of Pepsi and a $150 gift card to the Vikings team store so you can get some other fantastic merchandise and a flagrant house package four lower level tickets to a Wolves game an Anthony Edwards autograph Jersey and $100 to eat at redcow Minneapolis and a meet and greet with me that might drag the value down uh we can we can ditch that if I would modifi modify the packages as as as per the winner right so like the first ones you get dinner and you get the Vikings stuff oh my god wow exactly again maybe we're dragging the value down like if you just want to have dinner with yourselves and like the TJ ainson Jersey and Dean shows up you know we can right it's like you get to dine with the sports dad Jud zat I mean that's a once in lifetime that's a value razor that's a bar razor for sure I was going to say if anybody want it only has two people to come and they need me to come to dinner in paror give me a call message me but again that issue of dragging value up and down you know you don't want to get that's fantastic Anthony Edwards Team USA uh Team USA table tennis big fan as we dude did you see that video so he the the the Bus video is hilarious Curry is like this guy thinks he can get a point off you and he shows up he showed up to that's what the fun thing about I think people don't necessarily realize about the Olympics and Paralympics too is you know you're able to actually interact with all these athletes from that's how you get Anthony Edwards interacting with USA table tennis you don't that literally doesn't happen in any other situation right like literally and then the last couple of games because they were during the pandemic you know we weren't really you weren't really supposed to go interact with people at all you're supposed to pretty much keep to yourself which is you know again understandable but it's what makes that whole experience so special so yeah dude it is hilarious he's just I think Anthony Edwards is just this joyous that I think that's him I don't think there's any put on at all it's just like it's how he is kind of behind the scenes too he's just he's just a fun guy he was sitting just in seat like he had to go the thing about this too is the way that people may not know the way the Olympics and stuff work is you had a credential right the credential lets you in the village let you in a media center things like that and your event but he doesn't have a credential that just lets him go ever he wants he has to go and say I would like tickets to go see table tennis and they say all right we've got enough tickets for you to your two friends to go or whatever to go see Taylor it's not like you just like just walk in there like there has there's effort involved in doing it that's interesting because I just I assume that if you're like if you're an athlete especially if you're Team USA Basketball you can kind of just but he may have people to help with it there's more intention behind it than you can't just literally just show up and be like I'm here to be here the amount of like organization and tedious scheduling just just think about organizing the Olympics or organizing the Paralympics these ridiculous large events with all these different everything's on a schedule and then the and how NBC manages to produce all this stuff too for TV and then the nighttime packages like it's it's it's unbelievable the amount of moving pieces that go into this it's like it's hard to organize a meeting for five people in one country imagine doing basically 50,000 people and then you add on top of that fans who are just coming in out of nowhere it's it it is a remarkable thing it's it's always amazing that it goes off as well as it does quite let me let me ask you uh on the courage Kenny front here how would you describe the courage Kenny rehabilitation institute which has meant a lot to you earlier in your life how would you describe it to people who aren't familiar yeah so courage Kenny is really a place that I think what I what I start with is it gives hope at a very Baseline level it gives you hope that you know you have suffered or you've been born with a really you know challenging circumstance in your life you know you're disabled in some capability maybe not able to walk maybe your walking has been impaired maybe it's a brain injury whatever it may be uh but courage Ken is a place that you come in the front door and and there people are there to give you hope to get back to whatever it is you would like to do you want to be a better athlete great we're going to help you become a good athlete you want to you know M get some function back in your legs so you can maybe walk around your yard or walk your dogs we're going to figure out that you know you set goals and they do it so C Kenny and it's really a one of a one of a kind institution I think I believe in the in the Minneapolis St Paul area it's just the people are so welcoming they're so friendly and they truly change lives you know I got my start playing sport doing swimming lessons there when I was six years old back in the 90s uh started my career in wheelchair basketball love that it's where I started wheelchair rugby where I got beat up in my chair for the first time and fell in love with the sport um but you know my story is just one there's been lots of other par Olympians have come out of there but I think even more importantly there's been so many athletes who have come through there who just you know have acquired a disability wanted to get back to being active pretty much just showed up on say and say hey can I is there a spot for me can I play and it was like absolutely come on let's find a spot for you to play and it changed people's lives in that way just getting them more active more healthy uh so it's a really really amazing organization so you know I encourage everyone who is you know if you know someone or yourself have a disability go check it out find find some way for yourself to be active and if you're you know looking at these packages know that you know not only are you going to get an incredible package you know aside from Phil being there but again negotiable probably um you're also going to be supporting an organization that it is quite literally changing people's lives uh for the better so it's just a an amazing amazing institution a place that's you know very near and dear to my heart and always will be something else to note too sometimes you wonder like how much of an impact does your money make or like not you know you should donate to whatever causes people want to but um but like the a lot of the equipment that's used to help people with wherever they're at with whatever injury whether it's physical or brain it's expensive equipment and so5 10 $15,000 like literally buys a really important piece of equipment to help somebody get back on track and you're exactly right and this is not equipment too that you can really buy to have at home it's it's just not the kind of thing because to your point the cost the size of some of it just it's just large equipment you know it's big Stu and so and it's able to benefit so many people you know to your point they have these incredible treadmills I know that they work on people walking and gate with those are kind of things that you can only have at an institution you know they can they see I don't even know how many people they see today they just it's constant every time I've gone to that gym there's always people on it working on it working on their their Fitness and stuff and so yeah it's a great point that the equipment it cost and it's not easy to to acquire so it's really uh it's a good point that your money is going a very very long way for something like enage Kenny yeah uh scor.com auction to check out all the other items and experiences that are up and again all of the proceeds go to benefit the courage Kenny rehabilitation institute so Chuck before thank you for taking time and before we we say goodbye here just for people that are looking ahead now uh a month from now and want to follow the wheelchair rugby team in your journey where where are you guys at world rankings like expectations can you sort of set the scene for for four weeks from now absolutely Ely yes so we are USA wichter Rugby is currently number two in the world we're just behind Australia a little bit of a tough competition year for us we we went into it knowing we were trying out some new things so our results weren't quite where we wanted to be but number two in the world still very very strong we will open up against Canada on August 29th to be a real good match uh then we'll play Japan and Germany on the subsequent days really two really great opponents as well and then we'll get in the middle rounds uh semi-finals and finals hopefully so uh make sure you tune in it'll be all over NBC and peacock as you're seeing the Olympics right now it's going to be just as much on the par Olympics side uh make sure you follow us on social media like I said myself you can USA wheelchair rugby on Instagram and uh that's pretty much our primary platform for that so just follow along and all the paric athletes Team USA of course and it's it's it's going to be exciting you know you're getting this and the Olympic fever's high right now it's awesome and you get a couple week break and then right back at it Team USA is getting after it again love it man Chuck aoke uh a Nick mullen's truther I till I die baby I die baby Grant parre come on awesome man hey good catching up with you we appreciate uh the conversation and good luck in a few weeks from now man thanks so much Phil thanks for having me SK Vikings