Vikings Country Featuring Andrew DePaola

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In the Fan, it's time for Vikings Come, brought to you by Miller Lyte. Now here's your host of Vikings Country from KFAN and the Vikings Radio Network.

Mus Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Vikings Country. Here we are Blaine, all in Blaine, Ah. We're hanging out here and our special guest is Andrew Depaula and Andrew. This is a first. I've been doing this for thirty years. Fifteen years of doing Vikings Country. We've never had to stand outside and sit here with everybody else that's having heaters outside of blame rock Ball.

Yeah.

Well, I never thought I'd have to say this to you, but I'm glad to be your first.

I appreciate that our fine folks at Miller Lite, our official Viking sponsors of Vikings Country. This is gonna just be absolutely weird. We are literally sitting right outside the door and we're sitting there hanging out with everybody that's just pulling darts. We're sitting right by the garbage can that has that top, you know, where you can bump out.

It's just ridiculous here on Boxing Day. Thank you for hanging out with us on Boxing Day.

Thank you for having me.

Do you even know what Boxing Day is?

No?

I looked it up because it was kind of bugging me because I knew it was like a Canadian thing. But apparently Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated after Christmas Day. Originally it was a holiday to give gifts to people in need, but today Boxing Day it forms a part of Christmas celebrations, with many people choosing to take advantage of Boxing Day sales.

Are you a big Boxing Day Hills kind of guy?

No, No, I haven't been. I didn't even know that was the thing.

Do you do like the Black Friday thing?

And I'm like, are you buying anything or is it just Amy your wife?

It's my wife, Yeah, yeah, she's the one buying everything. I used to be big in than the Black Friday. I used to go out and check out the crowds and see what the deals were like.

But not anymore.

You never like tent it out like early on, because I know at one point you worked at best Buy. Yeah, you probably saw those guys that would actually tent out just going okay, I'm gonna get myself a fifty five inch plasma.

Yes, yes, And to be honest with you, I'm pretty sure that ruined it for me.

All Right.

So you worked as a bartender. So you finished school at Rutgers yep, in twenty ten.

Yep.

Then between that in twenty fourteen, before or you actually got I think it was with Tampa Bay, correct, correct, Ye, before you made a team, you were not only working at your family's pub, but also at best Buyas I mentioned the family pub, is.

It still a thing?

Still a thing? Yep? Oh nice yep.

And then as we're sitting here at a bar and bowling alley, what is the absolute worst drink anyone could order? When it comes to you being a bartender because I know I'm the one that has.

Probably ordered this before.

Gosh, the worst drink anyone can order.

Yeah, I mean something that doesn't have the alcohol named in it, because I don't know.

I don't know how to make that.

I'm I'm a frozen dacre guy.

And you could just watch the shoulders drop of the bartender going.

You're that jackass. That's not that's not great. What's your most famous drink? What do you did you create anything?

No? No, no, no no.

I created the giveaway because I don't know what it is, and so.

Here you go, it's on the house.

Well then now also not only do your parents your dad still owns the pub, but then also you've started up your own company there with the bagels.

Yeah.

Yeah, we started the bagel shop beginning of this year, did construction on it last year, got that going.

It's just been awesome. It's been a lot of fun.

It's been a learning process for sure, but it's been really cool to see like our local community kind of take to it and just kind of take it as their own and adopt it.

So it's been fun. You live on an island, right, technically, yes, gol Ken island y.

Yeah, and so that's why you're like, well, we don't have any bagels here show.

So the closest bagels shop kind of like what we have, is across the Chesapeake Bay. And so if you live on the island, you just despise crossing the bridge. It's just not it's not fun. There's a lot of traffic. You never know what's gonna happen when you get over there. So anything you can do on the island or on that side of the bridge, you try to get it done over there.

And there wasn't really good bagel shop. Decided to make one.

When I'm getting ready for Vikings Country, I get a little on the creepy side. I you know, like Stockerish. I realize that you guys steam your bagels rather than others that like boil the Bengals.

What's the difference in that?

Not a huge difference.

So when you boil them, you literally drop them in a vat of boiling water.

They sink to the bottom, and then when they.

Rise after about fifty sixty seconds, you scoop them, put them on the baking train, and you pop them in an oven. Ours a similar process, except the first three minutes, they're steamed, and then the steam shuts off, and then they're baked for another nine to ten minutes, depending on how many racks you have in there.

We are literally Vikings Country with Miller Lyte. Outside of blamed for Paul.

We're standing out here with jackets on hands and pockets, hanging out with our smoking friends chess outside the doors here, which it is awesome. Andrew Depaula is my guess number forty two, of course, the long snapper. At what point in your life does one realize, you know what, I could probably throw this thing between my legs and actually be great at it.

Yeah, so funny enough.

When I was younger, it was something my dad could do, And to be honest with you, I didn't know it was a football move technique.

Like I thought it was just a fun party trick.

Dad's just being goofy.

Yeah, he's just been ripped in between his legs.

So I could always throw a football, I guess from baseball and whatnot. But you know, I decided to go, you know, hey, let me just chuck this thing between my legs like my dad does. And then it was a skill I turned into in college.

I was a backup.

I was the emergency guy until I had to be the starter my final year of college and just worked out that I was good enough to take it to the NFL.

Now, this show, Vikings Country has a long history of long snappers.

Being on the show.

Legendary and ridiculous superstar Mike Morris has been on the show multiple times. Colin Leffler, which, by the way, my wife got lost in his eyes while she was dancing with him at Jared All. It was a weird situation and I never thought i'd get her back. And Kevin McDermott on here as well. But it's so much fun. I love what you guys do. And how like the

Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a lot that goes into it.

It's a little, you know, tiny little nuances that help make your job or help do your job better. And the more you understand it, just like anything else, the better you can be at it.

All Right, So how about this, I loved your Pro Bowl video.

Okay, so I loved it, and we're here, We're here at a bowling alley.

Yeah, and I loved it because you go out and I saw it was a house ball twelve ouncer I saw on that, yeah, or twelve pound or whatever it is, and I saw that you were throwing that thing. And what I loved about it in the video is that you actually threw a little curve on it. Now, I will say you went on the Brooklyn side, and all bowlers know that, Oh you liked your Brooklyn more than on the Pocket side, and you knocked them all down.

How many takes did that take?

That actually is funny. It it takes.

And I threw four strikes, really, yeah, and it was funny enough that one was the only one that I went back door. The other ones were in the pocket, so for some reason he used that one.

But it was great. There's a lot of fun putting that together.

You have a background in bowling, because honestly, when I saw you actually throw that thing out and then curve it out, I'm like, Okay, he's done this before.

This might surprise some purists, but I'm actually a straight ball bowler.

Yeah, oh too.

I had to put the curve on it for the for the video they requested. But starting in high school, close buddy of mine, we would try to go bowling like once every two weeks, just have like a little competition going. We continued it through college when we both were back home on break and actually I just talked to him the other day.

We're trying to get it fired up again.

But your ninth season in the NFL has a long snapper, which I absolutely love. I also love the fact that you were really supporting all your teammates, not only yourself, but you know with the Pro Bowl.

You're a pro bowler. Dude, you went to the Pro Bowl.

How sweet is that there's only thirty two long snappers.

You went to the Pro Bowl.

Yeah, it was cool. It was really cool.

It was quite an experience something I'll remember forever. Cool part was I got to bring, you know, my two oldest my daughter and my son. They got to share in it with us. I got to get some pictures with them on the field, so that'll be something I can always look back on and show them and be like, hey, you know you, Oh that was really cool.

Let's go through these somewhat quickly here, because your other teammates that you were also promoting to try to get into the Pro Bowl here.

CJ. Ham I mean what I mean, quality human being.

Obviously, Minnesota, we absolutely love the Hammer, but CJ.

Hamm he's one of I mean, he's one of the best guys.

I mean, he's so down to earth, he's so pure, and he's just such a great, great football player.

He's so smart. He knows his job, he knows his role.

He studies the playbook, I mean every day, studies what he has to do. He helps bring people along, he helps make people better. He's a coach on the field. I mean, that's why he's one of our captains. And he's just an amazing, amazing human being. And he's also a really good football player.

Josh Mattelus, I mean he is a switch Army or Swiss Army knife for the defense and obviously you know him especially with Special Teams and how much he meant for everybody there. But Josh vintell Us.

Yeah, I mean he's he's such a great player. Again, you know, it was such a loss to the Special Teams to lose him, you know, I mean, I know he's been bawling and playing his heart out on defense, and he's been doing amazing, such a great job. But he was such a player and a specimen on special teams, you could plug him in anywhere and we wouldn't have to worry about him. We could be like, Okay, go to wing, go to left guard. I mean, he got she probably could be even returned to the ball if we

Andrew Andrew de Paula. Sorry, I'm sitting out here and I'm catching some of that. I'm wafted some of that smoke as we're sitting outside Blainbrook Ball here with Miller lytton Vikings Country. As we continue on Harrison Smith. I mean, what do you say about a guy who is just a constanmate, consummate pro and just one of the best leaders in the entire locker room.

Yeah, I don't think I can say too much that hasn't already been said about that man. I mean, he leads by example. He's been doing it for so long and at such a high level. You know, he's really the person, the guy that a lot of guys will look to in certain situations be like, Okay, how's he doing it?

All right?

I want to emulate him. I want to do it like him. Even I do the same thing, you know, I look at him and be like, Okay, how's he doing it?

All right? I want to be like that guy, because when.

You've had success for as long as he has, I think you want to try and do a thing he does.

How about TJ Howkinson, who we don't know if he's gonna be able to play the rest of this year, But you also are listed as a tight end. So is there is there a chance to me? Not only TJ's had a tremendous year and definitely is should be, you know, in the Pro Bowl. But do you feel that there's a chance that you'll be going out?

You know?

No, rout, No, No, I think those days are long behind me.

I mean, well, yeah, I'm gonna ask you later about what it's like to be in the team room and stuff like that.

We have more coming up on the way.

This is Vikings Country with Miller Light, the official beer sponsor of the Minnesota Vikings. We also have Paul Allen and Paul Charchion. They have the Friday Football Feast that's gonna be coming up of course here on Friday this week, and you can find it at k FA and dot com and Vikings dot com as well. It's powered by our friends at COR's Light. We're hanging out here Vikings Country with Miller Light, the official beer sponsor of the Minnesota Vikings.

Coming up in the.

Next segment, andrew As, we're standing out in the parking lot and you almost got ran over, and we're sitting here having heaters. You're not having heaters. We're secondhand smoking it. Outside of blamebrook Ball. We have the five typically stupid Vikings Country questions coming up here next.

Are you ready for that?

Probably not, but can't wear.

It's coming up?

Man?

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Fan, It's time for Vikings Country to you by Miller Lite. Now here's your host of Vikings Country from KFAN and the Vikings Radio Network.

Muss.

Here we are once again standing outside with a bunch of smokers, plain Brook Bowl, Miller Lite and Vikings Country is my guest number forty two, and I appreciate the cold with you.

Man.

We're saying that we're just parking lot and this is tailgating is basically what we're doing.

This feels good. I like it.

I appreciate it that you came out and hung out with us. Okay, gotta ask you this before we get into the five typically stupid Vikings Country questions. This season is almost kind of like last season where you get to the end of a game and you go, what the hell happened?

How did that happen? It's such a.

Change from last season to this season. Yeah, yeah, it's a little different, little different. We were on the better end of some of those games last year, and this year, you know, we're just not really edging out the ones that we did last year. So you know, all we can do is go back to work and hopefully not get in those situations and just close them out.

Earlier, we just got done with Christmas.

Here this is Boxing day of course, the Special Teams room.

So what did you get Greg, Joseph and Ryan Wright for Christmas?

I didn't get them anything. We actually we do like a white elephant gift. So there's a bunch of us that will come in together and we'll buy a gift. You know, there's a certain minimum on it. We'll put it in the middle, wrapped up, not knowing who's who's. Then you go, first person goes, the next person can steal or pick a gift.

You know that kind of game. So we did that. There was probably about like twenty of us that did it this year. What did you end up with?

I ended up with You ever heard like the ray Ban smart glasses? Yes, okay, I ended up with those.

Oh oh that's a white elephant. Yeah.

Yeah.

Now you got to figure out how to work the things.

I don't know what's going on.

I just you have to ask your wife, Amy, Amy, how do I do this?

What's going on. That's way, babe, babe, babe.

The Power Trip guys meets Austin and Chris Hockey and Corey Cove. They have been going on and on and on about you're at the plate at bat prowess at Adam Thielen's charity softball game, continuously going yard. They're like, you have no idea this guy Andrew just was knocking him out, tater after tater.

Yeah, it was fun. It was fun.

I played baseball in high school, enjoyed it, really enjoyed it, and.

I guess I still got a little bit left in me. I don't know. I don't know.

All right, Andrew, let's talk about fake because I know you've had a couple of fakes in your career as a long snapper. But against the Broncos, I mean that direct snap to ty Chandler goes for thirty one yards, gets the first down. I mean that could not be easy because now you're throwing it through the wickets normally, but now all of a sudden you gotta veer that thing.

How hard is that to actually do that?

I wish I could say it's hard. I want to tell you guys, it's it's really hard. But it's actually not that bad, you know. I mean, as long as you get the angle right and you know, tie, there we go.

As long as tie is in the right place.

Uh you know, I just try to give it to him in the right spot where he doesn't have to come back or stop. He can catch it clean and just kind of go make it quick.

Yeah.

Again, We're here at Blainbrook Bowl with Piller Life, the official beer sponsor of the Minnesota Vikings at Vikings Country, and Andrew and I are literally standing right outside the door. We're in the parking lot. We're hanging out with a bunch of fue smokers that are over here, and then somebody there I swear togain.

I just wanted to lock it. Oh there they go again. Okay, stop that all right?

Here we go five typically stupid Vikings Country questions.

Number one, Are you ready for this?

Yep?

How pissed off are you that he paid for that snow removal service this year? Very Yeah, because you guys are in a new place we are yep.

Yeah, we're in a single family home now with the three kids. And uh yeah, I was like I told the company, Hey, look, I need to shoveled and plowed by this time because I need to be out by this time to get to work.

And I paid a premium and not using it.

So yeah, we're all feeling that pain. And this was my first year. It was like, fine, I'm gonna do it.

This sucks. Do you think this is number two?

Do you think it's Taylor Swift's fault that the Chiefs are falling apart?

No?

No, I'm not gonna blame Portella for their struggles.

Are you?

Are you swifty?

I do enjoy your music. I don't know if that makes me swifty or not, but I think she's got some good songs. Yeah, I think she's done.

He did you and Amy go and see her at us Bank? Uh?

No? When when was she?

Oh she was just here recently.

Oh yeah.

But you know in the off season you're spending more time hanging back home because you got you got bagels to make.

Yeah. Yep.

Number three of our five typically stupid Vikings country questions. Do you believe Fargo Season five is the best season since Season one and two?

It's tough to be season one for me personally. I was a big Season one guy. I enjoyed season two, but for me season one was it? So yeah, I can't No, I don't believe that.

Is there a difference between shows that you watch with you know, Ryan Wright and you know Greg Joseph and then your wife Amy that you talk about you know or you can't wait after you've watched and then talk about Is there a difference between the two or are they similar?

Well, it's just funny because you know, I'm thirty six, Ryan Wright is twenty three.

That's a huge age gap.

So the things that he enjoys and he likes aren't necessarily what I enjoy what I like, So yeah, I mean, there's just a difference there in shows that we enjoy. And it's just nice to have my wife who's closer to me in age and we can kind of enjoy the same stuff. High school sweethearts, right we were?

Yeah, Oh that's awesome, man, I love that. And now three three kids? Oh, how was Christmas?

Awesome?

Chaos, hectic? I'm still putting things together the way it's.

Supposed to be, right, Yeah, Andrew Depaula is my guest here and we are in the middle of five typically stupid Vikings country questions. All right, next one, how much film do you actually watch.

Oh that's a great question. Gosh, how can I give you this answer?

I usually watch.

Anywhere from I would say about an hour a day.

Oh yeah, yeah, okay, so no, no, is it more like on punt coverage or is it.

I mean field goal.

Pat Most of it is their punt rush team.

Yeah.

And I will watch a tiny bit of their field goal rush team just to kind of get some tips. Some things they do with their feet, different formations. Maybe they like to run something different out of it, whether they cross my face or shoot the a gap, But not as much as punt rush I watched. Probably majority of my tape is their punt rush team.

Last one for you here on the five typically stupid Vikings questions.

Grew up in Maryland, became a Ravens fan.

Okay, this forty nine Ers game thirty three to nineteen rock Party with four interceptions may have taken him out of the MVP conversation there altogether. But my goodness, the Ravens are absolutely legitimate.

Yes they are, Yes they are.

They look like a very complete team. I think they're the team to beat right now. I think they might even be number one. I don't even know, yes, they look the part, So whoever has to play them down the stretch is going to have a tough time get a.

Game coming up here. Obviously at the Vikes, taking on the.

Pass is always a big game, regardless what the record is, but it is also maybe potentially a possibility to get into the playoffs.

Taking on the Packers.

Do you feel that as now this is your fourth season with the Vikings and how Vikings fans really feel about this kind of game.

Yeah, I felt that my first year when we played them. You can feel the rivalry. You can feel how much our fans despise their fans and that team, and it's something I take personally. You know, I never want to let our fans down, especially against the Packers. You always want to play well. But ty those ragging rights after we beat them one sun, they just kind of like rub it in their noses.

So yeah, Andrew, I gotta be honest with you. I don't know if it's the ash from the smokers over here, but I think a Christmas miracle just happened, a Boxing Day miracle. I just saw some flakes coming down as we're hanging outside blame Brook Bowl with Vikings.

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