Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - A crazy day in Vikings land: Yannick Ngakoue traded to Baltimore, Spielman speaks, Hunter out for the year

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Whew. What a morning for the Minnesota Vikings. Matthew Coller and intern Paul get together to go over all the events of Thursday morning, inclduding the Vikings making a trade, Rick Spielman talking about the future of the team and Danielle Hunter being out/wanting a new contract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey, everyone, Matthew Collar here. We'll get into the show in just a second, but first got to tell you about Abner Maris, a world champion boxer, Olympian, sports commentator, and most importantly, a dad to two little girls. Beloved by abuelas and hardcore fans alike, Abner is a pro at entertaining the world both in and out of the ring. On Blue Wire's new podcast, On the Hook with Abner Maris, we'll hear from Abner is a pro at entertaining the world both in and out of the ring. On Blue Wire's new

podcast, On the Hook with Abner Maris, we'll hear from Abner, his family, fellow athletes, and other people who made him the boxer he is today. He will discuss the state of boxing, sports, music, culture, and his American dream. Listen to On the Hook with Abner Maris wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes in English out on Tuesdays and episodes in Spanish are out on Wednesdays. All right, let's get to the show. Welcome to a reaction podcast to all sorts of things happening, including Yannick Ngakwe traded, Rick Spielman talks with the media, and Daniil Hunter is officially done for the season with a twist, which we will all get to.

Matthew Collar here as always, and intern Paul along after finishing a midterm, jumping right on to react to all of this. What's up, Paul? Yeah, it's not been probably the best morning. I had a midterm. I woke up to snow, then it was sleeting, then it was raining. Couldn't decide. And then the Yannick Ngakwe trade happens. I take my test. I come out of the test. Daniil Hunter is out for the season. He could be traded. So it's been a morning, Matthew. It's been a morning, but I'm ready to talk about it. And the best part is that if you look outside,

the sky was orange this morning, and it was snowing and thundering. Like, yeah, something's happening in Vikings land this morning. And it did. So you've got five questions based on today's events. Begin wherever you like. Well, let's start with the Ngakwe news. And after it happened, I think there was a little bit of just wonderance of, was this the right time to move Ngakwe? Should he have stayed on the team, maybe franchised him, try to trade him then? Do you just wait and get the compensatory pick and just see how he plays? And maybe you want to extend him after you get a full season of him and not just six games.

So my question to you is, was it the right time? Could they have gotten more in your estimation later? Or should they have just kind of capitalized on maybe whatever his value was right now, take the loss of the pick and basically move back two rounds, considering Viking is going to be at the front of the uh the second round that pick goes to jacksonville and they're taking a end of the third round pick from the ravens so was it the right time i do believe that it was the right time to do it to pull the parachute and just say you know what we messed up this was a bad move we traded for a player who was not really a difference maker on defense, who we do

not want to sign long term. And even though you gave up a higher draft pick, it was always going to be this way. Like you said, if you waited for the compensatory pick, you're not getting that this year. You get that next year. And so you have to wait a long time for it. That's why probably they wanted to get at least a third because that's likely what the compensatory pick would have been if they let Yannick Ngakwe just go off in free agency. They did not want to franchise tag him. They did not want to sign him to a long-term extension because he just isn't that good. And edge rushers are very expensive. The top edge rusher in the NFL, Joey Bosa, makes $27 million a year. That's a ton of money to put into someone. And it's not that he would have gotten quite in that range, but I think that he sees himself with his sack totals as one of the best edge rushers in the NFL.

But after watching him for six weeks, I don't think that that's true. And I think that his value or his idea of his value versus where the Vikings would value him is very, very different. So then there's a bunch of questions that come off of this. So, okay, you had to do what you had to do. It was either do it now or get that compensatory pick later or try to wait till right right before the trade deadline but the thing is that there's really more of a pseudo trade deadline that's going on this week because if you wait for the November 3rd trade deadline then guys will have to go to their new teams and quarantine themselves and have to wait several days and they can't really get right on the field for you so if you want to get guys in by the trade deadline, you kind of have to move them right now.

So I'm sure that Baltimore was saying, let's make sure we get this guy here, and then we can get him in the lineup by not this Sunday, but next Sunday, and then go forward with him. So you lose value if you wait even longer and try to get a second-round pick from someone. But I also think that NFL teams look at second-round picks very similarly to first-round picks. Like a lot of times, there's your top 10 type of prospects. That's where your top quarterbacks go, the truly franchise-changing players. And then between maybe like the 30th and the 60th pick, there's a lot of good players that are still in there.

We've seen a lot of second-round picks turn into superstars recently in the NFL. So I think that's how they look at it. And so first and seconds are of a very different value from thirds. And so the Vikings probably felt that they were never going to get a second-round pick back for Yannick Ngakwe. So that's part of it. It's a good move now. If you weren't going to pay him, that's fine. Why it's still bad is that you gave up a second round pick. And like you mentioned,

it's not going to be a second round pick at the end of the second. It's going to be at the top of the second. So you drop back from say like the 38th overall pick, just say to where, I mean, end of the third is we're talking about in the 70s 80s 90s um I don't know I'm not doing the numbers right but maybe like at the 80 something if pick that's a huge huge difference in terms of your percentage chance to get a great player so overall it's a huge L and I think there's a lot of questions about why did you do it what could you have seen coming what could you have not seen coming and the part that they could have seen coming is that even if you increase the pass rush even if the Neil Hunter had been fine which they did not know at

the time uh because he was not practicing so the idea that like oh we didn't see this Hunter thing go he was not practicing at the time they traded for Yannick Ngakwe. So you could have foreseen that that wasn't going to go super well with Daniil Hunter's situation. But could you have foreseen that the defense would still struggle? Could you have foreseen that Yannick Ngakwe just wasn't a great indifference-making player? I think the answer to those things are yes,

because every study on rookie cornerbacks has shown that they do not perform at a high level in the first year with a few exceptions. Like Marshawn Lattimore was an exception, but those are not the rule. There were guys last year who came in as high draft picks who allowed 130 quarterback rating into their coverage. This was foreseeable that young cornerbacks would struggle, even if you gave them exceptional pass rush. So moving out someone, and it was also foreseeable, by the way, that they would not be a Super Bowl contender. And so the Baltimore Ravens acquiring a good, not great player is great for them because they're a legit Super Bowl contender.

This is where it goes for the Vikings of you traded a second-round pick for someone whose past indicated that their previous team did not want to pay them in the Jacksonville Jaguars. And again, it sort of reminds me of the Cousins thing where you just shrug off, oh, well, they're a bad team. Yeah, I mean, that's true. Jacksonville is a bad team, and Gakwe wanted out. But there's also a reason why they didn't want to pay him as much as he wanted,

and we saw that play out here. He did not play the style that they wanted. He could not stop the run. He was more of a two-down type of pass rusher, like a second-and-long, third-and-long type of guy, someone that you pay like $5 million on the free agent market for that type of production, not someone that you pay $25 million for. Could you have foreseen that?

I think the answer is yes. I think it was right there in black and white. You look at his PFF grades. You look at him play. I went back and looked at Ngakwe Tape. It's like, yeah, the guy makes some game-changing plays and has some great rushes, but he's not a great all-around player. So I think that that kind of covers it all, is yes, you should have seen it coming that this was not the right move for a win-now type of situation, and especially

if there was any question about Daniil Hunter. And I thought, in terms of this being a potentially good move when we initially talked about it, that they would sign him to a contract extension. But the fact that you didn't now officially makes it on all fronts a very puzzling move and one that is detrimental to your future. So not great with the Yannick Ngakwe situation. Yeah, and Rick Spielman said at this point no one has asked to be traded. But I think that's another question because Yannick wanted to move on from Jacksonville because they weren't very good.

Now the Vikings weren't very good. So I wonder if they still would have given him an extension, had the team been better, had Daniil been playing, had some of the other parts been a little bit better, but Yannick Ngakwe's production was still similar just because he wanted to be here. So I wonder how much was him wanting to be out of here and on a contender and how much was the Vikings.

But I agree. I think it's a good deal. I think the national view right when I saw it was, oh, this is a steal for the Ravens. And I think maybe in their situation it will look like a steal. They have Calais Campbell. They have an already good defense. He dominated or he did really well when he had Clayus Campbell in Jacksonville. And

if he, he might not have to play the run that much with the Ravens. If the Ravens are playing from the lead, like they did last year, there's a scenario where this trade at the end of the year looks really good for them because he's been really productive on past wrestling situations, but that's more of a product of where the team was and maybe not his full game. So I think projecting out, we might have to just take it with a grain of salt if he kind of goes on a huge run because it's just a much better situation for him there. So even if he goes on and he has 12, 14 sacks, I still think this is a good move for the Vikings.

They were just in salary cap hell and could not justify paying him, especially for what he was doing. And yeah, I don't know if it was exactly how Spielman wanted it to go obviously it wasn't but from the press conference it sounded like he thought Daniel Hunter would be back at some point for this it didn't so that raises questions about what Daniel has been saying about the injury to them what they think of the injury if it's all about the injury we'll get to that in a little bit but yeah it's it's it's kind of confusing but i think i i net out that it was a smart move and i think the next question that i

have is do you think the wilfs like are letting spielman make these decisions because they are going to put him in charge of the rebuild because i saw that flo floated out on Twitter, kind of mixed messages of, well, they went to let Spielman make this trade if they're just going to fire him later. I'm not sure I agree with that. But also if they're going to let him move Reif, if they're going to let him move Rudolph, if they're maybe even going to let him move Harrison or Hunter or something, like that's weird to move all those pieces and then kick him out the door. So what do

you think this means for the like spielman zimmer regime and if they'll be in charge moving forward yeah i think that um with tearing it down that's not really that hard i mean you call up teams and you say would you like a lightly used riley reef he uh is playing well this year and you say, would you like a lightly used Riley Reif? He is playing well this year, and you have no left tackle, Tennessee Titans or Dallas Cowboys. What do you think? That's not a difficult one. I mean, guys' value is going to be what it is, no matter who you're talking about making those phone calls. You or I could call up the Tennessee Titans and say, what will you give me for Riley Reif? And they will tell you, and you'll say yes or no.

Now, there is a matter here that is interesting, and that's whether they do that or not. But I think this is a signal that everything that's not nailed down is going out the door. And when Spielman talked about the benefits short term of trading Yannick Ngakwe, which I think at first people go, wait, what? Short term? Like you just traded out a player who's much better than your backup. But the short term that he's referring to is playing someone like DJ Wanham and getting him out there and seeing what you have through this rest of the year on DJ Wanham or James Lynch or anybody else who you're not certain about. If they're not certain about Jalen Holmes at this moment,

you're going to find out because these guys are now going to get playing time. And that's a pretty huge benefit of moving guys like Riley Reif, Kyle Rudolph, and potentially even Harrison Smith, depending on what the value might be, but definitely Anthony Harris. If you don't plan on having these guys for the future and you have people behind them, think about Rudolph. You don't need to know anything more about Kyle Rudolph. He deserves to go somewhere else and win.

But you do want Irv Smith to get that opportunity and even someone behind Irv Smith. We haven't seen a ton of Tyler Conklin. I think he's a good player, at least an NFL caliber tight end. But maybe put him in that number two spot and see what he can do. Or bring up Brandon Dillon from the practice squad. Like there are guys who are sitting behind these veterans. Maybe you want to find out if Rashad Hill can play tackle for a long time. I wrote an article about his advancement and how much he's improved.

And I know that that's not exciting. You'd rather see Ezra Cleveland there, but that's another option is finding out who you can go forward with has a lot of value to moving these guys beyond just what you're going to move out in Gawkway. We're going to move these other guys and take pretty much whatever we can get. Whoever wants to go can go. If Kyle Rudolph said, please don't trade me, I really can't be away from my family, then you wouldn't trade him. Like that fifth-round pick, that sixth-round pick, or whatever it might be, is not that important. So I'm not going to throttle them if they don't move everyone.

But someone like Riley Reif, he's been on a couple of different teams. Like, let him move on, right? So if they do not do that at all, then I'm going to have some questions about deciding to have Spielman tear it down. But I think how it gets torn down and how it looks the rest of the year without some of those veterans in place, I think says pretty much everything about how the Wilfs will make their decision on this coach and GM. Now, personally, I think they should already have the decision made. Are you going to stick with them or are you going to move on from these two? But I think just having studied this team now for years, I think they will look at the rest of

this season and say, if DJ Wanham looks great and the corners are improving and Justin Jefferson keeps doing what he's doing and all that, and they win a few games and they look like they're on the upswing rather than the downswing, that we may see them stick with the head coach and general manager. And if this goes kablooey and looks like it did against Atlanta, then you're probably talking about making a change at both positions. If it looks like, boy, all those draft picks, they all went bust on you.

And if we look at the head coach and he doesn't seem to have them motivated or prepared, I mean, playing the way they did against Atlanta, all of a sudden, like, target on everyone's back after that because that is a get-your- a get your coach fired type of performance. And if they have a lot more of those, if they play Jacksonville and lose by 20 points later this season, if they get run out of the building against the Packers, the Bears, the Lions, then you're just not going to believe that there's anything to look forward to with this group and you're going to want to make a change.

So it will be very interesting to see how they handle the reefs and the rudolphs and so forth but i don't think that this is exactly what they're judging on i think it's if they move those guys out what does it look like after that yeah and i think this last year of like everything we've seen spielman do is what makes it so hard to kind of evaluate if he's going to be here long term or if he's not because he's not like a typical like bad GM where every decision he makes is horrible like the Yannick Ngakwe trade was a miscalculation but they drafted Justin Jefferson he's had a track record of drafting a lot of really good players in later rounds Stefan Diggs they found Anthony Harris Eric Kendricks wasn't a late round pick, but that was a home run. Like they've hit a lot. They've like done well in drafts. And then they have the big misses. They have the Laquan Treadwell. They have this Yannick Ngakwe trade. They have

the insistence on not investing in the offensive line. So there's like, it's not like, oh, like Spielman's horrible. He hasn't done anything. Like there are redeeming factors that make you want to bring him back. And nationally, he's known pretty well as this guy that drafts well a guy that develops the team I mean before the season he was getting a lot a lot of um just praise for how he was kind of doing things on the fly and then it blew up and now there's none of that praise and everyone that said that is kind of backtracking so it's what makes him hard to evaluate and that was just the question I had was like, would Spielman make these moves, these rebuilding moves, if he didn't have some assurance

or some, I don't know, just if he knew he was out of there, I don't know if he's making these moves or maybe he is, but I don't know what it says about where he is in terms of his job security. If this is a last ditch effort to show that he can recoup value and then he can convince him that he can do more in the draft which he's been able to do or if this is just like i i don't really know so well i think that you think well you do the job until you get fired i'm sure that like you he's going to just continue to do what the right thing that he thinks is at the time until they tell him that, you know, he's got to clean out his office. But to your point about this last offseason, and I've had

some good conversations with fans on Twitter or in the comment section on the website just about this, and a lot of the offseason with trying to toe the line of, well, are you going to compete? Are you going to rebuild? I think that there were a lot of things that made sense. And then there were a lot of things that didn't. And so this is, it's like you could put them in bins. Like trading away Stefan Diggs, if you're rebuilding the team, makes sense. Drafting a receiver to replace him, who's fantastic. Okay, put that in the make sense bin if you're rebuilding.

But then trading for Ngakwe when you desperately need pass rush and now you end up not re-signing him to a long-term contract, that was always a major part of the formula for me. Like, oh, if you're trading for this guy that you're going to sign to a five-year deal and have these two edge rushers set, then it makes sense as a long-term move. Now that you've officially confirmed it's not a long-term move, it was a panicked, we need an extra pass rusher because we don't believe in, I don't know, a Fadi Adenabo. Well, that goes under the win now category. Put that over there.

And then you have your Kirk Cousins extension, which Spielman said today was to create cap space to sign Michael Pierce. Okay. Well, that's like a win now and another win now. So what? Like letting Xavier Rhodes go, letting Trey Waynes go, letting Mackenzie Alexander go, drafting corners. Well, those are a rebuild. Put those over here. And I think that that is what the death knell might be.

If this does not look good the rest of the season, it's just the trying to do both of those things, juggle both of those things at the same time. And I think we see in any sport, but a lot in football is trying to do those things on the fly is very, very difficult. Unless you have say like drew breeze, you know,

the saints at one point looked like they were kind of on the downswing and everyone was talking about whether everyone there would be fired. And then they have a great draft. They get Kamara. They get Lattimore. A couple other people. They rebuild. They sign guys.

They spend money they don't have. And then all of a sudden they're good again. I think that's what the Vikings were going for, but you don't have somebody to kind of prop you up the way that Drew Brees would do and maintain your level of competitiveness. And also, it's just when you're saying we're going to rely on Holton Hill, a guy who was suspended last year, has barely ever played, undrafted free agent. We're going to rely on Mike Hughes, injured all the time. We're going to rely on a third-round pick in Cam Dantzler, who I think still could be a good player, but like it's a third round pick. Those things fundamentally in a league that passes constantly and the teams that don't have good corners get destroyed.

The idea that the safeties were just going to like magically protect them. I think that's where the biggest, if you were going to try to win now still, that's where the biggest thing that you really had to talk yourself into and the the guard situation too like if you were going to win now then why not put more into the guard situation than Dakota Dozier and Pat Elfline which is neither win now or rebuilding like that's just nothing that those are just people who will have NFL careers as backups and and so when you kind of put it all together, it's like, what do you get? You get a mix mash. You don't get a true direction. And I think that since 2017, there's always been this extreme pressure to win

and to make big splash moves, to re-sign Barr for a lot of money. Sheldon Richardson, I thought, worked out, but to spend a lot of money on Sheldon Richardson, to re-sign Kirk like all these things. And I also think, and I'm sure we'll get to this, but just as an add-on that they kind of got fooled a little bit by a really good year from Kirk, but career highs are career highs for a reason. So, okay, go on to your next question. Well, I wanted to make a point of one thing I've been like wondering, and I don't know, I've been thinking more and more I don't know, I've been thinking more and more about this was we didn't see the Spielman and Zimmer contract extensions

come to a little bit later in the off season. And you talk about that pressure to win. That pressure was obviously coming from the top down from the Wilfs. They want to win. They want to have a perennial contender. So I don't know how much like we can put this off season on. We don't know how much like the Wilfs were pushing Spielman and Zimmer to make these win-now points. Like, some of these things that Spielman's doing, like, you're drafting a receiver to replace him. Some of it feels like, and this could be ownership, this could be him,

but some of it feels like, okay, I want to rebuild, but there's this pressure on me to win now. And I don't, part of me wonders if the extensions were contingent on staying relevant like if they trade away digs they start drafting all these guys and even before the draft maybe the Wilfs are like okay well if we're rebuilding maybe we should get someone else in there to do it so I wonder if they made some of those decisions to get the extensions and now they're like well we had to do that but it put us in a really bad spot and now Spielman is just continually

trying to work on the fly to gain maybe that job security back that he was like angling for this offseason. Good point. Good point. You never do know exactly what owners are telling their general managers to do. And I'll make this point probably a million other times, as long as we have the Purple Insider podcast is you just don't know what the expectations are set. And if you have a boss someday, Paul, that's not as wonderful as me and has more demands for you outside of, hey, get done with your stinking midterm so we can podcast. But you do what your boss tells you to do, right? So if you don't want to cover a high school soccer game and your boss tells you that's what you're doing, that's what you're doing.

And it works that way in pro sports. The general manager doesn't go in and flip a table and tell, you know, Ziggy Wilf to go to hell. I'm trading this guy no matter what. You know, like you're going to do what the ownership wants you to do. Now, I'll just add on to that. My understanding, and this may have changed. My understanding is that the owners are in terms of football owners, hands off more than some others, and that they go in the direction that they're informed by their management that they should go. So that's where that's been my perception,

but I would always leave the door open to, Hey, 2017 might've changed just how much they wanted to always be in contention and always be relevant. And I went back and looked at Mark Wilf's comments. There was nothing in his comments before the season that said, yeah, we know it's going to be a bit of a rebound. There was nothing there. It was our expectation is making the playoffs.

So I checked on that just to see if there was any sort of couching of where they felt. He said more or less that their expectations were to be good this year. So on to the next question. Yeah. What does Spielman declining to call this a rebuild, like, say about the situation? Is it just Spielman saying it's not a rebuild to say it's not a rebuild to like not go back on what they thought they were going to be at the beginning of the year like is that all we view this as or can we view it as something more as him trying to keep his job what what is him saying this isn't a rebuild need yeah I think there were a few comments in there where

he was talking about hey we're going to try to win every game and things like that which I mean you can't tell Delvin Cook not to run hard at football, right? Like, you can't tell Justin Jefferson, hey, you know, when one comes your way, I'm going to just swat it down. Game-winning touchdown, get out of here. I don't want that. I want Trevor Lawrence. Like, you can't tell your players to do that. So he's got to be careful about the message that he sends publicly to Mike Zimmer, to the players, because you know that in Zimmer's mind, he's coaching and he's trying to win every single game because if they go three and 13, it's probably the end of Mike Zimmer.

If they go three and 13, that means the second half of the season was a lot like what we saw in Atlanta and not as much like what we saw in Seattle. And that means that they're going to be looking for a new coach. And so if your message as a general manager is, Oh man, get out my, you know, chainsaw. Cause I am cutting this thing down in a million pieces and good luck Zim. And I mean, I think Spielman made the point of like, you know, you still have a bunch of pro bowlers, but I, it's like everything circles back to, know, you still have a bunch of pro bowlers, but I, it's like everything circles back to,

but if you still have a bunch of pro bowlers, why are you one in five? But from the direction standpoint, and that's where the tank for Trevor thing, they were never going to be able to get on board because they just have too many good players. And they still do as bad as they were against Atlanta. You're not that bad. You're probably closer to the team that lost by one to Tennessee and Seattle. And so you have to continue to just fight on.

That would be your case for making changes. Now, if you were ownership, it's like, well, we don't really want you to fight on. We want to play Jake Browning the rest of the season and lose every game. I mean, if you were Madden managing this and you said, what is the absolute best thing for the future? I can simulate the rest of the season. It is to do something drastic, but it's the real NFL. People's jobs are at stake, so they're not going to do anything like that. So that's where the rest of the season, that's where, you know,

it will be very interesting because you got people playing for their jobs, people coaching for their jobs desperately, but every win hurts your draft status for next year. So it's like this, you know, truly ironic situation. All right, let's move on to the other big domino to fall today. That was Daniel Hunter news of him. He's going to get surgery um i don't remember what specific thing it's coming to take out but um he's out for the season uh what should we read into this daniel hunter situation is it more than just an injury because first day of training camp it was oh daniel's not out there he'll be out there at

some point like there wasn't didn't seem to be huge alarm and then it's like oh five days we haven't seem to be huge alarm. And then it's like, oh, five days. We haven't seen Daniil Hunter yet. Weird. And then it's like two weeks. Is Daniil Hunter, is he still on the team? And then he's placed on IR. And then, but right after IR, it's like, he has a good shot of being here at week three.

And then now it's week six. We haven't really heard much about him recently. And now he's out for the season. So I don't want to question the injury at all. Like I'm sure he has a big injury. He's getting surgery for it. But I don't know. Are we reading more into this than just an injury?

Is it the contract situation? We know he isn't paid with what his value is. And then I want to get into you the second nugget, which is it sounds like maybe Daniil Hunter's on the table for a trade. So I want your whole Daniil Hunter spiel, like, just give it to me. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get

your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. If you have not seen it yet, you've got to check it out. A couple of my favorite designs are the Duck Duck Gray Duck and the Randy Moss Goat, which you've got to see. All their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it.

We're going to hook you up with free shipping on your next order. By the way, use promo code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. That's SOTASTICK, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspiredinspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. All right, first, a lesson for you for the future, Paul. Say it with me. Herniated disc.

Herniated disc. They're like cleaning it up, right? There have been some broadcasters in the past who have made mistakes when saying herniated disc so focus on that one when you say it um yeah it's going to be a surgery on that um to end the season and look i medical situations are very tough to look into as long as this took it does make you wonder if it's an adrian peterson 2016 situation where you can either do this or do that and this you're out for a long time this you could come back real quick and if he would have selected come back real quick if they were in the heat of the playoff race or if they looked like a potential

Super Bowl team and so forth but at one in five there's really no purpose which I think for him great do you man I mean think about your long. Neck injuries, herniated discs are always something to be concerned about for the long term. You don't want to see somebody having multiple issues with a herniated disc, Paul. You don't want to see that. Now, the second part of Ian Rappaport's tweet is much more interesting than the first. Okay, I didn't expect him to come back this season, considering where they're at. However, Minnesota has a decision. I'm reading Rappaport's tweet. Minnesota has a decision this offseason.

Make Hunter the highest paid defender in football or trade him. Have we seen the last of him in a Vikings uniform? So there's a little bit of, like, what a plot twist midway through the tweet. Okay, he's out for the season. Wait, what? Now, we have known that Hunter would want a new deal because his contract compared to the top edge rushers in the league is garbage. It's a very team-friendly deal.

He didn't have as many sacks in 2017. I think that hurt his value, even though he was absolutely terrific that season. But that's when his contract came up. So you got to kind of just go where you're at at the time. But then the following two seasons, he's got 14 and a half sacks. He's just a complete monster. He's emerged as a top five to seven player at the position. And so, of course, his side is going to want what he's worth,

even though his contract is officially through 2023. Here's the great thing about football contracts. You take that thing out to the old fire and you toss it in and you write a new one. Like this, it doesn't work that way in hockey, for example. You sign your deal, that's your deal. Sorry, pal. And the same thing with baseball. But in football, you can rip these things up, do a new contract, and everybody can go forward.

Now, whether the Vikings want to do that or not, I think what's being signaled here is he'll hold out and he won't play next year. This guy is so rich and so young, he's got power here. The CBA that was made in attempt to keep players from holding out, that's really about second contracts. That's not about guys with massive, massive deals already who could just pay the fines and be like, I don't care, trade me, get me out of here. So Hunter is in a situation where he has some power if they don't want to make him one of the highest, if not the highest paid edge rusher in the NFL. Now, I will give you my opinion here, Paul. I think that if that is the case, they should, and prepare yourself for this, trade Daniil

Hunter because, I mean, A, he's coming off of a pretty serious issue here that's kept him out for the year. That's not really my big concern. But if you look at what the Chicago Bears paid for Khalil Mack, they paid two first round draft picks. If you are a rebuilding defense and you can get two first round draft picks for someone who is excellent, absolutely monster, monstrous, tremendous, whatever word you want to use, One of the best players in the league. But two first-round draft picks can take the gas pedal on a rebuild and push it down to the floor.

And can you replace pass rush? I think you can. I mean, there are so many good edge rushers in the NFL right now. You can replace them with rotational rushers. You can draft people. Getting yourself locked into a huge quarterback contract and a contract that's at the very top of the league for an edge rusher when the salary cap is going to go down is pretty risky, especially with a player who's been hurt. And yes, he's still in his prime. He's still great. I'm not

disparaging that. And I know it would really hurt for him to leave. But it would also just, from a value standpoint, make a lot of sense because you get a massive cap space to spend on other people. It's like we forget about that when someone great leaves. It's like you get all that cap space to spend on other people. Think about $25 to $30 million of cap space to spread out in terms of your wins above replacement formula. And then two first round draft picks. It's almost a no brainer that even one great player is not worth $30 million or $25 million in cap space and two first round draft picks.

So if that's what they could get for it, if someone was willing to pay through the nose because they just needed an edge rusher then you certainly have to consider it and um so that's going to be all of a sudden we go from huh you know well daniel hunter out for the year see you next year pal uh to whoa this is uh very much a situation to watch yeah and i i think we should be clear it wouldn't make sense for him to be moved at this deadline there's no he's not coming right and you can't for the rest of the season right yeah so this this isn't a now thing and then that kind of brings it up again well who is going to be making that decision for that trade because i think that'll be a big a big thing like spielman and zimmer if they're back at the helm i

find it hard to believe that they would then trade deniel hunter. Great point. Great point. Zimmer would not be happy trading Daniil Hunter. So that seems like if they got a new GM, a new coach who has maybe an offensive-minded coach, they have a different perspective on the building blocks to a championship team. Maybe that's when you move. You move Daniil Hunter kind of like how John Gruden came in and said, okay, we're getting rid of Khalil Mack. So this doesn't, at least in my mind, doesn't seem like a realistic possibility if they move forward with Spielman and Zimmer. This Spielman and Zimmer, they would need to bring in different coaches. But yeah, for me, it's hard.

I get the value perspective, and that's probably in the long run what you should do. But it's just really hard for me to part with, you found this guy in the third round. He's kind of, he's super young. And what we've seen in the NFL is rebuilds don't take eight years. They don't, like, it can happen quickly if they find the quarterback that's right for them. And then, like, everything else just accelerates. Like, we saw how quickly the 49ers with Kyle Shanahan went from a really bad team to in the Super Bowl.

We saw the Rams once they got McVay that it kind of changed everything. And part of me would want Daniil Hunter to be on the team for that. And I'd almost rather get like let anyone else that has a major contract to get off the books because you can handle a couple of them. And Daniil Hunter would be the one that I want. He seems like the person that you'd want on your team just from like, he's not stirring up too much drama normally. Maybe he would for this contract, but he seems like the right guy you'd want on your team. He seems like the guy that's going to make a lot of people better. And people have different philosophies of, oh, it starts with the D line.

You need pressure. Some people think you need the corners and then the pressure comes. All I know is when Daniil Hunter's on the team, you're a lot better. And it's committing to a rebuild that then pushes us down a couple years because you're getting a first round pick. If this is after the season, this season, it's a first round pick next year or maybe in this draft and and then another first-round pick that year, and then you're pushing out the window super far, which from a Vikings fan perspective, when you were told that this year they'd be in contention, that's going to be a major shock and one that's, I don't think, going to go over super well at the beginning,

just like the Raiders trade was. I think Raiders fans now are like, okay, we got the picks. We're starting to be a little bit more frisky. Like we've got some talent, things are happening. And Kalil Mack is now in whatever the third year of his contract, it's huge. And so at that point, they're starting to feel better about it. Maybe that would happen with the Vikings, but you're going to take a big short-term hit just from a fan base perspective and from a national perspective when you're trading him away. And I don't know if they do that again I think it would be a new GM that would do that but for me it's hard to believe

that they would trade him and hard for me to say I would want him to go yep it's the thing is the pull of someone who is really truly great versus the math on it when When you start adding up, what could you get for a first rounder this year? What can you get for a first rounder next year? What can you spend $25 million in cap space on? And then tell me that a single pass rusher is worth all of that. And I mean, that's where I just can't make the formula work as much as I have as much respect for Daniel Hunter as anyone. And I marvel at what I just can't make the formula work as much as I have as much respect for Daniil Hunter as anyone.

And I marvel at what the guy can do on the field. But at the same time, think about Daniil Hunter. You found him in the third round. You found Everson Griffin. He was a fourth-round pick that you developed. And think about some of the edge rushers that were even free agents this year where you can bring in guys that are not super expensive. You can draft players who make a pretty quick impact i mean daniel hunter by his second year of his career as an elite player just like just like that and so there's always this like well what do we do if

we'll never find a replacement but a lot of times you can i mean the green bay packers they went out signs that area smith and preston smith boom, they just fixed their pass rush immediately. So there's always the next guy who's coming available. It does kill you, for sure, if you don't have, and we've seen it, if you don't have a good defensive line in the NFL today. run it's just a big problem um but at the same time when pff does their stuff with like wins above replacement the edge rushers above a replacement edge rusher are not as high as some other positions that's not to say it's not important again it's like a million times i want to say you can't just plug in someone in daniel hunter's spot it's what is it all worth on the whole. But I agree with you entirely that if it's Zimmer and if it's Spielman, then Daniil Hunter will get the contract he wants. And then I would say to you, was it a good idea that Barr got the contract he wanted? Was it a good idea that Delvin Cook got the contract he wanted? I mean, they've made sure that everybody who sticks their hand out ends up

getting paid the contract that they want. And what they've ended up with is very highly paid stars and nothing else. It's like having a chessboard where you only have your queen and your rook and your bishop, but you have no pawns. And anybody who plays chess understands the pawns are very valuable. So you've got to have a lot of good pawns. And I think that they tried to just put all their money into a couple of guys and we've seen the results of that.

So why would you do that again? Would be my question. All right. One more before we wrap this up. This has been a fun day. Yeah. I want to know now that we're in the bye week, the Packers game is just a few days before the trade deadline.

You said earlier, OK, it probably happens beforehand. So when that Packers game comes, who is still on the team or who is off the team? Maybe it's a better question. We've been hypothesizing about this for a while, but we didn't have a deal to kind of know what direction they were going in. They trade Yannick Ngakwe. It's clear that they are trying to recuperate at least some assets. So who is on the team when the Vikings go into Lambeau to play the Packers? Thanks to a lack of natural athleticism or commitment or overbearing sports parents, fewer than 1% of 1% of 1% of people will ever play professional football.

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which are shown to be three and a half times more likely to result in a hire. With 73% of online job seekers visiting Indeed each month, Indeed is going to get you the important hire that you need, Thank you. $75 credit at Indeed.com slash BlueWire. This is their best offer available anywhere. Go right now to Indeed.com slash BlueWire. Terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through December 31st. The other way you could phrase this is, who would not be on the team that would surprise us? Because we know who could get moved here,

and I think that, let's say, out of the four players we've said could get traded. All right. One's already gone. Yannick and Gakwe. And there's maybe, maybe two other ones go. I mean, Reef is just too obvious. And to me, Anthony Harris is too obvious. If you're not going to pay him this off season, if you do want to pay him this off season,

then I could get keeping him around. Rudolph, I would just ask Kyle, like, do you want to be traded okay we'll trade you do you not want to be traded okay fine you can stay but you know I think is a Harrison Smith not here I would be I know that this has been brought up on the internet by someone but like Adam Thielen would be really stunning if they decided to move someone like that I don't think that that's has any chance of happening and you shouldn't with an elite wide receiver. You want to keep them, but is there a surprise person that's traded that we didn't necessarily name? And that will be interesting. Harrison Smith is definitely the guy who's at the top of my list. Same with Kyle Rudolph. If Harrison Smith said, look, can you maybe just send me to Kansas city

so I could try to win a Super Bowl? Like, then you have to honor that request and you have to do that, I think, because of his age and his contract, too. And I know for fans of this team for a long time, they're listening to this going, get rid of Hunter, get rid of Smith. Oh, my gosh. But this is the position you're in. I mean, this is kind of how this has worked out for you and where you're at. And I think if you're looking at 2021 as, hey, you can definitely compete for a Super Bowl in 2021, then, you know, maybe you don't make a move like that. But if you're looking at it more of you have to do the same thing you did before, which is take a team that was in a tough situation. And really the rebuild or the build for the first Zimmer era starts in 2013 when they take all those guys or 2012 when they take Harrison Smith.

I mean, you really could look back that far and you say Harrison Smith and then you get in, you know, a lot of the other players over the next few drafts that were key. It took a few drafts to build these guys up. And then the 2015 one really accelerated it, and it's going to probably take a couple of more drafts if you want to make that your approach. If you don't, then you have to sign veterans in the offseason to fill these positions that were so problematic. I want to know. I have a question for you, Paul.

I want to know your opinion on something. Here's my question for you. When Rick Spielman says, let me make sure I've got the quote exactly right, because I am getting quote tweeted into oblivion on Twitter right now, since I sent this out, like my Twitter page is just like melted after I quoted the general manager of the Vikings. He said, Rick Spielman, I don't think anyone has lost faith in Kirk Cousins. Do you think that Rick Spielman is telling the truth when he says that no one with the Vikings, not fans and not analysts, not ourselves, has lost faith in Kirk Cousins? When he says no one

has lost faith? If he's telling the truth, then I'm not sure he should still be the general manager just because we saw Diggs's frustration last year with him I think Diggs was probably the most vocal about his frustration I would guess that there were other people in that locker room in that coaching staff that have frustrations with Kirk Cousins and I can't imagine what we've seen after six games has lessened how they feel about him. And so if you're talking about just the people, the coaches, the players in the room, I don't think there's another position you can have. He's locked in for three years. Like if anyone's having doubts about Kirk Cousins right now, like we said, just turn in your resignation right there because you tied yourself to the hip with Kirk Cousins.

So no, they should have concerns about Kirk Cousins and where this team can go with him. I think we've gone over those reasons ad nauseum about why he isn't the quarterback moving forward. And from a fan perspective, I think, I mean, we know that they're already out on Kirk Cousins. They're doing draft sims and tweeting them at us. They're already in the Trevor Lawrence Photoshop meme pages. But no, a lot of what Spielman said just felt like he's trying to just, like he's trying to stop some holes from like, he's trying to stop the onslaught that's coming his way.

No, we believe in Kirk Cousins. We're not rebuilding. Like six weeks is a long time to just, or really short time to just flip with a complete 180 with where you were at. So they're stopping some of the holes. Does that mean at the end of the season, that's how they feel?

I don't know. But in the middle of the season with all those veterans, you're not trying to start a roster upheaval where everyone gets really mad at you and then you're going to lose your job because you're going to go because all the players despise you and don't want to play for you so I think he had to say what he said but I don't believe it any more than I would have yesterday if he hadn't said that like I still don't think that everyone probably feels great about Kirk

Cousins and I don't think they should I think when you sign him to the extension under the pretense that you will continue to be good in 2020 you talk yourself into it by saying he's different with us he's different with us it reminds me of any relationship um someone has their flaws and if you try to change them they might be able to change for a short term. This is relationship advice for anybody. But nobody changes long term. And Kirk Cousins, this is the thing I keep talking about or thinking about when I'm watching him, is that he's just not any different. Like these five, six games, he's not any different.

He's Kirk Cousins. The problems are exacerbated by the lack of talent on the team and by the offensive line and by the defense and so forth but do you know how good you have to be to get the best of Kirk Cousins to get you deep in a playoff I mean probably unbelievably good in order to have that actually happen and I would guess that the reality of that has set in. Like, lost faith is aggressive. If he said, yeah, we've lost faith in the guy I signed. So see you guys later. That's like a mic drop. I'm out. I'm going to go GM someone else or I'm going to go play golf type of comment. Because it's one of those, if you say we've lost faith in Kirk Cousins, hand in your resignation

type of comments. So you have to say it. I agree with you there. But if Rick Spielman said to me privately, let's say pulls me aside, he says, look, look, Tiger, we're going to draft quarterback in the first round and we're going the Mahomes route. We're going to play Kirk for 2021 and then we're going to trade him to somebody who wants to extend him. And then we're going to hand it over to Trey Lance. That's our, that's the then we're going to trade him to somebody who wants to extend him and then we're going to hand it over to Trey Lance that's our that's the way we're going I would say Mr. Spielman that is a great idea and you should do that and I think that you can be the GM going

forward if if that was if that was the idea and it's just like Alex Smith it's just like it because the guy is a good quarterback. He's very good. Alex Smith was very good. I don't think Kirk's as good as Alex Smith personally, but he's a very good quarterback and career years would pop up with Alex Smith. He had a hundred and I don't know, 18 quarterback rating or something one year. Um, but the long-term answer on Alex Smith was always, it's not going to be quite good enough. And that's where you are and versus how expensive it is. It's not going to be good enough versus how expensive it is. And that's where you are with Kirk. And if you miscalculated, but now you can turn and still

have a really good plan at quarterback going forward, then okay, then okay, then that's the way you have to go. And I don't think that there was any chance he was going to show his cards on that but if that's not what you're thinking that's how i would judge it in terms of the the truth serum or whatever if that's if that's not what you're thinking if he if he said no we're good we just have to you know run play action more they're like okay well uh you know there was a little part where spielman's talking about how we run the ball they're just like uh okay i just don't need to listen to this. Like this, we have to run the ball to win.

Then why did you pay someone $30 million a year as a quarterback? Like if you were wanting to run to win. So a lot of mistakes were made, but I think that there is a path, and this will be future podcasts. There's a path where this works out really well. It's can you get on that path and go that direction? I think even we all see it. It's just, will they see it? Will they do it? So great stuff, Paul. I hope your midterm went well. This was quite a day. I didn't expect us to get together here this week because of the bye week. But here we are.

It's the Vikings. You should never take a break. And you should end this by saying herniated disc. Herniated disc. Great work, Paul. Good. Cool. The wait is finally over.

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