Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Adam Thielen's time as a Viking may be done and Justin Jefferson is worth the same as some quarterbacks

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Matthew Coller and intern Haley react to the news that Adam Thielen may be released soon if the Vikings can't come to an agreement with his contract. Then they discuss her study on whether Justin Jefferson is really as valuable as a quarterback after Kwesi Adofo-Mensah indicated as much at the NFL Combine. How's Haley feeling about the Jets potentially landing Aaron Rodgers? And more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with intern Haley English, who does not write like an intern, if you have read any of her work so far. And we got to dive into the Justin Jefferson piece that you did that shows his value versus a lot of NFL quarterbacks. Really interesting data driven stuff but just before we were set to record we got a little news from adam schefter also ben gesling of the star tribune reporting the same thing that people should prepare themselves for the possibility of adam theland not being a minnesota viking hayley first of all i have to give credit to uh the way adam schefter worded

his report like they've kind of been working on a restructure their contract but maybe if you have a 19 journey you should maybe get out the tape where they cover the back of the name and write in the new name like you might not be here i would love to hear your thoughts looking at the numbers just about adam feeling and whether it is the right move for the Minnesota Vikings to move on, assuming that they can't get some sort of different contract done. Yeah, definitely. I mean, Adam Thielen, he was my fantasy rock for like the 2020 season. He won me my fantasy championship along with Stefan Diggs. So like they were my two players who would just

like have been my fantasy stars, but obviously clear decline in the past couple of years. His PFF grade has declined by nearly 10 points from 87 to now at 65 in the 2022 season, as well as his EPA, total EPA for the season has declined. It was 46 in 2020, then it went to 24.7 in 2021. And now this past season, it was only 10.4. And we'll talk about how Justin Jefferson fits in with that. But yeah, he's clearly not really doing his part of the Vikings anymore. And I think everyone should be prepared for them to move on. How would you explain, when we talk about expected points added,

what those numbers actually tell us? Because I think that from people's eye tests who watched Adam Thielen at his absolute peak, say 2017, 2018, you could see that there was not the same burst. And even at times where he caught the ball and was open and you expected him to run by somebody and score, it didn't happen. I think if we had the next gen data for how fast he was moving, it would not be as fast as he was before, but the contributions in terms of expected points added are really notable because he did have decent numbers as far as catches and targets, his yards per catch were not very high. But when you talk about EPA, I think it tells us a little more about the efficiency and the actual impact of the catches that he made,

not just that fantasy number of 70 catches. Exactly. Like catches are one thing, yards are another thing, like yards for the catch. But EPA is kind of the baseline for evaluating how much worth and how much value that person is adding to the team because it's ultimately like setting them up to score. So like if you're going to catch a long pass obviously it's going to be very high epa whereas if you catch just like a short pass that might have like gone for a first down or whatever it's going to be lower epa but it's all it's all down and distance based along with the situations in the game but yeah his contributions were great in the years past but he's just declined ever since right it sounds like uh or i guess the way i would explain it to people is just uh how your performance compared to the situation

so if you have a 30 yard catch on third and nine or something from where you know wherever it gets you into the red zone like that's going to be worth a lot. But if you have, you know, a five yard reception that's in the middle of the field, that's not going to be worth as much. It's just sometimes we throw out these terms and because you and I deal with them all the time, we kind of know what they mean, but I just want to kind of explain that to where we can literally circle on the sheet. This is where his decline went. But how would you compare that, say, to an average receiver? Because one thing we know about the receiver market is that they cost a lot of money in free agency. And this does if they move on officially, of which we'll have an emergency podcast and everything else. But if they do move on, it does open the door for receiver and the

draft. But if they're looking at other positions on defense and things like that, the one thing that has to be taken into account is that finding receivers in free agency has always been a trouble for this team and is not the easiest with how expensive they are. So I guess, how would you compare what he did EPA wise to somebody that they might find an average player to replace him? Yeah, I was looking at the receivers that are coming up this free agency and there's not a lot of great names out there. I was looking at the rankings and the top one was Jacoby Myers. And I'm like, well, he hasn't even been great. So like, how much is it worth it for the Vikings to try to go and get him and maybe overpay for him as opposed to going to the draft and getting another one? So like Alan Lazar, DJ Chark, Paris Campbell, those are the other names

on that list. And yeah, they're all decent receivers, but I think you might be able to get more bang for your buck in this draft specifically with the receiver names coming out. Yeah, I totally agree. And it looks like a lot of the receivers are not going to go in the top five or seven. And we talked with Mike Renner of PFF about that, where he sees that as a potentially good area for the Vikings to chase a receiver. So I guess bottom line on this Haley, before we talk about your Justin Jefferson article and some other things going on is just that there's going to be a lot of nostalgia with Justin or with Adam Thielen and very personal for you and your free, you know, your fantasy

team. So I can see the hurt on your face as we're talking. But as tough as this is, I think that Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell did a good job of preparing everyone for we're not going to be bringing everyone back. And from a black and white, just this is the way it is, probably a good bet for the Vikings to make this move. Yeah, I think so. And the Jets just did something similar today. They just cut Braxton Berrios and that was kind of a sentimental thing to keep him from last year. I know he had a great 2021 season, but he definitely didn't live up to that hype in 2022. And I think it was a good move to cut him and save some cap money for a potential quarterback

that might be coming in. Right. I mean, that's just kind of reality in the NFL is that you have to move on at the right time, because if you don't, then you waste a lot of your time. And really, you could say that they waited a year too long with Adam Thielen and maybe should have moved on a year earlier before he had that decline and wasn't as effective as potentially somebody else that they could have brought in. So let's talk about your Justin Jefferson article as I think maybe if Justin Jefferson's agent sees it, he's going to be very happy because what you did was, and I'm glad we did the explanation of what expected points added is you looked at how his stats in terms of PFF wins above replacement, which I think everyone understands is if you were to replace him with an average receiver, but like average off the trash heap. So an Albert Wilson or somebody like that, just this, you know, a random replacement level player, how many points or how many wins above would he be worth? Which for the Vikings specifically this year, the answer was probably

a lot of actual wins because they played so many close games, but relative to the rest of the league, if you were to put them into a static situation and not, you know, talking about the Vikings specifically, but you took the war and you took the EPA. So these sort of in-depth analytics and compare them to is just a Jefferson really worth as much as a quarterback, which is kind of how they're treating him in his future.

What did you find on that, Haley? Yeah, so we can talk about his wins of upper placement value first, and it's just gone up every year. So.55 in his rookie year, then.61 in 2021, and then all the way up to 0.71 this past season. So he's slowly just become basically the entire receiving offense. His EPA ranks, we'll go to that quickly. His total EPA back in 2020 was 65, whereas all of the other receivers combined was almost double that.

And then he's moved to this season having an EPA of 74.3. And I want to say that all the other receivers combined had an EPA of like 49. So he's become over well over half of this receiving offense in terms of the production that's on the field in terms of scoring points and everything. So by far the most productive receiver on the Vikings and arguably the most productive receiver in the NFL. If we compare that to other receivers, he's an EPA this past season, he's third behind Jalen Waddle and Stephon Diggs. And then his war value is tied for the highest with Tyreek Hill.

He's up there in every stat possible that you can calculate. But then if you compare it to quarterbacks, war kind of tells us that he's about the same value as a far lower tier quarterback like Marcus Mariota his war value was pretty much tied with his where as you take someone like Jimmy Garoppolo or Derek Carr their war values were just over one so 1.07 for Jimmy G and 1.24 for Derek Carr and that was 26th and 23rd out of all quarterbacks so war is telling us that Justin Jefferson probably not as valuable as a mid-tier quarterback but EPA this past season will tell you that Justin Jefferson's total EPA is the same as the ninth best quarterback.

So he was in the middle of Jimmy Garoppolo and Daniel Jones. So that's a different story. I like the EPA example a little more better just because it kind of shows his worth stacked with quarterbacks because War on quarterbacks is a little higher just because they're so valuable. But yeah, definitely pretty valuable to this offense. Yeah. I think the difference there is to try to parse through, um, all of the statistics and kind of come up with a, like, here's the bottom line on this. It would be that wins above replacement, the replacement quarterbacks are so horrible as compared to the starters that it kind

of messes with wins above replacement stats. So if you were to take even a bad Derek Carr season and put in Jarrett Stidham, you would have won several less games because Jarrett Stidham is still nowhere close to a bad Derek Carr. So that comparing it to receivers is harder. But when you talk about expected points added and how much he was worth, to be in the range actual points wise, to say that he was worth this many points as a quarterback in the plays that both of them made is truly remarkable. Like this does not happen very often. You're usually talking about quarterbacks kind of steamrolling every other position

by far and to actually be in that conversation and to be worth to your team by points as much as Daniel Jones was to the Giants. And this man just signed a humongous contract that average annual value is going to be near $40 million. I mean, that's really remarkable. And so this is actually putting together kind of something that I've talked about a bit. People have asked like, hey, wouldn't it be crazy to shop Justin Jefferson if they don't think he's going to sign and see if you can get a couple number one picks back? And my answer is always, no way. I mean, you've got to do anything under the sun to make sure that he stays

because he's that value. And I love the way you put it. You essentially said in your article, it's like having two quarterbacks on the team in terms of value, which also means it's going to be hard to pay two quarterbacks. Cause I think that again, he knows all of these facts about how much he's actually worth to them. Exactly. Like you're eventually going to probably, probably, probably be having to pay almost two quarterback salaries ideally like a receiver would be never paid as much as a quarterback I know the Christian Kirk signing kind of reset the whole wide receiver market last season so I don't know how much Justin Jefferson's gonna want

but he's surely gonna want like upwards of at least a very low tier quarterback um and he's he's worth that much but yeah when that time time comes, it might be hard to try to figure out a contract with him. So how can we statistically say how much he's worth to Kirk Cousins? Because I think Kirk Cousins had a really good year last year. It was not his best year of his career, but came through in a lot of big situations,

took on the leadership role, connected with Kevin O'Connell. But at the same time, when people ask about, well, who are you going to find as your quarterback if it's not Kirk Cousins? And I know you've brought this up, and we'll talk about your feelings with the Jets and Rodgers. But one thing that comes to mind for me is, is there anyone who can't throw to Justin Jefferson? So is there a way to quantify? you can't really separate the receiver from the quarterback, but in your mind, is there a way to quantify how much Justin Jefferson has impacted Kirk Cousins and how much he might impact a different quarterback? Yeah, that's a good

question. I mean, he's obviously made Kirk Cousins better just because he makes his life so much easier because he's gotten open so much. I know 5ThirtyEight, that website, they did receiver ratings, and one of them was getting open. And I think Justin Jefferson was third in that category this past season. So he's been great at getting open. He's been great at making the catch. So he's obviously made Kirk Cousins' life so much easier and maybe making him look a little bit better than he is.

But then again, he's become this entire receiving offense that no other receiver has come close to anywhere near his production. So I think the Vikings are going to want to add another kind of decent receiver. One, if they're getting rid of Adam Dillon and we'll see how much his production is with Kirk cousins compared to Justin Jefferson. And you just casually dropped in when you were going over the stats that he was worth like double all the other receivers combined for the Vikings last year. Like, oh yeah, by the way, it is not an exaggeration to say that he was their offense last year. And that's something that I wrote about. Kevin O'Connell knows that he needs to improve the running game and we'll see what happens as far as Delvin Cook goes. It seems like it should be an obvious decision, but you never really know when it

comes to that. But I think the point is that if they have to replace the quarterback, when Justin Jefferson is as expensive as he is, which seems like a foregone conclusion, you just can't afford both of those things. Don't, don't fear, I guess, because you are the team that can offer the receiver who's going to help your future quarterback more than anybody else. So even in my mind, if you were to put a less talented quarterback on the Vikings with an improved running game and another weapon that was not at Adam Thielen's age, a struggle and Justin Jefferson, let's just say, even if it was someone like Jacoby Brissett.

And again, he's not anywhere close to as talented as Kirk Cousins, but could you still come up with similar type of production if you needed a filler quarterback or a bridge quarterback? I think you could. I think that these numbers sort of show that. And you had a great stat in your article that it was like 93% of the passes that were catchable for Justin Jefferson, he caught, which is an insane number, and over 50% of contested catches.

Everything points to this guy will make whoever you put into the mix a lot better. Exactly. I think that's kind of what's happened with San Francisco and Jimmy Garoppolo. Yeah, he's a decent quarterback, but he has all these weapons around him that are going to make him look so much better and make his life so much easier. So I think if you, I mean, like Kirk's a good quarterback, but obviously not like Patrick Mahomes level. But I think if you put a worse quarterback in that system, Justin Jefferson is still going to get a lot of production and the quarterback's going to look pretty decent no matter kind of who he is, as long as he's not

turning the ball over every five seconds. But yeah. Yeah. And that's why when people rank quarterbacks, this is a pet peeve of mine, Haley, is when they rank quarterbacks, they're only ever ranked going into seasons based on two things, what they most recently did and where they were drafted and what people think of their skill sets. And one thing that we don't put enough weight into is circumstance. And we saw this with Brock Purdy. I think Brock Purdy can play like he gets rid of the ball quickly. He clearly understands offenses and defenses, and he's got some playmaking element to him.

If he played for a bad team last year, Brock Purdy would not have been good. And there are some players who can overcome that. Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and so forth. But most can't. I always think we should weigh our quarterback rankings by where the offense is expected to rank with that quarterback running them because last year, Jared Goff's in the top five. The year before, their offense is terrible

because they changed a lot about it. So I don't know what you think of that, but that's always one of the things leading into a season. Quarterback rankings, who cares? We're talking about who's going to produce the most in the next season season and that's where Jalen Hurts shouldn't have ranked 22nd he should have ranked top five because of the things he was going to have around it exactly and I always wanted to know kind of like I know the 49ers offense is so quarterback friendly and I always wanted to know what if you put a Zach Wilson a Sam Darnold in that offense are they just are they

going to continue to throw like three picks a game or are they going to suddenly figure it out in this, like with all those weapons around them? So yeah. Maybe Sam Darnold. I'm not sure Zach Wilson would take the time to really want to even learn the offense. So I don't know, but maybe that, maybe that's you rationalizing.

And we will talk about our feelings regarding the Jets quarterback situation a minute. But now I wanted to ask you this. It's a good transition. So you've had a couple of weeks. You've been a Purple Insider intern for three weeks. You've submitted three tremendous home run articles. And we've done some fun podcasts.

But I want to know what you think. Because you are kind of being dropped into everyone else's universe. And one thing Minnesotans love is to hear what people not from Minnesota think about them. It's probably not that way where you're from, but it's definitely that way in Midwest cities. So what do you think? What do you think about what they should do regarding the rest of the offseason?

Like run it back, tear it down. How should they handle Kirk Cousins? Give us some thoughts of you observing the Vikings for a couple weeks here as our intern. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the biggest thing for anyone not in the Viking circle last season was that they were frauds. They won almost, I think, every one score game they were a part of. They could have easily been like 3- 14 which is kind of crazy um but yeah so i think the biggest thing obviously fix the defense number one priority i know they need to cut or need to clear cap space they did just cut kendrick's who was their most effective blitzer i thought that was kind of interesting just because you brought in flores who's an amazing

blitz caller and everything and you just got rid of their most effective one. So I'm like, who other than Harrison Smith, who is a great blitzer and very effective, who are they going to blitz? So I'm like, they have to bring in some people, but do they have the cap space to bring in people? I don't entirely know too much about their cap situation in terms of that, but I think there are players that you guys need to cut.

I've heard the names like Jordan Hicks be thrown around, obviously Adam Thielen. And then I think you should keep Harrison Smith. I've heard the names like Jordan Hicks be thrown around, obviously Adam Thielen. And then I think you should keep Harrison Smith. I've heard that name come up for a cut candidate. And I think another priority should be extend TJ Hawkinson. I think he's been great for you guys. And yeah, I think you got to continue that. Cause I think you're going to get at least a couple more good years out of

Kirk Cousins. He's 35, I think. So yeah, as long as you can get good production out of him, I said, run it back. Well, and so this is, this is the difficult thing, right? Is they kind of are in a position unless they're trading Kirk Cousins where they don't have any choice, but to run it back. But how good can they really be is the question. And, and we, it's all very easy for us to be like, well, just tank. And Kwesi Adafomenta talked about that where he said, I can't, I just can't do that. I can't just like

push the tank button. You can't tell Justin Jefferson, we're just going to lose. But in your mind, let's say perfect world scenario, everything they do works. How much better could they be for next season? Yeah, that's a good question because you're going to need to know what the defense is going to look like. Let's say they perfectly draft a corner, they get another good wide receiver. I think they can be decent. They wouldn't be losing too many players because Adam Thielen won, had no production. Kendrick's like, yeah, I think that's maybe your biggest loss, but I think they can still be decent as long as they can hopefully win all the one score games again next year. You got to start learning on how to like blow

out opponents instead of just keep it close and then hopefully win in the end on a game winning 65 yard field goal. So I think, yeah, a little bit more of that kind of thing. Yeah. And then that's kind of what it comes down to is you have to have a lot of the things go right that went right last year and still you end up being eliminated by a mediocre team but my thing would be tell me if you agree with this as long as you are taking this thing to a point at the end of next season where you're not having the same discussion where you're not going well we're way over the cap again and how are we going to deal with the quarterback situation?

If you come out of this off season with a competitive football team, but also a ton of answers about the future, I think that's a win. I think that's kind of the best case scenario in a world where you can't just get rid of everyone and just run back a garbage roster and win three, three games. Like you're just not in that position with some of the key players that you have, but if you have answers and you have cap space at the end of the day and draft capital at the end of the day, and feel like you're in a good position to competitive rebuild this thing, that would be a win. A loss would be if you don't have those things. Exactly. As long as you make sure that Justin Jefferson, isn't the one man show, that's kind of running the team. I think you're in a good place for next year.

Yeah, I agree. Let's get into some of these other things. So I want you to share your feelings. That's what we do on the show quite a bit, actually. And it's always funny because, you know,

sometimes sitting in your seat right now is Jeremiah Searles, who is six foot five and 275 pounds, but he's always willing to share his feelings. So that means you have to as well. Aaron Rodgers, Jets. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about your feelings. I mean, you've gone through a lot of bad quarterbacks with the New York Jets. And from a Vikings perspective, it's weird because that team, the Green Bay Packers, have had great quarterback play, elite, for 30 straight years.

And weird, they've won a lot of games. I know the anti-QB wins people. They're going to have to explain that. But Aaron Rodgers, Jets, how would that make you feel? Oh, amazing. I was very high on Derek Carr. And then I get it. He wanted to sign somewhere that wanted him as his number one option.

So the Jets have made it clear Aaron Rodgers is their their number one guy kind of like for a little bit now so please just like get it done like I love Joe Douglas to pieces because he just continues to fleece teams for no draft capital and get like an amazing player like they just traded a seventh round pick for a starting safety and Chuck Clark today. So I was content about that. And yeah, but Aaron Rodgers, I've been alive since 2001. And I looked this up. There's only been six seasons where the starting quarterback has played every game for the Jets in my almost 22 years of life. So yeah, you need a quarterback who's going to play a whole season

and hopefully get you to the playoffs. I know the Jets have the longest playoff drought. So yeah, I think Aaron Rodgers with the pieces around the Jets, they're basically a quarterback away. I think the Jets are the most intriguing option for him. They're kind of the only option out there right now because I think the Raiders have backed out. So I don't think the Packers want him back. So we'll see. I know they want to test out Jordan Love.

I like personally, I want to see what he can do. I think he's a good player and I liked what he did against the Eagles, but I really, yeah, I would love Aaron Rodgers on the Jets as much as a chaotic human he is. And we might be going through the same exact thing next year if he wants to play again. But yeah, I just want one good season with a decent quarterback. How good is it going to be? You think, I mean, Rogers last year did not play particularly well. Also a weird situation where he didn't like them. They didn't like him and they gave him all rookie wide receivers almost intentionally. I mean, this, this would be like, if you're dating someone and then they start just not showing up to your, you know, when you're

going to go out and hang out or not responding to your text messages and then be like, Oh yeah, I mean, I guess we're still together. Like They want you to break up with them instead of you breaking up with whatever, you know what I mean? But the circumstance is quite a bit different though. Garrett Wilson is clearly a rising star in the league. Their offensive line is good, but also the AFC is a monster beast. So what would your expectations be if that happened? I think they would definitely contend for the division. I know the bills are going to be losing a couple of key players on defense. So hopefully they'll regress. I mean,

honestly, like I love the bills, even though I'm like an AFC East. So that's kind of always been like a conflicting thing, but obviously jets over bills. But yeah, as long as we have better records than the Patriots, hopefully make the playoffs and maybe make some kind of run.

That's where I think they can go. I think you add Aaron Rodgers onto a team who's like full of young stars and everything that almost made the playoffs with Zach Wilson and Mike White and Joe Flacco as quarterback last year. I think if you add some kind of continuity and a good quarterback, you're going to at least make the playoffs. And I'll be content with that. Isn't it interesting how everything revolves around expectations in the NFL? Because if I told Vikings fans next year, like, yeah, you make the playoffs, but your odds for winning the Super Bowl won't be good. Then they would be like, then I don't care

that I'm not watching, then burn it down because they've just been in this space for so long. It is funny that you mentioned how few full seasons have been played because Kirk Cousins has played every game for the Vikings. And I know from your perspective that you've pretty consistently said, like, you should appreciate the fact that you have a real quarterback and that's true. But when the expectation is set, when he gets here, that it's like Superbowl or bust, it's been a bust even with a fun season last year. But from a Jets perspective, you've been out of the playoffs for so long. The other part of it is also that they just couldn't draft a quarterback this year.

So it seems, and maybe they could, but if you draft a quarterback to a roster that's fully developed and ready to win, then the timelines might not exactly match up. But do you think that this is the best option as opposed to, say, taking all that draft capital that they have stacked up and trying to get into the top 10 and trying to draft a quarterback instead? No. I don't think they should take any of their draft picks and move up to get a quarterback because, like, I mean,

we'll talk about the rookie quarterbacks in a little bit, but I don't know how much I believe in all of them to, to like start right away and get it done and go to a Super Bowl. Like that's absolutely insane. You can't do that in your first season. I know Patrick Mahomes is kind of insane and has been doing that ever since he started. But yeah, I think you got to put in a win now quarterback in that roster and then deal with whenever it like if it's Aaron Rodgers, if he retires next year in two years, and then you'll deal with that when that happens. But this is your best window right now with everyone on rookie contracts and everything. Yeah, I look, I always look at legends through a different lens where with Rodgers,

though the numbers might tell you this is going to be a pretty hard task for him to make them a Super Bowl contender. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady both kind of seem to be at the end of their careers when they change teams and Favre and Favre ends up obviously coming here from the Jets and doing what he did but these guys are just different animals than it is for everybody else where everyone else can talk themselves into Carson Wentz or some other quarterback coming to save them and you can laugh at them. But in this case, I think that that is a legit plan for them to really compete potentially for a Super Bowl, just very hard in the AFC. Do you think that Packers fans, because this is a weird thing that I've seen on twitter.com where I just kind of scan what other reporters and fans and stuff are saying for other teams.

But they seem to be totally ready for the Aaron Rodgers show to be completely done. They want to move on to Jordan Love. And again, I guess expectations and what you've dealt with for a long time really dictates how you feel about stuff. But should Green Bay Packers fans feel that way, like ready to move on, had enough of the Rodgers show and everything else, and let's start kind of a new era? Or should they be a little more hesitant to let go?

No, I think they should kind of be ready for the Rodgers era to end. I think they led the Favre era, and I think they're going to let the Rodgers era end. And then who knows, if Jordan Love becomes a star, then he'll be traded to the Jets in like 2039. I saw a tweet like that and I was like, wow, that's kind of crazy. But yeah, I think they're kind of done with the games that Rodgers pulls every offseason for the past couple of years. And he didn't do well last year just because he was put in a situation

that kind of wasn't favorable to him. I feel like tensions were kind of high. So I don't think they want to deal with that this season. They want to see what the guy they drafted like can do. And that makes a lot of sense for them. So yeah, I think they're justified in that. I think so too. And they've got to find out.

They have to find, like they know what Rogers is going to bring them and they know what they need to potentially win with Rogers next year. And they don't have it. They don't have an elite defense. They don't have an elite group of weapons. And there's no way to potentially win with Rodgers next year, and they don't have it. They don't have an elite defense. They don't have an elite group of weapons. And there's no way to change that with his contract. Find out if Jordan Love can play, and then you can build around him in the future if he's really good. And if he's not, then you know that you're going to have to probably have some down years and find someone else.

It is just funny, though, that this is a fan base where most people, even if someone is my age, they have never really seen the Packers be bad and have a bad quarterback situation. Maybe a little bit of shell shock if Jordan Love is not good. Now here's a rumor I want to run by you, Haley, that I had my eyes bug out of my head a little bit at. Scott Zolak, a classic backup quarterback who had the worst arm in tech mobile three or four, four, I think. So what you could do, and this is old video games. I don't know if you're a video game player, but you could tap the button very lightly and he would throw it way up in the air. And because he had the worst arm, but because in the game, the guy could throw it the entire length of the field, the ball would go up out of the screen and then come down like eight seconds later when you threw the ball with Scott Zolak.

So that's the only way I really know him is through that very old video game. But he said that he thinks Tom Brady could come back with the dolphins. Do you think that's a good idea for anyone for Brady or for the dolphins who seem to be kind of obsessed with the idea of having Tom Brady? I don't think so. No. One, I don't want Brady back in the AFC East. I've dealt with that for far too many years. And I celebrated and cheered when he threw that pick six against the Titans to end his career as a Patriot. That's my favorite play in NFL history because the Jets don't have any good ones. And yeah, so I loved that. So I don't want to see him back in the AFC East. And two, like,

I don't think he's necessarily good anymore. He's old and I think it's finally catching up with him. He may not believe that, but he had like a stacked group at the Buccaneers this past year and just literally barely won the division, couldn't get it done. So I don't know what Miami is thinking, if this is true and everything, but I think they try one more year with Tua. I don't know if he'll stay healthy or anything. We'll see about that. But yeah, I think a one-year thing with Brady wouldn't be a good idea, especially because Brady needs a good defense.

He's always needed a good defense, and Miami kind of doesn't have that now. And they just cut, I want to say, their best corner. So yeah, that'll be interesting. Yeah. And it doesn't make any sense for me. This is just talking about the potential for this to be sad for Tom Brady. And it was kind of sad last year at times. One thing you never saw him do before was just throw dirt balls and just be inaccurate at times. And even though he was reading defense as well, that it wasn't as sharp as it was before and barely dragging them to the playoffs on the back of kind of some random or maybe some lucky games, even to get to the few number of wins that he had. It was just not a great situation even to watch him. Then this is the right time for him to walk

away hands down in my mind. And for the dolphins now to his injury is certainly a concern for them and it should be but he was like the highest rated quarterback in the league last year i mean it just seems so weird to me that they've been trying to get rid of tua from the moment that they got him and yet he was one games and then he was really good at times last year like i don't really understand this it doesn't seem to even be a character thing because he's always been known as a high character player. I'm just kind of at a loss. I think it's just that they have a completely whacked out owner who's obsessed with Tom Brady. Yeah, I think so. And I don't think that group that's there now is the group that drafted Tua. So I feel like they almost are like, oh, I wish we drafted Justin

Herber or something because he's so good, but he hasn't done a ton of much in terms of wins. I know wins aren't a QB stat. He hasn't done enough in the Chargers to like make them a contender yet. And then just, yeah, like one final thing. I've made two cakes when Tom Brady has had both of his retirements and I don't want to make another. So please don't come back. And I've had two celebrations. I don't need to make another. So please don't come back. And I've had two celebrations. I don't need

a third. Yeah. I think that Vikings fans will probably bake something when Aaron Rodgers goes, so they can really relate to what you're saying there with Tom Brady, but having grown up in Buffalo and worked in Buffalo for quite some time, I know exactly what you're saying. Like his presence just was so big over that division where you knew you were always fighting for second place with him. And there's probably a lot of celebrations in all of the AFC East cities when he's finally gone. But I mean, that's the NFL off season never fails to intrigue. And it definitely does with a crazy story like that. I need to talk about Lamar Jackson for a second here because there's collusion and everything

else being thrown around, which I think is pretty fair based on the NFL's history to think that they would purposefully try to put a guy in his place who doesn't have an agent and push down the value and those types of things. That sounds very much like the NFL to me. But if you were Lamar Jackson, what team would you be trying to get to sign you to a contract extension? What team do you think would be the best fit if you were him that you would be calling them up every day? Like you guys got to sign me because I'm going to be the best for you. Who would that be? I put two names down here and I think the Lions and the Jets. I know the Jets have the thing with

Aaron Rodgers right now, but they're the most quarterback away type of team um it would take a lot in cap space for them to go get Lamar and I don't think they give him any type of guaranteed contract like they want but the other team the Lions I think are the other team that's kind of like great offense they have kind of the draft capital to get there on defense. So I know that the Lions could be a decent fit for him. They're the most promising two teams for the future right now that kind of just missing that quarterback. But if I'm Lamar, I'm calling the Lions. Yeah, I can see that because even with Jared Goff, they have a top five offense.

And if you put all those weapons, Amin Ross, St. Brown, the offensive line that they have their scheme that is very quarterback friendly. And then you add a guy who can throw for a thousand yards. I mean, it just seems like everything would add up there. I don't know. Like, are they crazy enough to do it would be the thought. I mean that because that's a big risk. You go from a guy who just got you to a top five offense to somebody that you're going to have to pay. Like you're really handing over the franchise to Lamar Jackson at that point and saying, this pretty much belongs to you as opposed to having flexibility in the future. And I know that you, uh, you turn green at the idea of any team drafting any quarterback because of the, uh, the jets past. Um, but at the same time, like it does make so much sense for the Lions to plan for their future to

even draft an Anthony Richardson or something like that this year, or look at next year as when they'll draft and develop someone else, unless Jared Goff takes them deep into the playoffs to the NFC championship. And then maybe it's just a fit. So I totally get you. How do you feel about the, the Falcons already said that they don't want to do this, but teams lie. Sometimes things change. I look, the Falcons already said that they don't want to do this, but teams lie.

Sometimes things change. I look at the Falcons and I go, why not? Why not? I mean, this was a, this would be a perfect fit. They've got a good line.

They've got a great running situation. They've got receivers to throw to. They drafted Kyle pits. They drafted Drake London. Like do this. I don't know why. I don't know why they would be one of the first to come out and say like no no no we're not in on Lamar you don't even have a quarterback yeah yeah like

they have Desmond Ritter and they've they even came out I think a couple weeks ago and we're like no we're still like even though we have Desmond Ritter we're still exploring the quarterback market because we can never be satisfied with that I'm like there's like Lamar like I don't know like I understand that there could be like potential collusion. I definitely understand where it's coming from because the Browns with Watson like basically screwed everything up. And I don't think Lamar should get a fully guaranteed contract. I had looked into like the percent of the time that big quarterbacks and

everything will play through like their entire deal. And everyone basically kind of has recently except Carson Wentz obviously he had that weird decline but I think Lamar is just asking for too much and I think that's kind of like his lack of an agent type of thing to kind of put him in his place but he has had two basically season-ending injuries the past couple seasons I don't think he should be the highest paid quarterback in the NFL but he's still a good quarterback like he would definitely be if not the best quarterback in the NFC but he's still a good quarterback. Like he would definitely be, if not the best quarterback in the NFC, if he joins the lions, but yeah, it's definitely a weird thing. I mean, if you go to the NFC, it's Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Kirk,

Jared Goff. These are your top quarterbacks. And you know, Kyler Murray's got the ACL thing. I mean, you've got a great chance to be the best quarterback in the entire NFC instantly and potentially take a team to the Super Bowl. But there was a great point made in an article by Charles Robinson of, I think Yahoo still, or, you know, people change places. I don't know. But Charles Robinson, he wrote about how if there was a power agent, one of the big players in the league from the agency side representing Lamar,

he could get on the yacht with the owner and try to talk them into it. And that's where it's different, where Lamar himself doesn't exactly have that same sort of cachet and relationships that you would have if you're one of the Drew Rosen houses of the world who can sit with Arthur Blank one-on-one. It's got to be the owner who makes a decision like that. As we found from the Vikings and Kirk Cousins, it's not just like, oh, the GM just signed somebody.

No, no, no, no, not with quarterback. With quarterback, it's going to be the owner. And with Lamar, his relationship with the owners right now is probably not good because they think he's out to try to take that quarterback market through the roof. think he's out to try to, you know, take that quarterback market through the roof. So that's a very complicated situation, but there are some very interesting landing spots. I was going to ask you who the craziest team he could land with, but maybe you answered

it with the lions. How about this for a nomination? The 49ers. I don't know how they would afford it, but they'll figure it out. I guess if Lamar is going to come there, I think that would be the craziest Kyle Shanahan, Lamar Jackson. Yeah, I think it would. And that, that system is so quarterback friendly and everything. So he would obviously do great there. They'd benefit from a running quarterback that Trey Lance kind of hasn't really developed much into. I know we've seen like two games from him, so it's not like the biggest sample size at

all, but it would definitely be fun to watch him play on the 49ers. Yeah, it would be nuts. And you think about what they do with their running game. Then you add a quarterback like that to it. That's why they drafted Trey Lance. I'm sure. So,

all right, coming out of the combine, this is the last thing I have for you. What's your quarterback order. We know there's going to be four or I shouldn't say we know anything. We are confident that there are going to be four taken pretty high of those four. How do you feel like you would shake them out as of today? Yeah. So, I mean, the Jets are not drafting a quarterback, so I'm not the most keen in the

information on them right now, but I'd probably have Bryce Young number one overall or maybe not number one overall if the Bears don't trade out of it but like first quarterback taken off the board I don't care that he's like what six feet tall six foot one or something like Drew Brees made it work Kyler Murray is somewhat made it work for the time when he's not hurt Russell Wilson's made it work so I think his like height should not be like much of a concern right now he's still an amazing player uh and then I'd have CJ Stroud second um he did have those amazing throws at the combine so I think that kind of impressed me there I don't think Bryce Young threw at the combine I think

he's throwing at his pro day if I'm not mistaken yeah so um we'll see how he does in that run in that range and then I'd probably have Anthony Richardson third he just kind of became this freak athlete at the combine but he does need to improve on accuracy that's why I would not want the Jets drafting him just because they've struggled so much with quarterback accuracy in the past so I think if you're a team that wants to draft a quarterback who needs like more work and time you got to let him sit for a year or two or something while you get those big weapons that like a Justin Jefferson that'll make his life a lot easier and then I'd probably have Will Levis fourth um I'm not really high on him because I didn't really like what I saw out of Kentucky and I don't know why he's gotten so much hype

at all so I just have him fourth and I think Richardson's a better athlete than him and then after that it's just a big big question question mark of players like, like Hennon hooker could be like a late round steal if he gets over his injury. Well, and the guy from Stanford is pretty good too. So yeah. Right. But neither one of them can really be talked about in that top conversation. I would have, I think Stroud first, because there are a few dudes that I've seen throw the ball that accurately. It's just, I mean, that's always, always in forever, right? Accuracy is probably going to be at the top of the list for what drives quarterback success. And then I would have

Richardson after that, but it has to be a team that is going to be patient because I was thinking about this. So I went back and looked, he only had one year starting in college. I looked at Lamar Jackson's first year starting in college. It was hilariously bad throwing the ball and then he improved, but his first year was super bad. And Jalen Hurts first year was super bad. And Joe Burrows second to last year even was super bad at throwing the football. So we can't say for sure what he's going to be. We do know it's going to be incredible if he maximizes all of his skill and I'd be willing to take that shot. Bryce Young is after that for me. And it's not the height necessarily. I would say maybe the frame overall is a little concerning from the punishment that you take over 17 games. And I just don't know that the tight window stuff without the elite

arm strength is going to translate as well as maybe we think. But he is a spectacular football player, just pure football player. And that is exciting. I mean, think any one of those guys, we're talking about the difference between, you know, a nine and a half and a 9.7 or 9.3 in my mind. Either one of those guys would be great. The Levis thing is a little confusing. And maybe the NFL is much higher on Levis than you or I, because they see things

that we don't, that is possible. But in the past, we have run into this sometimes where if a guy is not a marvelous athlete, like a Josh Allen, how much can you improve that accuracy? I'm thinking of like Christian Hackenberg or Ryan Mallett. These guys were like, Oh, well, look, the arm strength, they'll figure the rest out. That would be the most concerning to me. If there isn't a running element to his game, there isn't a more athletic game. It's really just this dude can fire bullets. That would kind of concern. Yeah. I think he's almost the biggest potential for a first round bus out of that. So it all depends on the situation that I'll go to obviously, but yeah, definitely a big question mark. And I'm intrigued to see how that kind of shifts as the draft gets closer and

a month and a half. All right. Yeah. Well, a lot to figure out even in the next couple of weeks, free agency, the draft, and we'll be here to do it. You having fun? You having fun as a purple insider intern, even though we're recording, I can delete it if you say no. Yeah, definitely. It's been fun to learn a new team and like learning more about the Vikings and kind of positions they have in the future.

Oh, I forgot to ask if you had any questions for me this week about the Vikings. I didn't tell you to prepare any. So if you, but if you had any, feel free to ask. I don't think I do now. Okay. We'll keep working our way through that. But I got to tell you in advance that you should prepare them. So that's on me.

We take accountability here on the show, but great stuff. Make sure you go check out her article on Justin Jefferson and his value versus quarterbacks in the NFL. Very enlightening stuff about when they pay him, it will be absolutely worth it. So Haley, thanks for your time and thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next time.