Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Analyzing the fallout from Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's firing

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Matthew Coller discusses and analyzes all the information that has trickled out about Kwesi Adofo-Mensah firing. Then, Coller talks about the new coaches the team hired over the weekend and answers some of your Vikings questions. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here, and over the last couple of days, we have had plenty of reaction and reporting regarding the Minnesota Vikings decision to fire Quasi Adafel Mensa. My own article is over at Purple Insider.com, laying out kind of start to finish how we got to this point with Quasi, and then also Kevin Sefer to Vespian, wrote about it, Alec Lewis and Diana Rossini at the athletic, and there is plenty to take apart from those reports. Also, the Vikings, they hired some coaches.

So they got an O-Line coach and a D-Line coach and so forth. And one very interesting hire that caught my eye. And I've got a few fan questions here to answer as well. So why don't we dive first into the timing of Quasi Adafel-Mensa being let go? So if you were just hanging around on a Friday, pull up your phone, wait a minute, excuse me, what, they fired the general manager? Well, then you are not alone. It sounds like a lot of people inside the building had the exact same reaction.

And if we look historically, there's usually only three times where general managers get let go. In fact, it's happened this year where one general manager for the dolphins was fired in late October, early November. So mid-season, the frustration gets so high that the ownership says, all right, somebody, is getting the axe. Most of the time, probably 95% of the time, general managers are let go right at the end of the season that the ownership and the decision makers have been working through what their future is going to be.

And then they say, all right, we're done. We're going to move on. And then they begin a GM search right away. The other time that happens occasionally is after the draft, which always seems weird to people and is shocking. Like, wait a minute, they got rid of someone after the draft. but someone usually has to lead the organization through the draft, and the scouts and the executives have been working on the draft

since the beginning of the college season. So, all right, well, they lead them through, and then they make their decisions, and then they move on. But this did not fit any of those categories, and I would be pretty surprised if historically there's been any GM firings that came right at the end of January right before the Super Bowl. You just do not see it very often. And coming on the heels of Sam Darnold,

throwing for nearly 350 yards, three touchdowns, brilliant performance in the NFC championship to outdual Matthew Stafford to reach the Super Bowl. And then just a few days later, you end up with the Vikings eventually looking for a new general manager. It is absolutely impossible to ignore the timing of that. But what I think that is not right is to conflate the quarter. the quarterback decision and the firing as being the only reason that they would move on and look for new leadership. I think that would be miscategorizing it as, hey, they saw Darnold make the Super Bowl and then they decided, you know what? Screw you, Coyce, you're fired. I don't think

that it exactly worked that way. Now, that may have been part of the equation. I actually don't doubt that it was. In fact, if Sam Darnold was, here or J.J. McCarthy had played well, then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all because the Vikings would have made the playoffs and they would not have likely fired their general manager if everyone felt good about the direction of the team. So of course, it's connected. The real question is, how connected did they see that and decide, all right, it's time? Now, Mark Wilf said that it was not one particular decision, but that is not denying that it wasn't involved. And it certainly wasn't denying that the timing may have been connected to Sam

Darnold reaching the Super Bowl. But I think when you start to peel back the layers, what you find is a lot more than just, hey, this one decision went wrong. It was all his fault because we're all here all the time, watching everything they do, talking about everything that they say, right? And I think that we have enough common sense together to know that an organization does not make a monumental quarterback decision on one guy. They do not say, oh, this guy wants this. All right. Well, that's that's that then.

And moving on. No, no, usually there's a lot of people involved. And particularly the head coach is generally consulted about what's going to happen to the quarterback. So if it was just that, then, you know, Kevin O'Connell would not be here as well because everyone is culpable for Sam Darnold proving that he could do it in the playoffs, for the Vikings, maybe not having a strong enough roster to support Sam Darnold being a part of this, or maybe just not gauging correctly where J.J. McCarthy was at or not having a different backup plan,

i.e. Daniel Jones or whatever other quarterback may have been able to save their bacon this year. but Carson Wentz, only a couple weeks before the season, was not really going to do it. And ultimately, their evaluation that J.J. McCarthy was going to be ready to lead a 14-win franchise and perform at that level right away with no evidence of him playing in the NFL ever before. That was always kind of risky, if not extremely risky. And because the dice came up, snake eyes on them, here we are. So ultimately, yes, like, that is the reason. But as we start to look through my reporting, other people's reporting, on what happened behind the scenes, I think what you found was what Mark Wilf said is they were not comfortable with moving forward into this process with Quasi Adafel Mensa as the leader.

Now, I think that it makes a lot of sense to me based on things that have been talked about over the last couple of years, the chemistry of the front office, the connection with Kevin O'Connell and Quasi Adafo Menza when it came to decision making and so forth. And Adam Schaefter called it, quote, ugly in his tweet about just the, what, the connection between people inside of the front office. And when you lose, it always gets ugly. I don't know that there's any team that could be four and eight that expected to be in the playoffs and spent that much money in the off season where they said, you know what,

everyone really loves each other. Everyone's really great. unless they had expected to win zero games and they won four, then maybe they would be happy. But when the team expects to be a double-digit wins, expects to be at the top of the NFC North, then usually it is the case that there is unhappiness. But this unhappiness or disconnect goes back for a couple of years

and really is rooted in where Quasi Adolfo Mensa came from and how the Vikings structured things when he first got here. So Quasi Adaflmenza having a unique Wall Street background. And then when they moved on from Rick Spielman, it wasn't like they canned everybody in the organization and brought in every person who wanted to be with Quasi Adolfo Menzo or that he handpicked. It was instead a lot of a mix mash of Rick Spielman's old, you know, people that have been there for a long time. And it was on Quasi Adolfo Mensa to sell them on him as. the leader and I'm not sure that it ever clicked the way that they hoped when they talked about the quote culture of collaboration so if you feel like it's not working and you have these end

of year meetings which Mark Wilf said that they had and you hear from a lot of people that they don't feel like this is the person to lead them into the future then you can see why the move was made and not just because of Sam Darnold reaching the Super Bowl but because they have a lot to do this upcoming off season. I mean, this is a complicated situation. They've got a quarterback who could still develop. They've got a quarterbacks a galore that they could choose from on the outside, but choose wrong.

And you might end up sitting home watching the playoffs again and maybe looking for new jobs. And I think everybody knows that. They've got more draft capital than they've had in quite a long time. And they've got a cap situation that they're going to have to work hard. to work through. Now, they do have much more cap space than it looks like, and the cap just went up again a lot. So if you're panicking over the cap situation, well, you shouldn't be, but it's not like it was before where you could just spend, spend, spend. There's a lot that's going to have to be done here, and the free agent dollars are not going to go as far. There has to also be

decisions on Jalen Naylor, Jordan Addison, if there's going to be a change there, and they decided for this offseason that they would prefer Rob Bersinski to lead those discussions, and Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores, they moved to the front of the decision-maker line, although it had been my understanding that that had more or less been happening anyway regarding the general manager situation. So now those two guys are really the ones steering the ship here for the Vikings. And in my view, it's sink or swim for Kevin O'Connell. It's fix this mistake.

of letting go Sam Darnold and turning to J.J. McCarthy, whether that's developing him or whether that's finding somebody new or three or four new people to battle it out and picking the right guy or whatever it might be. It doesn't matter how you get there, but you have to get there with those two people in charge. And I think, and we can look at Brian Flores and pretty confidently say that he knows what he's doing. And even, you know, the draft picks that I think Kevin O'Connell has really pounded the table for, like Donovan Jackson and Jordan Addison, these are good players who have made a difference for them. That's why, again, even though you'll hear a lot that it was all about the draft, too,

it's not all about Darnold, it's not all about the draft, it's not all about the leadership, it's all about a lot of things. And do you want to go into this offseason where you all are under an immense amount of pressure with Kwayze Adafel Mensa is your leader? and they decided that the answer was no. Also, Brian Flores, according to Kevin Seaford, was not necessarily comfortable with where things stood with the front office as he was negotiating his contract to come back.

So it may also be a part of this that Flores wasn't necessarily into coming back to the Vikings, though they did give him a significant amount of money, if he couldn't have at least the connection or at least the, decision-making power or whatever it might be, whatever you want to call it. But I think if, you know, Flores comes back, he was going to want to feel good about who was pulling the strings at the top. And it sounds from what Kevin Sefer wrote that that wasn't necessarily the case. Now, I would say it's impossible to know everything that went on.

And that is something we need to always accept and respect is that we are not in the building. We're going to try our best. We're going to talk to as many people as we possibly can. But the only people who will ever know truly, just for example, who was responsible for the final call when it came to the quarterback. I think that, you know, someday that will probably be told in plenty of lore by all the people who were there. Well, I remember saying that they shouldn't get rid of Sam. And I remember it was that person that pounded the table for going to JJ.

And it wasn't this. It doesn't really matter now. It only matters that they believe they have the right people to go find the solution and go forward and get back to the playoffs and get back on track and figure out what their long term is going to be at quarterback if it's not going to be J.J. McCarthy. I also would like to point out that there was no indication whatsoever from Mark Wilf that they believe in J.J. McCarthy or that that's their guy going forward. None. I don't believe that his name was mentioned a single time. And if you go back to the owner's meetings when the decision was being made about Aaron Rogers, and after Darnold had already left, Mark Wilf had expressed an immense amount of belief and thought that J.J.

McCarthy had shown with his work behind the scenes in 2024 that he was ready to go. And now, even though the quarterback situation was brought up and the pivotal offseason was brought up, there was no mention of McCarthy at all. So it is on McCarthy to make them care about him again, because right now everything looks like when you fire the general manager, it doesn't seem to suggest, oh, they're very happy with where they're at with this quarterback and going forward. So that puts that decision in the spotlight there. Now, there's another part of the athletic story, which on Friday, if you guys listen to that

episode, then you heard myself and Jeremiah Searles, who is former Minnesota Viking, talk about 2023 offseason. And we suggested that something had happened in the 2020, off season, but didn't really want to get too deep into it. Now, there's a reason for that. And if you are reading the internet at all right now, then you probably already know what that is, that Kwezi Adafelmenza in 2023, after the birth of his child, took paternity leave.

So that's kind of what I was referencing. And what I wrote in my story was what I was told, which is that there were some communication issues with him taking this paternity leave about how decisions would be made, how certain players were going to get in there, decisions regarding adding, subtracting, whatever it is, in training camp is a time

where there's a lot of evaluation going on and they added some players during that offseason. And they added Stefan Gilmore. They brought in a couple other people. I think Dalton Reisner might have been a little bit later than that. But that there were some worries about how it was supposed to work with him taking this paternity leave. And there was some frustration there. That was what I was told.

And that's how I wrote it. Now, the way that it was written in the athletic comes off a little bit differently. The way that it's written in the athletic. And the reason I didn't want to get too deep into it is because, I did not want to make this sound like something that it wasn't. I didn't want to make it sound like the people who work inside TCO Performance Center are monsters for hating a man being a father, because that's not the case.

And the Vikings seem to have made it clear to Diana Rossini that as she tweeted a follow-up, that the Vikings organization was not against this. So it's already being made into, I think, way more than it was but I would also say that there was, and I, you know, talk to people around the league and so forth, and there was some folks that said, this is right here, someone who doesn't really fully understand reading the room. And what I mean is, and this is where I want to be very, very sensitive about this,

because it is great that there are businesses that have paternity leave and things like that, and everybody deserves time with their children. And like, this is not a normal society we're talking about, okay? And in this not normal society, a lot of people, if not everyone, inside NFL buildings, makes a lot of sacrifices. And that might mean missing certain things with your children, ball games, graduations, big moments that happen at home while you're on the road or where you're, you know, grinding as a scout in Alabama or something.

and your kid takes their first steps and you're not there to see it. And there's a lot of sacrifice. And it's not just with children. It's with everything, family, life, time. And these people are paid very well and they have dream jobs. But they also put a lot into this. And I think that what Mike Sando wrote made a lot of sense to me that when you have the leader of a group of people who often makes a lot of sacrifices, taking time off at a really important time. during the season, there will be people who say, this shows you he's not from our world.

Now, is that right? Is that fair? No. But I did hear that said to me from people in the league over some time. And I think that what it does connect to is that Quasi Adafo Mensa not being from the scouting world from the old school football. He didn't play in the national football league. it was something that always lingered over everything, whether it was just how he led and what

Kevin Seifert wrote was that the ownership at one point had to say you can't spend so much time in the office. You have to start connecting with people. And I was told the same version of that at one point as well, that his connections with the folks that run the team ultimately, you know, you're at the top, but you have, this is just like a structure of a normal business. And if your boss you didn't feel like was connecting with you at your cubicle in their office, then I think that there would be maybe a disconnect.

And certain people felt like they weren't necessarily heard as part of the decision-making process. And so when you have that sense combined with something that is so unique and different that I can't say that I've heard of happening before, there will be people that feel like this is someone who's not, he's from the outside. He's not one of us. He's not a football guy. And it feels like a trope. It feels unfair.

And it also feels like something that probably wouldn't have come up too much if the Minnesota Vikings had made the playoffs and had gotten good enough quarterback play. Because even though this happened a couple years ago, didn't come up that often in 2004 as the Vikings hit on all of their free agents. And as Jordan Addison, a draft pick was playing really well. and even, you know, the Dallas Turner one may have been suspect, but he still contributed. He got that huge interception against Seattle and et cetera and so forth, right? And then every decision seemed to look great and smart as they were winning 14 games.

So these are the types of things that come up when a team loses, not necessarily that it's right or fair. And I do want to emphasize that I never heard one time that the Vikings organization did not approve it or he went rogue or it was a skisks. scandal or anything like that. So I want people to understand it correctly in context and not think that either he did something absolutely insane that's never done and can't possibly be thought of, right, for a general manager to work from home for a couple of weeks, but also at the same time that people in this industry often do not do that and often make sacrifices. and I think if there was a ton of buy-in from the very beginning,

this probably would have never come up anywhere. And since there wasn't, and the 2022 draft went as poorly as it did, which I think influenced everyone's viewpoint of Quasi from the beginning, this became a lingering thing that would come up every so often in discussion about Quasi Adafel-Menza. So I hope that I laid that out and that you can kind of understand, you know, where that is coming from, uh, as opposed to, to, you know, maybe some of the overreaction that I've seen on the interwebs.

Because I've seen a lot of people saying, you know, this is macho football culture at its worst. And everyone should spend time with their children. And I get that. But sports have a different set of rules a lot of times. In society, you cannot punch someone in the mouth. But in a boxing match, you can. And so every person who's a boxer goes into rings and punch.

other people, which if you do on the street, you're going to go to jail. So, like, there are different cultures for different sports. And with this one, a lot of people raised eyebrows when that happened. And that's the best I can say. Now, I personally did not feel like in my report that I wanted to go that far into it. I didn't want to go that far into it on the show because I don't feel very good about it. I don't feel very good about even beginning to suggest that that's right or, or that he, you know, deserved any sort of criticism for that, especially if the organization was

on board. From what I was told, there were just some issues there with communication when they were trying to do things. And there are not other people in the organization who can just sort of, you know, just be unavailable, but especially the person who is at the top. So hopefully we laid that out correctly. And it's a frustrating thing that is now being debated left, right and center. on the internet, but I hope that that helps.

And I hope I said it as best that I possibly could there. So let's get into some thoughts about this from a going forward perspective. Because to me, after this week, we've picked apart every reason that Quasi Adafo Mensa was fired. I do want to say that in covering him and listening to him talk over the years, I felt that Quasi really understood team building and really, really understood data. analytics, the application of those things, the shortcomings of those things, but that you can see here that being on point with a lot of things versus leadership.

And as Mark Wilf said, gaining consensus and connection with the people in your building, those two aren't always necessarily the same things. But I had an immense amount of respect for him as someone that trailblazed in a space that I wrote about a ton. And it was very interesting to see some of it. close. But I also can't help but wonder had they really, really thrown everything into the analytics GM, how this might have looked different because I think that there were a lot of

concepts that never got to be applied to the Minnesota Vikings. I also think they ended up with a very good roster and a winning record when he ends up walking away from the job. So the two names that keep coming up, obviously Rob Brasinski is one of them. he's been with the organization for a very, very long time and is immensely respected. I've already seen some agents coming out and some other former players coming out and endorsing Rob Brzeinsky. And I think that Brzezinski can be a guy that oversees the entire organization and is a liaison,

a connected person to Kevin O'Connell, Brian Flores. And it would be very much like grocery list, go get the groceries type of situation. You negotiate the contracts. make the phone calls. He's got the connections through the league. And I've heard so many times talking to different people like, Hey, do you know that Rob Brzynski, man? He's one of the top guys out there.

Like, I've heard that many, many times. There's a ton of respect for Rob Brasinski. However, I think that if they do that, it means that they want the status quo, that they want this as their leadership structure. And they more or less wanted someone who wasn't in with them removed. so they could do what they wanted to do. If they go outside the building,

the name that keeps popping up is George Peyton, whose contract, at least from my understanding, comes up with the Denver Broncos in May. And, hey, look, the timing. They're going to wait until after the draft. That's interesting, isn't it? George Payton was underneath Rick Spielman for a long time, and he was another very highly respected person.

You look at what they've built in Denver, a team that was capable of going, to the AFC championship, and they had to work around the Russell Wilson mistake, which I know Peyton was a part of, but I think we all would have traded for Russell Wilson at that point. He fell off in ways that nobody expected. But George Payton comes from the similar world of Rick Spielman and is known inside the building. That to me would be more of a someone the Wilf's know and trust as a connection for them to

evaluate everyone else, to evaluate specifically. Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores in the job that they do going forward. I like that idea of not having the GM and the head coach be so much connected. I'd prefer someone come in and be able to look at how Kevin O'Connell is running everything, whether it's the offense, defense, or if it's, I mean, the locker room we know is generally very, very good for Kevin O'Connell, but everything, every part of the organization under O'Connell and every way that he has approached now roster building, but also, you know, managing players and developing and just everything,

like top to bottom. Like, is this somebody you want to go forward with? It would be nice for them to have an outside voice to be able to help with that decision because I think when they get to end of 2026, if they haven't won a playoff game, then there's going to be a real choice there to be made. Do you think this will work? do you not think this will work?

I have been on record many times saying I think it will. And I think if they have the right roster and they have the right quarterback, that Kevin O'Connell can win a lot because he's shown that. And just because someone lost their first two playoff games does not mean they will never, ever win one ever again. Even if you go back to, you know, Sean McVeigh, the Wiz Kid in 2017, gets upset in the playoffs in his first time out there, right? So now I know that's a little bit different.

But the point is you could find tons of coaches. who have had success that didn't necessarily win in their first playoff opportunities. But if you could put your team multiple times over four years with imperfect rosters in position to have that chance, that still says a lot to me. I also will just push back on the debates over philosophy. I think that a downfield passing philosophy, when you look at Drake May, when you look at Matthew Stafford, when you look at Sam Darnold, yes, you need to have the quarterback to do it. but when you can do it, it's still the most powerful thing in the sport towards success.

However, this leads us to our next subject, which is the Vikings adding some coaches. And before I get to that, I want to mention that we do have a Fandul question of the day, which is the over under for the Super Bowl is 45 and a half on Fandul. Do you expect a shootout or do you expect a grind fest in the Super Bowl? please feel free to answer in the comments. Personally, I think that a shootout is on the way, but, you know, we'll see on that. So let's get into, you know, one of the things that both of these teams have done is invested in the running game. Ken Walker and Trayvion Henderson are high draft picks, right?

So the Vikings decided to hire as an assistant coach, Frank Smith. Now, Frank Smith comes from the Miami Dolphins. He has a long background, some in the offensive. line and but specifically the run game for the Miami Dolphins was really phenomenal over the last couple of years. They struggled in 2024, but in 2022 and no, I'm sorry, 2023 and 2025 were top five in yards per attempt. And it was probably overlooked unless you're a real fantasy person. Devin A Chan average 5.7 yards per attempt with the Miami Dolphins. And this was a guy, Frank Smith, who was heavily involved in that operation as the offensive coordinator, this again says

Kevin O'Connell understands where you guys are coming from when you tweet, they need to run the ball better, they need to be more explosive, they need to be able to lean on that at times to close out games and not always rely on success downfield passing. And Frank Smith is a guy who should be able to bring a lot of the Mike McDaniel run game theory over to the Minnesota Vikings. I also think that their offensive line coach decision has a lot to do with that as well, where they have decided to put Keith Carter in charge of the offensive line. Now, you remember Keith Carter was hired last off season as an assistant along the offensive line came from the Jets, but before that had been with Tennessee,

and their roots were in the outside zone, which is also basically where it starts with the Miami Dolphins as well. So you can see these things kind of coming together what generally they are looking to start accomplishing. Now, the big piece, though, is what do you actually do at running back? And I mean, in the most recent check, the mic podcast mock draft, they get Jeremiah Love. I don't know if that's possible.

I mean, I think that somebody's going to draft him a little bit higher. But drafting a running back seems like it could potentially be in the cards or spending in free agency on somebody who's a little bit on the young younger side than Aaron Jones. I would be very surprised if Aaron Jones is back, despite how much they love and appreciate him, but someone to pair with Jordan Mason and then you have a lot of the pieces in place as far as the blocking, but you need, you know, you have Josh Oliver. We'll see about C.J. Ham. I think he's going to probably retire, but maybe they get a fullback. I know, I think Miami used the fullback. And then you get a center where Miami's center was a really big piece of

their success. Brewer, was a really big piece of their success. Brewer, was a really big part of their success as well running the football. So I think that they're going to aim for a center who can help them in the run game and then are running back as well. And that will probably be the main additions on the offensive side now that they have hired Frank Smith and elevated Keith Carter. There was stories when Carter got here about just the treatment of players and his connection with guys.

Now, I can't say that I heard anything about that last year. But I've always said to you guys that there are. places that I don't like to go with trying to guess. I don't want to try to guess what the connection is like with the players and their offensive line coach unless they tell me. So I have not heard anything in terms of how they've gotten along with him as the offensive line coach and so forth. But I do know where his roots are in the run game.

And we should expect them to run the football better. I know we've been talking about this. I know they did that this year. Jordan Mason was a good ad for them. But they got to prove it. They got to prove that they can really run the football successfully. And it seems that these hires are meant to do that. A couple of more hires to just tell you about who these guys are.

They hired Gerald Henderson as the defensive backs coach and past game coordinator. And Ryan Nielsen is the D-line coach. Nielsen was a defensive coordinator for the Jaguars at 2024. He was working for the bills. And Alexander is kind of along the Durante Jones path of someone who's grinded his way up. He started at Indiana State. he's worked for the Raiders, the dolphins, the Panthers, and most recently the Pittsburgh Steelers. So another one of those types that someday might be in line for a defensive coordinator position.

So there you go. There's your rundown of everything that's kind of happened and the, you know, coaching hires that they've been looking to make over the last couple of weeks. So let me get into just a couple of questions here from Vikings fans. And then we'll call it a day and we'll have a lot more coverage this week, a lot of hashing through what's next, how we got here. And of course, oh, yeah, the Super Bowl is coming up. Let's begin with TJ here, says, would this have been any better had they hired Ryan Poles? I will say that Ryan Poles background being in scouting as someone who was more dyed in the

wool football as opposed to coming from the outside. I do think that it would have been different. Yes. I also wonder about whether the world. Wilf's would have ever given Ryan Paul's permission to do what he did with the Chicago Bears, which was to really tear apart the roster. I don't think that Kirk Cousins stays on the Vikings after he gets hired. I think they would have moved on.

And you could certainly say, well, if you look at how things played out, if they had gone to the bottom here or there or wherever, then maybe it would have gone differently. It's really hard to say. But in terms of a fit with what they had as a front office in place, Yes, I think that he probably would have been a better cultural fit in that way. Now, would he have done better things, made better moves? I mean, this is a team that won 14 games just last year and 13.

Now, the Chicago Bears, they did win a playoff game. So they've got that. They did not have 13 and 14 win seasons. They did have some absolutely terrible seasons under Ryan Poles. I don't know that we'll ever really know. But that would not have been much of a difference from Rick Spielman. I think one of the reasons that they went with Adafel Menta was the idea of competitive rebuild was attractive to them and ultimately did work for the rest of the roster and got

them to the point where they needed to be. They just didn't get the quarterback play, which is what we're going to keep going back to time and time and time again, right? But, you know, maybe polls would have done it in a different way. He ultimately did pull off a trade that landed them Caleb Williams with the Carolina a panther. So is Caleb Williams here? Then if Caleb Williams was here with Kevin O'Connell, then I think, yeah, I mean, things would have been different. But I don't know how you can play out every single move the entire

way because Ryan Poles, the first coach that he worked with Matt Eberfluse was a total disaster. So he is far from perfect as well. Let's see, hog smash or Hogue smash says if 2026 doesn't go well, if slash when, he says, ominous, will the wolves finally give up on a competitive rebuild and tear it all down finally? So if they don't succeed in 2006, if you look across the roster, there are a lot of players who are going to be on the older side. And if you have no answer whatsoever at quarterback by the end of 2026, then you're probably drafting one in 2027 and trying to build around that quarterback.

But this ownership, I don't see ever at any point saying, all right, next GM take it all the way down go full Arizona Cardinals this year or Raiders or whoever. I don't know if they did it on purpose, but you know, the Cardinals benching Kyler Murray with a foot injury and so forth. I mean, I just have a really tough time believing that the Wilfs would ever be okay with the idea of taking it all the way down to the bottom and deciding to tank. And I just don't think that they're going to do it. I mean, they are, they have a lot of pride in this franchise.

I think they look at themselves like the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that is always competitive and always in the mix. And they believe that at some point, if they continue to do that, that ultimately they will break through and win the Super Bowl. So I would be absolutely stunned if they said to the next general manager, hey, if it doesn't work out this year, take it all apart, my friend, totally tank, fire everybody. I just can't see it. I also don't see even if, I mean, think about this year.

They had some of the worst quarterback play in the league and they won nine games. I have a very tough time believing that they're going to be so bad next year that they would say, all right, hey, we won four or we won six trying to win. Let's just totally take it all apart. And there's this guy, Justin Jefferson, that they want to be a part of this for a very, very long time. And I don't think around Justin Jefferson, you could have a, another year that goes kind of the way that this one did and go all the way to the bottom.

So I would be very surprised if that's the case. Hi, Kevin says it's Aaron Rogers, isn't it? Well, hi, Kevin, you know, maybe. I would not count it out. I truly would not count it out. Now, I think that Rogers played okay this year. I think he was a below average quarterback on the whole with a team that didn't have much to work with on offense.

And could you see them convincing them? themselves. Hey, you know what? If he had this offense and we had Rogers production, we would be 11 wins. And you know what? They're probably not crazy in thinking that that they would have won at least enough to get in the playoffs, slip in at the last minute. But Rogers is a year older, a year more banged up, took a year more worth of hits. That does not feel like a real solution to me. That feels like, I don't know, maybe fantasy camp of like, hey, you get to work with Aaron Rogers, but his mobility is lacking, and he was really up and down. I mean, his best games are actually phenomenal, but his worst games are tough to watch. So I don't think it's a viable option.

I also think if you're Rogers, like, dude, retire, retire when it still looked pretty good. Don't retire if it looks bad. And that's the other part, too. Are you going to put it all on a guy who could hit the wall and look like Peyton Manning 2015 only without, I mean, I guess they have a good defense, but I don't know if it's the Denver Broncos 2015 level of good defense. I'm going to say no, but I also think, hey, if they can fire the general manager on a Friday where none of us expected, if Farr played here once upon a time, if Randy Moss came back, if, if, if anything is possible. Last one from Weber Phillips says, when are we going to have a playoff game?

Actually, I got one more after that. When are we going to have a playoff? when are we going to win a playoff game? Hmm. That I don't know, my friend, but you know, one thing I could say is I remember before the 2024 season saying I could see him winning 10. And there was a lot of, especially from the gambling community, like, come on, like be serious. Sam Darnold is the quarterback.

He's never won before. He's bad for that, you know, whatever reason. And they've got a young quarterback. Their roster isn't there yet. There's no way they get double digit wins. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe. because I didn't expect it in 2022 either, and they end up with 14. This team has found ways so many times.

I'll tell you when I was wrong, was back in 2017, I thought, well, this is a middling team. I mean, maybe eight, nine wins. That's about it with Sam Bradford. I don't see them as being massively better. And they won 13 and were number one on defense and went to the NFC championship game. We are so far away from knowing what they're going to look like. like who's going to get hurt, what other teams are going to have this, that, or the other thing happened to them.

We can't really say right now. So would I be shocked if they got a quarterback who fit well with KOC next year, won a playoff game? Would I be shocked if JJ McCarthy won a camp competition? I mean, I don't know. Like Bryce Young was in the playoffs this year. Could you back your way into the playoffs? When a playoff?

Of course you could. I mean, it's possible. So, I mean, I guess when are you going to win a playoff game? I would say maybe next year. And if not, though, then it might be a while because the NFC North is still pretty darn strong. So it's hard to say right now, so far away, ask me the same exact question in April. And maybe I'll feel better about an answer, whether it's going to be 20, 26 or not.

Okay, last one. This one comes from SEVOMG says trade Addison, sign Breece Hall, improve your running game. Breeze Hall seems very, very, very possible with the Keith Carter connection. here the way they want to run the football, the investment that I think that they'd be willing to make. I mean, this is, this is short term thinking. This is not long term thinking. This is short term thinking. This is, and this is why I would say, hey, next year, they could win a playoff game. Of course they could because I don't believe that they're going to take a long term approach to this offseason. Kevin O'Connell wants to get back to the playoffs. He wants to prove that he can do

it. And they're going to do everything possible to get there. Brees Hall, Javante Williams. There's good running backs in free agency this year if you want to go get them. So I like your idea. I don't think they'll trade Addison. I think that that would be, you know, maybe more of a Quasi Dauphalmenta thought than it would be Kevin O'Connell. It'd be really surprising if Kevin O'Connell wanted to trade Addison for as much as he stood up for him along the way. But now that there's no GM, I mean, this team was hard enough to predict before. Now that there's no GM, it becomes even harder to predict.

So there you go. don't forget to answer that Fanduil question the day. The over under on Fandule 45 and a half for the Super Bowl shootout or grind fest. Let me know what you think. Hopefully we had, I guess, some fun talking. I mean, it feels like it's not a fun time at the moment. Maybe there will be a lot of things to come in the very near future that will make the discussion more entertaining and back to football and less about succession style drama. All right.

Thanks, everybody for your time. And we will catch again very soon. Football.