Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Vikings closer to a Justin Jefferson extension?

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Matthew Coller answers gives an update on the Vikings' young corners who spoke at TCO Performance Center last week and then answers fan questions about whether their offseason is leaning more toward rebuild, how Justin Jefferson feels about a potential extension based on where the team stands now and reactions to the draft.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is another fans-only episode, so I have gathered a bunch of your questions, a lot of them pertaining to the Vikings draft, and of course their future at quarterback and so forth. So we'll dive into those in just a second, but for right now, we kind of have reached a little bit of a lull in the Vikings off season. We'll have a rookie minicamp, we'll have

OTAs, and it will be very interesting to see who shows up for OTAs. So the other day, a couple of guys for the Vikings talked, and I don't think that I really discussed it on the show. One thing is that Justin Jefferson was not there for voluntary workouts. And a few people asked like, should I be concerned about this? And I would say probably not for voluntary workouts, but if we get to mandatory mini camp, then that might be a little more concerning when we get to that point. If Justin Jefferson is not there, then we will have a pretty clear idea that he is not attending because of a contract issue, but we'll see what happens with OTAs. We'll see what happens as we go in throughout May. There's a couple of times

that we'll be out there. They'll hold a couple of practices and then the mandatory mini camp is where they kind of ramp it up. And it's that one ramp up before everybody goes away for the rest of the summer and then comes back for training camp. So that would be one that we'll keep an eye on. No surprise that, you know, someone like Daniel Hunter wouldn't be there. We know exactly what's going on with Daniel Hunter, Zedarius Smith and Delvin Cook, but it'll be worth keeping an eye on just how serious it's going to be with Justin Jefferson and where they stand as far as a contract extension goes. Now,

the other guys that talked, Andrew Booth Jr., Caleb Evans, Kirk Cousins, and Brian O'Neill all have talked the last time the Vikings were out there. With Kirk Cousins, I mean, no big surprise to hear him talk about just wanting to be a Viking and to kind of, you know, spend the rest of his career as a Viking and wants to sign an extension still, but he's not all that concerned if he doesn't sign an extension, which I find to be pretty fascinating of an approach by him to just say, you know what, I've been going into years with uncertainty every year of my career, so that's fine with me and I'll continue to do it.

I think that that's unique for Kirk Cousins. I mean, normally, if you just look a little bit to the east over there in Wisconsin, if there's uncertainty or unhappiness, even whether it's a contract or drafting receivers or whatever it was that upset Aaron Rodgers. Normally, if there's a quarterback who's not that happy, we see some action, right? And that happened with the Atlanta Falcons and Matt Ryan, where the Falcons investigated going out to potentially get Deshaun Watson and Matt Ryan immediately demanded a trade. Now, I mean, I guess it worked out better for Atlanta to draft the quarterback and to move on for Matt Ryan, considering his age and how he played with the Indianapolis Colts. But the point just being that, that it is a little bit unique for what Kirk Cousins is doing to just say,

you know what, I'll go into this final year, but this is Mr. Bet on Himself, and he went through the whole lineage of his career of betting on himself, not knowing if he had any scholarships, not knowing where he'd be drafted or if he'd have an NFL career at all. And then in Washington,

one of the all-time bet on yourself incidents with an NFL player going all the way into free agency, landing with the Vikings. Numerous times, Kirk Cousins has been going into off-seasons where he wasn't sure if he was getting an extension. It has not ever gone this far, though, so that door seems to still potentially be open, and I guess we'll have to see how that plays out. But an interesting approach from Kirk Cousins. And he talked about going into year two with Kevin O'Connell, knowing the offense already getting out there, as opposed to the way he put it was having to have his handheld for every play call and go through it kind of step-by-step at this time last year. Whereas now he knows all

the play calls and they can work on sort of the nuances of those things. Now, statistically speaking, it has been looked into whether year two guarantees instant growth of an offense in a system. And I'm sure you're not surprised to find out that there wasn't any tangible evidence that this is a consistent thing year over year, but it would make sense. And I also think that this is a consistent thing year over year, but it would make sense. And I also think that this year they'll have to be better considering their schedule to get the same results on offense. And I think they would also prefer to be a little more consistent offensively as opposed to in one quarter, they look unstoppable.

And then usually it was the third quarter last year. They looked like they didn't know what they were doing. So maybe there's something to that as being a little more of a four quarter team than, than so hot and cold, but that also could just be the nature of Kirk cousins and his time here, because it's always kind of seemed that way where it's one month up one month down, two quarters up, two quarters down. That's just kind of how it goes with him. But I buy into the logic that with O'Connell's system, a lot of them were a little in over their heads last year trying to figure it all out. And it didn't happen until in the season, although they came out and beat the Packers week one. So maybe it's a little overstated. I don't know. But that was a big topic

of discussion with Cousins nonetheless nonetheless it'll be something we're kind of watching is how they go into camp this time because last year if you remember the offense had some struggles during training camp this year i would expect them to be a lot better or it looked a lot more in tune with each other than they were before so then brian o'neill talked as well and he said that he is not putting a timeline on it, but Kevin O'Connell has already put a timeline on his return after his partially torn Achilles. O'Connell said he expects him to be there by training camp, but they're going to play it safe in training camp. And with O'Neill, that was kind of the way that he came across is that,

you know, he feels like very confident in how they put things together. You know, the plan that they had after his partially torn Achilles, that he went to outside sources, got the same information that he was getting inside the building, which further speaks to this team and their training staff and the trust that they have with players. But, you know, he said he wants to to he'd rather take it slow take a little longer than he would you know risk re-aggravating it or something like that so uh he seems in good shape though to start um where he's going to begin in training camp and then get back rolling and i would expect that he'll be there in week one which is a really good outcome because anytime you hear

achilles you think uh-oh that could be a really long injury. But in this case, it was only partially torn. And the expectation is that he should be good to go. The other two guys, Andrew Booth Jr. and Caleb Evans, interesting conversations with both of them. Caleb Evans in particular, he says that he had two concussions, but was in protocol another time and didn't feel like he had a concussion. Technically, I guess we have to go with three concussions the fact that they held him out toward the end of the year when he said he was cleared but they didn't put him back in the game is pretty interesting and i think a smart decision by the vikings to play it safe but he sort of insisted that he could have been ready to go. And he was pretty honest about the strain

of going through something like that. And he's making an effort to reduce the amount of concussions that he gets. That's not an easy task in the NFL, but wearing this thing they call a Q collar, I don't know for sure if that actually works to reduce concussions or not. He's changing his helmet.

I will say again, I don't know exactly how much these things are proven by science to reduce concussions. I think more or less, it's probably a good luck or bad luck thing when it comes to that. And last year, Caleb Evans had bad luck and it was difficult for him, but he did talk about learning more already from Brian Flores and his football knowledge, taking a step forward and how interesting his defense is because guys have to learn all sorts of positions and have to understand the whole flow of the defense and what's happening on the other side of the ball. So there's going to be more asked, it seems, of the cornerbacks this year from a mental

perspective. And Caleb Evans is a guy that has a chance to start. It could very well be Evans Booth Jr. and Byron Murphy Jr. as well. It could be those three as being the starting cornerbacks for this year, if they can stay healthy. And that goes for Andrew Booth Jr. as well, where I think he's a little bit farther behind maybe than Brian O'Neill in his recovery. But again, the expectation is that he's going to be out there for training camp and should be at least a battle there with those guys. Plus bringing in Makai Blackman, bringing in Jay Ward, bringing in JoJuan Williams. And so they've got this kind of myriad of different people that they're tossing

at this position and we're going to see what happens. But both of those guys seem like they are ready to go or will be soon enough when we get to see them in training camp for that to be a legitimate cornerback battle. So that's something we'll be watching for sure. And year two for those guys, by the numbers, year two for corners is the biggest jump it's one of the biggest jumps of all the positions when timo risky of pff studied this a few years ago that corners generally had very rough rookie seasons i guess if you're not sauce gardner and then took a step the following year and we'll see if that ends up being the case for these two guys but they have to stay healthy and there's no other way around it.

So that's kind of what was going on at TCO Performance Center last week. And then, you know, we'll go from covering the off-season program and get ready for training camp and June 1st is going to happen. And we'll, I almost guarantee we've got some moving parts at that point. Maybe the ones that we've been waiting for a long time to find out what exactly is going on with Delvin cooks, a Darius Smith and Daniel Hunter, because it feels like every time that we've talked about,

you know, the questions from fans and live streams, that's a main subject. And I think within the next couple of weeks, we'll get some resolution there, but until then we'll talk a big picture, take your questions and you can go toinsider.com to send your questions, go to the contact us, or shoot me a DM on Twitter at Matthew Collar. Either way,

works just great. And so let's dive into it. All right, this comes from Pete, says Detroit managed to take a running back to Philly or trade a running back to Philly for picks. So why wasn't Cook in that conversation too high of a price wanted or no one really interested or that we're actually sticking with him this season? I would say the first two are probably the answer that DeAndre Swift is young and cheap. And those two things are worth going for, worth taking a swing for, that he's still, I believe, on his rookie contract, maybe for one more year. And so he's not going to cost Philadelphia almost anything. And we've seen him before. I mean,

I was kind of surprised at how Detroit really didn't buy into DeAndre Swift. Maybe part of the reason is the injuries. It seems like every time he's played the Vikings, he's been impressive. He's got jolt to him. He's got a shiftiness to him that is pretty good. And I imagine Philly said after losing running back this off season, they probably said we need one more. And they've always thrown numbers at that position. Remember they had, they traded for, was it Jay Ajayi at the mid-season mark from the Miami Dolphins a few years ago. So they've always kind of done that where they've had two, three, four guys that they're running out of the backfield. And I think that they looked at it as an opportunity to pick somebody up that has some ability

and has had good games before, has shown an ability to play in the NFL, but is not what Detroit wants in their offense for right now with Delvin Cook. I don't think that Philadelphia could have afforded Delvin Cook. That's one key part of this. I almost no one can afford Delvin Cook. That's kind of part of the issue is that when you're trying to trade a player that has a huge cap hit, that's a difficult task. Who's taking that player, right? And then somebody who's coming off a decent season, four and a half yards per carry.

But we always have to kind of readjust what we think of different statistics. Kind of the same way that I was watching a broadcast the other day and from 1997, they're talking about how Dan Marino, once again, had thrown for 3,000 yards. Another amazing Dan Marino season, had thrown for 3,000 yards. Another amazing Dan Marino season. He's got 3,000 yards. I mean, that's what people are hitting by like week 12 or 13 at this point

in the NFL. And I think that with yards per carry, four and a half yards per carry is more close to average in the way that teams are running so effectively now than it is being above average or impressive that a lot of the best running backs were running for five or even more yards per carry and I think that part of that is defense is putting so much emphasis in playing up over the top playing these like quote shell defenses where they've got two deep safeties and they're just vacating the box and playing undersized players that teams ran more effectively last year. And that's one of the things that Kevin O'Connell talked about with them signing Josh Oliver is

wanting more big bodies and being more effective in the running game. So it was really kind of a meh year. It was the lowest yards per touch, I believe, of Delvin Cook's career. So you add it all together and you're saying, who wants to trade for an expensive player who's coming off of a down year? And the answer is there's not that many suitors. And I think we've really seen that play out. So if there are deals out there, I imagine they can't be the same that it would be for DeAndre Swift. And the league knows this. The league understands the churn of running backs. And I mean, look, Derrick Henry was on the block earlier this off season. Nobody signed him. Ezekiel Elliott, people didn't,

or nobody traded for him. I mean, Ezekiel Elliott, nobody ran to sign Ezekiel Elliott because everybody gets it at this point. There's always another guy with fresher legs who's coming on the way. And so you're not going to probably give up a whole heck of a lot. If the Vikings can pull off any trade for Delvin Cook, I will be impressed at this point because it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen. But a pretty significant difference between him and DeAndre Swift. From Nick here, when the Vikings drafted Jordan Addison,

we heard Kevin O'Connell say to Quweisi, we stuck to the plan. What do you think the plan was? Well, it seems like the plan was to draft Jordan Addison or a wide receiver. Maybe that was it, a wide receiver. I mean, the way that these teams set these things up is they always have plan A, plan B, plan C based on how the board falls. So let's just say that Jordan Addison wasn't their top wide receiver. Let's say it was Zay Flowers, okay? But they had Jordan Addison close in their draft grades. And they were looking at the wide receiver position as,

this is what we really want to go for. We want to replace Thielen. We want to have a just-in-case KJ Osborne leaves. We want to create a wide receiver duo for our next quarterback to step in. All the reasons we talked about leading up to the draft to potentially look at wide receiver, which is why we kept draft simming wide receivers to the Vikings, right? So if that was their plan, and then Zay Flowers goes off the board, Quinton Johnston goes off the board right before them,

then I think they probably got a bunch of phone calls. And it looks like from the videos that they did, my guess is they got phone calls to trade up. And I'm sure that Kevin O'Connell was thinking, don't do it. I want this guy. I want my wide receiver. Don't do it. And, uh, Kweisi deciding, okay, we're going to stick with the wide receiver. We're going to go with Jordan Addison here. I think that that was probably what was going on there. And it's hard to say, like these inside the draft room videos, I don't know. They're fun. They're cool. I love that they do them, but they're only showing certain parts of it. They're not showing all the conversations and definitely not all the lead up to them talking about their plan. But that would be just my best guess, putting together the pieces there, that they either had Jordan Addison as their top receiver,

or was their second or whatever option, and they wanted to go receiver and stay at that position initially as they were leading up to the draft planning. What if this happens? What if that happens? And then when it came to fruition, they got phone calls, Hey, can we trade up? We, you know, whatever. And they decided instead of trading back, which always did seem like it was very logical for them to do, but I think that they believe they would miss out on the receivers. And after Jordan Addison, I think there is a drop off of the receivers. Cause you saw Zay Flowers, Quentin Johnston, and then Addison, I think there is a drop off of the receivers because you saw Zay Flowers,

Quentin Johnston, and then Addison go. Those are probably the top three. Well, not probably. Those are the top receivers. And of course, Smith and the Jigba going way before that. So those are the top four wide receivers. And after that, there's a fall off. So you want to get one of those, which also might have been the plan.

Hey, we're going to get one of those top four. And if they're not there, then we trade down. So that would be my guess, but you know, they didn't tell me the plan or anybody else. And if you judge by the pre-draft reporting, you'll really see that nobody told anybody what their plans were. But yeah, I think that they got who they wanted, which of course is always said all the time that, Oh, well, we got the guy we wanted. This was a top guy on our board, you know, whatever. But I think in this case, we can truly say that, that they got somebody that they had clearly targeted. Otherwise they would have traded back down. All right. From Andrew, looking at this new class of Vikings, have Kwesi and Kevin taken a step

closer to extending Justin Jefferson or do you think that they could have made a different move in the draft to keep him I think what you're implying there is quarterback would be the only move that would be relevant to Justin Jefferson unless you think that he would have preferred defense because their defense was bad which you know I guess, I guess I would understand. I don't know how nuanced Justin Jefferson's roster takes are as it pertains to him getting extended. I'm sure that the quarterback position is very important to Justin Jefferson as far as an extension goes. And some of that would be that, you know, they passed on Will Levis. Now, again, I don't know how much he's draft scouting, right?

If you go back, I mean, Aaron Rodgers wanted Justin Jefferson in the worst way and didn't get him and then didn't get a receiver at all. And then they draft Jordan Love and all these sort of dominoes fall that results in him being a Jet and a Viking next year. Just kidding, just kidding. But when you have a player that wields that type of power with an organization, which Justin Jefferson definitely does. And Kweisi Hidafo-Mensah said as much at the combine when I asked him about it. I mean, he said that looping

in Justin Jefferson to their future plans is important to them because they want him to feel like he has that type of cachet within the organization. He's that important to them. And I'm sure some of that is also, please, please, please sign a contract extension with us as well. But even if he does, I mean, it is vital to have a player that is literally the number one player in his position, the entire NFL feel like he has a say, a voice, or is at least dialed in and not just kind of riding the ride like the 53rd guy on the roster

who would have nothing to say about anything. So there is that, but would he look at a wide receiver being taken and say, oh, I'm definitely not signing it? No, of course not. I mean, he's played with a really good wide receiver the entire time he's here. And I think that being taken and say, oh, I'm definitely not signing it. No, of course not. I mean, he played with a really good wide receiver the entire time he's here. And I think that more than anything, and maybe if it moves the needle one way, it's a little bit more towards somebody else taking some pressure off of him. Because I think that the times where he was frustrated is when they couldn't get him away from the double teams and teams started to really approach him in a certain way that was very unique halfway through the season. Kevin O'Connell noted this

at the combine, a light kind of went on for these other teams. Like we got to do something. And I think they were playing more over the top coverages against him was the stat O'Connell gave us than anybody else in the league, which is not surprising. And I think that, I mean, I would guess, and I'm not speaking for Justin Jefferson though, but I would guess he would want another wide receiver who could push down the field a little bit more and who could get open and who could make other teams pay. Because I would guess also Justin Jefferson wants to win as much as he wants all of his catches as well. But if somebody else is making them think, we saw this with Diggs and Thielen, where some years it seemed like the attention was going toward Diggs and some years it was going toward

Thielen and really it went toward nobody and somebody was going to burn the defense one week or another. So I don't know how Justin Jefferson views that, but I don't think anything that they've done this offseason would really change anything from the end of last offseason. They still have the same exact quarterback. They still have a good roster, but not a roster that's being talked about in the Super Bowl conversation. and they haven't really made any monumental move that would make Justin Jefferson say, okay, now it's my, I mean, look, if they, I don't know how he, again, I don't know how much college football he's scouting or anything, but maybe if they had drafted Anthony Richardson, then he would have said, all right, like let's sign that extension. I want to play with Richardson long-term, but I don't think that these are factors. I mean, I think that he wants to understand just again, total guests on my part, but he would want, if I were him, I would want to understand when the new quarterback is going to happen. If it's going to happen as part of the discussion for whether I sign a new long-term extension,

I would think that would stand to reason. And the fact that they have not solved that or laid that out or even committed, of course, they're not going to with Kirk Cousins. They're not going to come out and say, no way he's getting extended folks. I mean, that's just not going to happen. But I'm sure that they have said something to him about where they stand with that situation. I don't know. At least they made it sound that way. It's very hard to talk in certainties when I'm not him. But have they gotten closer? I really don't know is the answer. I would guess the answer is Justin Jefferson has a sense whether he's going to sign an extension or not. Because here's the rare thing about Justin Jefferson. He knows the price. The price is already laid out. There's no negotiating. It's pretty much just,

is he doing it or not? Because the price is the highest paid receiver in the NFL. That's the price. And they want to do it and they've made it clear they want to do it. So now he just has to decide whether he is staying or not. That's the only decision. That's pretty rare. That's very rare, actually. Normally, there's a lot of details in terms of the price and everything else. But I think in this case, really the only options are to sign a DK Metcalf short-term

deal that's like three years and doesn't totally lock him in for his entire future. There's one that gets him the most cash anyone has ever gotten guaranteed as a receiver. That's like a five-year deal, something like that. And then there's not signing at all. And then that's the only ways that this whole thing could go. So I don't know. It is very hard to put myself in his position and say,

oh, I'm sure he's thinking this or that. Like, I don't know. I don't know what he's thinking. I just know if I was him, I would want to know the exact plan for how that quarterback position was going to be handled. And I'd want to understand how are we going to break out of this first round out caliber type of team and be a great team again. And then it comes down to the rest.

Is this the place you want to play? You know, I think it would be a great place for him. He's had no struggles becoming a megastar, an international superstar, that whole thing. Getting endorsement deals has never been a problem in Minnesota. So I don't know. They've got great facilities, good training staff. Does he get along with Kevin O'Connell? Seems like it.

Seems like they have a lot of communication. But how he feels about that behind the scenes, I don't know, but he just had one of the great seasons for a receiver in NFL history. So I, I mean, I guess I would think that he was on good terms with O'Connell. A lot of it's just wait and see, to be honest. I mean, there's a lot of things we could talk about with this, but it's all just, we'll have to see what he does. I think the only people that know are him, his agent, and his family, exactly how he feels about it. If I had to guess, I would say right now, pie charting this thing, I would lean toward the long-term extension being the favorite

to be announced at training camp right at the beginning. That's the favorite here. And then second is the shorter-term extension to be announced at training camp. And then third is no extension. And we go into that final year, but I would still lean toward when somebody puts whatever million, a hundred million in front of you, it's hard to say, you know, I was thinking about playing with CJ Stroud or something, you know? Right. So we'll see. We'll have to see how it goes. Next question comes from Adam. Lots of fans are flaming Kweisi for the draft. I would give him a B plus. Was it, was it a lot of, I don't know. This must be a Twitter thing, right? Like Twitter makes people think that other people think stuff when it might not be true right so there might be 20 people who

are very loudly angrily attacking the draft and then it seems like because those opinions the hotter the take the more it gets shared it seems like well lots of people think this do they really i mean i don't think so i didn't get a ton of feedback that said that people were ripping Kwesi for the draft. I mean, if we're talking about Makai Blackman reach being like the biggest criticism, I don't know. There were a few people that thought they should have drafted a corner instead. Okay. I mean, I don't know.

Anyway, I just don't think that that's actually the case. I think that what you said, the B plus or B, is probably what most people would think of this draft. Not life-changing, but okay. They certainly addressed a lot of things that they need. Anyway, back to your question. What's your take on whether the offseason has gone to plan for Kweisi? We just haven't shifted the needle at all.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think that the plan was probably to investigate a lot of quarterback options. It may have been to give Kirk Cousins a short-term extension that doesn't lock into him any more than this year and then draft someone next year, but lower his cap hit that way and not have the dead cap that's a monster for next season. So that may have been the plan. And then that didn't come to fruition because Cousin's side didn't want a short-term extension,

which I don't blame him for at all. I think he's got a good case there. And it may have been to tear apart more pieces, but then Harrison Smith took the pay cut. So then he stays, but there's not too many other pieces and the other ones are just undecided at the moment. So we haven't really seen the whole plan come to fruition. The whole plan may have included moving on from Delvin Cook or trading Daniel Hunter.

I don't think Zedarius Smith was ever part of the plan for him to leave. I think that's entirely a Zedarius Smith was ever part of the plan for him to leave. I think that's entirely a Zedarius Smith thing. I think they want Zedarius to play with Brian Flores. And there's a halfway decent chance, if not a good chance, he does anyway. I don't know what's going on there exactly. But the whole point being that, look, when Kweisi Adafomensa said competitive rebuild, I think all of us heard one part of that. Me too.

I also did. Like, oh like rebuild. Awesome. All right, let's see how this goes. But then all the moves that they made last year were much more toward the competitive side. I think this off season has been more of a competitive rebuild season because look who we were talking about to start the show. Andrew Booth Jr. and Caleb Evans. They haven't had the cap space to go get veteran corners who can fill those spots like Detroit did. Trade away Jeff Okuda, signed a bunch of corners. That would have been the Vikings if they had cap space, but they just really don't. They're going to play. I mean, think about that. This is actually what I thought they should have done last season, which was play a lot of young players like Caleb Evans, Andrew Booth,

both playing. Byron Murphy is a good veteran player, but still young-ish. And so, all right, let's throw numbers at that thing, see how that thing works out. Let's see if Brian Asamoah can play. If Louis Seane doesn't start at safety, that's pretty concerning, but let's just assume that he will. Then he'll be back in time and he'll start at safety. That is a competitive rebuild defense. That is not a ready to win the Superbowl defense. That's a bunch of young players figuring out who can play, which I've always been for. And then on the offensive side, drafting receiver,

Jordan Addison may be great right away, but he also may need a year of development. I would guess, you know guess they're going to put KJ Osborne in a lot of positions to see if they want to extend him in the backfield. If they move on from Delvin Cook, you have a lot to find out there. Alexander Madison, Ty Chandler, now they draft McBride in the backfield, Dwayne McBride. So you have a lot of actually things to find out. And at the guard positions, two guys who had really tough years last year, who do they need to be replaced?

Like can Ed Ingram play or not? Can Ezra Cleveland take that step that Garrett Bradbury took? So there's actually a lot to find out on this roster. It feels like a competitive rebuild roster that they never planned to not have anyone except for Kirk Cousins unless he was going to get traded for Trey Lance or something, which I, you know, who knows if that was ever a real thing that they talked about. I'm sure that they looked into options with Kirk Cousins. And if they were going to do that after he wouldn't sign an extension, that would have been very, very

rebuildy in that case. But the needle is poking a little more toward the rebuild than it is the competitive this year. And I think that, you know, on the whole, that's exactly what they had planned to do, whether it all worked out just like this. Well, that, that, I don't know. I don't think anything ever works out exactly to plan. It sounded like they thought they were going to be able to bring back Dalvin Tomlinson, but that never happened because he got a huge contract in Cleveland. So then they shift gears and get Dean Lowry, which, you know, I don't know on the older side there. So yeah, I mean, as far as shifting the needle, they have, in my mind, they've shifted the needle toward competitive or toward our rebuild and a little away from competitive, which I think is okay. They have not though, put the pedal to the metal

and said full rebuild, everybody's gone. So that hasn't happened. That could still happen. I mean, there's three star players who could be gone after June 1st. So that, and if that happens, then this is, this is rebuilding. If hunters and Aries Smith and Dalvin cook are all gone in the middle of the summer, very rebuilding. So they, yeahries Smith and Delvin Cook are all gone in the middle of the summer, very rebuilding. So they, yeah, I think they've moved the needle that way. Not, you know, pushing Adam Thielen's contract down the road more than they needed to just cutting him back when they did it and not saying, oh, we're going to June 1st you to create the maximum cap space. But then of course you're course, you're pushing dead cap down the road.

So, yeah, I think that there were some things that were a little bit on that competitive side, some void years that they didn't necessarily need. But even the Cousins restructure and not an extension, rebuild the in itself, because they don't know who their quarterback is going to be, and they have flexibility there in the future. So, yeah, I mean, I would say they have moved the needle quite a bit in that direction. Now, how far really is going to depend. And if they extend Kirk at the end of the summer or something, well, then we go right back to full competitive. And I don't want to hear any excuses about, you know, young team or anything else. So my view on the off season right now is that they have done

a lot, uh, aiming toward the future, including just not extending cousins. But again, that's all subject to change on what happens going forward here with cousins, Hunter Smith and cook. It's an interesting question though, but also if you're crushing them for the draft, I don't know. You might be just bored by the draft because they didn't have 14 players. All right. From Eric, I hear the phrase natural tank from you a lot. I think that would absolutely be the best case scenario, but what would have to happen in order for a natural tank to come to fruition this season? Well, my understanding is that the schedule is going to drop soon, which we're going to have a whole party with that.

So I look forward to that. In fact, we'll just plan it right now. Live planning here. I'll probably go live on YouTube just as it drops and we'll pick the games together. It'll be plenty of fun. You know, and I'll put out the whole article breaking down whatever, something.

So that'll be fun. I love that that happens. You get past the draft, you know, like, okay, off. Oh, the schedule. Anyway, look at the schedule. I don't know what the schedule is going to look like yet, but I know who the opponents are. And so last year they won all of their one score games.

Some of those were, you know, games that they really had in hand and had like a 90% chance to win. The other team scores at the end, you know, whatever you they really had in hand and had like a 90% chance to win. The other team scores at the end, you know, whatever you call it a one score game. But if we, what was it? 11. If we took and said like six of those were just total coin flips, any given year, as you saw from 2021, you can win or lose a bunch of those coin flips in a row. And if they lose a bunch of those coin flips in a row. And if they lose a bunch of those

coin flips in a row and think about that, I saw this stat on Twitter. I think it was maybe Warren Sharp who tweets out a bunch of crazy stats. He tweeted out teams that have had like double digit wins or something like that, like at least two touchdown wins. And since some number, I forget the exact stat. Look, it was like double digit wins since 2018, I think. And it was Buffalo, it was Kansas City. It was teams with great quarterbacks. And the Vikings were way down the list. I believe the Texans had more of them.

Their wins have always been super close. They've always gone on the razor's edge with Kirk Cousins. That's why some years you barely get in the playoffs. Some years you barely miss the playoffs because it's always kind of riding on that. Do they finish off the one score games or not? 2021, if they finish off a handful more one score games, they have a good season and Mike Zimmer stays, right? But they didn't. They had, you know, a ball bounce off of Bashad Breeland into the hands of C.D. Lamb or however that went against Dallas. Crazy stuff happens, but if they were to lose six one-score games instead of winning them

all on final field goals and everything else, I mean, that's a pretty tough start right there. And you could have maybe more injuries than they had last year. They did have some injuries on the defensive side. I don't think they were one of the healthiest teams in the league, but they didn't have any Justin Jefferson injury. And you knock on wood for that or TJ Hawkinson or, uh, Derrissaw did miss a few games, but these weren't season ending injuries. So they were able to pretty much survive getting hit too badly with injuries. I mean, Kirk Cousins got smacked a bunch of times and never stayed down and he hasn't during his whole career. And either one of those things happens, either super bad luck on those one score games or a serious injury and you could be natural tanking. Yeah. It's you're not that far away. I think

they will be competitive in those one score games, but I can't predict whether they're going to make the field goals or not, or whether they're going to, but I can't predict whether they're going to make the field goals or not, or whether they're going to fumble or not, or whether they're going to have the key interception or make the key stop as they did last year. So it could definitely happen considering their schedule. There's enough teams on there that will maybe finish the one score games. And the other thing is that the opposing quarterbacks way better.

So if you're playing better opposing quarterbacks, better chance that they finish off those games than, you know, some of the teams they faced last year, like instead of Mike White, you know, it would have been somebody good. So anyway, uh, but yeah, I mean, it could happen. It can happen to any team. Actually the go back and look, one of the fun things that I used to do, even when I was a kid was I would get Sports Illustrated,

the magazine form, show up to my house every week. And when they would do their big NFL preview, I would rip out where they had the standings and I would put them in a drawer or something. And then I would go back and look at them at the end of the year and just be like, oh my gosh, these were so wrong. And they're always wrong. I'm not calling out them. They're always wrong because unexpected stuff happens. So if you get hit with unexpected stuff,

you could end up picking very high in the draft next year. I think that they're more going to be a nine or 10 win team, but that's how I feel right now, not knowing how anything is going to play out the rest of the way. So that'll be interesting to watch now, not knowing how anything is going to play out the rest of the way. So that'll be interesting to watch, but it's, it is in the range of outcomes. If you simulate the season a thousand times, there are, I don't know, a hundred times where you end up picking in the top five, something like that. All right. From Dustin, Dustin says, what is your favorite genre of music? On top of that, what is your favorite music to play on guitar? I'm extremely electric. So excited to see what your go-to is. Yeah. Just to throw this out there, if you guys want to ask other questions,

I am not an interesting person, so I may not have great answers, but I can try if you guys want to ask. Just don't ask me anything weird about food. I don't I don't know. Anybody can feel however they want about food. But aside from that, if you want to ask other questions, totally fine. They don't have to be all like, what are they doing with Delvin? So for me, favorite genre is really widespread. I would say I like guitar driven music. So, you know, super shredding guitar players,

because I've been playing guitar since I was a younger kid. So, you know, like going back and listening to 80s stuff like Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne. And there's a lot of modern shredders who are really good and they're out there on YouTube and you could just go watch them. Like Paul Gilbert is really fun to watch. He's probably the most insane guitar player I've ever seen. There's a guy named Andy Timmons who is more of a blues driven type of dude, but he is insane. So blues and guitar music, big fan of that, but it really is wide ranging. I mean, I have tickets to go to T Swift with my wife, but it's not entirely her decision. The opener for her is her name is girl in red. And I've been listening to her on YouTube and I'm like, well,

she's pretty good. You know? So I listened to a lot of stuff and I'm always like, have a curious mind about music. So I'll listen to the pop station, but the grunge era was very big for me. Alison chains was a favorite. Maybe, you know, somewhat Nirvana, somewhat Pearl Jam. They're kind of like the big three of that. STP was big for me. So that genre of just grunge in general was right when I was growing up, right when I was learning to play guitar.

So that's kind of a big one. But also I would say old school hip hop is really good. There's some modern artists who are really good with that. Kendrick Lamar. There's some songwriters that are kind of out there now who are really good. So it's a lot. I wouldn't say that I have. I mean, all time favorite artists probably is Randy Rhoads on guitar.

DMX as a rapper. It's probably at the top for me. But yeah, I mean, definitely like your Eric Johnson, crazy guitar player stuff is probably what I listened to the most. Cause I'm always trying to pick up little tips and ideas and things like that. So that is where I would go, but it's really not, it's really not one thing. I'm not like, I can't really get into country, but aside from that, although there is one guy, I was a Keith Urban, who's a really get into country, but aside from that, although there is one guy, it was a Keith Urban, who's a really good guitar player.

So, you know, they're out there. They're out there. All right. From Pancake Bunny. Let's see. It seems to make the most sense to hold on to Kirk Cousins and ride him out for the next two years. Am I crazy to believe that quarterback of the future won't be addressed until Kwesi Adafo-Menta and Kevin O'Connell get extensions?

Um, you're not, no, not crazy, but I don't think it's really necessary. I mean, it's so hard to say what's going to happen in the future, right? We're just talking about thousand simulations. There's a hundred where they naturally tank. There's 400 where this is sort of like a pie chart, 400 where they win 11 games. There's 300 where they win eight games, right? So it's hard. It's so hard to know where we're going to be in this conversation with Adolfo Mensah and O'Connell by the end of next season. And one thing we know is that, yeah, culture is super important and I'm not, you know, dispelling any of that. I think it's all very real with, you know, a head coach who is player friendly and who has a lot of great ideas about team building and everything else that can fall apart pretty quickly if things go wrong. So I don't know where they're going to be in a year

from now when it comes to this, when that decision is potentially up. But I think if you're looking into the future and you're them, you're probably saying at some point we have to draft quarterback or we're just going to end up getting the same results as Mike Zimmer did, which is the same thing over and over again. And if they were to extend cousins for two years, and maybe this is just kind of talking everybody off the ledge of that idea. But if he were the quarterback through 2025 and you have one 13 win season, but then you win eight and then you come back and say, Hey, look, we're going to add a corner and we're going to whatever. And his extension lowered his cap.

His will be fine. But then age comes for him and then you win seven. You're on a hot seat at that point. So there's almost nothing you can do in the NFL. This is my point. There's nothing you can do in the NFL to avoid the hot seat. You just have to do what the right thing is all the time and go for it because everyone is always on the hot seat. I mean, they're like, think about Jack Del Rio and with the Raiders where he won, what was it?

12 games with Derek Carr the one year they come back, they have a tough year and he's gone. And I mean, Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland, if they stink this year, Kevin Stefanski is absolutely fired. He won coach of the year. Go back, look at coach of the years. There's a lot of guys who have been fired after winning coach of the year. I don't think you can ever think about that.

Everybody's tenure is kind of year to year anyway, but if you were to win eight or nine games next year, I mean, I think already there's going to be pressure on because you could say, oh, eight games, it wouldn't be that bad of a season. But do you remember the last eight win season? It was a disaster. It was the wreckage everywhere with Mike Zimmer in the final year of his tenure. So it gets pretty ugly if you miss the playoffs in any NFL building. So what's your answer after that, if that happens, or what's your answer if you're good, but not great, or another first round out or any of these things, if you stay with Kirk cousins, the bar will be set just high enough to not reach it and get fired. If you stay with Kirk Cousins, the bar will be set just high enough to not reach

it and get fired. If you draft the wrong quarterback, you will be bad and get fired. Like this is life in the NFL. So I think that what they have to do is not worry about extensions. Here's the other thing too. I've seen plenty of coaches get extensions and then get fired. Those extensions mean nothing. Every single person is year to year. Like we have made a lot out of, well, they sign these four year deals. So they only have so many years and I get that, but everybody is year to year in the NFL. Do they believe in you this year right now or not? Because if they don't, they'll fire you. That's, that's the way I would view it. And so they have to, if they stick with the plan that they've sort of laid out right now by not extending cousins and they go into next off season, looking to draft a quarterback and look,

no one knows what the 2024 class is going to look like outside of one guy. I mean, Drake may looks like he might be a prospect. So did Sam Howell at one point and it didn't turn out. And so we don't know, but let's just say, you know, there's a couple of prospects out there. They would have some sense of that. Or there's other guys that could end up on the market as far as Jimmy Garoppolo types or Kyler Murray or whoever, we have no idea. But I think that it's worth for them rolling the dice to try to find their quarterback that becomes O'Connell and Adolfo

Mensah's quarterback, not the quarterback of the previous regime, which is Kirk Cousins. I think that's worth looking for and looking to aim higher than just being in the playoffs, just being in the hunt. Can we get a bunch of one score game breaks and maybe win a division, right? I think that they should be looking higher than that and they shouldn't worry about their job status. And they built up a lot of goodwill, but that could all disappear in a second. That's my whole point is anytime you try to talk about this

and then if I told you, well, they actually went six and 11 next year. How's everybody gonna feel about the culture, right? You know what I mean? So yeah, I think you do the best thing you can and then see what happens and the best thing to try to actually win and could create a team that could go to the nfc championship to go to the super bowl that's what they should be aiming for not like let's try to protect our necks because when you try to protect yourself from getting fired a lot of times you get fired anyway.

From at North Stars NHL, can you please discuss the differences between your recommendation to draft Mac Jones a few years ago and pass on Will Levis this year? Yeah, I think there's a pretty big difference. I mean, one of them is that Mac Jones was a first round pick that was in the middle of the first round and Will Levis was not. And I know he in the middle of the first round. And Will Levis was not. And I know he wasn't deep into the second round, but historically speaking, after the middle of the first round, you got your Bridgewater, who I think would have turned out to be a pretty good quarterback and was sort of on his way. And Lamar Jackson was a great quarterback. In the second round, you have Jalen Hurts, but there's something really similar between those two guys is that they're runners. And the NFL may be still, I don't know. I mean, with Anthony Richardson going

fourth overall, maybe they figured this out, but runners in the past were given less credence like Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts. So there's no real comparison to that for late guys that were drafted like Will Levis. And if you look historically, first bunch of picks, now it doesn't have to mean they're going to get the order right all the time, but like your Mahomes, your Josh Allen, that fringy top 10 area, somewhere in there is probably the cutoff for getting drafted. If you drop all the way through, every team looks at you and decides you're not worth it. And it's not every single team that would have been looking at him.

Kansas City is not looking at him. But let's say there were 10 teams. You could make a case for eight to 10 teams. And all of them looked at Levis and said, nah, that ain't worth it. When the Patriots drafted Mac Jones in the middle of the first round, it was more of probably a handful of teams, two or three teams that decided they didn't want him, as opposed to every team that needed a quarterback and didn't take in the top four. All said, no, we don't want him. And there's a lot of comparison guys who have similar skill sets, similar struggles with accuracy. Drew Locke is kind of the most recent that the NFL said,

nah, I don't think so. I don't think we're going to spend our draft pick on this guy. So I think that there was much more risk with him. I mean, we're talking about the difference in players is pretty significant too. Not just the draft status, which the jump from six, I think it was 16 where Mack was taken all the way down or something like that, 15, 16, all the way down to 33rd is enormous in terms of like how many teams have to pass on you and even your chances at success overall in general, that is a big drop off. And that's why it kind of like that Jimmy Johnson chart. There's people who have done analytical charts and things like that. But why did Jimmy Johnson stuff the top of that chart with huge numbers and make it really hard to trade up into the top? Because those are the guys that usually succeed, right? And become the great players in the league. So that is a difference just on where they were drafted. Like that is a big gap. That's not like being drafted one 50th or one 75th. That's no gap being drafted in the top 15, 16 versus 33rd means a lot of teams had to say no. The other thing is very, very different players as far as their skillset and

what they did in college. Uh, Mac Jones was unbelievably accurate in college, set all sorts of records. I mean, coming off of Tua, kind of a similar thing where this guy was getting the ball out quick. He was on time. He was throwing accurately. His mechanics are terrific. And he was putting up crazy numbers, which you could say, oh, well, it's just his wide receivers.

But also his pocket presence, at least in college, was pretty good. Not a runner, but pretty good pocket presence, at least in college was pretty good, not a runner, but like pretty good pocket presence, footwork mechanics, stuff that the NFL would value pretty high and accurate thrower. And I mean, I still have to think, I know that it was a bad year for him. Matt Patricia was his offensive coordinator and they had really bad receivers. I still have to wonder, and I don't know this for sure because it didn't happen, but Mac Jones gets picked there by the Vikings paired with Justin Jefferson. Let's say Zimmer gets fired anyway, paired with, you know, Kevin O'Connell,

you know, like I think is probably, probably his results are quite a bit different because he proved he could play in the league, which is a a huge first jump but at very least they would know they would know by now like do we need a new quarterback or do we not uh and if he had been really bad then maybe they would have tanked i don't know but i think he would have been probably pretty good and then you also get 30 million dollars in cap space to work with. I don't know. Like that one made way more sense to me than Will Levis is the point because when all of those teams let him drop and he has the profile of a lot of quarterbacks that didn't work out, I'm like, okay, I get that. The other thing about Mac Jones too was this is a situation where Kevin O'Connell has to pick his one

quarterback. The Vikings before were in a position where you didn't even have to move on from Kirk Cousins. You could draft Mac Jones, see what happens. You know, so it, I don't know. Like, I guess that, I guess that would be the lovest thing too. They wouldn't have to move on from Cousins right away. They could see what happens. But I felt like they were in a, in a more desperate positions to take a quarterback

considering they were right on the cusp of being fired and needed to find an answer around this giant cap hit. But yeah, those are the, those are the main differences, just mostly the draft status and the skill sets are quite a bit different. And we've seen a lot of guys who were accurate passers, but maybe not Lamar Jackson running who have worked out. I mean, Joe Burrow is one of them. Joe Burrow is pretty comparable to Mac Jones. He's turned out to be better, has a way better set of wide receivers, but they're, they're similar though, not runners, you know, accurate passers. So, you know, we'll see how it works out with Mac Jones. I think being at the very end of Belichick is a pretty tough place to be. All right. A couple more questions. I'll try not to talk as long here for those from Michael. I was wondering if you could take us through a typical week looks like for you during the regular season. Curious about the behind the scenes that

we don't witness. Yeah. So there's a lot of waiting around. That would be one thing. If you're asking me, what is, what is it like to be a reporter? You stand around a lot. You wait to go into practice. You wait for the press conferences, that kind of thing. So there's a lot of that. I go out to TCO Performance Center about three times a week and do all the press conferences, no matter what it is. During the season, it's, I think, let's see on, well, Monday might

be a conference call. So Monday is usually a conference call with Kevin O'Connell. Then I write off of that. Tuesday is generally an off day. And then Wednesday, there's a lot of press conferences, Kirk Cousins, Justin, well, no, Justin Jefferson's on Thursday. Kirk Cousins talks. Yeah. I think Kirk talks on Wednesday Wednesday And then there's a couple other people that talk Including Kevin O'Connell Thursday is Justin Jefferson A couple other players Last year it was Thielen and Peterson

They'll have to pick some new guys this year And then on Friday, O'Connell talks as well And usually we go out and watch the start of practice So we end up seeing Oh, Coordinators is on Thursday as well. This is very boring. I'm sorry. This is like how the schedule works.

You have coordinators in the morning, and then we talk in the early afternoon, I think it is, to Kirk Cousins, Jefferson, those guys. And then for the rest of the time that it's an open locker room, which is about an hour, there's usually a few minutes in there to grab players, ask a few questions, work on a story, something like that. So that takes up a big chunk of my week. But as far as all the other things, as far as booking podcast guests, when I write, it's all kind of whenever, right? So some nights I might be up late, real late writing, or sometimes I might have the writing done by the middle of the day. It kind of depends on the story, what's going on.

Articles do take several hours to write for sure. Some of them take weeks to kind of work on and build up and things like that. So I'm always kind of sending out messages, emails, texts, things like that, making phone calls, communicating with PR, looking for sit-downs with players, phone calls with whatever subjects that I'm interviewing, stuff like that. And then booking podcast guests isn't that hard. I mean, normally I just send somebody a message and they say yes or no. And then we go from there, set up a time. But I would say my schedule is pretty much all over the place outside of the things that are preset in place. So it's, you know, could be working at eight o'clock in the morning. If someone needs to do a podcast guest, there could be writing till one in the morning, whatever. It's just,

I'm, I'm cool with that, but it's just kind of all over the place. So a typical week, there isn't really anything that's ever a hundred percent set in stone outside of the press conferences to be typical during the season. But yeah, there's, I mean, as far as behind the scenes goes, takes a while to write, takes a while to do those podcasts and edit them and post them and everything else. So yeah, there's a, there's some work that goes into it, but it's all football. It's all fun. So I enjoy it from Jason Engler. Talk me into the Vikings being in a better position than the bears and lions and Packers over the next five years. Yeah, I don't think that's, that's all that hard. Justin Fields fails. Then they have to draft the

quarterback. Then he has to have another year. And then if that doesn't work out, they're just the Jets or they're just the Bears again. But, you know, they become the Jets of like Wilson and then, you know, Sam Darnold in reverse order. That could happen. Plausible that fields could be, or how about this for the Bears? Fields could be just good enough for them to extend and win like nine games and then buy in and then actually not be good. And then be just kind of a middling quarterback who can never really figure it out,

but can do just enough to be average or okay. As far as better positions, see better positions hard because these teams have a lot of draft capital and a lot of cap space. Vikings are in a better position or I'm sorry, are not in a better position than those teams at least the Bears and the Lions but ending up in a better spot five years from now is totally possible if it works out either to be mediocre with Justin Fields or flat out bad and then they fail on the next high draft pick with the Lions I I mean, you can see the lions getting stuck in a rut of eight to 10 wins. I mean, there is no guarantee that the, see the order was weird last year because they start out bad and then they got crazy hot. But what if those are just

normally distributed next year? What if it's kind of one win, one loss for them and they get to the end of the year and go, wait a minute, we were nine and eight again. Now we got to get rid of Jared Goff, but Hendon Hooker's not the guy, but now what do we do? And they might squander a really good roster and high draft picks and everything else if they don't get the quarterback position right. So there is that. And maybe there's an argument that they should have traded up to number two in this last draft and taken CJ Stroud and put him behind Jared Goff because you can get Jared Goff to the Super Bowl. It did happen. Is it a super likely thing to happen? I don't know. They have a really good offense,

but you know, if he just plays average, okay. Football, like he has done kind of a lot of times in his career, you could get stuck in that eight to 10 win range. And every year you're kind of chasing something, or now you're chasing a draft pick to put into this roster, but then certain guys are getting expensive. You know, you can see it happening. And the Packers, I mean, it's pretty simple. If Jordan Love is average and then they extend Jordan Love, but he doesn't get any better than average, the Vikings could land the right quarterback pairing with Justin Jefferson profit. That's the way it happens. I don't know if all that stuff's going to happen, but did any of it sound super implausible

to you guys? Like it's very possible that all that stuff could come to fruition. If Jordan Love is absolutely horrible and they get Caleb Williams, then I can't help you. But is he going to be horrible enough with a good coach there in Green Bay, the home field advantage, the defense they have? Is he going to be horrible enough with a good coach there in green bay the home field advantage the defense they have is he going to be horrible enough to win like two games probably not so i think that they could end up if he's really tremendously bad with a high drafted quarterback that should scare you a bit um that should be a little bit of a concern there but but if he's average, if he wins nine games and he's like 4,000 yards, 24 touchdowns, 12 picks or something, very average stuff. And they extend him.

I mean, again, you're talking about these teams getting stuck in the middle, which is where the Vikings hope to be in a better spot than that in five years. Last one. Who's your way, way too early Mr. Mankato? How have your last five picks for Mr. Mankato fared? Terribly. I get it wrong every year. I don't know. I'm not great at predicting stuff.

This is why I do this and don't gamble. One year I picked Isaac Frichty. That did not work out at all. I think he dropped the first three preseason passes and barely saw preseason action again after that That was my Mr. Mankato pick And I learned not to take too seriously What Mike Zimmer was saying after minicamp

Because sometimes that really didn't turn out to be the case in camp But my way, way too early pick And it is not official It is just first one that comes to mind Would be Dwayne McBride And I think also I would say Ty Chandler still qualifies for this and it is not official. It is just first one that comes to mind would be Dwayne McBride. And I think also I would say Ty Chandler still qualifies for this, so he could also be in there. But Dwayne McBride would be my pick for right now. Somebody who's going to come in as a seventh round pick, but could absolutely steamroll a bunch of dudes in preseason who are going to

be selling insurance right after the preseason. So that's what I'm going to go with. I think it was a good pick and I think he can ball. So, or at least it looks like he can, but I could be wrong. We'll see that maybe this will be the first year I get it right. I may have even picked a kicker once. I don't know. I'm just not great at it. You can't really tell until training camp. You guys have heard me say that many times. So anyway, thanks for all the great questions. Purpleinsider.com is the place to go to contact us. Send me a message there or on Twitter at Matthew Collar, and I will answer your questions. And look, we're going to have a lot of live streams during the summer, the Q&As and stuff

like that. Going to have a lot of fans only. So, you know, get these things in there and we'll have a lot of fun over the summer. There'll be a lot to opine about. There'll be a lot of things to change and I'm excited about the schedule release as well. So thanks guys. See you again soon.