Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Vikings failing JJ McCarthy? (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Matthew Coller talks about his article on where JJ McCarthy stands right now with the Vikings and whether Kevin O'Connell's quote about failing QBs still holds up. Plus an update on Kyler Murray and Dane Brugler released his top 100 prospects so we should draft sim. 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.

This episode of Purple Insider is presented by Fandul. Sean, thank you so much for the super chat. Why don't we trade McCarthy for Kyler? 18 can be the new DeAndre Hopkins. We don't have to watch a meme try to play. Oh, yeah. So making him, making McCarthy part of a deal to get Kyler Marie is interesting because Arizona might do it. You have to be really done.

because if you're trading for Kyler and they're eating most of the salary, then it's a short-term decision. And it kind of kicks the ball down the road for you with J.J. McCarthy. So it really depends how done are you with J.J. McCarthy? If you're only a little bit done as in, hey, we'd love if he got a shot to play behind a starting quarterback and develop and try this again in the future and let him, you know, see where he develops and let him figure, try to figure. some things out. And with Kyla Murray, I mean, he probably would get in the game as the backup.

But if you are totally done with him, if the small things that we picked up on outside of the building were big things inside of the building with the connection with him and KOC, then just do it. Just make that move as long as Arizona's eating the contract, because there's no way you can do that. Super Rods is realistically what's going to happen is everyone's going to get extensions or money shoved down the road and they sign. Kirk. I don't, I do not want to, uh, count that out that possibility that they sign Kirk and bring him back. I think that that would be, I don't want to say foolish because I would totally

understand it. I think that that would be limiting. I, there's only so much you could do there. As I was saying earlier, when you go look at the quarterbacks who succeeded this year, they all threw for a heck of a lot of yards. It's just really, really, hard to see a quarterback who had his limitations when he was healthy. Even, you know, in 2023, Kirk Cousins had his limitations. In 2019, he had his limitations. That's why the Kyler Murray thing keeps coming up is because, I mean, at least from a physical perspective, he's a really great athlete who can make you right and is a pretty

accurate passer. And there's upside there. He's the top overall pick. the upside to a 37-year-old guy with an Achilles injury is not that high. Kyler, you know, when you say, when people say he's not a fit, I'm like, I don't know, like that's where I, that's why I go through the data from last year and it looks similar to the way that Sam Darnold was asked to play, except for the deep passing where Murray is a more intermediate passer than he is a deep passer.

He is not dropping back and just launching 50 yard balls. He, on a play to play basis that, you know, Sam Darnold can, can do that really well. On a play-to-play basis, Murray is much better between 10 and 19 yards. Like getting back, seeing somebody streaking over the middle of the field, letting it rip to them.

He could do that really well from his data. He does not throw to the middle of the field, I think enough. But in those areas, throwing an out route, you know, a quick slant, like stuff like that,

things that are designed to deal with his height shortcomings, he's very successful at. So I don't want to, I don't want to throw that idea out. we we wouldn't have won anyway as peer cope yeah that's that's really it uh class g says always viewed o'connell's comments about him missing practice for his kid as a way to exonerate j j from bad play not as an indictment of his lack of commitment i didn't know exactly how to take that i tried not i tried not to interpret that because i i wasn't really sure i wasn't really sure i think

you're right. I think it was meant that way, but I wasn't really sure if it was like something, you know, I don't know. I don't think it was that either, but you're probably right. Because usually where it was said, and this is why I didn't get into it a whole lot and didn't look into it a whole lot, it was probably, it was almost always said in the context of, well, he's only played this many games and one of those games he missed the, the week for his son to be born. And that set him back. And then that's why he struggled in that game. And, and, sort of that run of explanations for why things didn't get to where they got to, not as an indictment of whether he cared or not.

So you're probably right about that. I didn't, I was, I just, it was brought up a number of times and I tried not to go there too much because I feel like it's a tricky road to go down trying to interpret, well, what does he really mean? Is he trying to say this or is he trying to say that? Yeah, I didn't really want to get, I didn't really want to go there. But that, that's where I said. that I feel bad for McCarthy.

Like, the way this played out with the meniscus injury and then coming back with all the pressure and then the way week two happened after the big win. And you wonder about that Cincinnati game. It was such an easy game for the quarterback. Like, does McCarthy get some confidence there?

Does he get back on track there? And I remember after week two saying, like I still, you know, they're playing Cincinnati next week. I still think that they'll win. You know, I, you know,

I think that McCarthy will get back on track and get moving and just wasn't able to do it because he wasn't healthy. Jim, Jim, that's, that's funny. That's funny. Let's see. League of Gosu says McCarthy should have been a second round pick. I mean, easy to say now, I guess. Easy to say now. He was always a player.

I mean, every quarterback, except, for at the top, but even at top, every quarterback's going to get out over drafted, probably, unless they're Caleb Williams, Drake May and Jaden Daniels, who are all elite prospects. But most quarter, like Fernando Mendoza, what is he really? What is he really? And I like Mendoza, but what is he really? He's really more of a mid first round quarterback, right? He's really more, I think he's a better prospect than McCarthy from a thrower perspective, which we know is pretty big, but is he a wildly better overall prospect than J.J. McCarthy, probably not, but he's the only quarterback this year, so they're drafting him. That matters that, you know,

you're going to overdraft someone like J.J. McCarthy because, you know, maybe on your big draft board, you have them as like the 23rd best player, but you can't wait if that's the guy you want to be your quarterback. I think it's very easy to go, say that now, but I wonder about how it would have played out differently because there is something that shifted a little bit from, I mean, McCart, I don't know. Maybe I'm searching for things because I know the results too, the thing I accuse everybody else of. Because I was going to say that it felt different this year than it did in 2024.

In 2024, it really seemed like he had come into the NFL and adapted pretty well and made progress and was handling the quarterback battle well with Sam Darnold and was going to go to Cleveland and get some first team reps in the joint practices. And all of that stuff was real. It all happened. And clearly, you know, Kevin O'Connell was sold on all of that. But I don't know if it ever actually got back to that point of where he looked as sharp in the training camp or in any game that he did at the end of the 2024 training camp. So at that point, it looked like, yeah, this guy's going to be a good quarterback. It definitely looked like that at the end of 2024 training camp, which is why they made the move that they did.

Because that was the incomplete information they were working with. It's all they had. But it was there. It's not like that didn't happen. And then this year, it just never really truly clicked. You know, this is the funny, like when you talk about the numbers at the end of the season, and we go through those games. I think that the Dallas game was really good.

It was a really good game against Dallas. The rest of them, I mean, the Giants game, there's not much there. The Packers game, they're not even playing starters. You make it halfway through the game. I mean, what are, I mean, we are getting out NASA's microscope to try to look for stuff that's good. If you're talking about one game that worked out,

the Washington game where you barely had to play, and then halves of games, and one of them is against the worst team, the Giants, and then the other one is against a team that's not playing their starters. I mean, this is, it's very reachy, very, very, richy.

Scott says Jefferson is on a Hall of Fame trajectory, and this team has zero playoff wins. How is he indispensable? I mean, let's not be thick on purpose. Let's just not, let's just not purposefully be, silly like that. How is he indispensable?

I mean, do we have, do I have to do it that way? Do we have to go to the Wikipedia for who played in one in the Super Bowl and look at their wide receivers? Because we can do it if we want to. How is having the best receiver indispensable? I don't know, man. I guess you'll have to work on that as a side project for yourself.

I mean, Jackson Smith and the Jigba probably meant nothing to Seattle, right? Come on. Be serious. Be serious in my chat. Respect my chat. I mean, Justin Jefferson before J.J. McCarthy got here turned every quarterback into gold and made Kirk a lot of money from the Atlanta Falcons. And, you know, they got a pretty good wide receiver, but he ain't just to Jefferson. he turned everybody who threw to him into gold.

And then where Sam Darnold got a nice break in going to Seattle is he got another very, very talented wide receiver that they used in excellent ways. But we've all watched Justin Jefferson. Do they have no playoff wins because of Justin Jefferson? I don't think that that's why. I think that I mean, I don't know. What do you even say to stuff like that? clearly the quarterback performance going forward and its success is going to be dictated by

Justin Jefferson a lot. And while they have not won a playoff game, they did win 13 and 14 regular season games a little bit because of Justin Jefferson. I think he was involved in that. But, you know, they're going to have to figure a lot of things out in order to get to the other side of that. But just pointing at one player and being like, no rings, I mean, that's, just that's just ridiculous. Sorry, I'm getting through the silly season stuff to the next reasonable comment. Okay, this from Nassage. I think J.J. McCarthy has a chance.

It's going to be a while if it does happen, hard to see a team needing to win, leaning into his improvement as being the sole key. Thank you for the very rational comment. I appreciate that. And I totally agree. And that's where, I mean, considering whoever brought up the trade of McCarthy for Kyla Murray, considering where both teams are at right now, I mean, there has to be fear. If you're the Vikings, you've got to be pretty terrified of trading him away. And then three years later, he wins a Super Bowl or something.

But considering where both teams are at and it's a Lefleur there in Arizona. who's going to run a similar type of under center play action type of offense. If you think about Arizona as a team that's got a couple of nice weapons to work with, but is really two or three years away from building a legitimate team, it might be good for them to get a J.J. McCarthy. It might be good for him because he could go there. He could throw to Marvin Harrison. He could throw to Michael Wilson.

He could throw to Trey McBride. And he can learn out of play football. And I think that because of his athleticism and his sort of streak where he can get hot, that they will win some games with him and that he would learn and develop and grow and get a lot better in a situation where no one is watching. No, and there's no better proof than when I see comments about Kyler Murray that no one watched at all this like in 2024, nor should you. They've given you no reason to watch, but it's clear that there hasn't been a lot of eyeballs

on that team. That is probably the best scenario is where there's not intense scrutiny. for all these national TV games because you're coming off of a 14 win season. How many times are the Vikings on national TV this year? It was a lot. And every single time, it's JJ McCarthy struggling, you know, that sort of thing. Like every single time. So you wouldn't have a lot of scrutiny if you're there.

And Kyler Murray coming here is a win now type of quarterback, which you need for this roster. I don't dislike it. But the worry for sure would be that he develops there over a couple of couple years and then becomes a really good quarterback. It seems risky to me to get rid of J.J. McCarthy entirely. Because if we're doing the percentage chance that it works out, it's, it's probably not 60%. It might be more like 30%, but that's three out of 10. That's a base hit for a batter. Like that happens. So even if it's 30%, I would be really interested because I would put it at like 30, 35% after seeing his first 10 games and knowing the other factors.

Historically, it's lower than that for sure when compared to other quarterbacks. But I'd be really, really interested to know what they think internally that number is. What do they think the percentage chance he turns it around is? Do they think it's 30%? Because if it's 30, you keep him. If it's 10, you trade him and you get Kyler Murray. Or Derek Carr, I guess. uh,

Tway says, I'm joining late and not sticking around. Uh, like to watch the episode from beginning to end. So I'll finish later. Okay. That's awesome. Finit beginning to end.

Sometimes these go three hours, Tway. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Uh, I just want to say if Derek Carr joins this roster, I'm going to sit out next year. So this is what I was talking about with,

uh, Dane Mizatani the other day. We had a fun conversation if you guys missed that one. We were talking about how, like what would the fan rating be like fan approval for different quarterback options so fan approval if they traded j j mccarthy i think would be pretty low it would feel like a huge gut punch this was the guy that people bought jerseys of and you said was the franchise quarterback and all that stuff and then what you're trading him i think that would that would not go over too good

doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It just means that it wouldn't go over too good. Kyler Murray would also not go over great until people actually saw Kyler Murray playing. And then it would probably go over better. Like when they actually saw him, oh, I don't know, in a training camper,

I guess if he played some preseason, maybe you got to play some preseason, whatever. When he got in the jersey and you started seeing the highlights from training camp and you're like, oh yeah, that's right. Kyler Murray can throw the ball. And oh, yeah.

Wow, he's really quick. But at first, if they made the move at first, trading for Kyler Murray, I think it would be more like 40%. And I think there's momentum growing because when I first brought this up, it was unequivocal no from all of you guys. And now I'm getting the sense that more people are like, you know, does kind of have a darn oldy ring to it, doesn't it? So I think it would be more like 40%. Derek Carr, Kirk, Aaron Rogers. I think those are all probably like 10%. I just can't see anyone in the fan base getting on board

with this dedication to having a ceiling that you cannot break through. We saw what happened to Rogers in the playoffs. He just can't move anymore. And I mean, few people have ever been greater at throwing a football than Aaron Rogers, but he can't move. and if he can't move, Kirk can't move. Kirk grinded out some wins last year.

It's kind of fun to watch. He had to kind of old gunslinger it a little bit, but that didn't look like quarterback play that you can, you know, win in this division, 11 games. And plus, you know, every year is another year on the body, on the Achilles. If you snap it once, the chances are you can do it again. I don't think that that would grade very high among fans.

Like, wait a minute, you're going to bring in Kirk to start over J.J. McCarthy. Didn't we go down that road for a long time? Malik Willis, I think, would go very high. I think that'd be like 70%. I think people would be very excited about a younger quarterback with a lot of talent that might be the guy. And maybe they would view it as competition for JJ. Gino Smith is one I don't bring up maybe enough, but I don't even know if he got

mentioned in Clint Kubiak's press conference today. I mean, Gino's out of the. Raiders almost for sure he would be i think he'd be entertaining i don't think people would be happy about it probably a little bit higher than kirk maybe 25% because he's got an arm is there is there another move other than malik willis that would grade highly oh you mentioned der karr that that would go pretty low too although it's funny about der kare and i don't want to say that car is like significantly better than what kirk would give you but car through like 40 touchdowns and 13 picks over the last two years that he was playing for New Orleans.

He had some good numbers. He was very inconsistent, struggled under pressure. He's still Derek Carr, but I don't know. Like, he could get you to the playoffs. I think that. Do you think he could get you to the playoffs. Should have kept case is Bob, Bob a few weeks ago, or maybe it was last week,

accused me of not reading enough of his comments. And then he drops an. absolute gem with should have kept case that's good that's a good one you know i i have never really thought about that scenario what would have happened if they kept case keen him because it was so obvious to me that that was that was that was a not a darnald situation like darnold is the number three pick he's huge he's a very large man who's very strong and super athletic i mean not in like pure speech way, but in a, like, can just rip the ball from standing dead at a stop.

They can have a guy standing two inches away from him and just be like, yeah, and the ball rockets out of his arm. That was not Case Keenum. I always agreed with Mike Zimmer that Case Keenum had the horseshoe around his neck. And he was a great leader and he was a lot of fun. But 2018, I don't think you get any different result. Now, here's why it's better, though, Bob. Here's where you might be right.

And I've never really thought about this, Bob. this is very interesting. If the Vikings keep Case Keenum, do they also draft Lamar Jackson? Maybe they were totally out on Lamar, but wouldn't that have been a way to hedge the bet is to draft a quarterback that year? Okay.

Or what if Case gets him to the playoffs? Because I think he actually might have been able to eke them out into the playoffs in 2018. They only needed one more win. Let's say he gets him to the playoffs. the playoffs, then 19, they decide they're done with him and then draft a quarterback at 20, which could have gotten them Jalen Hertz or Jordan Love. Maybe you're on to something, Bob.

Maybe you're on to something. Any credit to McCarthy beating the Bears, Packers, and Lions? Well, certainly not the Packers. This is the hard part, right? This is the hard part. It's hard when people are reaching and stretching and then, And then old purple insiders got to be the bad guy who points out that the Packers weren't trying to win the game.

Uh, he played well against the Lions pretty well. It was a, you know, another, he showed the flashes. He showed the flashes against the Lions and, uh, the run to score around Anzolone was very impressive. And that's why I will continue to say that it's in there. There's a successful quarterback in there. But on what timeline? That it was a good game against.

the lines. It wasn't a great game. It was a good game. I think he threw for 160 yards. The Bears game was nice. Then, you know, the other Bears game was very bad. So, oh, the Derek car thing. Yeah, I got off a little bit. Um, uh, the Derek car idea. At least from talking to Nick Underhill from New Orleans dot football, uh, for another pod that you could check out. I was kind of intrigued. I think it's, it's Kirkian, but Kirk's 37. If you could do this, if you could give me, and cars had injuries, but he, and Achilles is brutal. If you can give me Kirk cousins for a small amount of money from 2021, that same quarterback, that same velocity on the football, anticipation, mobility to at least run play actions and stuff.

Then I would be like, yes, absolutely. It's just you can't go back in time. That player doesn't exist anymore. The Derek Carr that was recently playing really well for the New Orleans Saints, he might because it's not even clear what the injury was, and he's had a whole year to heal. I mean, quarterbacks can come back. It's not like you're asking, I don't know, a left tackle or something to come back.

So there's a little bit of intrigue there. it still feels like it's got a cap on it. But maybe you could create a situation for him with a lot of the play action stuff. And maybe you run better and you have a top defense where you're in the playoffs. That's there's tears to this where with Kyler Murray, there is some world where it all goes awesome. With Derek Carr, there's some world where it all goes pretty good. With Kirk, there's some world where it's okay and Rogers where it's okay.

And I mean like making the first round of the playoffs. Okay. with Malik Willis, there's a world where it goes awesome, at least, at least one scenario, one simulation out of a thousand where it goes really well. And I'm not saying it's, those are the actual odds. I just mean like, in order to say there's a world where it goes great, there needs to be some evidence where it could go great. Well, with Kyler, there is.

There's a couple seasons of his career where he's been really good. And if you go down to like the, you know, Kirk where it's, there just hasn't, there's not lot of evidence there and he's older and etc malique maybe it clicks and it's really good gino smith i mean you could see it being decent making the playoffs he did win 10 games the year they let him go and those are kind of your i'm you know mac jones i haven't brought up on the show today because bringing up mac jones is just like it's like going to a an ice cream shop and just saying you know just give me some vanilla. There's no spice in that at all.

It's not disrespect to him as a quarterback. I think he would actually be good in this offense. And I think he's a better player than he looked like he was in New England. I was a Mac Jones defender. But as far as subject wise, whenever you bring up Mac Jones, it's like, oh, yeah, I guess that would be fine. That one would probably have like a 40% favorability. rate. Tom saying, uh, Sam's main contribution was not making mistakes. The defense won that Super Bowl. His main contribution was throwing for 3, 46 and three touchdowns against the Rams,

but not turning it over against the defense that had allowed eight points a game to get there is not a small thing. I've also seen, you know, some film breakdowns talking about like, it's actually not just that. He had some key completions as well, but, you know, if, that's the, if, if that's the only, if you're not mentioning that they won 14 games with him playing great for a very big chunk of the season and then coming up with huge, huge, huge performance in the NFC championship as part of the Sam Darnold story Super Bowl champion, kind of maybe going out of your way to ignore those things. Like, he, he was great and clearly prove that he could do it. Clearly prove that he could do it. You can be mad about it. You should be. But you don't have to lie to

yourself. You can. It's allowed, but you don't have to. Mr. Marr says, I think Derek Carr is the only QB option I've heard from anyone that I like less than J.J. McCarthy. Cause and effect.

Can we finally get off the Rogers to the Vikings notion? Uh, you know, I think so. It seems like he's going back to Pittsburgh or nowhere, but they talk to him. So unfortunately, until it's, until it's totally gone, you can't. Not a twerk says conspiracy talk. Rob Brzynski. That is, uh, it's, it's, you got two Zs there for Brzinski. If you got, if he becomes GM, we're going to have to work on it. Two Zs.

It's B.R Z easy. I n Ski. I, I, if this is a stupid, really stupid fact about me. If I get a player's name in the fingers, it never goes away. I'll remember how to spell it 10 years from now. I could spell Afadia Denebo with my, with my fingers. I can't do it in my brain, but if I type it, it'll be there. Doesn't matter who the player is. It'll be there.

David Questenberry, easy. If I had to type it, I would nail it. So if it's Brzynski, I'll get it right every time. Anyway, not a twerk says Rob Brzezinski is GM to keep KOC from doing crazy stuff in the draft. And we're taking a bunch of linemen like Denny Greenwood do. So that is a good discussion because when they moved on from Quasi, it was like, well, I guess you know how NASCARs have those restrictor plates that make sure it doesn't go like, I don't know, 280 miles an hour and everyone crashes. It like is Brzynski a restrictor plate? Or does Brzezinski view it similarly to the coaching staff, which is.

is we have a really good team and need to figure out the quarterback position and need to hit on these draft picks. Is that how it's viewed? If that, because if that's how he views it and the coaches are like, look, we just don't have much more time. We have to do everything we can here. But Brzynski is likely to be with the franchise as long as he wants to be. I mean, he has got that kind of status within the franchise. So if they were to judge O'Connell on this season, Bresinski is probably not disappearing. So I think that's a good point. He may just view it the same though.

And what Brzezinski's role, it sounds like at least for now, is not to forge the path necessarily, but to work with everybody in the room to come to a conclusion of what way they want to go. So if everybody in the room is saying, we have to trade our first round draft pick for whatever player X, then I, I, think that he's supposed to do it. Like, that's what it sounded like anyway. I mean, when Mark Wilf says, well, that they have to get, like, we're trying to get consensus from the room.

That doesn't sound like Rob Brzynski has the gavel and he's going to decide. It sounds like he's going to work with everybody to come to these things as an entire front office and as an entire, well, I guess, you know, some of coaching staff is involved in draft picks, but like coaching staff is not going to be involved in big picture stuff. draft picks like that i mean maybe maybe to some extent i shouldn't say that not completely but the strongest voices are obviously going to be c o c and brian floris so if the consensus is we got to go all in on this team then that's what they're going to do but i don't think that they're going to do insane stuff that's probably not going to happen uh calip says i don't feel like it's being

talked about enough about it's not just c o c's staying around but just in jefferson i like Kyler Jones and Carr for options. Maybe JJ isn't good. If it so happens, so correct it now. Or if that so happens, correct it now. Yeah, that's fair. If you have really identified from watching all of his throws,

all of his practices, remember, they have more tape than we do in the practices and stuff. So they'd be paying attention to that. And they don't think he can get down the offense. They don't think he can get it to Jefferson. Then correcting it now is the only path you could take. Yep, that's true. And Jefferson has to be the main part of this.

Who can get the ball to him? When you get the ball to him, your success rate is extremely, extremely high. So you have, you have to do that. Uh, Derek says the 2027 quarterback class should not be neglected. If McCarthy fails, get another one. Oh, I think from a big picture perspective, from a franchise. So we've talked about this entirely. as far as 2026 because it feels like, you know, one of those shows, Netflix shows that has like a few seasons under its belt and it had a peak season. And then it's going into like it's got to do really well to get picked up again. That feels like it's 2026 for the Minnesota Vikings.

But from a bigger picture, regardless of who's in charge, then I, I agree that if you don't think that he's the guy, then the 2027 draft class is something you're already looking at and thinking about. And you have to get yourself there, which might be a part of the conversation for KOC is, I know there's going to be some guys for us down the road. We got to get there, though, as a leadership group. And by doing, you know, in order to do that, we've got to get a guy who, uh, can be a better quarterback than what they had last year. Uh, high boy says, uh, Quasi is gone. So let's see after the draft. I mean, that's if you think that he drafted the players alone and that no one else who's still in the building drafted the players. Maybe you think that. I don't know. I tend to not think that.

I tend to think that players like Jordan Addison, Donovan Jackson were, you know, coaches getting what they wanted and Dallas Turner. And that's what he was supposed to do with the collaboration, was supposed to get the coaches what they wanted. And when they did that with free agents, it worked out great. and with some of the first round picks it worked out great. But if you think that not ever having draft picks between pick 25 and 100 is going to get you a huge bevy of picks and a bunch of home runs, I don't know what to tell you. If you give away all the picks, it's hard to hit on them. I will always go back to that.

I wrote a big story on that. I can read to you as well about in terms of what they hit on versus the expectation for draft slot, it wasn't much different. Now, they're supposed to do better, but it wasn't that. different than expectation. They just didn't have a lot of picks. And I could go through them with Seattle. Seattle's had a ton of draft picks.

They traded away Russell Wilson. And that's a good break for them. But they had a ton of draft picks, a ton of them. And a lot, I mean, Wetherspoon, where was he picked? Was it sixth or something? Fifth? I mean, he was great. If you're going to hit on picks, you need to do it high.

And the other thing is for this year with the draft, Actually, that reminds me is I did want to in our three, if we're going to have one, uh, wanted to get to a draft sim because Dan Bruegler released his top 100. I mean, you guys got a lot of comments still, but maybe I should get to a, to a draft sim here because we've talked about the quarterback situation quite enough, uh, I think probably. So we can do that. But, uh, you know, when it comes to this year's draft, it's a hard thing to say they've got to hit on it.

because drafts go up and down. Here's a fun, here's a fun exercise. Here's a fun one. Let's go look at the Seattle Seahawks. This is really fun to make the point about drafting. Let's look at Seattle. Maybe can I go, no, that's not going to work. Trying to zoom in a little.

Seattle, over the last couple years, has just gone completely insane in hitting draft picks. Zabel, Iman Warray, Murphy, Absolute Beast. Even A.J. Barner was big for them. Weather spoon. That guy is awesome. Fifth overall pick.

Smith Najigba, 20th pick. Derek Hall, good player. Even Zach Charbonnet was helpful, not in the Super Bowl because he got hurt, but he was helpful. Charles Cross, top 10 draft pick, pretty good. Boye-Mafé, good player. Kenneth Walker, good player. Abraham Lucas.

Oh, my gosh. Kobe Bryant starter. Tariq Wollett, this is insane. The 2022 draft for the Seattle Seahawks is basically like the 2015 for the Vikings. Now let's go a little bit farther. Oh, they had a three-person draft class where everyone was not good. Oh, the year before that, they drafted Jordan Brooks, who I was not a good linebacker with their first round draft pick.

L.J. Collier, who I think plays for Arizona now. not necessarily great. They did get D.K. in the second round, but they drafted someone named Marquis Blair before they took D.K. Metcalfe. Looks like they had some pretty tough drafts here. Rashad Penny, Rishim Green, Will Disley. I don't even know some of these people.

Malik McDowell was their top pick in 2017. German Afetti or Germaine Afetti in 2016. That looks to me like the same guy who just drafted. drafted his butt off for the last couple years, had a real run of struggling drafts. And the result in part was getting some top 10 draft picks. And also moving on from Russell Wilson, kind of shows you as the same person doing all those drafting that it comes and goes.

And what the Vikings need, they need it to happen. They need that regression from some poor drafting to suddenly sweep in with some guys that can really help them. so even though there's no real controlling that because it goes up and down even for a great team like the Seattle Seahawks they needed to happen and they needed to happen like pretty pretty quickly here okay let's do a uh let's do a draft sim here let's do a draft sim because we should or you want to look at uh do i have this let's look at the top 100 from dane brugler because this is Dane Bruegler to me is the best.

And this is the start of the real draft prep for me where like I'm in. It's draft season now. I'm going to learn about these players. I'm going to read as much as I can. I'm going to start forming opinions. Chris Trappasso is going to pop in. You know, he's going to be our draft analyst again. Going to the combine, all that stuff.

Got to be ready. So Dane Bruegler dropping his 100 is, uh, is pretty awesome. So let's, let's just scroll through and take. a look at what we can see here. Arvel Reese is the top player. I've always found this funny that Bruegler does this. It's not a criticism. I'm not a draft analyst.

I don't know what the, what the decorum is. Is that the right word? Like, why, Fernando Mendoza is clearly the number one draft pick? Like, why is he the number two player in the board? I never really understood the draft board and the mocking and what the

difference is between the mocking and the drafting. I don't know. Funny world. But anyway, he's got Rvel Reese 1, Mendoza 2. Your hopes for Jeremiah Love are probably not going to come true because he's got him as number three. Caleb Downs and Sunny Stiles, four and five. I am very interested. So Sunny Stiles is one that, now he actually catches my eye because there have been guys, was a Javon Walker?

There have been guys, Jehad Campbell, who have been these sort of a little bit of high. hybrid type of linebackers where they're pass rushers and linebackers. And they don't quite go as high as you think. And even if they're top, this is a, there's not a mock. This is a draft board. So he's got styles as one of his top players. But I'm actually wondering about sunny styles and the possibility of the Vikings if he were to drop.

I mean, I'm sure that the people who will pay attention to the draft 24-7 all year long will tell me, no way he drops. That's one of the funniest things because there's been so many players who have dropped over the years and people will still say, no way that happens. Like, you don't know what's going to happen. But Sunny Stiles has my attention as a potential fit if there's a shock and he falls. Caleb Downs, I don't think there's any chance, but I don't know, Derwin James was not that high of a pick either.

So I'm kind of kind of keep my eyes on, like could there be a shocker guy that slips sorry to bring up the old wound, Kyle Hamilton, he was supposed to go top five, didn't go top five. David Bailey, Mansour Delane is the top corner.

I've had him in draft Sims before. I wonder if he's going to be too high. Now, Ruben Bain is nine on this list. He's going to get debated a lot. I think he's going to go high. I think he's going to be a good player. If you can get to the quarterback,

you can get to the quarterback. I've said this before. that it's funny that the most telling thing for success from college, the NFL is production. It's not a perfect one-to-one. Nothing is, but it's always production. Now, here's where things get a little interesting for me. Because you guys know that I have a fever, and the only thing that can cure that fever is more wide receivers in the draft.

So Carnell Tate is 10 on Dane Brugler's list. And as I use my little scrolly button on my mouse, I see another wide receiver at 12, Jordan Tyson. And then I see another wide receiver at 14 in Mackay Lemon. And now somebody, I think we should be watching for the Vikings, is Jermad McCoy, corner from Tennessee, for sure, and Avion Terrell, corner from Clemson. But there's some receivers.

Kenyon Sadiq is here at 20 on this board. Casey Concepcion is at 22. That's another receiver. Now here's a couple guys to pay attention to, I think. Dylan Thineman, who is a safety from Oregon, could be the guy who replaces Harrison Smith. Caleb Banks at defensive tackle. Everybody's talking once again about interior pressure and dominance after the Seahawks won. Every year, it feels like DTs are an elite position.

They have been for years. Here's another wide receiver, Denzel Boston. Justin, that's a lot of wide receivers in the top 25. Anybody getting my drift? I still don't know. When we talk about, there's so much discussion about the quarterback position, but we don't know how they feel about Jordan Addison's future. And they have to make a decision next year.

When they were moving on from Thielen, they drafted Addison to replace him. They could get a year ahead of that if they wanted to. If they want to add another receiver, there's no way better to stack your odds of quarterback success than drafting another receiver. Caden McDonald I've been interested in. It's more of a run stuff. Here's another receiver. Omar Cooper.

One of these guys is going to make it to the second round. This is kind of my point. I don't know that they would do it in the first, but I think one of these guys will slip. Colton Hood is an interesting corner from Tennessee. Could be on the Vikings list. Here's the guy I'm going to be doing a lot of research on. Emmanuel McNeil Warren, who is out of Toledo.

He's 31, not years old, but on Dame Bruegler's list, 6-3-2-10, kind of has a little Eamon-Ware type of feel to his size, but played at Toledo, totally dominant at Toledo, but played a Toledo. What are we supposed to make of that? Could he be somebody that they look at to replace, again, Harrison Smith? Because as I'm writing about what they're going to do at safety, I'm just not inspired by a lot of the options. Now, he's got Ty Simpson at 34. I'm not a fan of Ty Simpson as a draftable quarterback.

I look at him as much more of like a third round draft pick. Peter Woods seems the defensive tackle from Clemson, like he's already a bit of a, what would you call it, like a wild card in this draft? Because in the PFF mock draft simulator, he goes in like the top 10 or 12. And Brueglars got him at 33. that is interesting. And here's the guy I drafted the other night. And this sort of shows you the difference a little bit in his opinions versus some PFF.

And, you know, there will be a lot. Christian Miller, I had as the Vikings first pick, I traded down and took him. And he's at 37 on this list, which there were some, you know, people who weren't a huge fan of it. But I kind of like the idea of some upside and a guy went to Georgia. So those are just the things. Oh, and De Angel Ponds is somebody to watch. I think for the Vikings potentially, he's small, but nickel corner type, very physical. Like, you know, people will bring up Antoine Winfield.

Brandon Cise is another guy, corner from South Carolina. So those are my main takeaways is that there's a lot of corners in the top 50. There's a lot of wide receivers in the top 50. But the defensive tackles are a bit uninspiring. So far right now on Dane Bruegler's list. So those are the main. main things. A lot of corners, though. I noticed that. And really only two safeties that catch my eye in that top 50. That's at the athletic if you want to check that out. So why don't we do this?

If you haven't answered the Fanduil question of the day, by the way, that is that the Vikings, oh, there's my entire email. So wasn't supposed to screen share that. But the Fandual question of the day, now I'm just clicking wrong stuff. Where was the mock draft? There it is. The Fandual question of the day is that the Vikings are plus 5,500 on Fandul to win the Super Bowl next year. There's only four teams that have worse odds. Who else should be behind them? It's Carolina, it's New Orleans, it's Arizona, and the New York Giants. Who else should be behind the Vikings?

And could that change for you this off season plus 5,500? That's the Fandul question of the day. So why don't we drafts it? Let's start out. with how many rounds we want to do. Let's do a three-round sim. And we'll just jump right in and see where PFF is at right now. I don't think I want to trade off the bat.

So let's see how the first round plays out. A lot of the same names, Fernando Mendoza, number one. This one has Bain going second to the Jets. Caleb Downs. Sunny Stiles goes sixth to Cleveland. We got some wide receivers here. Jeremiah Love goes ninth. I just don't think they're going to have a chance of Jeremiah Love.

Maybe second round is a running back. We'll see. See, this has Peter Woods going at 11, and Dane Brugler has him at 37 or something. I mean, that's a big difference. Here's the run on receivers. Tyson, Denzel Boston, and now Gerad McCoy,

Jermad, McCoy, goes just before the Vikings at 18. So that leaves us with Caleb Banks, defensive tackle from Florida, Avion Tarell, Corner from, Clemson, Caden MacDonald, the defensive tackle from Ohio State. Who else? Casey Concepcion, the wide receiver from Texas A&M. Kenyon Sadiq, tight end from Oregon.

I'm kind of interested. And there's Miller who I drafted the other day. I think I traded back. Brandon Cise is there. I think that in the case that Caleb Banks is there, it's hard not to draft him. His numbers on PFF are not great because he only played three games last year because of an injury. But his numbers from 2024 are pretty good, a lot more pressures. I don't know.

These defensive tackles in this group are just not really wowing. So is Avion Terrell the right way to go? You know, Isaiah Rogers is a starting corner, but you're going to need someone into the future. You need corner depth now. Avion Terrell, good against the. run. Good overall in zone coverage, which, you know, we talk about man coverage all the time and then they never play it. Pretty solid numbers. I wouldn't say mind-blowing numbers. Pretty solid. Caden McDonald kind of sells me on them needing to stop the run, but I just don't think that

his upside is that high. And let's see, do I want to trade back here? I could trade back, but why don't we, why don't we go with the corner Avion Terrell from Clemson is our first pick. into the second round. And we've got Jermaine Bernard, wide receiver from Alabama, had a pretty good season. Kind of intrigued with wide receivers if they dropped to the second round.

DeAngelo Ponds in the second round. Now I think about it, might have been a good one, but he is on the smaller side. Chris Johnson is another debatable prospect. I took Judarian Price the last time I was here. Connor Lou is another one. Let's see, running back Jonah Coleman.

is an option here looking for explosiveness. Zone rushing grade is really good. Could go that direction or could just go with, I mean, you got, you know, the linebacker position, Deontay Lawson is maybe more of a run defender, but the linebacker position, I mean, you've got Eric Wilson potentially coming back, Blake Cashman Wilson is inside, outside.

Could you think about it? are you considering just stacking up the defense or are you trying to get help on the offensive side? So you can take Connor Lou here. I think that's a stretch. Eliza Sarat is an interesting one for me. Actually, you know what? I want to go with Elijah Surat. He was very good over these last couple years for Indiana. And I think played a really big role in the success of Fernando Mendoza graded very well in cover against man coverage. I'm going to do it. I'm going to reach. And PFF is going to hate me for it.

They always do. But I'm going to do it anyway and go with Elijah Surat, the wide receiver from Indiana, with my second pick. And now we are here in the third round, pick number 62. And what do we want to go with here? Interior defensive line. Do we want to go with a linebacker? Linebacker does make sense.

I'm not really thinking tight end here. Now, there are people, Jennings Dunker is an interesting fella. there are people who have talked about wanting to get a tackle because you have Brian O'Neill on the older side and Christian Derisaw with his issues with his health. I'm just not there really in the draft at this moment to do that. But I think this might be the time to get, let's see, what's the interior offensive line? Is there a center? And now it'd be a big reach for a center here.

Let's look at the running back position. Seth McGowan, Nicholas Singleton, Ketron Allen. I think these are good prospects, maybe a little bit, also a little bit reachy. I think I could get them in the next round. A part of me just wants to go best player available here,

which seems to be Deontay Lawson, a linebacker from Alabama. I do think more linebacker talent is necessary. They have no depth at all at that position. And it's not clear that Eric Wilson's coming back. I'm going to go with Deonti Lawson, the linebacker from Alabama. and then here, I think, is the time to take,

I'm a little intrigued by a defensive tackle, but I think now is the time to take a running back. Seth McGowan, I'm a little concerned about the small sample size. Who else is there at running back? I kind of like Singleton. Ketron Allen has great numbers, though. 6.2 yards per attempt. Let's go Ketron Allen.

And it froze. Come on. Come on, get there. PFF. Okay, we could just, it froze. Well, we've still got our draft picks. So here's what I went with. Avion Terrell, a lot, uh, the corner from Clemson, Elijah Surat, wide receiver from Indiana,

Deontay Lawson, a linebacker from Bama and running back Ketron Allen from Penn State. So, uh, what, what, what's say, uh, what's say the chat about this draft. Mad Rad says nice. Jay says we're signing Eric Wilson. I think that's true that they will sign Eric Wilson. He's also like 31 and I mean, he's he's a versatile guy. So he's a little inside out, but they could use somebody young there. I mean, Blake Cashman's been around a little while now.

Run to the podium, Denny says. Ketron Allen, a good player skill set similar to Jordan Mason. This is where when we're talking about, you know, a third round, late third round running back, that I will have to look a little closer in the future in the future in the, to like I was just looking at all right he graded well as a runner like let's go uh b plus grade from super rad um bm says just set any draft sim to auto pick and you're going to be miles ahead of quacy okay yeah yeah well i mean that's not even untrue from what um from what a reef said about the consensus board is if they had just drafted off the consensus board they would

have done better uh denny gives it a b plus angel dust gives it a solid B. Go back to basketball. I've never been, I've never been at basketball. I've covered hockey before. All aboard the wide receiver train. You know it, Matt Verick.

You know it. I mean, look, look around. Look at the available wide receivers every year. It's not a good list, folks. I think people are getting excited on the free agent market for Jalen Naylor. It's just never a good list. Only one. starter um let's see let me go back and check well sarah could contribute terrell i mean

i mean terrell could play a lot i mean they they need more than just two corners and as far as the linebacker this is a dc who's been able to fit linebackers in yeah no you can get more out of that i mean i couldn't get the center i missed out on slaughter who i always tried to take but you know i couldn't get the i couldn't get the center that's what I'm missing. But also when I talked to earlier, uh, no, he's not,

nailer's not catching strays exactly, but I mean, he's got like, he's like a 30 catch guy and he's going to be highly sought after in free agency. It just tells you about the wide receivers. It's not a criticism of him. Uh,

first and second picks is a safety and a center. So my issue with the safety and a center for the first couple picks is in part, I think you do have to try to pick still like, important key positions corner defensive tackle wide receiver these are the guys who are getting paid the most in the NFL and if you don't have a safety that you really believe is a game changer and i didn't have one on the board i think i might have taken a safety if i had one on the board uh that made sense at that pick i'm not sure that they would have made sense at that pick thinemon or was it McNeil from the guy from Toledo I mean is it worth is it worth a first round draft

pick I'm not really sure about that safety is a position that has about five or six guys in free agency that should fit uh Justin says do you think they have any hope at all for Felton to be a contributor oh uh and do you look to free agency for center nailer is Quasey's best pick. No, he's not. When it comes to center, I think free agency, I just talked with Nick Underhill from New Orleans that football about, is it Luke Fortner, their center who came in when their center got hurt. He said, you know, he was a very good starter this year, probably is looking to go elsewhere, would make sense for Philadelphia.

You would have to go free agency, yes. And there's not a ton of great options, but you'd have to go with somebody. Cade Mays from Carolina, you'd have to go. with some veteran and then have them compete with Juergens or maybe Brandel. It's not ideal. But if there's a veteran with experience, I just couldn't get the center here. And I feel like drafting a center is also kind of a hope cast for the first year anyway, unless it's a first round pick.

But as far as Felton goes, yeah, I mean, we've seen this happen enough times. Right now, it's not a guarantee because it doesn't always happen. but we saw KJ Osborne develop under Keena McArdle. We saw Jalen Naylor develop under Keena McCartle. And now Felton is doing the same thing. I don't know that he has upside of being like a superstar, but I think he could be a contributor. McNeil's going to be a great safety.

I mean, yeah, I mean, that's somebody I would certainly consider. I just wonder if that's what you want to do with a late first round draft pick. I shot you 99. I see the story about letting teams trade draft picks for five years. I think it's a malpractice, an idea that could doom future coaching and GM hires. I mean, we all agree that that's the Vikings, right?

We all agree. We all agree that that's the Vikings trying to get five first round picks for Burrow. Everyone thought the same thing at once, right? Yeah, I think it's stupid. I mean, having five years of first round, draft picks sold off is insane and should not happen. And the way that the NBA opened the door for utter bananas nonsense by doing that,

it's made the NBA worse, not better, I think. Son of Beavers, do you think we end up trading down from 18 if the top corners are gone? There's definitely been a few draft sims where I have traded down. Yeah. And I think it makes a lot of sense to trade down. Now it would be ironic that, you know, Quasi and his worst move is trading down. But if you move down from 18 to like 22, 25, you're not really sacrificing a lot if there's other players that you like on the board.

It does seem like there's a lot of cornerback options, though. If you have someone that you like, you could slide back. Justin says a lot of tackles are getting projected to move inside to center at the next level. I've heard that. But have we seen that? Like, is there a lot of guys who actually have? And I think it's so complicated of a position that that would be a very big ask to say, oh, you're a tackle.

Now you're a center. That's a really big ask. I think if you do it in the draft for somebody to start, you'd have to do it right away. For project players, though, yes. If you're a fourth round draft pick tackle who's a good athlete, move them to center. That's a good idea. Jay McNeil coming from a small school, not to trust this competition to be ready.

Always difficult to know. There's guys who come from Alabama who don't look the part. There's guys who come from small schools who do. I just don't know. Denny says, can you remind me best case what Felton is like as a wide receiver? Diggs light with better speed, but not as good a route running. So not digs, I guess. That's what I was just going to say.

no, I don't think there's any digs comparison at all. Felton is a burner. He is incredibly fast, straight line speed, but if you're going to get him the ball, you probably have to do it by, you know, at least at this point in his career, using him in different ways to get him where he's not getting pressed at the line of scrimmage.

So if you're putting him in bunch formations, if you're putting him in motion, he could be a guy that with the ball on his hands is very exciting. And I think that his hands are going to be inconsistent, like catching the ball. I don't know if it's inconsistent, like to the point where you can't play him. I just mean there will be drops. It's not going to be like Diggs who, oh my gosh, watching Stefan Diggs in practice is one

of the craziest things you'll ever see. I mean, everything. He just every single ball gets caught. And he's a crazy competitor when it comes to practice. but his route running and his hands are so excellent that it's hard to believe he was drafted in the fifth round. But when it comes to somebody like Felton, I think it's more of like a, he runs a little bit like a track guy, a little bit more straight up.

So it makes it harder for him to snap off of routes. So I think that you got to kind of get a move in and get the ball in his hands or it's just got to be straight deep. But his speed is legit. And I also think there's some tough. to him. Him playing that gunner role, it's not easy.

It is not easy at all. And teammates were saying about him that they were impressed with the toughness. And that goes to a wide receiver. So I like some of the stuff that I saw on special teams. And we'll see what happens when he gets an opportunity. Five full drafts for Burrow. Let's see.

NFL already got in bed with Daily Fantasy. no risk to five years of drafts at this point. Scott terrified. We're headed into a saint style cap hell. Now, that's a discussion. I also had a little bit with Nick Underhill covers the Saints about how cap hell is kind of become not real anymore. And this is from the person who always made fun of the cap is not real because it keeps going

up so much. Every single year, it's, oh my gosh, it went up 10 more. million, 15 more million than projected. And those teams who are borrowing against the future, they don't get punished like they used to. To your point, though, if the Vikings restructure every deal, if they add void years, if they make extensions that they don't really have a good chance to pay off and they do all the same stuff and pull all the same levers as before, there will be a mess to clean up.

Just as there was when Kwaya da Fu-Menta got here, there was a mess that needed to be cleaned up. and if you're acting like he never did anything good, that's something to remember is that he got that mess cleaned up to the point where they could sign all those players over the last two years and make a competitive team while not drafting that great. Aaron says, do you believe the report that they would have drafted James and Williams at 12 if they didn't trade with the Lions? If they did that, they would have Jefferson and two troublemakers with him and Addison.

Well, my guess is that they would not have drafted Addison. if they had drafted Jameson Williams. The Addison wouldn't have been picked in 2023. And Jameson Williams eventually became a good player, but not right away, had the ACL and then struggled kind of out of the gate, had some issues, as you mentioned, off the field. I do believe that, yes, I do believe that they were going to draft Jameson Williams because they were looking a year ahead,

knowing that they weren't going to keep Adam Thiel in long term. And I think Addison's a better overall, receiver, like route runner contested catch, but Jameson Williams would have been a nice draft pick. There's also, I mean, I don't know, there's just as much chance that they would have taken Jordan Davis and it would have taken three years for him to figure it out or Kenyon Green and had it totally blow up in their face anyway. I don't know.

That's one that you're going to be thinking about for many years, I'm sure. But yes, I do believe that they were going to pick Jameson Williams. Jeremy, the NFL won't go to a lottery because the current system is creating what they want, parody across the league. I've never needed a lottery. I have always believed that lotteries make it worse. They make the tanking worse because if you are in the playoffs, if you're in that playoff game in the NBA, you might not want to be.

You might be saying, oh, man, we don't need, we're going to get killed if we go into the playoffs. Let's make sure we miss the playoffs. And if you have teams doing that, no one in the NFL ever says, let's make sure we miss the playoffs. That doesn't happen. In the NBA, I promise you it has where teams have said,

well, I'd rather have a 5% chance at the number one pick than I would a playoff blowout. Cause and effect. Could you try to swing a trade with the Raiders, chiefs, or Patriots regarding Addison and re-sign Naylor? You could.

You could. That is all dependent on whether you think this guy can really be a part of the future. I tend to think that the best option might be for Jordan Addison to just play it out and then just not keep them. Just let it play out for this year and then, you know, get the comp pick down the road. He'll sign with somebody else. You can't with this track record, it's not that you can't, but it's very, very risky to sign a player like that to a long-term extension. But for this year, they need a veteran wide receiver who gets open and makes play.

You could try to keep Jalen Naylor. Is Naylor good enough to be that guy? I mean, if you're going out and getting Kyler Murray or Mac Jones or something or Derek Carr, he needs everything. He needs everything he can get. So it's worth rolling a dice for one year more with Jordan Addison, but I wouldn't do more than that. And if you get to the end with him and you don't pick up the fifth year option

and everything has gone great, then you could go back to the negotiating table and see if he wants to stay. but I wouldn't pick up the fifth year option, not with more issues off the field that raised red flags. Yeah, good point, Justin, about Quinnian Mitchell. Yeah, those guys do come out sometimes ready to play in the NFL. It does happen. Now, I'm mad red.

I don't think the Ty felt in this Cordero Patterson. Patterson was a first round draft pick, one of the all-time freaks. I think in the best case scenario, he's a contributor. He's a role player that comes in and maybe gets, you know, 20, 25 catches a year, get some explosive plays, beat some guys deep. I think he's more like Marquez Valdez Scantling than he is Cordero Patterson. Aaron says any defensive players drafted, I believe Flores to find the right guy, will he play them right away, hard to say?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that Flores understands what he needs skill set-wise, but can those guys play in this system right away is really a question. Also, who's calling it out there? I mean, is it going to be as complicated next year as it was this year if Harrison Smith isn't there. Will the communication be as high level? I think they wanted to be if Josh Mattelis is running the show,

but maybe they could make it a little easier on the corners. Jason, do I think the NFL will ever adopt the trading styles of top eight and 10 protected draft picks? That I don't know. It certainly adds a lot of wrinkles to those trades, doesn't it? It's a first round pick unless, I mean, wow, imagine Atlanta. They really wish they had protected their draft pick.

I don't think so. I, you know what I think about the NFL, that everyone's always trying to change things about it because, I don't know, they get bored. We're so interested in football. It's like, what can we change? Can we change a rule? This needs to be changed. Let's make it perfect.

Let's fix this. Let's fix that. And I think they've been good mostly at just saying, no, we're good. We don't have to do what the NBA does with the, the lottery. Oh, there should be a lottery. No, it's fine. It's fine. Suck for luck, create a lot of drama. It's fine. And they do that with a lot of stuff where they're like, no, we don't really need to fix that. Jay says, I'm a Ducks fan trade up in the second round in 2025 to get Thineman. He's, his numbers are great, Dylan Thineman. That's not a bad idea. I mean,

you might, with the safety position, you might not have to trade up. He might be there in the second round. Oh, man. Some of you guys are funny. Denny says, I feel like my whole life, the Vikings are always mocked to take a corner in the first round, that and journeyman quarterbacks. Yeah, I think every team is always looking for corners. But when you think about it, the Vikings, I mean, they've locked in Byron Murphy for a few years. But the last corner that they had that you were like, yeah, that guy is a pro bowler and is really exceptional,

was Xavier Rhodes. And they've been hunting since then. And that caused them to draft a number of corners that haven't really worked out. It is a tough position to pick. I think that the transition is very, very hard. It's very physical in the NFL where in college, maybe not really anywhere close to that. You can grab in college. You cannot grab in the NFL. That's a big change. Those guys are pretty hard to project. But you're right. It has felt like recently that's almost guard. And they had good cornerback play over all last year, but it's like guard where just year after year, we just talk about it and talk

about it. What are they going to do it left guard? Actually, this year is probably, probably one of the first years we haven't had to talk about guard in forever. It's quite relieving. What do you think, son of beavers? What do you think the odds are that they take a receiver in rounds two or three? I think they're fairly high. I think receiver is fairly high because no matter who's playing quarterback, you need to elevate them.

And while I think Ty Felton has a chance to be a contributor, he was the last pick of the third round. And sometimes you get so excited about the draft that you lose sight. of what that means. That means there's going to have to be development and there's a project there that might become a contributor and could elevate to a decent player,

but most of the guys are top draft picks. Outside of your occasional Puka Nakua type of outlier, most of the great receivers are Jefferson and Jackson Smith and Jigba and guys like that at the top of the draft. So second round has yielded a number of good wide receivers. I would do it in the second or the third, but when you start adding it up, up, you go, I'd really like the running back position, maybe get the center, maybe get,

you know, now we're, you're needing many more draft picks. But wide receiver to me is vital because you just don't know Jordan Addison's future. And you already know there's a good chance that Jay Leno is leaving. So if Naylor leaves, then you're filling in a wide receiver three is big in this offense. It is an 11 personnel offense a lot of times. So it's, it's a, it's big to have. that. Roads closed and since then they have been mostly open. Jeremy Zimmer hated young players. I don't know that that's really true. I think that what happens

is, well, none of those guys really like worked out as draft picks, but I think what happens with someone like Flores, someone like Zimmer on defense is the ask intellectually is very high. and if guys don't get it right away, there's just a lack of patience because Zimmer was in a job-saving mode from the minute that they lost against the Chicago Bears in 2018. He was in job-saving mode. And when you're in job-saving mode,

or if you're Brian Flores, you're in, have the best possible defense you can mode, not development. This is a team that's expecting to win. So you're trying to develop the, you're not trying to develop these guys. You're trying to just play whoever you, you think is the best guy to win you that game that day. And that's where you do end up sometimes moving on from guys that latch on

become something somewhere else. Not that it's happened a lot. How about no draft allow new players to choose their destinations instead of being drafted into a bad situation that can ruin their career? Yeah, I mean, Tom, theoretical world, the draft is kind of weird. Now, the guys get paid, a lot of money. But, you know, if you thought about it for any, sport, it's because it's a spectacle and it's awesome. But is it, does it make a, you know,

perfect sense in the theory world? Well, it does if you're trying to create parity. If you weren't, all the players would just keep signing with good teams and then you'd have nothing but dynasties, like kind of existed in the NFL in its earlier days when there was no free agency. So I think you kind of need a draft to be able to help those bad teams and teams rising and falling is what makes this sport so good. Andrew DePaul of, yes, he'll play till he's, he's going to keep playing. Yeah, he actually laughed, um, about, we asked him like, you're going to keep playing, right? And he's like, absolutely.

Uh, BM says, nice that we have future Vikes head coach Brian Flores already in house. Oh, well, yeah, well, he's certainly getting paid like it. Class G says, uh, no way KOC trades any of his top wide, wide receivers. He's a pass heavy bloke. He needs them. I tend to agree with you. I tend to agree with you. Thanks, Jay.

I appreciate you tuning in. NFL Super Reds is NFL minor league to develop players. I mean, the USFL is going to be there, but it doesn't really develop a lot of guys. It would be really great. What I would love to see someday is the NFL Europe model for quarterbacks in the USFL. If you have never played a game and you were not drafted in the first two days of the draft,

as a quarterback that you could go play in the USFL. So if you are a fourth to seventh round draft pick or UDFA on an NFL roster, you could go play for the USFL. I think that would be phenomenal for development of quarterbacks. I love the USFL, but the quarterback play can be really rough sometimes. I think that's a win-win. Those guys' chances to make it are so low, even if they get hurt playing, well, all right, that's worth the risk for a team.

That's not your valuable merchandise. are your dice rolls. It would be great to have six or seven, fourth, fifth, sixth round draft picks going and competing in that league. It would give you a reason to watch. Whose floor is OC next year? I wouldn't, I wouldn't count it out. I remember when you guys first brought up this idea and I was like, no one ever does that. And then the bills did it, basically the same thing. All right. Tomorrow nights. Oh, I'll answer this. What is the most recent buzz on Hawkinson's future. I think they're just going to restructure.

That's my guess. Is they're just going to restructure his contract? I don't think you want to get rid of him. He was fine when Carson Wentz was playing and then not fine when JJ was playing, but still made some good catches. He could still play. Cutting him and restructuring are the same from the salary cap. There's no benefit to getting rid of him.

I don't think. I will be someone asked if I would be live. during the draft. It's a long time from now, but the answer is yes. I've done live draft coverage last few years. I'll definitely do it again on the stream. Yep.

Denny on a 1 to 10 scale, one being dungy and 10 being Zimmerhouse salty to KOC get by the end of the year with reporters. I don't know. Maybe like a three, a four. I mean, look, no one's going to be happy.

They did win five games in a row. Maybe the middle of the season, and it seemed like the frustration was boiling a little bit. Never felt like there was any disrespect or anything. Just when things aren't going well, we're going to ask questions you're not going to love and you're going to answer them probably in not always the most happy way

because it's always about what's going wrong. I did enjoy the Zimmer stuff, a lot of the Zimmer stuff, though. I did. I mean, he had a lot of notable quotes. And one of the things about Zimmer was he could say more in a in a one or two word answer than most coaches ever say in a three sentence or three paragraph answer did you see the game dang i see him every day of practice wow you know he let you know where he stand and also on good on good players too

harrison smith anthony bar like he would let you know on those guys too not just those famous quotes the best times with zimmer though zimmer would be like that and i i feel like especially in a press conference setting. But what I always like to give Mike Zimmer is that we would have in training camp, these they would call them like, or we would call them, I guess the golf cart sessions with Zimmer, where after practice,

and this would happen once or twice a week, he would just, yeah, I guess it was once a week. It was just like five or six of us writers, Star Tribune, you know, ESPN, Pioneer Press. And we would kind of gather around the golf cart. and Zim would just be exhausted from a day of practice and completely covered in sweat. And, you know, you have the sunglasses on.

He would just be kind of chilling in the golf cart. But Zim was in his element in training camp. I mean, you never see the man happier than he, than when he was at training camp. Sometimes his daughters would bring out their, like, dog and he would play with it. And stuff, like he, he loved being out there coaching technique and stuff, right? That was what he wanted to do. so he'd be mostly in a good mood after practice.

And we could toss all sorts of stuff at him. You know, what is the, how does this technique work? Or, you know, what does this player need to do to get better? And because he wasn't in front of the cameras, not that he ever really cared, but I felt like he was a little more willing to explain really footbally stuff. And I learned a ton from those. Those were awesome. It was a Zimmer that was not often shown in front of a camera.

I felt like he, he was kind of under pressure, lot under that camera or in front of the cameras and, you know, so forth. And I thought he would kind of crack sometimes or come in after, you know, spending out, who knows how little sleep or whatever after a loss and be salty, that kind of thing. But those training camp sessions, I thought those were great. And there's a few that I really remember and have kept in mind, you know, for a long time. So that sort of stuff is great. I enjoyed my time covering Mike Zimmer because in part,

I mean, Zimmer, where is he from? Chicago area. You know, and I come from the east. The bluntness doesn't bother me. I was on a podcast in Pittsburgh the other day, and you know, I wrote the book about PFF. And one of their hosts was like, I hate PFF's grading system. I just hate it.

I want to burn it. I was like, okay, let's talk about it. It's a little difference, a little more aggressive, a little more direct. So I was always good with that. You know, I thought that he crossed some lines for sure and was disrespectful to some of his players for sure and certainly reporters sometimes. But overall, like I learned a ton of football from from Zim and sometimes just being blunt, you learn a lot.

Was Zimmer's best team? Oh, I assume you mean KOC. Was Zimmer's best team better than KOC's best team? Yeah. Yeah. 2017 team is stacked as hell. I mean, if Case Keenham can win that many games. And they were also, it wasn't like miracle games until the end.

They were up 17-0-0 on a stacked New Orleans team. They blew that with, you know, the block punt. They blew it with Keenham throwing the ball and interception. They gave that game back to New Orleans. They were out playing New Orleans for most of that miracle game. That was a really good team. I don't think that any of the teams that KOC's had so far as good as that one. That's a number one defense in rushing, passing, and scoring.

It's crazy. Jeremy says, we can't really expect to contend in 2026 with all the failed drafts. Nah, I don't agree. Don't agree. Don't agree. Go through the players. Go through who they have. It's, you know, the obsession with the draft, you're missing like a whole roster

worth of players that are very good and just had a top five-ish type of defense and an offensive line that if it's healthy with Derisaw and Jackson on the left side and fries and O'Neill on the right side, get a center. That's a really good offensive line. Pro Bowl tight end. Pro Bowl wide, Hall of Fame wide receiver. Another really good receiver.

In the backfield, you can improve, but Jordan Mason certainly showed he can run the ball. I think this is a very good team. One of the best, and it matters now, one of the best kicking teams, I think in the league as well.

I think they're good, man. And Dallas Turner showed improvement by a lot. They have stuff to do. But that's why we're having this conversation about the quarterback If they were bad, then we probably wouldn't. Yes, Jeff Overbaugh. Uh, wide receiver in round two does not mean they're done with Ty Felton.

No, it doesn't. Felton is a project player. Anyway, okay, so, uh, good stuff, good stuff. Very fun chat here this evening. I appreciate all of you. Um, I, I really enjoyed it. And tomorrow night, I will not be live because I'm hosting on WCCO radio from 630 to 9 tomorrow. And if you are watching curling, my wife is broadcasting some of it.

I forget which game it is tomorrow, but she'll be doing some. So curling seems to be catching on at the Olympics. We're excited about that too. But again, really appreciate the chat. A lot of stuff coming out on the channel this week. There's going to be, there's already the conversation about Derek Carr, but there's going to be a couple NFC North check-ins with Chicago and Detroit later on, planning at least one other live chat as well.

this one was very solid. So we'll continue to do those and we'll see if any news comes out. And oh, so tomorrow night, I'll be hosting on real radio. But Jeremiah Searles is back from the Super Bowl. He was out there because his client is the center for the Seahawks. So I guess he's a Super Bowl champion by association. So that'll be tomorrow night for sure here on the channel. So thanks again, everybody for watching and listening.

Hope you enjoyed it. And we'll catch you all again very soon. Football.