Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Vikings mishandling things with Kirk Cousins? PFT thinks so

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about a Pro Football Talk column in which Mike Florio suggests that the Vikings are mishandling the Kirk Cousins situation if they want him back. Plus Matthew answers questions from whether the 2021 QB class should scare off the Vikings to whether the 98 team would have beat the Broncos in the Super Bowl. 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 mostly a fans-only episode. If you haven't seen or heard them before, these are all questions that have either been emailed to me or direct messaged to me, and I run through them. And I apologize if it's been a little while since we've done one of these episodes, but now that there is no football for quite some time, I'm going to need some more questions, folks. So the best way to send them is either hit me up on Twitter at Matthew Collar. My direct messages are open. Or you could go to purpleinsider.com.

Send me an email there under the contact us. And hey, while you're there, check out the newsletter where I write every day and do a written version of the mailbag as well. So I can't get enough of answering questions. Feel free to send them there. We're going to start in a slightly different place. And then I have a ton of awesome questions from Vikings fans to get to. Let us begin though, with a pro football talk headline, which says, do the Vikings truly want to keep Kirk Cousins? If so, they're handling the situation poorly. And in the article, I will read from it now, Mike Florio writes, give me a second, hold on, got to load the article up on my phone. Mike Florio writes about the Viking situation with Kirk Cousins. If they actually want

him, the strategy seems to be that they want to see if others will pay before making their move if that's the case it is a very bad strategy everyone wants to feel wanted and valued cousins by all appearances would like to stay but if the vikings aren't doing the things that would make him feel wanted giving cousins a chance to feel more wanted elsewhere could prompt Cousins to choose a new team over the Vikings. Now, I'm not going to criticize speculation at all. This very speculative in Mike Florio's estimation to assume what Kirk Cousins would want or how he would view the way the Vikings have handled it. And yet I did think it was an interesting observation from Mike Florio to point out that over this entire process with Kirk Cousins, since Kevin O'Connell and

Kweisi Adafo-Mensah have arrived, it's pretty much been, we like you, but don't love you. We like you at a price and we want to bring you back if, if, if, and even if you go back to the end of the season press conference, Kweisi Adafomensa said more or less just that, that his intention is to bring back Kirk Cousins, but there are more things to it. And of course, structure, salary cap hit, how much guaranteed money, potential no trade clause, all of those things would factor in. That's just natural. But normally you don't hear that said out loud when you're trying to bring somebody back if you're doing everything that you possibly can.

And more recent reporting has come out by Tom Pelissero that if the Vikings could not get Kirk Cousins to come back at their price, that they would look at someone like Sam Darnold, another sort of head scratcher, a little bit, not that it's Sam Darnold, because I think that's a decent idea for a bridge quarterback, but that we're already getting names of possible guys who could go to the Vikings. If Kirk Cousins doesn't sign on the dotted line. And if you go back even to the beginning of Kweisi Adafo-Mensah's era in Minnesota, we start off with the USA Today article in which he says,

you can't win the Super Bowl with a good quarterback. You need a great quarterback. And Kirk is a good quarterback. That's paraphrasing. It's not the exact quote, but that's what everybody took out of it. And then you go through the years where they had a chance to give him a long-term extension after 2022, when he led the NFL in game winning drives. And they did not do that. They would not go as far as Kirk Cousins side wanted to go. And that's how we got here. And I guess the question is, does Kirk Cousins and his agent

and his family, whoever else helps him make these decisions, do they view this as simply business that the team's got what they want? You got what you want, no hard feelings from the past and whatever negotiations went on. Kirk Cousins repeatedly said, hey, I've gone into every single year where I wasn't 100% sure what was going to happen next. Why would this be different? I wouldn't approach it different. He didn't play different. He didn't approach training camp different. Nothing changed about the way Kirk Cousins handled himself in the past. but would he take this personally for the vikings to have seemingly a disposition that they will only bring him back if it's at their price and that's sort of publicly been out there whether it's through reading between the lines with comments or the reporting

that has happened so far or once again here we are with more reports a couple of weeks ago about the Vikings potentially being a team that could trade up to try to get Jaden Daniels or Drake May at the top of the draft. So once again, here we are with the insiders and so forth talking about all the things that the Vikings might be excited about doing that isn't involving Kirk Cousins. So does he view that as just business, just rumors, just whatever, whatever, whatever, and he's willing to put that aside? Or does he hold it as part of the negotiation that they have not really signed on to him? Does he go into this conversation and say, look, last year, you guys could have locked me up now

you're coming back to me after watching nick mullins play and saying now you love me now you can't get enough of me what did eight more games do to make you guys want the kirk a lot more than you did just last year when you wouldn't sign on for the number of years that I wanted. I could see that from Kirk Cousins side. That's not me saying I know that or just putting myself in his shoes thinking you guys have only wanted to date and not marry before. Are you going to now? And you know, it, it, uh, it reminds me of a little bit of a sex in the city episode. For those of you who watched Sex and the City back in the day, very good show. That Carrie Bradshaw, and if you haven't seen the show, you can still follow. Her boyfriend, Aiden, wanted her to agree to marry him.

And she was hesitant about this, but he wanted to lock it up. Because he wasn't sure whether she was really 100% into the relationship. So that was kind of his way of finding out. Now, if I'm Kirk Cousins and I'm his agent, I want to find out, are you 100% into this relationship or are you still one foot in, one foot out that you have been before? And I think the Vikings haven't shown a whole lot of evidence that they are all in on this relationship because everything they've said has always been hedged. And even when they gave them a contract extension before 2022, it was the shortest extension possible. So if I'm cousins, I'm going to say, all right, well, I want the guaranteed years.

I want the no trade clause clause i want the wedding ring that says the only way i'm coming back here is a true commitment to me as your quarterback going forward until i decide to retire or whatever number of years that he would need the question is how much would they be willing to do as far as putting a ring on it? Would it be two fully guaranteed years? That seems like a lot for somebody coming off an Achilles injury at Kirk Cousins age. Would it be the no trade clause again? Would it be a handshake agreement?

You guys don't draft a first round quarterback because I think a lot of us could get into the idea of, let's just say in an ideal world if they said we're bringing back Kirk no matter what what would be the ideal thing from the Viking side a one-year contract or a two-year extension that they could easily get out of after one year and draft a first round quarterback so you've got your guy to run the offense but you've got your guy to develop for the future but that that's never really seemed feasible. And it would also seem like undercutting the guy that you're trying to convince that he's, he's yours. He's your franchise quarterback, but Hey, here's JJ McCarthy. It's never quite made a lot of sense.

So I can't say from my own perspective that I know anything about what Kirk is thinking going into this whole process but I would wonder myself if that would be part of it if this observation by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk is correct that they're handling it in a way that doesn't seem like it is a full commitment and more of hey Hey, if you're our best option, I guess we'll take you back. And then there's the other part of it is how real is the interest from other teams? How much would cousins get on the open market from Atlanta? Washington was weirdly thrown out there by odds makers.

I don't see that, but Pittsburgh, Vegas, Denver, how much is anybody willing to commit to him more than the Vikings would? So does he have to go out and find out and then come back to the Vikings and say, are you more committed to me than those teams are willing to do? But I also have seen in the past, if players feel put off by the way their own team is handling things, sometimes they will go and take worse contracts if they just, from a pride perspective, don't want to take the disrespectful deal that their team is offering. I don't know if Kirk does business that way. Seems like he wants to maximize the earnings, get the best situation possible with

the most chance to win. And that's what he's looking for. But this thing has a lot of moving parts and dynamics that are going on behind the scenes that we might not ever know or that might play out in ways that surprise us. So I just thought it was an interesting observation, a good place to start the show. And now we can get into all of your fan questions. And everyone usually wants to know where my percentage is at. So a couple days ago, maybe two weeks ago, I said maybe 30% that he comes back. And now for some reason, I feel back at a coin flip. I don't know. I have moved all over the map early in the off season. I was 60, 70% really feeling like he was coming back. And then I was lacking confidence after thinking that the, you know, the draft class is supposed to be pretty good. Then you watch the

senior bowl, the draft class doesn't look quite as good. And then you go back the other way. And so I've waffled all over the place, but I think I'm right back to a coin flip as we get closer and closer to the witching hour when it comes to this thing with Kirk cousins. And then finally a decision in the middle of March. All right, let's get to the fan questions here. Thomas says we are hearing this. This is a great quarterback draft class,

but we heard that in 2021 and only Trevor Lawrence has worked out. Is there a reason to believe this is a great quarterback draft class, but we heard that in 2021, and only Trevor Lawrence has worked out. Is there a reason to believe this is different? Well, sometimes the words like worked out are interesting to dive down a rabbit hole. And I was having this conversation with someone who used to be in the league the other day of what's a successful quarterback draft pick? Was Baker Mayfield a successful quarterback pick? Was Carson Wentz a successful quarterback pick? And with someone like Mac Jones or someone like Justin Fields, none of us would say, oh yeah, wow, they nailed it. But we could also look at those and go,

under different circumstances, Mac Jones did show that he could win and get a team to the playoffs. And then everything with their infrastructure in New England fell apart and it went really badly for him. That doesn't mean it was a good pick or at the right time or by the right person or in the right situation or that he's going to be someday a great quarterback. We could see him someday having a Ryan Tannehill-like bounce back, I would say. At very least, he had one season where he led them to the playoffs. That doesn't mean he's a successful pick. It's just with him and Justin Fields,

circumstances may have played into it. And that makes it muddy when we analyze quarterback draft picks sometimes and just declare, was it a win? Was it a loss? Was he a success? Was he a bust? Was Ryan Tannehill a success in Miami as a first round pick? Not really, but then he was a success in Tennessee because he was given a better opportunity and better circumstance. Would Justin Fields and Mac Jones have worked out had they landed in different spots, even in Minnesota? very possible that they would have, but that's not exactly your question. I would go back one more year and look at 2020 at where the first five quarterbacks off the board are hits. I mean, even Jordan love. Now

we can say as a hit, Jalen Hurts was a hit to a Justin Herbert. Joe Burrow is one of the great quarterbacks in the league. All of those guys turned out to be great. There's no rhyme or reason to this thing, man. There's no way to predict it. There's no way to project it. No way to guess who's going to work and who's not. And in previous years where there has been five guys or four guys who are drafted in the first round, normally what you would say is it's probably a coin flip. There's probably half that'll work and half that

won't. And we don't know which one is which. And I think what those two back-to-back classes prove to you is you look at the situations that those quarterbacks were put into. Tua was not good until Miami got Tyreek Hill and Mike McDaniel, the right coach for him. Justin Herbert, we all think Justin Herbert's a really talented quarterback, hasn't won a thing, but his coaching was bad. His management was bad. The circumstances, the defenses, the offensive lines in a couple of those years, but he's a really good player and they signed him to a huge contract so i think that's a hit and then you have jordan love who got time to develop over several years and he succeeded and jalen hertz who fell into an incredible situation in philadelphia

and reached the super bowl with his team so how much of the circumstance that you can give because i know what your question is really getting at is, well, what are the odds the Vikings could draft one of these guys and have it work out? The situation you can give them tilts the odds. If the Vikings draft Mac Jones and give him Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and then eventually, who knows, Jordan Addison, maybe things are different for Mac Jones. Maybe you're talking about a guy who on his rookie contract with an amazing team around him that spent all sorts of money was going to go to the playoffs a bunch of times.

His ceiling was likely not a star, but he showed at least the capability or Justin Fields if they were able to sit him, develop him for a year behind Kirk Cousins, as opposed to being thrown into a team that was in peril and then tanking. And so that's when I think of where these guys get picked. If they're not just like Mahomes or Josh Allen, who's probably going to succeed no matter where they went, because they're so gifted and so different. If it's not like that, then it usually comes down to what you can do for that player but can i predict based on 2021 or 2020 which way this draft class is going to go i really can't i'm also not sure that there's going to be as many of the guys picked in the first round as we

initially thought but we also pick these guys apart so much that by the time we get to the draft you think you shouldn't draft anybody ever. No quarterbacks. And then you end up like the Vikings, never having your franchise guy. But I don't think that that's predictive really at all of what could happen this year. Either one of those that every one of them can hit or that none of them could hit. I don't think either one of those past drafts. I really don't think much from the past in general

tells us anything about what's going on now. These are different players, different people. So this stat or that stat doesn't really tell you something. This previous draft, this previous quarterback, this comparison, this university, as we saw from CJ Stroud, Hey, I'd never draft a guy from Ohio state. Now you would, right? So there's a lot of things that go into it, but each individual person is so much different that you have to just look at the odds on each guy. And the way I like to look at it is what could go right? What could go wrong? What's my biggest fear? What's the biggest upside? What could go right? What could make that? What's my biggest fear? What's the biggest upside? What could go right? What could make that guy a great player? What would he potentially need? I think

that's the way that a lot of good draft analysts look at it rather than trying to plant their flag and say, this guy will be generational. They're going to build a statue of him in 20 years. You don't know that. You don't know that at all. And so anybody who says that stuff, I don't really trust them. Usually I like to just understand what could work, what could not work, what will they need to succeed? And each answer is different. Caleb Williams, I think he needs the right people, the right coaches of the personality types. And I'd be a little concerned about that with Matt Eberflus in chicago jayden daniels needs patience and he probably needs the right types of plays that work for him because he

is a little bit slow getting rid of the football that he could get smashed in his first couple of years right there's a lot of different needs for everybody and those who end up matching up are the most likely to be successful. That's how I look at that question. Teddy says, if the Vikings don't sign Kirk back, wouldn't it make more sense not to sign Hunter and get Allen, Josh Allen, the edge rusher or Burns, Brian Burns, also edge rusher, get the young edge rusher who will still be in his prime when the window opens. So I'm following your logic there with those guys in particular, my guess is that they're going to, well, Brian Burns, maybe not

Brian Burns actually could hit free agency. Seems like that's an unhappy situation in Carolina. Alan, I think ends up getting franchise tagged. That's part of it when we look at free agent lists. And I like to wait until the franchise tags have happened before I make my, here's your best fits. And this will be a podcast episode at some point. Here's your best fit free agents for the Minnesota Vikings. If I say Josh Allen and then they franchise tag him, well, that kind of is a little bit of disappointing that so many guys will come off of the board simply because of the franchise tag. Something to keep in mind as they negotiate with Jefferson, by the way, that they can tag him. But we could talk about other guys, though.

Somebody younger is your point. Somebody who's good, who's not as old as Daniil Hunter, because that comes along with risk. And my answer is, yeah, absolutely. I mean, Daniel Hunter is an incredible human being and an incredible football player. And if they bring him back, regardless Kirk or not, I'm going to have a tough time criticizing that because he's Daniel Hunter. Who doesn't want him on your football team? 32 out of 32 would take that man

his character his consistency his effort who he is in the locker room all those things they mean so much and the impact that he has on the game if they bring him back I'll totally understand why but if you're talking from a let's put it out in black and white on paper and only talk about this as just what the guy brings, what his value is, project him forward. One benefit of a player like, let's just say Brian Burns, someone who's younger, is that you could sign up to a longer contract, which gives you more flexibility when you are renegotiating, when you are adjusting contracts. It's what the Vikings did in 2017 coming out of that season with Hunter, with Diggs, with Eric Hendricks. They tried to sign them to longer extensions. So down the road,

they knew that they could restructure those, renegotiate those contracts because they would get more flexibility out of it if you sign someone like daniel hunter it's hard for me to see at his age of being a five-year contract even four seems pretty healthy three two those are much more reasonable for someone with his injury history and his age so if it was for example, then you're talking pretty high cap hits, unless you add a bunch of void years, which if you are ready to win the Superbowl, then void years away. But if you're not, and you're trying to build over a couple seasons, then you don't always want to do something like that and end up getting crushed on the cap down the road.

Maybe they feel like their window will open up so quickly they could do something like that. But there is way more risk that Hunter could get injured again or fall off in the future than there is those younger players. And that's what you're getting at. And I tend to agree with you. The other part of it too is that you can sometimes build a pass rush with multiple players versus one. So he gets 16 and a half sacks. Is there two players who could get eight sacks that cost less than Daniil Hunter? Is there three players for the price of, if he wants 25 million, you could maybe get three guys for 25 million who are good and, and who rotate in and who play 500 snaps and just rush the passer as opposed to, or I guess, you know, you can impact any part of the game, but if you have a rotational defensive tackle and two edge rushers that you

bring in and they get five sacks, seven sacks and four sacks, well, that's 16. And if you got them younger is that 16 doesn't matter if i got that math wrong uh so you could add that up with several different players and look for younger players that come out along with less risk see i mean there's a lot of different ways you can look at this but i feel you as far as should they go after the top edge rushers who are a little younger than Daniel Hunter, I could see that as a realistic possibility for sure. I don't mind that idea. Brian says, what are your top five video games? So I don't know if you mean football video games or just all time video games off the top of my head. I think Madden 05 is my favorite video game ever. It's probably the one that I've spent the most time with.

It's the one that had training camps in it where you could improve your players. The offseason was pretty intricate. The players that you have free agents don't always just sign because you tell them to. They included draft picks in trading. It made a lot of progress and is the best, in my mind, the best Madden game in that little area from 04 to 08 was its peak to me as a person who was playing these games 20 years ago. If you're playing them today, you think that I'm a goofball for saying that, but that was probably my favorite game ever. Ken griffey jr slugfest for n64

and again i understand if you are under 30 years old you just like this old guy is talking about old games but that's me that's that is the the truth that recent games i'm mostly doing this with you guys instead of playing the recent games ken griffey jr slugfest uh mario golf another n64 game is super super fun thousands of hours with that uh 007 a lot of n64 here 007 james bond any modern gamer tell me james bond isn't the best first person shooter absolute best and do i want to put nhl 94 on here there's probably 20 games that could also go but maybe i'll go nba jam and all versions of nba jam nba hang time uh if you used to go to arcades or maybe you still go to arcades they've got to have nba jam there so that's probably my top five and hard to leave out legend of zelda again there's a lot

of different games that i could throw in there and i could probably just do top five madden games alone if i wanted to but those are five of my favorites and if you're not a gamer then you might want to skip over that part of the show but if you are you understand how good the games used to be to get together with your friends and we didn't have cell phones how about this how old is matt and just play video games those are the games that you'd want to get together and play uh len says you say a great quarterback is the number one criteria for building a winning team but you adamantly oppose trading jj justin jeff, for a top pick quarterback.

Doesn't seem like you can have it both ways, can you? Well, yeah, no, you can, because of what I was just talking about a few minutes ago, that yes, if you could tell me that they're trading Justin Jefferson for Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, CJ Stroud, that's the quarterback you get back, then okay, I'll do that. Yeah, I'll find other receivers to go with Josh Allen. I don't need just this guy. There's other good receivers in the world, but you can't guarantee me that. You are trading up for the hope and the dream that that player becomes that. But what's the medium outcome? It's more likely that the quarterback is just good and not great and that everything you do to support that quarterback matters. What if you draft Baker

Mayfield? If you draft, here's what we know about Baker Mayfield. He's talented enough to take a team into the playoffs. He's done it twice. He's won two playoff games. You can fill in the rest about two playoff games rather than say one from other quarterbacks, but he's won two playoff games. So he's good enough to take a team there if he's got the right team around him. He had a good offensive coordinator this last year, two good wide receivers, a pretty good offensive line. They needed some other things on that team for them to go to the NFC Championship or Super Bowl,

but Baker is good enough. If you drafted the next Baker Mayfield, if that's what Drake May became, is that worth trading Jefferson for? I don't think so. I think you need Jefferson to make that caliber of quarterback. Great. Now, if you're talking about, you're going to tell me that Drake may is going to be Joe burrow. Okay. But I can't guarantee that. And there's also outcomes where the guy is horrible. And then you've traded away the best wide receiver in the world for nothing. I mean, the risk on this one, I'm always saying, Hey, just go for it. Hey,

just go for it. But Jefferson is such a big part of that player succeeding. That's part one. And part two is it is a disaster with no mitigation, the unmitigated disaster. If you trade away the best receiver in the league and you get nothing back for him, that would go in the all-time Vikings. I mean, that might be just as bad as Herschel Walker if you did that. And then undoubtedly, Jefferson will take some other team to the Super Bowl. Great wide receivers, great circumstances, great coaches, great offensive lines. they play a huge role in success with your quarterback. And there's very, very few that can transcend that. And that's why you have

to have Justin Jefferson to help that quarterback. Now, Jefferson is actually an argument for trading multiple first round picks because you already have the most important thing. And if we go through for that quarterback to succeed, and if we go through history, there is a lot of great receivers that go with those great quarterbacks and you can play chicken and egg all day. But the fact of the matter is that when you have Randy Moss, Randall Cunningham, Jeff George,

Dante Culpepper, Gus Farad, like everybody is made better. when you have digs in feeling case Keenum we never got to find out fully what Sam Bradford could be but Sam Bradford was the best version of himself ever when he had those receivers and how about Brock Purdy he's going to be used as an example for things like this because it's true. He's got Shanahan. He's got the great receivers. He's got Christian McCaffrey. This matters. And I'm not giving away the thing that is most going to push the odds in my favor to move up and take a swing because I feel like you're

robbing Peter to pay Paul when it came to that draft picks for the future. Sure. But the greatest receiver in the league. No, I don't think so. No, I'm not giving that up. And also here's another part of it is if the top quarterback was always the best one, then I would agree with you. If you said, Hey, the number one and number two quarterbacks are the only ones that ever succeed guy who's drafted fourth. ever succeed guy who's drafted fourth no way guy who's drafted fifth no way but that's not the case in recent history is it possible that jordan love becomes the best quarterback out of the whole group of 2020 yeah sure it is is it possible that well it's actually already happened that Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson were

picked as what the third and fifth quarterbacks that year. And they became guys who look like they're on a hall of fame tracks. If the NFL was great at identifying only the best quarterbacks in proper order, then I might say, okay, well trade up because you could get greatness. But the guy who's drafted fourth might be greatness. We don't know that the guy who's drafted second might be a bust. We don't know that. And I don't think that the NFL has proven that it's good at figuring out what order these quarterbacks should be in anyway. I mean, Justin Fields is way better than Trey Lance. So even that was crazy wrong to pick Trey Lance where San Francisco did versus even

Justin Fields, who was picked later and has become at least a quarterback that you can win some games with and has a dynamic element. That's the whole point. The odds of picking the fourth quarterback in this draft versus the second are not that much different enough different for me to say, oh yeah. Give up the best receiver on earth. Terry says, I never hear about sticking with Mullins as a bridge quarterback with hall as the backup and draft a quarterback to city year as QB three.

What do you think the chances of that are of happening? I would say 0.001%. Nick Mullins. I have so much respect for. He is a guy that nobody ever thought would be any success in the NFL. He's won some games in the NFL. He's put up some huge numbers, as we saw in front of us. He is incredibly intelligent. He is on the Sean Mannion or David Blau path of guys who will someday be a coach in the league if they want to he is not somebody who could play 17 games unless you're tanking it's just a fact i think what does he play like 23 games and he's 6 and 17 in his career

he's not a guy who you could play for an entire season and not lose the team. And that's something that you have to have to consider if they were tanking, if they had a coach that they were ready to fire, which I don't believe they do, then all right. Yeah. Pin them with the worst quarterback, lose all the games, try to picture Dersanders. It would be a wonderful strategy. And you know that we're always pro tank here on the show. But in this situation, they're looking for someone to play with Justin Jefferson, whether it's right away or if it's a quote bridge type quarterback. And then to have that backup develop.

Mullins is not to the caliber of a guy who could play 17 games. And Justin Jefferson is not demanding a trade. This, I have often said that I think that the Jefferson quarterback thing is overrated as part of the conversation for his contract. But if you tell him that Nick Mullins is going to be his quarterback for the next 17 games, he's going to hesitate. I'm assuming when I say that, that they draft a guy, that they bring in Mayfield, that they bring in Darnold, that they so forth or bring back cousins. But if they don't, that they've got a plan for somebody else who has won games in the NFL and could be a fairly high quality starting quarterback, not Nick Mullins. So again, all the respect to Nick Mullins I appreciate that he's

made a career for himself and you know like journeyman quarterbacks you got to be different in a lot of ways especially mentally to stick around as a journeyman quarterback you've got to be a good person he came out he got benched and then he came out against Detroit and played really well and I respect that You just can't have him starting for a full season. And Jaron Hall, we don't know if he can survive a game. He's been in two games and he has only made it to halftime in both of those games. Having him as the backup is borderline dangerous. So yeah, I think they need to do better than that unless they're intentionally losing, which they're not um but again not a

disrespect to nick mullins zach says if you were to imagine that this year's qb class and last year's qb class were together in a single draft how would you generally rank the prospects well and this is on tape so i'm not just saying this i was not as high on bryce young as obviously the carolina panthers or a lot of the draft insiders because honestly of his size i saw him at the combine and i was like i just that guy is so small i don't know if it's gonna work because the only really small quarterbacks that have worked out are elite athletes, Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray. And those are the only two guys over the last, how many years that have been that size. It's not an easy position to play when you're small.

Doug Flutie even had his limitations if you go way back in the day. So I was a little concerned about Bryce Young and I had Richardson as the top and then Stroud and then Young. And I thought, man, Richardson was a real favorite of mine. He didn't have great statistics, but I really enjoyed watching him play. And that type, that leadership, athleticism, top-notch athleticism, and looked like younger so he could develop and get better was playing with a pretty rough team in Florida. I was a big, I was a big fan, honestly, of Anthony Richardson.

He might have all of these be higher than anybody from the way I looked at it. Now, of course, now we know the result on Stroud, but I'm trying to put myself in a position of how I felt going into the draft last year that I had Stroud and Richardson pretty even, but slight, slight edge to Richardson. And I think that Caleb Williams would be next, or maybe Williams would be a little bit higher, but I have some skepticism on Williams and personality wise, is he going to be able to handle the NFL? Can he play on time? Can he play in rhythm? Because I didn't see a ton of that at USC when he did, he was good when he threw from a clean pocket, he was good, but he was just trying to win the Heisman with every drop back. And that

maybe shaded it a little bit. I think I might've had him either ahead of Stroud because of his athletic ability or just behind Stroud. I mean, the world is going to, so it's like my opinion versus what the outside world thinks the outside world would have said. Caleb Williams is a better prospect than any of these guys, I think, but I was just very committed to the Richardson thing and still am. I'm very interested to see what happens. I'm worried about his health, but we'll see. So I think I liked Stroud a ton and maybe would have had Williams behind him because Stroud's personality was so impressive to me.

The way that he handled the, what do they call it? The final four game against Georgia. So impressive. The way he carries himself. Now everybody's starting to see this, that he does more media. But when he was at Ohio State, he dealt with some tough losses at times and went through some things and really handled it, I thought, exceptionally well. So I would say Richardson, Stroud, then Caleb Williams.

Now who's that? And then maybe Drake may next after that, because I don't see, this is a good question because I'm, I'm having to think about this. So Drake may would come after that. And then where do we put Jade and Daniels? Cause I like may more than Daniels at the moment, probably Daniels over Bryce Young. I just was really worried about Bryce Young. I didn't see any, what would I tend to look for at the top of the draft is like, what's their superpower. And I know this sounds a little hypocritical because I've been okay with

it. If they draft McCarthy or Knicks, and I don't think either one of them has a superpower. They're more in the, you got to put everything around him type of quarterback. But if we're talking about ranking them, I'm going to put the guys with superpowers at the top. So I would probably put Jaden Daniels ahead of Bryce Young, then Bryce Young, then Bo Nix after that, Pennix McCarthy. That's a good question. I have to think a little bit more about that, but I like it. And that's probably where I would have them. So last year's class at the top two for me, maybe a little bit stronger than the top two from this year. And then it's hard with Bryce

Young. Cause again, we know the answer. I wasn't against Bryce Young. I didn't like hate him or anything, but I really worried about that size being a factor. And maybe they'll get it together in Carolina and he'll be good. But I would probably take Jaden Daniels as a prospect a little higher because of the speed element and the deep ball element

that was not the same with Bryce Young. But that's a good one. I'd have to think about that. I'd be curious, by the way, if folks want to put their list in the comment section, go ahead, put it in the comment section. If you're watching on YouTube of how you would rank them as prospects over the last two years. and the defense wasn't banged up? Oh, that is a good question. I would say that Denver probably still wins the Super Bowl. Is that sacrilegious here? I don't think it is because the Denver team was as stacked as any team has ever been in history. They went up against a 14-2 Falcons team. We have to remember how good the Falcons were.

They were only one game behind the Vikings. It's a huge upset that they beat the Vikings in the NFC championship game. But when you look at the 14 and two Falcons and Denver dismantled them, they just completely trounced that team in the Superbowl. I don't believe they would have trounced the 98 Vikings. I think they would have won though against the 98 Vikings. They could control the game with Terrell Davis. They have all-time great receivers, all-time great quarterback, top-notch defenders who were playmakers. It was too stacked. And one of the best coaches

in NFL history in Mike Shanahan. I think it was a little too stacked, but I guess what I've been surprised if Randy Moss did something insane or if the receivers were unstoppable. When I rank the close calls for the Vikings in which Super Bowl, and I mean times they got to the NFC championship and didn't make it, I always put 87 as the one that they could have won that I'm very confident they would have won because they were this close against Washington. And then Washington just blew out the Denver

Broncos. The Broncos back in the day used to make Superbowls because of John Elway. And then they'd go up against the 49ers, Washington complete teams and lose. The Vikings were very, very close to being as good as Denver. It would have been a better Superbowl. I wish that it happened. I remember being 12 and wishing that it had happened. I didn't want Atlanta in that Superbowl. I wanted Randy Moss in that Superbowl and it did not happen. But if I had to say, honestly, I think that Denver was one of the best teams that's ever stepped foot on a football field at that moment. And it would have been very difficult for the Vikings to win, but that was a close. That was a close chance. Didn't happen so much of that in this history. Frank asks, uh, what if the Vikings don't draft a quarterback this year,

load up on positions of need, get a bridge quarterback to tank, to draft Shadur Sanders in next year's draft. That sounds great on Madden was talking about the video games in practice. I think we all know that that's not something that they're going to do. They're not going to put Andy Dalton in there and try to lose all the games. Even with Andy Dalton, they'd probably win too many games to have shitter sanders if especially if you load up on other positions of need and they work out and then you win seven games and you kind of end up with qb3 or qb4 again i have a tough time seeing them being horrendous under any circumstances outside of what it was brought up earlier which was to bring back

mullins and play Jaron Hall. And then you end up going to the bottom. We know that they're just not going to tank. They just don't believe in it. They're not going to do it. It's not something we're going to see anytime soon. If they do, it'll be by accident. I mean, last year was tank ish and it happened by accident only because they fumbled a bunch of balls in the first couple of games and then had the Kirk Cousins injury. That's how they end up with seven wins.

That's the only way they're going to be in the conversation for Shadur Sanders is if they have a bunch of injuries and end up playing Nick Mullins again and losing a bunch of games and so forth. But you could make an argument that they could spend the 11th pick on a pass rusher spend the 42nd pick or whatever combination of trades down they want to do on a defensive tackle and try to fill out these other positions play baker mayfield

if they you know could sign him play sam darnold which i don't hate as an idea but usually it's always and paired with someone else and they could draft a quarterback in the third round well they don't have a third round pick fourth round and try to do that and hope and pray that the guy is the next dak prescott or he's the next brock purdy and that you know whatever i don't like that strategy i really don don't because I feel like it's just kicking the ball down the road more just, or the can, whatever we're kicking down the road, the decision at quarterback, the real try for a franchise quarterback, just we'll do it next year. We'll do it next year. You can always get these other positions. These other positions are out

there. There are free agents, there are draft picks. There are players to develop. Look at the safety spot. Look at the linebacker spot. They found two good safeties recently. They found two good linebackers. Jordan Hicks didn't cost them almost anything, and they found him. Pass rushers are a little bit harder, but you can find them. You can get them in free agency.

You could trade for them like Nick Chubb. Oh, not Nick Chubb, Bradley Chubb, for example. And the only position that's impossible to find, usually unless you draft the best strategy maybe in some world it is but could they really make that work could they really sell that to the ownership no that's just not it's not going to happen so i like where your head's at you think it philosophically instead of realistically which is fine for this show but for practice and what the odds are pretty low. Seth says, okay, hear me out. Vikings make a trade of picks to the chargers for Herbert Harbaugh resets the plate. The, the I assume you play clock by drafting his boy, JJ McCarthy. Yeah. So I look this up and now a post June 1st trade of Justin Herbert, it does not come along with the humongous dead cap hit, but if they were to do it before June 1st, it's like a hundred million dollars of dead cap to the Los Angeles chargers. The reason that Harbaugh takes the job is for

Justin Herbert. It has to be, he's very sly. He's a clever guy. He waited until he could go to a place that was going to, excuse me, that was going to have a top-notch quarterback that he could work with. I don't think that was a mistake. However, you know, they did bring in Colin Kaepernick once upon a time with Alex Smith still there. So I don't know, but I don't think Herbert's Alex Smith. I think he's more talented than that. And that's why her hardball is there. They would probably want to let it play out over a year or two anyway, before they even considered something like that. I just don't think that there is any chance at all. They would move on, but if it were even mildly realistic, then maybe we could have a discussion about that. The guy that you want to be talking about for something like that is still Kyler Murray. We have mostly just decided that Kyler Murray is the Cardinals franchise quarterback, but what if he's not? What if they do want to move on and rebuild the roster and not worry

about his big contract? Then that becomes interesting. Oftentimes with these things, you don't really hear about them before they happen. Do we remember hearing about the Matthew Stafford trade before it happened? I don't think really. And then it just popped up. So maybe there's something similar there. But I would be very, very surprised if they moved on from Herbert, particularly because it's impossible with the salary cap at the moment. Alex says the Vikings have been one of the worst teams in rushing EPA, expected points added,

both seasons that KOC has been the coach, yet the run coordinator is coming back. That's Curtis Modkins. I refuse to reduce it to bad Madison or offensive line? Well, some of it was definitely bad Madison. That is shown in the advanced numbers when we look at rushing yards over expected. So based on the situation with the blocking versus how many yards you got using tracking data, they try to estimate how many yards you normally would get on the play. And Madison was consistently all season long, well under what his expectation was. So some of that was definitely Alexander Madison. I think the scheme in general was an outside zone scheme for Madison when he got here and when he was at his best. And that has changed to mid zone. It's changed to kind of a little

bit of everything. I think that we saw also from ty chandler that the running back was a big part of it what did chandler average like four and a half yards per carry that's much more of what you would expect he also played a role in the screen game he was a playmaker in the screen game that's more of what you would expect so i look at it as it was a lot. The running back was not good enough. Also successful runs have a lot to do with your weakest elements. And if your weakest element is Dalton Reisner, who's not a good run blocker or Ed Ingram, who did not have a good run blocking season by PFF. If one guy makes a mistake, that usually is the death of a running play and those two not being great run blockers made a difference throughout the season now madison didn't

maximize it but they also didn't road great and dominate up front with those guards either and they could use some improvement there to your your question, though, I don't think they ever really found an identity with the running game over the last two years. It never seemed like they fully grasped how to use it, when to use it, how to pair it with the passing game. It all seemed a little haphazard. It all seemed a little bit of throwing stuff at the wall. Let's try this way this week. Let's try that way that week. Sometimes we got

the fullback in. Sometimes we got the tight end in. Where are we going with this? There's a little bit of that. Does that mean the coach didn't know what he was doing or that he was struggling to try to make something out of something that wasn't there, which would be Alexander Madison trying to make more out of, you know, chicken salad out of chicken, whatever, you know, that kind of thing. But I mean, you're right to wonder if you go back in Curtis Modkin's career, there are a lot of teams that he worked for that were very successful in running the football. Did he forget how to do it? Is it not coached right? Is it the offensive line? Like all this, it's very hard to pick apart. But for me, the most obvious answer is it's probably just the running back and you just need somebody who's better or at least a better fit for what you actually want to do rather than trying to just guess and guess and guess also though here's where i'll agree with you if you rank 27th at epa two years in a row

and keep the same guy as run coordinator does that send the message that there's accountability here probably not i'm not i don't like saying fire a bunch of coaches. I just the point you're making is could it be his fault? I don't know. Could be, could be other people's fault, but he's the one that's responsible for your success. And you haven't even come close to success when it comes to the running game. So keep them. I don't know. It's, it's a harsh world. Like a lot of times teams will move on if they struggle in one particular area really badly. Even if we're talking about a situation where, you know, it was the player, but you'll see that all the time with,

uh, you know, people moving on just based on the results alone. So I don't know. Yeah. I mean, this, this team hasn't done a whole lot of that. They did with Ed Donatel, but way late. But they haven't made a lot of changes on the coaching staff over the last two years. Ben says, what are your thoughts on J.J. McCarthy? He seems to be flying up draft boards. Yeah, that's interesting because the idea of flying up draft boards

is just a myth, and I've looked into this. Now, it's what people on the outside are telling you is, oh, well, he's flying up draft boards inside the league. But what people tell you is not always very accurate. And if you want to do something fun, take your favorite draft analyst who does mock drafts and reporting and search their name on Twitter. And then Will Levis search their name on Twitter and Matt Corral or Malik Willis. And what you'll find is that some of your favorite draft analysts had Malik Willis as the number two player in the whole draft. And then it didn't happen. Some of your favorite draft analysts reported that Matt Corral and Malik Willis were first round picks or that Will Levis was the favorite of the Indianapolis Colts or lots of other

things. You know why? Because information is bad around draft time. It's that you go to the combine or you text the scout or you hear something from somebody, you know, oh, well, they're very high on this, but that doesn't mean it's actually happening. And the whole world thought that Mac Jones was going to be the pick of the 49ers. He wasn't. Nobody had it as Trey Lance going into that draft.

And I think it tells you that information is just bad around this time of year. And teams like it that way. If you leak stuff, I've said it forever. If you leak stuff, you get fired. So people usually don't leak stuff. And if they do, you might want to question if they're leaking it on purpose because they want it out there and want to keep you away from the truth. I'll tell you a story.

I've probably told that on the show before, but the play-by-play broadcaster of the Buffalo Bills used to do a nightly show. And the general manager of the Bills bills when they were going to draft ej manual said don't at any point talk about ej manual talk about ryan nassib talk about geno smith interview their college coaches whatever you want don't talk about ej because that's the guy we want and then they picked ej and we all kind of were like oh wow what ej manual really and uh part of that was because they were intentionally telling the guy, hey, let's keep away from the information there that we actually want out there.

So I don't know if JJ McCarthy's flying up draft boards. He hasn't played football in weeks, and he's going to go to the combine, and they're going to make decisions on him. My guess is that teams are 95% of the way there on how they feel about him already. And that will likely not change at the NFL combine. It's only that information that's being given to draft analysts is that he's going up draft boards, whether he's actually doing it or not hard to say. But another fun thing to do is if you go to a mock draft database and look at the charts of how draft analysts felt about different quarterbacks, you're going to see him flying up recently when he hasn't played any football and he wasn't at the senior bowl. So what has he done recently? This is a, you can actually say,

what has he done? The answer is literally nothing. So he hasn't played a football game. My personal feeling on JJ McCarthy is I see some stuff that I could really buy. I see mobility. I see the ability to throw on the run. I see him firing the ball into some tight windows at times, but there's also a lot to be skeptical about. In my opinion, he kind of looks like the guy that everybody sells as a first round pick and goes in the second that's how he looks to me he might be like a best case comp might be jake plumber if you go back in the day a little bit guy who had raw tools but just didn't really show it on the field i mean there's there's, there's highlights. There's certainly that, but when you watched him against the best competition in the biggest games, they barely use them. And that makes me wonder, and he didn't play that well when they did use him. So I don't know. I have

more skepticism on McCarthy, but then some other people who are very sold on him, that's draft and that's quarterbacks. I respect anybody who's watching the tape and given their opinion about McCarthy. I just personally, from what I've watched of him, I think it's a little bit shaky to be saying, oh yeah, this is the guy you take 11th overall or eighth overall or whatever. But as always, if the Vikings draft him, okay. Cause I don't know any better than anybody else if he's going to work out. So, all right. Then, uh, if KOC wants them and they like him, then go for it.

I'm all for it. Personally, I'm a little skeptical, but I'm usually skeptical on a lot of quarterbacks that are coming out in the draft. Travis says, I'm growing more and more skeptical. Hey, there's our word of trading up. So I'm skeptical of McCarthy. You're skeptical of trading up. So I'm skeptical of McCarthy. You're skeptical of trading up. I think we should take the best quarterback we can without sacrificing a first round pick for next year. It's a good argument for this. There is a really good argument for this. The scenario that I can buy into trade

up would be this. Let's say the Vikings evaluate the quarterbacks and they don't like Daniels that much, not enough to trade up. Caleb Williams is untouchable, but Washington might trade Drake May or Washington might be in a situation where it, they want Daniels. So Drake may, he'll be available at third and new England doesn't want me. Okay. And the Vikings view McCarthy, Knicks, Pennix as being worlds worse than those top three. And they say, look, the only way we're getting a quarterback right now is if we make this big ass trade, then I would say, all right, that makes a lot of sense and do it. If they evaluated the top five, and they had only a small gap between May and Bo Nix and May and McCarthy. And keep in mind, McCarthy and Nix might not be the level of prospect as the top top, but they are good athletes. And Pennix has a good arm.

We're not talking about guys who are just totally milquetoast. These are good athletes. So let's say that in their rankings, they don't think that Nix is that far behind or that McCarthy's that far behind. In that case, you do not trade up. But it really depends on a thing that I don't know, which is how it's going to play out at the top and what they think of these prospects. That's what it really comes down to.

That's what makes it harder to evaluate what you're saying. If you tell me that Bo Nix and JJ McCarthy are legit first round prospects and they have a little bit higher Daniels and may, well then give me the guy at 11 because I think the odds are still similar that the guy at 11 will work out. If they think that these are the only three first round actual picks and nobody else is even a first rounder, which is realistic in this draft, by the way, then yeah, go ahead and make that trade.

Make that big move, get your guy, and we'll figure out the rest later. There's a big advantage to getting your guy at the top, which is the surplus value of the first round draft pick is if you take a quarterback and he's good on his rookie contract, I think he starts out making like 9 million or something. And the top quarterbacks are making 50 and carrying cap hits in the 40s and higher. That's a lot of surplus value. That's a lot that you're getting in value. That's worth trading up. And even if you were to add a defensive tackle and a defensive end or something, if you were instead to use those

first rounders on defensive players in order to make up that surplus value, those guys would have to be elite. And if you're going to tell me you could get uh jay or uh tj watt or if you're going to tell me you could get nick bosa then okay maybe i'm changing my mind but most of the time if you're talking about they'll be okay players or good players i'd much rather just trade the first round picks and figure out the rest later so it all depends it's kind of a choose your own adventureown-adventure for them. If this, then okay. If that, not okay. All right, two more questions. Rob says, what are your thoughts about 2018 being one of the most disappointing seasons

and worst coaching jobs in Vikings history? Oh, yes, with Mike Zimmer back in the league. The first one, yeah. The second one is a little harder because there is a quarterback that played that year that they needed more out of that year. And if we just try to excuse away the same results that he had previously and since, largely, then here's what I'm saying. Who Kirk Cousins was in 2018 is who Kirk Cousins has been for 90% of his career. So was there anything that was supposed to be done different that could have made that result change? Now the answer is yes. Could they have hired a better fit for offensive coordinator? Yes. Could they have run the football fit for offensive coordinator? Yes. Could they have run the football better? Yes, for sure. And we saw that in 2017, but at the same time,

they went eight, seven and one. Would they, with those things, do they win 10 and then losing the first round or I don't know, it wasn't good enough quarterback play that season. There were games. They needed a quarterback to show up against Buffalo where he fumbled away the game early on against Seattle, where John D Filippo got fired and look, he deserved it. They picked the wrong offensive coordinator. He didn't gel with Mike Zimmer, but also probably wasn't good anyway. And we've seen that play out since he's been gone that he hasn't had any success in the league. And I'm not even sure he's in the league still at this point. So clearly it was, you know, the right decision to move on, but certainly the wrong decision to hire him. That was very costly. That goes on the coach. I mean, I don't know if he's feuding with

Kirk Cousins right off the bat, if it was more about the offensive coordinator to begin with, but Zimmer mishandling, even the psyche of his team calling out his offensive coordinator after a big win against the New York jets. But I, you know, at the same time, their, their defense played really well overall that year. That's Zimmer's specialty. And they've just,

they needed a performance in the final week to make the playoffs I don't know is it among the worst of course Les Steckle holds the all-time record for by far the worst and it's also hard for me to say hey let me go back to 1989 and tell you if Jerry Burns was better than the 2018 because there were disappointing seasons under Burns at the end of his tenure. He's a great, great coach, all-time great coach for the Vikings, but there were disappointing seasons in there toward the end of his tenure. Not too many with Denny usually got the most out of his teams. 2010 Brad Childress has to be among the worst coaching jobs. Is it among the most disappointing? Hands down. 100% yes. I'm just trying to talk through whether it was coaching,

whether it was just bad luck with the coordinator, whether it was their schedule that year was extremely hard. They lost in Seattle. They lost in New England. It was very difficult. They lost some games you wouldn't have expected. But look, if you said that, I wouldn't disagree with you. It was a terrible coaching job that year.

And most of the time that gets somebody fired, it's actually really surprising that it didn't and that we waited many more years. And it probably should have. It probably should have. If you go into a season and spend more money than anyone ever has guaranteed for a quarterback to get you to the next step and then you miss the playoffs, you should be fired. In this environment, the fact that they stuck with that was, I mean, I guess, I wonder at the time if I thought it was shocking.

I think it's shocking now. And maybe it's changed even a little bit in the league where people get fired really fast. But that's the type of season that probably should league where people get fired really fast but that's the type of season that probably should have gotten mike zimmer fired yeah so i'm not going to argue with you if you want that i'll say yeah but i also think that you need if you get one or two more quarterback showings then maybe the coordinator keeps his job and maybe everything goes forward i don't know all right last is fun. One is the pump fake becoming rarer in the NFL. If so, why the answer is absolutely it is a hundred percent. It is.

And the reason for that is you don't have time for it. You just don't have time. The edge rushers are so good. The defensive tackles are so good. It's balls got to come out two and a half seconds or you are out of luck. And you know, Brett Favre used to drop back, do big old pump fake, look around, fire the ball somewhere. His offensive line was good. The defensive line took longer to get there. I think these days the offensive lines are just in a lot of trouble against some of the D lines. And so the answer to that has been that teams create more quick passing more. Let's get the ball out less down field. We've seen the average depth of target go way down over even the last five years. It's gone way down as teams have adjusted to all these pressure packages and all these blitzes. Imagine your play calls for a pump and go, which I think is what won the Super Bowl for

the Giants against New England. Eli Manning, a little pump fake. Okay, so you get the ball, you pump fake, somebody comes off the edge and kills you. I mean, I think that's a major reason why. It's just it takes time to do a big old pump fake, reset, and then throw. And one of the things that made Favre so special is that he didn't really need to reset. His hands were so big. His arm was so strong.

He could pump fake and then fire it in time. How many quarterbacks do you want doing that? Also, when you pump fake, you risk fumbling. You're bringing the ball up if someone can hit your arm. And also, you might just lose the football. Yeah. I think a lot of those plays that used to use those have gone by the wayside, but maybe someday we'll bring them back or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the pump fake was never as big as I thought, but it feels like the pump fake back in the day was the thing was especially way back. Sevents, 80s, big old pump fake.

The defense runs at the wide receiver. You launch it to the open guy. I just don't think that's how offense works anymore. Great questions. Great episode. Purpleinsider.com. Go to contact us. That's where you can send me emails.

Also doing live shows still on YouTube if you want to join some of those. I don't have distinct dates at the moment. I want to try to do Monday and Thursday, but next week I'm visiting a friend on a Thursday. So I'll kind of be away, but periodically going live on YouTube. If you want to come in and do those live chats,

but if you don't have time or if you can't make it, or you don't like YouTube, then send me an email. I'll answer your question in one of these. And we'll always have kind of a main subject to start off with as well. So thanks so much, everybody again, visit purple insider.com lots coming in the coming weeks.

Combine is going to be upon us soon and any rumors. Oh yeah. We'll be talking about them. Thanks everybody.